TliQ Agricultural Labourer. 
111=505 
; ricultural labour was, therefore, anomalous ; but it was easily 
; ounted for. A superabundance of an inferior article always 
kes it unnaturally cheap. In this case, the labourer had not 
learned to move ; he had not yet learned to work ; he had 
rcely yet learned to think. Emigration had indeed removed 
\v of the most spirited of his companions, but even this had 
t rcely been felt as a means of thinning the redundant ranks 
( the rural population. 
Until this time, the farmer, in all but the most northern Farmers had 
cmties, had virtually been master of the labour-market. Any command of ^ 
ajmentation of wages which had so far accrued had been granted up to'^a™ecent 
1 him more from a sense of justice and from a knowledge of the date. 
i reasing requirements of the labourer than exacted from him 
I the necessities of the situation. In certain districts it was 
r uncommon for him to fix on the price of a peck of wheat or 
a tone of flour (as the case might be) as the ordinary price of a 
Dn's daily labour, and without much reference to the rate of 
t other necessaries of life. But the price of wheat had been 
1< ered by the operation of Free-trade, and it is obvious that 
s h a principle or expedient could, under the circumstances of 
tl case, be no longer possible or desirable. 
The relations of the two classes had often been denounced up 
t<this period as of an unsatisfactory character, and from an 
e nomical point of view such was undoubtedly the case. 
Jvertheless an almost paternal authority was wielded by em- 
pyers, and a sympathetic trust was engendered in the men, 
flich, however little they might suit the rigid rules and cut- 
a l-dried axioms of political economists, were not, perhaps, 
Viilly disadvantageous to either party. The simplicity of 
c ntry life in secluded districts often demands somewhat more 
tl n the ordinary rules dictated by purely economic considera- 
ti is. The farmers and labourers were therefore drawn together 
n re by the mutual ties of humanity and esteem for each other, 
tl a actuated by the more selfish motives of mercenary contracts. 
<uch was the state of things until a recent period. The great Labour Unions 
iirease in the wealth of the countrv had not, in the meantime, worked m 
b n unaccompanied in the manufacturing districts by those 
d urbances between labour and capital which seem inseparable 
fin such conditions; but hitherto the harmonious but one- 
si ;d relations of farmers and labourers had been interrupted by 
n such disputes. A great change in this respect was, however, 
ii )ending ; and British agriculture, at the close of the period I 
b e been describing (1870), was on the eve of an important 
iTtement which entirely altered the current of affairs, and 
g e a sudden impetus to the upward movement of agricultural 
v\ 'CS. 
