The Lahoiir Bill in Farming. 
97 
lacturcrs arc monopolising production through their command 
of a superior quality of labour — nominally dearer, but really 
cheaper than that obtainable on this side of the Tweed. 
If, therefore, English manufacturers hold their own, employing 
English workmen, is it not possible for Englisli farmers also, 
with the materials they have, to do so too, and obtain, in 
agriculture, results as economical and as satisfactory as are ob- 
tained in manufactures ? One does not willingly assume that 
the English agricultural labourer is so different a Ijeingfrom the 
I'lnglish artisan in energy, stamina, and the will to work, that 
while one can hold his own against the same class in Scotland, 
tiic other is hopelessly beaten. At all events it is time, for their 
own sake, that employers tried to bring the English labourer to 
put forth his full strength, or more of it than he puts forth now. 
I cannot help thinking that there is, among the mass of our 
I'Znglish peasantry, a great reserve of power waiting to be called 
out, and ready for use if adequate inducements are offered. We 
^ce what happens if a man gets a bit of land. He bestows 
upon it an amount of labour often wholly out of proportion to 
the produce of the land — labour which would have yielded him 
twice or more than twice the money-produce of the land if he 
had worked with the same energy and during the same hours 
for a farmer. The reason is that he has an adequate motive 
for work, or thinks he has, which comes to the same thing. 
Now, can employers present to him the same adequate motive 
in another form, and lead him to serve his own interest and 
theirs by working not necessarily longer hours, but by working 
harder while he does work ? 
This is a problem of the first importance. It is hardly inferior 
to that of increasing production by higher farming. In fact, it is 
one method of stimulating production and increasing national 
wealth very largely by adding to our labour-force, without at 
the same time adding to the number of mouths to be fed. The 
system of day-labour may answer in Scotland. It does not 
follow that in England another system may not be adopted with 
success. Nor is it of any use to say that English labourers in 
the Southern and Midland Counties ought to work by the day 
as well as those in the Northern Counties and in Scotland. The 
general answer is that they do not. From different parts of 
England the same complaints reach me, that farm-labourers do 
not do anything like a full or fair day's work in the day.* The 
* I htive myself heard a Northumbrian farmer declare that one of the strong, 
big-boned women, who worked in his fields, was worth much more than aiiv 
average Southern labourer. An East Suffolk farmer writes to me to the same 
effect. " I protest," he says, " that one of the Scotclimen whf m I formerly 
employed would do as much work as two and even three Suffolk labourers. It 
VOL. XI. — S. S. H 
