Tlie Labour Bill in Farming. 
121 
for breakfast and an hour for dinner. The year's work is thus 
summed up by one of my informants : — " Harvest-hours, twelve 
hours' actual work. Summer, ten hours' actual work. Winter,, 
eight and often not more than seven hours of actual work. W e lose- 
time sadly in winter, and farmers who pay, as I do, wet or dry,, 
then get very poor value for their money. Several days last week 
(in December) my men did not do two hours' work a day. In a 
factory men are not paid if they do not work." It is a nice 
question in farming whether the men or the m.aster should suffer 
if the weather renders farm-work impossible. In the old days of 
flail-threshing, work could generally be found under cover in case- 
of continued rain. Machine-threshing has put an end to this 
resource, and it is often impossible to find a job for every labourer 
in-doors when field-work is stopped by the wet. Under sucli 
circumstances, when the labourer is ready to work but cannot, 
should he be mulcted of his pay, or should the farmer pay for 
work not rendered? The equities on both sides seem equal, and 
a hard economist would probably say, with some show of reason, 
that the employer should not pav if he can receive no equivalent. 
Most persons, however, will hold that the hiring should not be a 
daily but a weekly and continuous hiring, and that the farmer 
should take his chances of the weather. In practice this rule is 
general among the large farmers when men are upon weekly 
wages ; when they are upon task-work, of course the risk is theirs. 
The contrary rule is still too frequently in force, and there is nO' 
greater cause of suffering among, the men, especially when, as ia 
the South- Western Counties, the rate of wages is low, the liabilitv 
to wet great, and piece-work is either rare or badly paid. 
I hope most earnestly that farmers will not engage their 
labourers upon this niggardly system, deducting for wet days from 
the wages of men who can ill afford to bear such deductions. We 
cannot help seeing, however, that, if the farmer in such seasons 
pays for work which is not performed, he is equitablv entitled at 
other times to ungrudging work for longer hours than are usual in 
other employments. There can be no exact adjustment of labour 
throughout the year, no self-righting balance struck between 
seasons when field-work is easy and may be prolonged, and other 
seasons when it is difficult and when " all pay and little or no 
work " hardly exaggerates the employer's situation. The diffi- 
culty is in impressing upon the men what any impartial outsider 
must see, and what they must see if they will conscientiously 
consider the case, that when the contract with them is " wet or 
dry," they are really paid in the short, dark, rainy, or frosty days 
ot winter, wages out of proportion to those paid during the sum- 
mer months. In other words, an average is struck throughout 
the year ; they may be paid less than their work is worth in 
