THE UPSTANDING CROP. 43 



soldiers to take in their harvest they imported Irish labourers, 

 luring them to Dorset by false reports as to wages, and as 

 soon as the harvest was over in 1872 many Dorsetshire 

 farmers lowered the wages of their men, in some cases by 

 as much as 55. a week. 1 



Is it any wonder that a feeling had grown up in the hearts 

 of the agricultural labourers that there was one law for 

 the employer and another for the employed ? Had they 

 ever read Adam Smith they would have approved of his 

 statement : " We have no Acts of Parliament against 

 combining to lower the price of work but many against 

 combining to raise it." But the teaching of Adam Smith 

 had hardly come in the way of a class whom in the eyes 

 of many prominent persons it was dangerous to educate. 

 " An extension of education," declared the President of 

 a Royal Society, " would teach them to despise their 

 lot in life instead of making them good servants in 

 agriculture and other laborious employment to which their 

 rank in society had destined them." 



The kind of justice meted out to the unfortunate labourer 

 of this date by a Bench consisting of landowners who 

 were employers of labour and preservers of game is illus- 

 trated by an old Sussex J.P., who wrote his reminiscences 

 under the title of Eastbourne. Recollections, l\Iaistcrial and 

 Personal. 



When he was appointed to his office, the author, Mr. 

 Graham, tells us, that Major Leonard, a magistrate, ad- 

 dressed him thus : 



" You have now become one of our body. Always bear 

 in mind that we belong to a Penal Bench ours is a Penal 

 Bench." He went on to enlarge upon the ill effects of 

 leniency upon society at large, and that the only way of 

 putting down offences was to administer the law with the 

 utmost severity. " It is my plan," he continued, " always to 

 give the whole dose. I'll be bound to say that they won't 

 forget it in a hurry. When any one is brought before 

 you always give him the full dose and nothing but the 

 dose ! " 



1 Times, September 30" 1872. 



