68 KNGLISII AGRKTLTUKAL LABOURER. 



open cottage windows. The village shot, maker who made 

 boots \\luVh could -land the- rough \\ear of the furrows 

 ceased to l>e a creative artist. He became a cobbler. The 

 rhythmic swing of the sower's arm \vas a rarer sight than the 

 drill, and the silken song of the scythe was drowned in the 

 rattle of the mowing machine with its ugly chattel 'ing teeth. 

 "Cheisiloft " became a legend over the door of many a 

 farm building, for the dairymaid disappeared as the old 

 stone cheese-press that she raised and loweied so often 

 !( came her tombstone. 



Public sympathy, at any rate as expressed by those who 

 governed, be^an to swing round to tin- farmer. Land- 

 lords had steadily increased llu-ir rents during the 'iillie<, 

 'sixties, and 'seventies, and farmer^ had undoubtedly felt 

 the pressure of the growing strength of the trade unions. 

 Not ihat they could not alTord to pay the v.agcs dem.mded, 

 but thiongh their stuljl)'''rn o]>position to the laljourers' 

 demands by lock-outs, and by letting do\vn tlie fertility 

 of iht-ir land, there must have been a considerable amount 

 of economic waste. A Royal Commi ion on Agriculture, 

 was set up, under the chairman-hip of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond. From this Commission, of the three classes who 

 lived by the land- the farmer, the landlord, and the 

 labourer- it was the farming class which perhaps received 

 the most attention. At any rate, it was immediately fol- 

 lowed by rebates on rents, the Ground Game Act, and later 

 by an Agricultural Holding- Act. The labourer was still 

 votek-s and. there was little sympathy for a class wallowing 

 in the luxury of a cash wage of i_;s. or r_js. a week whilst 

 it lit rolls were declining and farming profits in many 

 instance-' vanishing. Ro\al Commissions in these days 

 considered representation of labour as an act of super- 

 en ig.ii ion. 



On the labourer's side improvements in Allotment-, ami 

 Hou-ing Acts followed their course with painfully -low 

 Pariiami ntary procedure. Industrial organisation amongst 

 the agricultural labourer- steadily went downhill from this 

 lime, for the " Mla< k Year," not only produ< < d the 

 wor.-t harvest ever known, and was ill-famed for the destruc- 



