LABOUR AND HIKINGS 97 



" For generations " H. J. Little wrote in his report on the Farm 

 Prize Competition in Cumberland and Westmorland for the Royal 

 Agricultural Society in 1880, " has the Cumberland and Westmorland 

 labourer been as superior in morale to his fellow of the south as 

 he has been in physique, add to this the constant supervision from 

 dwelling in the same house as his employer, and the superiority 

 of his fare from living at the same table, and we have some explanation 

 of his greater capability. His greater willingness probably springs 

 from an ambition to rise, which is easier of fulfilment with him than 

 the southern labourer." 



Again, John Coleman, one of the assistant commissioners to the 

 Royal Commission on Agriculture, reported in 1882, that the Cumber- 

 land and Westmorland labourer " moves from place to place, always 

 careful to select situations, not where the work is easy, but where 

 the master is a successful man, who understands his business. 

 . . . Fortunately, there are in most parishes, small as well as large 

 farms, and the steady saving servant often becomes the successful 

 farmer. ... As regards the size of farms, both counties are 

 happily circumstanced ; inasmuch as whilst the tendency of late years 

 has been towards consolidation, there are still, and it is to be hoped 

 will ever remain, sufficient variety to provide stepping stones or lower 

 rungs in the ladder of enterprise for the deserving farm servant to 

 creep up to the position of master, and instances could be multiplied, 

 in which through such media men have risen from the humblest positions 

 to great wealth." 



Education has always stood very high in Westmorland, and to 

 this in no small degree must the great efficiency of farm servants be 

 attributed. Lord Brougham, in a speech made in 1862, said : " It 

 is my bounden duty to state that 45 years ago, when what may be 

 called the education movement began, that celebrated committee, 

 the Education Committee sat in the House of Commons, of which I 

 had the honour of being chairman ; at that time we found Cumberland 

 and Westmorland standing very high indeed, in point of education, 

 in comparison with the rest of the country. Cumberland was not 

 so high as Westmorland. Westmorland was the highest of all England, 

 in proportion of the schools, and children going to those schools, to 

 the population of the country. I believe there was only one coimtry 



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