88 
Farm Labourers, flicir Friendly Societies, 
The last report* of the Commission on the employment of 
children, young persons, and women in agriculture, recom- 
mends further investigation. An important consideration, which 
underlies the whole question of the insurances of the rural poor, 
is that their wages shall be sufficient to enable them to save.t 
The variation in the rate of wages is a question into which we need 
not enter further than to notice that it varies with the price of food 
and fuel, house and garden rents, and the pernicious custom of part 
payment in drink or the produce of the farm, and also the means 
of the farmer. But the point in connection with the wages to 
which we shall draw attention is one which appears to have 
escaped the notice of the Commissioners. There is no difficulty 
in proving that, wherever larm labourers form and maintain 
benefit societies of the common order, their wages are sufficient 
to secure to them over and above their present maintenance an 
independence, provided only they had the means of safe in- 
surances, and would turn them to a right account. It is, we 
admit, an independence of an humble kind, but still sufficient 
to raise those who gain it above pauperism, unless under extra- 
ordinary pressure and trial, when help from the poor-rate may 
be honestly claimed, and received without social or moral 
degradation. And the effort to secure such provision by self- 
help and prudent management would of itself infuse ne^v life 
and energies into the English labourer. 
But while we claim on behalf of the rural poor some assist- 
ance, not of a pecuniary kind, by which they may be aided in 
the duty of securing provision for themselves in sickness and 
old age, alterations of great importance are at the same time 
equally needed in the administration of relief, in order to stop 
* " The difficulties in the way of forming sound benefit clubs in the agricul- 
cultural districts are noticed by the Hon. Edward Stanhope as involving (inter aHa) 
the uncertain way in which boards of guardians deal with the fact of a man 
belonging to a club or not. 
" Some never recognise in giving relief the fact of a man belonging to a clnb ■, 
others do take it into consideration, and some refuse relief altogether. More often 
they are guided by no fixed or uniform rule." 
Mr. Stanhope justly remarks: — ■ 
" It is most surprising that the question which yields to no other in importance 
— Wliat is the best way of administering out-door relief so as to give encourage- 
ment to provident habits? — is not only not answered by an authoritative interpre- 
tation of the principle which should govern such cases but is actually left to be 
answered by each board of guardians for itself." 
Upon this Mr. Stanhope proceeds to add his opinion that further " enquiry is 
imperatively needed." 
f " Happily tliis enquiry has brought out the fact that the earnings of the best 
class of agricultural labourers in permanent employ are now, generally speaking, 
such as to afford them the means of living, and maintaining their families in 
decency and comfort." — Commhsion . . . in Ar/riculture. 
Mr. Bailey Denton, in his valual)le essay on the " Agricultural Labourer," had 
jireviously come to the same conclusion. The exceptions, however, to the fact are 
admitted to be numerous. 
