72 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



paid, lie again and again stoutly refused to be drawn. " I 

 a<niM< here to express an opinion upon that," he answered ; 



" as a labourer I should myself want to get the best wages 

 I could." 



Again he was questioned ; again he answered : " No, 

 I am noi come here to say what he ought to get. I am not 

 come here to draw the line of the labourers' wages." 



lie complained of the farmers foc.lishly starving the land 

 of labour ; he said that 700,000 souls nmongst the agricul- 

 tural labouring classes had been emigrated since 1872 ; and 

 that from 1872 to 1875 wages had increased in most counties 

 2s. and js. a week, and in some roumies, 4^. Since 1877 

 wages had been lowered is., and in some counties 2S. and 

 even 3s. lie gave the Warwickshire wage-- in 1872 as 

 averaging los. to us. per week, the Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, 

 Berkshire and Hants wages as 7S. to 8s., and the Somtrset- 

 shire wages as f>s. to ~s. exclusive of all hay and harvest 

 nionev. He spoke of the liigli rents that labourers had 

 to pav for their allotments, and considered that every 

 cottage should have a quarter of an acre' attached to it. 



When he wa-- recalled, he gave evidence that the weekly 

 subscription for trade purposes was 2*d. per week. Ques- 

 tioned again as to ihe minimum wage of a labourer, he 

 answered : " I should think they ought to have as much 

 money to support them outside the union workhouse as it 

 costs them inside. I say that a man who has a wife and 

 family to maintain and has to pay rent and all other t xpcnses 

 upon a. home deserves as much per head for each of his family 

 as it costs us to keep them as paupers in the workhouse. 

 . . . For a man and wife and six children costs in a. work- 

 house the amount of 305. a week." 



He too]; care, however, to qualify this statement by say- 

 ing that he did not advocate an employer paying a man 

 with a large family .', or a man with none at all ios. a week. 

 He contended for what he called " cottage right " by the 

 'ame legislative means as farmers demanded tenant rijjht. 



"The tied cottage," hi' said, "binds a man hand and font. 

 If 1 rented a cottage from hn Grace, and 1 \>\\\(\ him /..} or /"^ a 

 year rent for that cottage, I ouaht to have ihc fullest liberty to 



