468 A FARMER'S YEAR 



absolutely the weakest in the kingdom, it has this protection the 

 protection of its utter poverty, so if money is wanted for more experi- 

 ments in popular legislation it will have to be found elsewhere. 



Then what is there that could help the land, and therefore help the 

 labourer ? I venture to suggest one or two things : very stringent 

 measures, which would make it impossible for the farmer to be defrauded 

 by the sale as his produce of that which he never grew ; the equalisation 

 of rates and taxation upon real and personal property, thereby lessening 

 the burdens that now fall upon the land ; and the making it impossible, 

 in fact as well as in name, for carriers to transport foreign goods at 

 cheaper rates than they grant to British produce. 



But I do not go into this subject at length, for after all it is not 

 our province to decide upon the remedies. I suggest that what we 

 have to do is to call the attention of those in authority to a certain 

 grave state of affairs, and ask them to deal with it, for a Government 

 is immeasurably more clever and full of ideas than all the Chambers 

 of Agriculture in the country put together can be ; moreover, it has the 

 power of translating its ideas into some practical and useful action. 

 For my part I do not suppose, however, that the agriculturist for its 

 mere love of him, would be likely to get anything from this or any 

 other Government, since it is our common experience, as Mr. Clare 

 Sewell Read told us the other day, that when he asks for bread he 

 receives a stone, and I may add that he is fortunate if that stone is not 

 violently thrown at his head. But this is not a question that affects 

 the agriculturist only, although in my opinion it is the gravest which 

 he has to face, or will shortly become so, graver even than foreign 

 competition. Nor is it in any sense a party question, or merely a local 

 question, as if I had time and you had patience I could easily prove 

 to you from an unimpeachable authority, the Labour Gazette. In the 

 April issue of that journal, which is published by the Board of Trade, 

 are reports of the state of the agricultural labour market from all over 

 England. In every county the cry is the same, and this in the face of 

 a rather general rise in wages. In the article with which these 

 reports are prefaced the editor says : 



' Reports from correspondents in nearly every county refer to the 

 increasing difficulty of getting extra hands, and complaints come from 

 some districts that sufficient labour to do the necessary work cannot 

 be obtained.' 



It is, I repeat, a national question, and the state of affairs upon which 

 I have dwelt constitutes a national danger. We have therefore a right 



