.^■awa^H ^.^^ SjU sm M tm >'. i»i fciSsrJteaaM I B RAR.Y OF THE UN IV LRSITY Of ILLl NOIS THE FARM LABOURER 1872. SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON, BART. m. "' ' ■''t I- LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, PuMigJers in ©rlimars tfl ?^er JHajestg, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1872. " True, it must be owned, we, for the present with our Mammon Gospel, have come to strange conclusions. We call it a Society, and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness, but rather cloaked under due laws of war, named fair competition, and so forth, it is a mutual hostility. We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that Cash- payment is not the sole relation of human beings ; we think, nothing doubting, that it absolves and liquidates all engagements of man Cash-payment never was, or could, except for a few years be, the union bond of man to man — cash never yet paid one man his deserts to another, nor could it, nor can it now or henceforth, to the end of the world." — Carlyle's 'Past and Present.' THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. [ell Oldsort, what do you think of this movement amongst the labourers ?" asked his landlord one day of a West- Midland farmer.- " I don't know what to think, I don't," answered Oldsort. " How many men do you employ?" " Why, four regular. But I'll tell you what ; I and that Edward Sharpe there, can do as much work in a day as I and all those other three, Tom Careless, Jack Shirk, and William Slow." " How's that .^" " Why, you see, if I tell Sharpe to do a thing, it's done well and quickly, and I need never think about it again. But if I tell any of the others, I've almost got to do it myself, or it will be done wrong." " And what are they earning?" THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. " Why, twelve shillings a week all round, besides allowances and privileges. But Sharpe would be cheap at three shillings a week more." "And the others?" " Well, they'd be dear at ten !" " But, Oldsort, why don't you classify them a bit, and pay them what they are worth; or give them a little interest in their work? How does Newstyle manage?" " I don't know, I'm sure. I don't like New- style." "Why not?" " Because he gets all the best labourers from everyone else to work for him." " Does he give higher wages ?" " He doesn't seem to ; but somehow they earn more. He's got some trick of making them work. Why they look as if they was working for them- selves !" " Perhaps they are, Oldsort. Perhaps they are." And his landlord rode quietly on from Oldsort's to visit Newstyle, who lived two or three miles oft. Now this Newstyle was a Yorkshire man, lately come into the district, — an active, energetic, intelli- gent farmer, who certainly had the knack of getting round him all the best labourers in the neighbour- hood, and inducing them to work for him in a way they would work for no one else, as Oldsort had said. This was Newstyle's explanation of his THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. system (a very simple one) which was fast making him one of the wealthiest and best to do farmers in Westshire. " You see, when I first came here five years ago, I found wages at eleven shillings a week, and the men doing about two-thirds of a day's work for it, and though cottage rents were certainly low, the gardens were very inadequate. The first thing I did, was to pick out the best labourers I could find, and give them an extra shilling a week, which afterwards sent up wages all round a shilling a week; but, however, that's neither here nor there. One day my men (I employ eight on my farm) came to me, and said, quite respectfully, they wanted me to consider if I could give them a rise in wages. Well, I said, we'll talk about it. How much do you want ? ' Fifteen shillings a week, and we think we can do more work on that than on twelve shillings.' Very well, suppose I rise you to fifteen shillings a week, then you'll be able to pay me a full rent for your cottages, and you'll be able to pay for your own beer and potatoe ground ; and subscribe to clubs, so that when you are sick you'll require no help from me. And then I shall be able to do with one or two men less, so that the worst will be knocked off. ' If you please. Sir,' they said, ' we should like to talk this over amongst ourselves first.' Next Monday morning then we'll have another talk. " Next Monday morning they came with a diffe- THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. rent story. * If you please. Sir, we've thought better about the rise in wages, but could you let us each have a bit of ground, for our gardens are very small, so that we cannot keep a pig, nor grow vegetables for our families.' That I will," I said, " and a good deal more I've got to say to you now. I've been thinking of our last conversation, and this is what I propose to do. " I. To give you all a piece of ground, besides your present gardens, of a quarter to one-third of an acre, as conveniently as I can make it, for which you shall pay the same rent as I do. I've settled it with my landlord, who is quite agreeable. " 2. To give you as much task work as possible, so that you'll be able to earn two shillings or three shillings a week more. Turning manure and many other things we've hitherto done by day work, we'll do by piece work. " 3. To give you all an interest in my profits. You know the shepherd already gets so much on each lamb : now I mean you all to be able to earn something in your separate departments in this way. I divide you into two gangs, the men that attend chiefly to the stock, cowmen, shepherds, pigmen ; and the men that attend mostly to the crops, ploughmen, wag- goners, &c. For every lamb that is reared after the first fifty I shall allow sixpence ; for every lamb after the first 150 I shall allow one shilling. I expect about 200 lambs this year, so that the shepherd may THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. get about one hundred sixpences and fifty shillings, that is £^, if he raises 200 lambs. Then for every calf born I shall allow the cowman 2S. 6d, ; for every litter of pigs reared, threepence a pig, and for every pig fatted something more. Then for the fat stock, for every beast sold, I shall allow the man who looks after them one shilling in the pound on the profit. If I buy ten beasts for £100 and sell them for ^^300, that will be exactly one hundred shillings, or ^5, for the man who looks after them. " Then as to the crops, that is white crops (I don't reckon the others), my land on an average produces twenty-five bushels to the acre. Now for every extra bushel which by good cultivation, deep plough- ing, or extra carefulness and labour it may be made to give, I shall divide one shilling per bushel among the crop-men. Thus, if on my 100 acres of wheat next year, I get twenty-eight bushels instead of twenty-five that will be three hundred shillings, or ^ 1 5 to divide among those four men ; and as I believe with better cultivation and care it may be made to produce nearly thirty bushels to the acre, there would be five hundred shillings, or ^25 to divide among the four men, or £6 5^. each. "4. But besides these profits, which I do not con- sider will come out of my pocket, but out of your increased labour and work, I propose to allow to one or two of you who have saved money (say £10) the THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. run of a cow on my farm at 2s. 6d. a week, as they do in Northumberland. (This was received with very strong expressions of approval.) " That is my scheme : I have since made one alteration in giving to the pigman every year the least fat of all my bacon pigs, instead of allowing him to keep one for himself; the consequence of which is that they are all so fat it is impossible to select the leanest. The system has been going on now for three years come next autumn, with the most satisfactory results. I have only lost one calf in that time, whereas I used formerly to think my- self lucky if I only lost two a year; lambs and pigs in the same proportion. My land, that before never produced more than twenty-eight bushels to the acre, and generally twenty-five or twenty-six, last year gave thirty-one, and will, I believe average that for the future. I believe I am making money twice as fast as any farmer in Westshire ; and I never knew before that it was possible for farming to make such profits. My men are perfectly satisfied and do double the work they did before, getting in addition, more than half their former income. I reckon that without raising wages above what I raised them when I first came, namely, from eleven to twelve shillings a week (and leaving privileges and cottage rents as they were) my ordinary labourers are getting from eighteen to nineteen shillings a week in this way : — THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. Per week s. d. Allotment of land = about ^^4 of profit, or i 6 Task work during half the year at 3^. or i 6 Industrial profits in the farm, ^5 to £j say 2 6 Weekly wages 120 Harvest 50J., or i o " Besides this, they have beer and cheap cottages, gleaning, privileges and carriage of coal. Sunday men get an extra shilling, and those that keep a cow get five shillings a week more out of it, so that my head-waggoner, who keeps a cow, must be getting over twenty-five shillings a week, including all allowances, and yet I have never raised his weekly wages directly. " The other day there was a meeting to form a Union in the next village, and my men attended at my request. They were hooted for refusing to join^ but when they explained what they were earning they had the laugh on their side ; and some London agitators who had come down to speak, de- clared publicly that if all the farmers acted as I did, their occupation would be gone. I believe no union or agitation, or strike would have any effect on my men. I overheard one say to another a few days ago, *We want no strikers here.' As for the labourers with cows, the offer of another three or THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. four shillings a week beyond their present earnings would not tempt them to go elsewhere. The men seem very grateful to me for what I have done, though except in treating them kindly and intelligently, I am doing nothing but consulting my own interests, and they certainly work harder on my farm than anywhere else this side of the Trent." " Well, Newstyle, I hope the other farmers will soon do the same as you, and then we shall have no more discontent and agitation. I think I can do something to forward your system by letting some of the best men about here have a few acres of land to keep a cow. There's a small place of twenty acres at the other side of the village, which will fall in this next year at latest, for they tell me the old man will never get out of bed again. If I can find four or five labourers on the estate who have saved money I'll parcel it out among them as cowland, in- stead of reletting it as a farm." " I'm sure," said Newstyle, " it will be a great boon to them, and a great advantage to the estate ; if you're careful in the selection, it will be the means of keeping our best men in the district, and except on my farm, we are fast losing all our best workmen ; • the old ones are getting past their work, and the young ones go elsewhere." "Do you think your men are equal to North- umberland labourers.^" " They're fast becoming so ; my best men are THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. quite equal to them, and getting as high wages. I have just introduced another mode of payment (con- sequent on the rise of wheat), by allowing one shil- ling per week extra when wheat is quoted in the county paper at seven shillings per bushel or over. When wheat is high, you see, the farmer benefits and the labourer suffers. And yet he is the only employer of labour who is affected by the rise and fall, so I consider such an allowance only a fair one." " But how is it," said his landlord to Newstyle, " that other farmers do not follow your example r' " Well, they don't seem to like to alter anything ; and they can't believe but that the extra money comes out of their pockets, whereas in reality it is coming in." " Why not make known your system more widely at some farmers' club, or chamber of agriculture .'^" " Well you see, sir, it's my trade. I don't wish to make any particular secret of it, but I don't see why I should go about telling every one how to rival me in my own business." The dumb instinct, not yet formulated or ex- pressed (but behind which, may-be, lurks some law of God himself,) the natural craving that is moving the labourers, when traced to its cause, will THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. be found to be this — want of Hope and Prospect, want of opportunities of rising, or means of laying by for old age. One great means of producing contentment and offering a means of investment was formerly land, say enough to keep a cow on, or the run of a common even ; but during the last fifty years the policy of high farming has been to do away with all these places, either by absorbing them into farms, or on the grounds that they made the men idle and worthless ; and allotted as they sometimes were to thriftless improvident families there was some truth in the statement. But, mean- while, although education, progress and prosperity went on, no compensation for the land taken away has been offered, no alternative means of rising for the best workmen was introduced, such as a general application of piece-work, or some sort of industrial partnership, giving the men an interest and profit in their work. Their interest in the soil is taken away, and no interest created in its stead except the hard and fast one of Cash-payment. What wonder if the men try and improve on that? What wonder if they follow blind guides, whose plausible arguments would not be so easily overturned even by some educated men ? But if it can be practically demonstrated that the application of some intelligence and sympathy, to the question (such intelligence as the manufacturers now constantly bring to their business, and such sympathy as refuses to regard any labourer as a THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. machine or an animal), if it be practically shown that not only the solution and settlement of this question, but also the interest of employers will be promoted by such a course, surely reason and moderation will not be on the side of those who can leave this matter to be settled by banded unions of contending employers and employed. In some of the southernmost counties, consider- able care will have to be taken to prevent a collision between capital and labour. For there other inci- dents have been aggravated by a vicious system of poor law acting upon a superabundant and immov- able population, and it is probable that the quality of the labour has been unnaturally depressed by the quantity being unnaturally maintained^ namely, through low wages supplemented by out relief. The application of the same remedies, namely, a concession of an interest in the soil to those it is desirable to retain, and an interest in their work to all will be found even here effective, but seeing that the case is an aggravated one, the remedies must be more carefully applied. The highest intelligence and sympathy will be required to educate the labourer back to even a normal standard, and side-by-side with it, probably, a large migration. Happy will those districts be, where, by wise regulations and intelligent action the best men are retained, and the lower stratum only migrated to where labour is in greater demand. Happier still are those districts 14 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. where a wiser and more far-sighted policy has made the evils of modern Unionism unnecessary, or innocuous. For the most intelligent of the labourers have all along declared that this was not altogether a matter of direct wages, though the action of land- lords and farmers in some parts was fast driving it to become so. They value land more than wages, and the opportunity of earning more by increased zeal and care is worth more than a dead wage level, or a direct rise. " We want no strikes or agitation here," said the Assington men to a visitor the other day at the co-operative farm, "our wages are eleven shillings a week, but we can do without agitators." And a few weeks ago some Dorsetshire labourers, whose far-sighted employer had re-adjusted their wages, and put them in the way of earning what they were worth, were hooted by their fellow- labourers for refusing to join a union. Up to the end of the last century, or even within fifty years past in some towns there were associations of trades called Guilds, partaking of the nature of trades-unions, but differing from the modern aspect of trades-unionism in these important particulars ; first, they were associations of employers and employed, both working harmoniously together to their mutual advantage ; secondly, the condition of fellowship in the Guild was that a workman should do his work well and truly ; and thirdly, the workman took some share in the profits of the THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. 15 trade.* The objects of modern unionism, on the contrary, seem to be to array employer and em- ployed against each other, thereby causing enormous waste and loss to them chiefly, and to the world at large indirectly, instead of all sharing the profits of increased demand ; and furthermore, to encourage bad work for what is erroneously called the good of trade. You cannot compare an old house, or an old piece of furniture, or even an old brick, with its modern substitute, without perceiving what we have lost in good workmanship, which means Truth and Honesty, and something more than mechanical skill. Our whole art of construction is a hideous sham and lie, ill-concealed by a bastard and meaningless ornamentation. If the history of a generation as of a nation is written in its works, the story of Mammon-worship and its antithesis Trades-unionism, Dead Truth and Living Lies, is written in the work of the last fifty or one hundred years. If wrong- headed Harry Brougham and his dupes could have lived long enough, they might have perceived that civilization and progress, and even the material advancement of the people was not altogether comprised in more pay and shorter hours, strikes, paralyzation of capital and dead levelment of man ; but that there are such things as industrial partner- * See History of Guilds, published by Early English Text Society. i6 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. ships and co-operation, individualism and the work- man's higher elevation, to be thought of, besides migration and the extinction of pauperism. It is possible that the Co-operative movement, that " Spirit of the years to come," which threatens to absorb some day half the trade of the country will (if it come with Truth and Wisdom) correct these modern falsities and fallacies, and restore to us somewhat of the spirit and the work of those earlier Guilds. Meanwhile the occasion offers for the Land Industries to profit by the Trade errors, and to correct them. Here is an opportunity for landlords, farmers and labourers to form such associations (by farms, estates, districts, or counties), as shall correct the fallacies of the Present, and the mistakes and wrongs of the Past. The good ship Agricola, with half the fortune of the State on board, is nearing narrow straits, through which she must surely pass : and where are the charts? where are the pilots? What wonder if when the captain and warrant officers hold back, the boatswain and ship's-carpenter take the helm? But we shall want something more than their skill and navigation to steer between the reefs and swirls ahead : — to tack and sail between those Rocks of Pauperism, Degradation and Despair, and escape that blind Charybdis of Communism ! MEADOW AND GARDEN ALLOTMENTS FOR FARM LABOURERS. Being a paper read at the Leamington Agricultural Congress^ May^ 1871. Before attempting to explain how in certain places the condition of the labourer has been improved by allowing him some small share in the land on which he lives by way of allotments and cowland, it may be allowable to state two facts which, whether they be accepted or rejected, whether they be contradicted to-day and acquiesced in to-morrow, or otherwise, are nevertheless the result of distinct practical ex- perience. Firstly. That without any very considerable or sudden alteration in wages, any such rise for instance as would upset the economy of the farm or the cultivation of the land, the position of the labourer can be greatly improved, his income increased, his whole condition and value ameliorated by his own exertion on the land — which exertion at the same time acting upon the quality of his labour and en- hancing his value as a workman might increase his contentment and attachment to the soil, and even- tually exterminate his pauperism — so that the solution i8 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. of this question will not be by a mere direct rise in wages but by means more fundamental, more drastic, and more human. Secondly. That although much good may ensue from meeting and conference in imparting informa- tion and correcting fallacy, yet this matter will not be settled by speeches or congresses, or even by committees appointed thereat. It will be settled by landlords, farmers, labourers and others down in their several districts, on every estate and farm by personal devotion and practical experiment rather than by canvass and talk, or what a great writer has des- cribed as " swarmery." But whether these pro- positions be conceded or not, it is of the last im- portance that at a meeting like this practical Truth and practical suggestion should be heard as to the best means of improving the standard of the worst by the example of the better. If it be conceded, as it must, that the position of the farm-labourer in some parts is one of comparative comfort, that is to say compared with the unskilled labourer in towns and elsewhere, it must be also asserted that his position in other parts, especially in the south of England, is capable of and does require great amelioration. And first by way of garden allotments — In some parts of England it is the custom to attach to every cottage, a considerable and sufficient garden of say one-quarter or one-third of an acre. This is chiefly THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. 19 the case where the cottages are scattered and not grouped together in villages ; but there are many more districts where the garden attached to a cottage is miserably insufficient. Now it is in the power of every landlord and every farmer to remedy this state of things, at no perceptible loss to himself by letting off in portions, of say one-quarter of an acre, some field or part of a field. It has practically been done in many counties in England, and wherever judiciously managed it has been found to work well, and the plot of ground has come to be highly prized by the labourers. The rent paid is considerably higher than the farmer can afford, and experience shows that they are willing to pay even an exorbitant rent for land at an inconvenient distance, so greatly do they prize the advantage. Some approach to such an arrangement is made in many places by a grant of potato ground, cul- tivated by and rented from the farmer ; but this is in no wise equal to the allotment on which a labourer can work and invest his spare time, coming by degrees to take a permanent personal interest in it. The produce of the ground, generally potatoes and grain, makes a considerable addition to his income, but the human aspect of the system and the con- tentment produced, with the attachment and interest in the soil, in what is most striking in the result, and the time snatched perhaps from the public-house and the zeal and care called forth in the labourer THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. elevating him as a man and improving him as a workman. Some little personal direction and care are useful where many allotments are made, as some few labourers will be found unfitted to hold such ; and there should be a stringent rule to give notice where the rent is in arrear. But in the case of the farmer with his labourers, he would have no diffi- culty in cutting off an acre or two of his farm and sub-letting it at a fair or even recuperative rent ; and it seems a very small matter, where such ad- vantage and contentment are found to ensue, for the labourer to ask or for the farmer to concede so much of interest in the soil on which he lives. It might be worth while to mention, as it might easily be shown, that by thus allowing large garden allotments to labourers they would be enabled to pay a fair rent for cottages, say a return of four or five per cent, on the outlay, and this would solve another difficult problem for landlords. Then to some few- select and thrifty labourers, and, under strict precau- tions, a further boon can be accorded in the grant of a few acres of grass to keep a cow. In some parts of Northumberland it is the habit to allow the run of a cow to some or all of the labourers ; in the Agricul- tural Commissions Report I find one case where a farmer had ten labourers, each of whom kept his cow on the farm. Besides being a source of con- siderable profit to the man, through the labour of his wife, it enables him to rear strong healthy THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. 21 children ; and possibly to that cause may partly be attributed that fine type of agricultural labourer, that race of permanent giants there found, though something also must be due to nationality, and their superior education and thrift ; but the elements are not so dissimilar but that like conditions may gradually produce elsewhere like consequences, for it has been observed by competent judges, that this Northern workman, though earning much higher wages than his Southern neighbour, is not an expensive labourer, but rather the contrary, as he does far more and better work. Now, concerning this allotment of cow lands, it has been found on an estate where many such places exist, that by holding them out as prizes to those labourers who had saved money, who actually had an account at the Savings' Bank amassed by them- selves^ very considerable inducement was afforded to thrifty habits, and opportunities for investment with a prospect of comparative comfort were held out which indirectly has had a most beneficial effect on all the neighbourhood. This state of things is adverted to in the Report of the Agricultural Com- mission by the assistant-commissioner, Mr. Ed- ward Stanhope, and such effects as the follow- ing, direct and indirect, may be summarized as resulting from the system, if it can so be called. I. Selection by means of thrift of the best THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. labourers, reacting upon the rest in the general pro- motion of provident habits. 2. Elevation of the individual labourer and the whole family by increased self-respect and care- fulness, and increased income depending on that carefulness. 3. Supplementation of wages by the labourer's own exertions at no perceptible cost to landlord or farmer. 4. Comparative contentment and comfort with a strong attachment to the place as a labourer. 5. Gradual extinction of pauperism and improvi- dence, including drunkenness. And from the experience acquired on this estate, it is probable that if where such small tenements existed, care was taken to utilize them, as prizes to the best and most thrifty of the agricultural labourers, or even attaching them to estates or to a farm, or carving them out of farms, great good might follow in opening a way and a prospect to the best men to rise. A landlord lately in this same county has sub-divided a small grazing farm of twenty acres that was vacant among four agricultural labourers on his estate who had saved money, and other such opportunities would from time to time arise if they are sought. Then here are two further facts bearing on the same point. A gentleman farmer, cultivating his own land, told me he had a bailiff, or foreman, to whom he could only afford to pay eighteen shillings THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. 23 a week, but who he said was worth half as much more, yet he never thought of leaving him, or asking for more wages, and what was the secret of that ? Why the man had a small holding of five acres of grass land under his employer. " That man," I said, "de- pend on it, will never leave you of his own accord." In another district, comprising coal and lead mines, as well as an agricultural population, where some interest was taken in the savings' banks' deposits, it was discovered that whereas many miners (that is workers in the lead mines) put by money, there was hardly a single collier who had a deposit. They were earning wages equally high, and the fact seemed incomprehensible, till on examination it was dis- covered that whereas most of the miners had a patch of land and a cow, the colliers, owing to the smoke or some other local cause, hardly ever had that ad- vantage ; and no doubt invested all their earnings in the public-house. Now the same sort of results are found to follow in other places by a similar system of precaution in allowing only thrifty families to come on the land, and notably on the estate of Mr. Hope Johnson, in Dumfrieshire, where, under the direction of his agent, Mr. Charles Stewart, the effect is thus described by an eye-witness in a report pub- lished by the Highland and Agricultural Society : — " What we chiefly value in the system is its marked effect in producing and perpetuating an orderly, respectable and well-conditioned peasantry. 24 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. The problem which is generally looked upon as so difficult of solution is here solved with eminent success. It has been shown to be quite practicable to elevate the labouring man, not only without bur- dening the farmer or the landlord, but to the manifest benefit of both, to foster small holdings without depressing agriculture or retarding improvement, and to combine permanence with progress." A similar system with similar results obtains in North Derbyshire, and is described by the Agricul- tural Commissioners' Report. There are two other points, not immediately within the scope of this paper, but bearing on it sufficiently perhaps to be mentioned here. 1. The prohibitory regulations of the enclosure commissioners as to cottage building prevent money being taken up by landlords through the companies. If two or three practical men were put on the com- mission, there need be no great difficulty about cottage accommodation. 2. The administration of Poor Law out-relief, which, in some parts, by indirectly supplementing wages, is in fact degrading and lowering the wages of the unskilled labourer. When both employer and employed, as donor and recipients of Out-relief look to the rates as a legitimate fund for indirectly and sometimes directly eking out wages, the effect cannot but be pernicious and demoralizing ; and if this Con- ference only calls attention to this one fatuous fallacy THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. it would not have met altogether in vain. For man, even the most depressed and degraded, is not a machine or an animal. If he have any intelligence whatever, he must have movement, progress, and object before him ; he must have some practical motive and reason to be respectable, thrifty, energetic, careful, and the like. If he is to be of any account, of any real use to an employer or a farmer he must have some other outlook and distraction than the beershop — some better prospect than the v/orkhouse. The want of sympathy and intelligence sometimes displayed, especially about the southern counties, in the depression of the rural labourer, caused by the careless and pernicious — it would not be too much to say the atrocious administration of Poor Law, as yet uncorrected by the central Board — call aloud for amendment and cure. There is one more point, not quite belonging to the subjectof this paper, which is yet one of considerable moment to the agricultural interest. It is the answer to the question. Is it possible to introduce into farming any industrial partnership, such as already obtains in manufactures ? that is to say, by the farmer or em- ployer giving, in addition to the weekly wages, other extra payments depending upon his own profits. I venture to assert, speaking from practical knowledge, that something of the sort is possible and desirable, and would also be for the advantage of employer as well as employed. And I say so as one who dare 26 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. not advance one word or statement that is not founded on strict practical experience. In most districts, I might almost say on nearly every large farm, something of that obtains, in the allowances made to shepherds for their care and trouble in the lambing season ; this can be easily ex- tended to stockmen and some others. The difficulties in the way of a general application of the principle arise partly from absence of strict accounts and partly owing to the uncertain effect of weather and seasons. It must be left to every farmer for himself to work out how best to put such a plan into prac- tice — but certain I am that every farmer who in these days wishes to make farming profitable, would do well to consider how to give to every labourer on his farm some sort of an interest in the profits of that farming. • By some such means as these described above, it is in the power of farmers as well as landlords to mend this matter, and gradually to improve the position of their labourers, without any very great cost or outlay. Let all have opportunities of rising and improving their condition. Let the best men feel that they are not dragged down to the levelment of the worst, and let all perceive that it depends on their own exertions whether they rise or not. But don't suppose from anything herein contained, that you can go down into a pauperised district, where a total disregard of the THE FARM LABOURER IN 1S72. 27 real welfare of the people has been aggravated by a fatuous administration of the Poor Law, and with this or any other plan in your pocket, set all right in a day or in a year. You cannot ! You cannot put such a district on a par with one where the results of a totally different policy have left their permanent traces. But you can commence the im- provement at once, and perhaps the results of a few months will appear marvellous. Thus a farmer employing say half-a-dozen labourers might, by apportioning one or two acres out of his farm, give each a quarter or a third of an acre, which would probably be more valued by the men than a considerable rise of wages ; and at the same time, he might hold out a prospect to any of his men who should have saved sufficient money to give them a run for a cow, or apportion another two acres for that purpose. By such means, and by some classification and payment by results, or in- dustrial partnerships, he might gradually raise the quality of his labour and the status of his labourer — meanwhile, attaching them to the place more surely than by any Cash-payment devisable ; and if his neighbours declined to follow his example, he might come to command the best men in the district. And let the Landlords look to it also, and put ofF any inertness. Their personal direction and sympathy are not a little required down in these rural districts ; and the mal -administration of the poor law is greatly 28 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. their concern. To them is still the Kingdom and the Power ; to them it may yet be the Glory, as it is assuredly the Duty and Interest to come and help in this matter. 'T^he subjoined letter was read at the Agricultural Conference at Willis' Rooms in April 1827, Mr. Mundella, M.P.^ being in the Chair, April 27, 1872. Dear Mr. Mundella. An invitation has been sent me to attend a Meet- ing at Willis's Rooms on Agricultural Interests, at which I see you are to be in the Chair. I fear I shall not be able to be there; but as a request is made in the invitation to offer an opinion, and as you seemed to take an interest in the paper I read at Leeds bearing on the subject, I venture to send you two or three observations, the result of my own practical experience ; and you can make any use of the letter you think fit. It appears to me that this movement, if wisely directed, may be a great opportunity of permanently improving the condition of the Agricultural labourer, and, at the same time, benefitting the employer, or farmer, by improving the quality of his labour. For if you raise the wages, you ought also to raise the labourer, and I think it might be shown that the ordinary able-bodied labourer, with increased alacrity 30 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. and zeal, could easily earn twenty-five per cent more wages by doing twenty-five per cent more work, and be cheap at the money to the farmer. But it appears to me equally plain, that this agi- tation may have a very different result, if wrong principles be adopted or advised. I. Now, the best practical way towards improve- ment (besides emigration, payment in coin, and a certain rise in wages, where they are evidently too low) is by giving the labourer, as far as possible, an interest in his work, as by task work, or payment by results, as is sometimes done with shepherds for lambs, or with stockmen for calves, and so improving the quality of the labour by in- creased carefulness and zeal, and increasing his wages by his own exertion. 1. By a system of greater classification, such as is in use among contractors and others, where men will be working side by side at three shillings, two and sixpence, and two and threepence per day respec- tively. One man is cheap at sixteen shillings per week, another is dear at eleven. I myself know agricultural labourers who would be cheaper at ^^i per week than two of their neighbours at ten shillings. 3. A still more simple and ready way to improve the condition of the farm-labourer, and that at no appreciable loss to the farmer, is by allowing him an allotment of ground and good gardens, and to those who can save a little money (say fifteen or THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. ' 31 twenty pounds) allowing them two or three acres of land to keep a cow, or the run of a cow on the farm, on payment of a rent, thus promoting care- fulness and thrift, and introducing slightly the co- operative principle without a fusion of capital. The land ought to be held in connection with a farm, or an estate, so long that is as the labourer worked thereon. The results of this system, as shown on my own estate, in raising the labourers, and inducing them to save money, and so placing them in a con- dition of comfort and independence, notwithstanding low wages, is quite inconceivable. But the wholesale plan of giving every cottager land for a cow, sug- gested by a Borough Member lately in the House of Commons, would be, in my opinion, most per- nicious and ruinous. 4. Something of the low estate of the labourer must, I fear, be attributed to our old enemy, the Poor Law, and the way out-relief is administered in some Unions. I trust we are gradually improving on that now ; wherever a surplusage of labour lowers the rate of wages, and a bad system of Poor Law, administered from interested motives by the very employers of labour, still further depresses labour and degrades the labourer by maintaining the men in semi-starvation and dependance, a vicious circle is created that must, by some means or other, be broken through. But we are now being called 32 THE FARM LABOURER IN 1872. on to correct the vices of generations by the pres- criptions of a day. I cannot, in the limits of a letter, venture to say much more on so large a subject, but I believe if those who are associated in this movement would give their attention more to those sort of facts (some of which I have hardly heard mentioned in public) they might do great permanent good, without in- ducing any feeling of hostility between employed and employer. Much ignorance prevails on the subject in many places, and it is difficult to get em- ployers sometimes to understand how expensive low paid labour may be; in some places the farmers seem a little jealous of the men having land, but that is chiefly from not understanding how it should be allotted. Apologising for the length of this letter, I remain yours very faithfully, BALDWYN LEIGHTON. Loton Park, Shrewsbury. London: Printed by A. 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