12 



it is alike injurious to employers and men, it is morally 

 financially, and physically wrong. After reading the val- 

 uable testimony in the appendix, no honest minded man can 

 fail to sec that beer does not help the' labourer to do his work 

 but is a positive hindrance, what we want is to get rid of the 

 idea of either beer or beer money, as regards payment for work, 

 both in the field and in the house. 



m. INTEMPERANCE, ITS BEARINa UPON THE 

 LABOURERS. 



Intemperance has borne heavily upon the working 

 classes of England, and the farm labourer has had his share 

 of the burden. From his infant days he too is taught to believe 

 that beer is the one thing needful for this life. He is told that 

 it will make him grow, give him strength to do his work, will 

 comfort him in his trouble, give him health in sickness ; in fact, 

 that it will be his friend at all times, and under all circumstances ; 

 when he leaves his home his education in drinking is continued 

 by his employers who give it to him, encourage him to drink it, 

 and in many cases, long before he is able to think for himself on 

 life and all its great realities, the drink craving has got hold of 

 him, the vice is acquired, and perhaps the organs of his body are 

 more or less diseased ; he is an unconscious victim, and far on 

 the road to ruin, by the time he arrives at a mature age. In this 

 state he marries, with little or no means to make his home com- 

 fortable ; in poverty he sets up his home, he continues to drink, 

 his family increases, his home is miserable, little furniture, little 

 food, little clothing; children badly brought up, who, like 

 their father, in too many cases, fall into the national vice, and the 

 evil is perpetuated from generation to generation with all its 

 horrors. What a happy contrast the homes of the English work- 

 ing classes would have presented, had they only been able to have 

 resisted this vice, and have practised habits of temperance and thrift. 

 What an unspeakable blessing to themselves and the nation. 

 There would have been no fierce conflict between capital and 

 labour. Unions would not have been heard of; peace, plenty, 

 contentment, morality and religion, by the blessing of God, would 

 have abounded throughout our land ; but, alas, the very reverse 

 is true 1 It need not be so; it is not so much for want of means, 

 because the income of the agricultural labourer who earns the lowest 

 wages of any class in the country, has increased nearly 50 per cent, 

 during the last half century. I will mention a fact that came 

 under my own notice upon the estate that I was connected with 

 in Buckinghamshire. The home farm was under 500 acres, the 

 earnings per week for 15 men in 1874 was as follows : one, the 

 hay binder, who worked early and late, 24/-, four over 19/6, 

 three over 18/6, two over 17/6, three over 16/6, two over 15/3; 

 and in addition to this, some of their wives and families earned a 

 considerable sum, and yet through the money wasted in drink 

 some of these people were living in a most miserable condition. 



