Tlic Labour Bill in Farming. 
113 
" The horses are supposed to be worth, on an average, 50/. 
«ach. ' 
The cost of manual labour on these 690 acres from October 11, 
1873, to October 11, 1874, was 1209/. 15s. 6rf., or at the rate of 
1/. 15s. Off/, per acre, not far off the cost of horse-labour. The 
torses now find harvest time a trying one. Formerly the men 
used to do the hard work. Now the horses and the machines 
together relieve the men from what our neighbours across the 
Channel would call the brutalising labour which used to fall 
upon them. The more intelligent the labourer, the more keenly 
he appreciates a result which saves his strength, while it has 
raised, instead of diminishing, wages. 
5. Almost invariably throughout the Eastern Counties, when 
cottages are let by the farmer or the landowner, they are under- 
rented. Various questions of importance are suggested by this 
fact. One is the hindrance to cottage improvement thereby 
created. If the landowners were sure of receiving a fair interest 
upon outlay, instead of merely a nominal rent, the substitution 
of new and roomy cottages for old ones of a bad type rapid. 
Upon this point, however, I need not dwell. The only point 
material to the present inquiry is the addition which is in- 
<lirectly made to the farmer's labour bill by this system of 
nominal rent. At present the labourer really has a house and 
garden in part payment of wages ; and whether the cottage 
and garden are rent-free, or are merely under-rented, makes no 
difference in principle ; it is merely a question of degree. 
In cases where the cottages are let dhect from the landlord, as 
I have said elsewhere, it comes to this — that A, who is employed 
by C, relies upon B for what is really a portion of his earnings. 
It may be that B, the landlord, recoups himself for the loss upon 
A's cottage out of the rent paid by C, the farmer, for something 
else. But though landowners may indirectly recover from the 
farmer what they lose in dealing with the labourer, the system is 
a roundabout one which should be put an end to. I have heard 
of complaints by landowners that, after spending large sums in 
building good cottages for labourers, some farmers have used 
these cottages as a means of keeping wages low. Such com- 
plaints, if well-founded, show not only that the cottage is one 
element in fixing wages, but that landowners do indirectly con- 
tribute in this way towards the wage-fund. In order to ascer- 
tain how far the peasant's cottage is under-rented, it is worth 
while here to compare some good town-dwellings built for the 
working-classes — artisans and labourers — with the good modern 
cottages which are rising up slowly, though more rapidly than 
one could reasonably have expected, throughout the Eastern 
VOL. XI. — S. S. I 
