52 Aiitwnn 



and managing by which a family of six or eight is 

 housed, and clothed, and fed, on some twelve to sixteen 

 shillings a week. There is also a strong desire to 

 abolish payment in kind. Full of new wants and in- 

 spired with new ideas in dress and cheap trimming, 

 Tummus hungers for hard money. The agitator 

 backs him ; and wherever there has been disturbance 

 you shall find the bargain between employer and em- 

 ployed most rigid. And even County Court judges, 

 aweary of the bickerings arising out of payments 

 made in kind, will often counsel a farmer to hire for 

 cash. This is leading back to the old trouble. Let 

 it be granted that the barter of labour for produce 

 is rude and bad : that the worst imaginable form of 

 contract was represented by the udal tenure (as it 

 used to prevail in Orkney) under which a tenant paid 

 a third of his crops as rent, and was prohibited from 

 disposing of the rest excepting in exchange for goods 

 supplied by the ' Fowd of the Parish.' But, in prac- 

 tice, if you pass to the other extreme and pay in money 

 only, Tummus is very soon in hot water. The trade 

 of farming is conducted on so fine a margin of profit 

 that labourers are fully aware of the hopelessness of 

 looking for any rise of wages. But their incomes will 

 not stretch out to their requirements unless they 

 advantage themselves by getting food at cost price. 

 This poor Tummus speedily discovers. The store- 

 keeper is as keen as himself for cash, and his prices 

 are far above the farmer's. Soon or late, then, he 



