THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 55 



have remained loyal to their Union. Relief pay was only 

 continued for four or five weeks. 



After the Essex and Suffolk farmers won their victory 

 they resolved, March ig, 1874, to rescind the resolution 

 passed the year before pledging the members of the Associ- 

 ation not to exceed 125. a week of day work ; and it was 

 understood that each member should be "at liberty to 

 pay such wages as were general in the parish in which he 

 occupied any land." The Exning men, however, were 

 adhering to their original demand, and they sent out a 

 notice on February 28, 1874, asking for a shilling rise 

 in their weekly wages. They struck after the usual week's 

 notice, when they found their demand had been ignored or 

 rejected. 



Now the Newmarket farmers on March 10 declared 

 war, and resolved to lock out all Union men after giving 

 one week's notice. The men were locked out on March 

 21, and thus began the great fight between labourers 

 and farmers which resulted in undermining the strength 

 of the Union. 



At first it aroused little attention, but soon great person- 

 ages mingled in the fray. The Bishop of Manchester 

 wrote to The Times a letter in which lie asked : 



" Arc the farmers of England going mad ? Can they suppose 

 that this suicidal lock-out which has already thrown 4,000 

 labourers on the funds of the Agricultural Union will stave off 

 for an appreciable time the solution of the inevitable question : 

 What is the equitable wage to pay the men ? The most frightful 

 thing that could happen for English society would be a peasants' 

 war. Yet that is what we are driving to if insane counsels of 

 mutual exasperation prevail." 



The lock-out extended from the Newmarket district 

 to Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire, 

 Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Warwickshire and Glouces- 

 tershire and it has been estimated that 10,000 labourers 

 were thrown out of work. The two principal unions in- 

 volved were the National Agricultural Labourers' Union 

 and the Federal Union of Agricultural and General Labour- 

 ers. In Lincolnshire, where there was a separate union 



