1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



503 



that ancient empire may, or they may not, be 

 "ready and willing to become hewers of wood 

 and drawers or water;" they may, or they 

 may not, re-establish the "extinct race of 

 family servants ;" they may, or they may not, 

 furnish that "cheap and abundant labor" al- 

 luded to in the foregoing extracts. 



We are discussing a broader question, one 

 •which involves the expediency of cheap labor 

 in any form. 



What does cheap labor imply ? 



We do not ask what those mean who de- 

 mand cheap labor. We impute no wrong 

 motives to them. The desire to buy cheap 

 and sell dear is universal with business men. 

 A large share of the farmer's crops goes to 

 pay the hired man ; a sad inroad is made on 

 the income of the family by the expense of 

 domestic help ; and by their demand for 

 cheaper help, the farmer and the householder 

 mean no more than do city and village con- 

 sumers when they demand cheaper meat, 

 cheaper flour, cheaper butter, cheaper clothing, 

 &c., &c. Each and all, as the world goes, 

 have the right to buy and to hire as cheaply as 

 possible ; and, after all their bantering, we 

 would by no means deprive them of the poor 

 privilege of grumbling and fretting because 

 they cannot buy or hire cheaper. But all this 

 does not by any means answer our question. 

 What does cheap labor imply ? 



When we remember that, as Bancroft says, 

 "Slavery and the slave-trade are older than 

 the records of human society," and that in all 

 nations of anticjuity slavery or vassalage was 

 the common condition of the laborer; and 

 then, as we trace the gradual improvement 

 that has taken place in his condition and 

 wages since the advent of Christianity ; as we 

 see how steadily the social revolution has ad- 

 vanced during these centuries, and amid all 

 the vicissitudes of national life, and in spite of 

 all obstacles, even those recently interposed 

 by the friends of "cheap labor" in the south- 

 ern portion of our own country, — we are 

 forced to the conclusion that the demand for 

 cheap labor implies something more than is 

 intended by our respected contemporaries by 

 whom it is made. 



Our own views of its import have already 

 been intimated. We believe that cheap labor 

 can be secured only by restoring old-time ser- 

 vanthood in some of its various forms ; for we 



regard the advance in wages to be a necessary 

 result of the increasing equality in social con- 

 ditions — one of the consequences of the recog- 

 nition of the principle that ' 'a man is a man, 

 for all that." 



In this view of the subject the demand for 

 cheap labor appears to us to be opposed to 

 the spirit and tendency of our "American in- 

 stitutions," and particularly to the Northern 

 idea of "free soil and free men." It is also 

 opposed to that long procession of events 

 which are alluded to by De TocquevUle, and 

 which in another part of his work he says has 

 impressed him with "a kind of religious 

 dread." Can this "irresistible revolution, 

 which has advanced for centuries in spite of 

 such amazing obstacles, and which is still pro- 

 ceeding in the midst of the ruins it has made," 

 be turned back, and the free labor of our 

 Northern fields, shops and households, be sup- 

 planted by that of any "people ready to be- 

 come hewers of wood and drawers of water ?" 



If it were possible, is it desirable that such 

 a class, or caste, should be introduced among 

 us ? Should we make a more profitable use 

 of cheap labor, if obtained, than did the 

 planters of the South ? Has not cheap labor 

 proved a curse to employers and employed in 

 all places and at all times ? These are some 

 of the questions which we proposed at the out- 

 set to discuss, but the length of this article 

 admonishes us that this must be postponed to 

 another time. And for the same reason we 

 can barely express our dissent from the remark 

 in the extract from the Prairie Farmer, that, 

 "as a rule there are very few of our native- 

 born citizens who wish for employment as 

 hired laborers on a farm." In proportion to 

 the whole number, there may be less now than 

 formerly ; still there are by far too many 

 young men who depend on the earnings of a 

 few years' labor for a start in life as farmers, 

 to be thus summarily disposed of by the advo- 

 cates of "cheap labor." The boys have 

 rights ; and this class of laborers, as well as 

 the employers, have claims on the agricultural 

 press which cannot be ignored, at least, not 

 by the New England Farjier. 



— It is stated that a fat bullock, driven to mar- 

 ket over ordinarily level roads, rested nights, and 

 well fed three times a day, loses eight pounds per 

 day, where the journey extends over a number of 

 days. 



