The Lahonr Bill in Farniinr/. 
127 
independence, and the duty they owe to others as well as to 
themselves. 
If any advance is to be made towards this ideal, I am con- 
vinced that education must furnish the chief motive-power, and 
that no other help you can give to the labourer will be half as 
effectual as that which awakens and quickens his intelligence, 
and enables him to help himself. I have shown that the old 
men employed about a farm practically receive from the farmer 
small annuities, which are either paid out of profits, or, less 
probably, represent deductions from their wages when they were 
young and lusty. Neither hypothesis is satisfactory ; and the 
only sound, healthy system is one under which the young men 
receive such wages as allow them to save for their own support 
during old age. County Benefit Societies afford a valuable 
machinery for securing this end. 
But you cannot make bricks without straw, and it is question- 
able whether, out of his present earnings, the married labourer, 
however thrifty, can support a family and pay the weekly sum 
which is necessary to secure for himself an adequate provision in 
sickness and old age. The first requisite, therefore, is a remune- 
ration for labour which will give an industrious man the means 
of satisfying these conditions. Piece-work may enable him to do 
so. At all events, it seems to offer the most promising prospect 
of reaching this end. I think it is woi th a trial : a trial not hastily 
begun or soon relinquished, but persisted in, even under some 
discouragement, in the conviction that here is a sound principle, 
and that some means must exist, and ought to be found, for 
reducing it to successful practice. I ha/e sought to show that a 
reciprocal duty is cast upon employers and employed in this 
matter. We must not look for perfection or forgetfulness of self 
in either class, and the advantage of the system of labour I have 
advocated in agriculture is that it appeals to the self-interest 
of both classes. In day-labour every man should, and a con- 
scientious man does, put forth his strength. But in day-labour 
a man cannot help feeling that his pay will be the same how- 
ever he may work. He feels, in short, that he is working for 
his master, while under task-labour he knows that he is working 
for himself as well as for his master. 
IV. — On the Composition and Properties of Drinkimf- Water 
and Water used for General Purposes. By Dr. Augustus 
VOELCKER, F.R.S. 
Like pure and fresh air, a good and wholesome water is an in- 
dispensable element for maintaining the health of man and beast,^ 
