FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



I remember my main difficulty with the 

 farmers was in persuading them that the most 

 politic course was to allow the other side to 

 have a monopoly of the strong language ; they 

 did so want to pour out their souls in response. 

 After all, the Union was little more than a nine 

 days' wonder, so far as its activity was con- 

 cerned. Outside causes, with which the Union 

 had no connection, made themselves felt, and 

 had more to do with the ultimate rate of wages 

 than all the efforts of democratic agitation. The 

 fact is, the agricultural labourer is in an entirely 

 different position to any other worker. If he 

 withholds his services to his employer at the 

 bidding of a society and not at his individual 

 discretion, he can work incalculable injury at 

 such critical periods as seed-time and harvest, 

 and it is impossible to lay down a hard and fast 

 rule that he shall only work so many hours a 

 day and at stated times. Such fixed rules are 

 ill-suited to the changmg conditions of seasons 

 and of crops. Besides this, there are many 

 times in the year when work on the land is 

 neither urgent nor indispensable, and then the 

 labourer is often kept on whether his time is 

 fully employed or not. The Union struck at the 

 old relationship, in which there was give and 

 take on both sides, between masters and men, 

 and a great deal of bad feeling was engendered. 

 The fuller effects of this were manifest when, 

 a little later on, the great depression in agricul- 

 ture set in, and both sides felt the pinch of bad 

 times. 



At the same time it is very clear that when 



90 



