172 LAND REFORM 



look beyond his village ; he acquired new ideas, a 

 glimmer of independence, and above all, he became 

 capable of active discontent with his lot, without which 

 it was impossible to help him.^ 



It is difficult to find sufficient reason for the bitter 

 feeling described above towards men whose sufferings 

 and degraded lot were so well known. It was not from 

 money reasons, for agricultural depression had not then 

 become severe : rents were high, wheat was 57s. per 

 quarter, barley 37s., and at the same time the skilled 

 toilers on the land, with their families, were starving 

 on I OS. per week. It was not through intentional 

 cruelty, for the village squire and the " Lady Bounti- 

 ful," in the old feudal way, were generally kind, and 

 often very generous to the individual labourer and his 

 family, but it was always in the form of charity and in 

 the spirit of patronage. The real offence of these 

 poor hirelings was that they should assume to be of 

 the same clay as their superiors, and should actually 

 assert that they had some rights of their own. 



The farmer, too, as a rule, was kind to his men 

 so long as they were content, or appeared to be 

 content, with their station, and did his behests ; but 

 for these men — these hereditary bondsmen — to assume 

 the right to make terms, or to strike, created as much 

 astonishment and resentment in his mind as if the 

 horses on his farm had assumed the like. Hence the 

 statement made by so many witnesses before the Royal 

 Commissions on agriculture, that the action of the 

 Union and the teaching of the delegates had "de- 

 stroyed the good relationship which had previously 



* Even as regards wages, evidence is given that up to 1876 at least 

 3s. per week had been gained on the old rate prior to the movement. See 

 Brassey's "Work and Wages," p. 139. 



