PEASANT REVOLTS 167 



with a working day reduced to nine and a half hours, 

 exclusive of meal-times. These were not extravagant 

 demands, and in the circumstances should have won 

 the sympathy of all men. In any case the labourers 

 should have been treated fairly in their efforts to 

 better themselves by legal and orderly methods. But 

 it is impossible to exaggerate the frantic opposition 

 with which the movement was met by the territorial 

 party. ^ 



Efforts were made by employers to stamp out the 

 Union by "lock-outs," by agreements among them- 

 selves not to employ Union men, and by other means, 

 all showinof the most bitter feelino^. Threats and 

 torrents of abuse were launched on men for refusing 

 to leave the Union. In numerous cases labourers had 

 the brutal choice put before them either to give up the 

 Union or to quit their employment and be ejected 

 from their cottages. Respectable, industrious men, 

 who had .dwelt in cottages for many years and had 

 paid their rents regularly, were turned out at a week's 

 notice for refusal to leave the Union. Arch himself 

 was denounced as a setter of class against class and as 

 an "aposde of arson." While denouncing this legal 

 and peaceable comibination among the men, farmers 

 and landlords were themselves forming associations 

 for " protecting the interests of employers of agricul- 

 tural labourers." One rule of these associations was 

 that no member should employ a labourer belonging 

 to the Union unless he was already a hired servant. 

 " The farmers are beoinninor to retaliate on the Union, 

 which they are determined to extinguish. As a body, 



^ There were a few, but only a few, worthy exceptions among landlords 

 and farmers. One landlord, Mr. J. A. Campbell, of Coventry, joined the 

 Union, and became a member of the committee. 



