112 
Farm Labourers, their Friendlij Societies, 
excellent Institution to a position which would enable them to dis- 
pense with assistance from the poor-rate, excepting under unusual 
pressure, when they might properly claim its assistance. With 
the exception of an inconsiderable proportion compared with the 
number of labourers in this populous county, and comprising 
the best of them, farm labourers can with great difficulty be 
brought to join the society. It is true that no money is spent on 
annual festivals, and doubtless an attraction which has an in- 
fluence over the rural classes is thereby lost, and so long as the 
law wliich will allow the managers to spend a large sum if they 
pleased in the comparatively useless effort to attract the attention of 
labourers by advertisements and placards, but will not allow one 
farthing in the best of all advertisements, a well-conducted annual 
festival, continues in force, so long must this advantage be fore- 
gone. But the principal obstacle to the progress of the societv 
among the farm labourers is their fear that by joining it they 
will lose the provision of the rate, to which apparently to them- 
selves they contribute either nothing at all or else contribute 
more than is right under the compounding system in force. 
When the society was first established, many of the employers 
persuaded their labourers to join ; and paid or assisted the 
new members for a time in their contributions. All such 
assistance proved insufficient to retain the bulk of them, who, 
after paying considerable sums to the society, deserted it and 
returned to their wallowing in their pauperising beer-house 
clubs. The main difficulty from that time to this, a period of 
upwards of forty years, is to raise these men by means of the 
society above pauperism. And although it succeeds in many 
cases in effecting such rescue, the effort is rendered doubly ardu- 
ous by the obstacles already noticed. 
We have thus endeavoured to assist the reader to form a just 
opinion of the farm labourer with regard to his ability to secure 
an independent provision. With certain excej)tions, by no means 
numerous, he is unwilling to exchange the dole provided for him 
by others for an honestly earned independence of his own win- 
ning. And inasmuch as he has framed the benefit society in 
such wise that it will meet his requirements, and is thereby 
injuring himself morally and socially, and at the same time 
unjustly burdening the ratepayer, the conditions which have 
induced him to this downward and mischievous course must be 
taken into account before remedial measures can be applied. In 
addition to the alterations already referred to in the administra- 
tion of the laws of relief and of the mode of collecting the rate, 
certain regulations relating to members of benefit societies might 
