152 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



tions of employment and the organisation of the industry are 

 totally dissimilar. No doubt this is true, but the following 

 quotation from a letter in The Times, written by Lord Robert 

 Cecil in February last, suggests that the same idea which miners 

 entertain is not entirely unknown in Agriculture. Lord Robert 

 wrote : "At the late election in one of the villages in my 

 constituency there was apparent a strong anti-employer feeling, 

 and I was told that it was due to the fact that the local farmer 

 an incompetent man declined to listen to the advice of the 

 men employed by him, who had far greater experience in Agri- 

 culture than he had. They argued that he was not only ruining 

 himself, which was his affair, but in so doing he was ruining, 

 or likely to ruin, them also, and that it was intolerable that 

 they should not even be consulted before such follies were 

 perpetrated." There may, of course, be another side to such 

 a story. The conservative instinct I am not talking of politics 

 is deeply rooted in every one connected with the land, and in 

 none more so than the agricultural labourer. I have no doubt 

 that any progressive farmer who wished to introduce new prac- 

 tices, or to make experiments, would often do so in face of general 

 criticism, if not hostility, from his men. I think also, that a 

 farm, like a ship, can only be run by one captain, and that any 

 attempt to farm by a committee would be the shortest road to 

 ruin. The sort of feeling to which Lord Robert Cecil referred 

 could only be aroused by a degree of tactlessness on the part 

 of an employer in dealing with his men which we may hope 

 is extremely rare. But the desire of workers in any capacity to 

 be taken into confidence with regard to the business in which 

 their lives are bound up, and on which their livelihood depends, 

 is a natural one, and it seems to me that it is wisdom on the 

 part of employers to recognise, and, so far as may be practicable, 

 to meet it. 



The sum of the whole matter is, that the worker's share in 

 Agriculture, and his position in the industry, will be determined 

 in the long run by the general spirit of the relationship which 

 exists between him and his employer, rather than by the precise 

 definition of the terms of the relationship. Mutual respect, 

 and confidence and consideration, cannot be defined, but it is 

 in the cultivation of these qualities that the best outlook for the 

 future lies, and where they exist there will be real co-operation 

 for the promotion of the best interests of all engaged in the 

 cultivation of the land. 



