The farm labourer; the history of a modern problem

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THE FARM LABOURER '

THE HISTORY OF A MODERN PROBLEM

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Demy 8vo, Cloth.

English Apprenticeship and Child
Labour : A History.

" An excellent example of one of those elaborate
stu(^es, from the historical standpoint, of certain clearly
defined aspects of the economic problem. . . . The
book represents a large amount of patient investigation
into a complex problem concerning which detailed infor-
mation is not readily accessible. ... It can be heartily
recommended to students of the problem of child labour.
As an historical investigation of the question it stands
alone." — The Daily News.

*' The introduction and the first three chapters taken
together form an admirable essay on the apprenticeship
system in general. As in the rest of the work, its pro-
gress and decline are told in detail sufficiently full to
attest the labour and research bestowed upon it." — The
Standard.

" Miss Dunlop has succeeded in making her array of
facts readable as well as instructive." — The Athenaum.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.

THE

FARM LABOURER

THE HISTORY OF A
MODERN PROBLEM

O. JOCELYN DUNLOP

D.Sc. (ECON.) LONDON

AUTHOR or " ENGLISH APPRENTICESHIP AND CHILD LABOUR : A HISTORY "

FISHER UNWIN

LONDON •• ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC INSELSTRASSE 20

First Published in 1913

{All Rights Beservtd.)

Co
H. C. D,

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS ... I

II. ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY 44

III. REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 .... 65

' IV. FROM 1834 TO 1870 91

V. THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS . . 138

VI. FARMER AND LABOURER 181

VII. THE NATION AND THE LABOURER . . .221

CONCLUSION 241

APPENDIX 253

INDEX 261

THE FARM LABOURER

CHAPTER I

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS

(i) Introduction.

"An' I mean as the King 'uU put a stop to 't,
for them say it as knows it, as there's to be a
Rinform." So said Dagley, a tiller of the soil in
the early half of the last century. He knew that
all was not well with himself and his fellows, but
was as incapable of laying his finger on the cause
of their wretchedness and discontent as he was
of prescribing the remedy. But " there's them
i' Middlemarch knows what the Rinform is," he
added. This was hopeful indeed, for a remedy for
the labourer's case had been a crjdng need for a
hundred years. But Dagley had drunk his pot
of beer, and was unduly optimistic. Far from
there being a reform, the evils from which he and
his kind suffered were allowed to drag on down to
our own day.

F.L. B

2 THE FARM LABOURER

They had come into being about 1760. . It was
then that economic changes set in which, with the
assistance of an ignorant ruUng class, transformed
a prosperous and vigorous peasantry into a mere
proletariat, ever on the verge of pauperism.
Before that date, the labourer had possessed a
fair measure of independence, and had lived in
considerable comfort, owing to the opportunities
of farming on his own account. It is true that
his independent husbandry was on a small scale,
but it had at least supplied him with an abundance
of cheap food, and had prevented him from being
wholly dependent on wages and a master. Above
all, the possibility of working for himself gave a
zest to life, and the career thus open even to the
poorest fostered a thrifty, hard-working and
self-respecting class. The subsequent depression,
though induced by various causes, was due
primarily to the agricultural revolution. The loss
of the commons by enclosure and the absorption
of small holdings and farms into the large units
necessary to the now profitable corn-growing
spelt ruin for the small man. Changes in the
industrial economy of the nation, together with
bad legislation, aggravated his difficulties. Even
by the close of the eighteenth century, or but
thirty or forty years after the depression set
in, the land problem, the housing problem.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 3

and the wages problem, with which we are
grappling to-day, were in being ; while the
rural exodus, which in itself reveals the unsatis-
factory conditions of rural Ufe and work, was
becoming a cause of anxiety to many social
observers.

From the first, philanthropists exerted them-
selves on the labourer's behalf, and reformers
within the House of Commons impelled the Legis-
lature to take action. But they were much in
the position of Dagley. They knew that the
economic condition of the labourer was unsound
and that his social condition was far from satis-
factory, and they wanted " Rinform." But lack
of experience in social legislation led more than
once to the remedies they adopted being anything
but reforms. And they were handicapped in
other ways. Economic tendencies were against
them. The condition of the market required
the extensive cultivation of com, which neces-
sarily involves large farming. Consequently,
though philanthropists of the early nineteenth
century desired to see the revival of peasant
proprietorship, which in itself would have solved
many of the labourer's difficulties, their socially
good intentions were powerless against economic
considerations of land owners. Further, pohtical
power lay with landed capitalists who were sus-

B2

4 THE FARM LABOURER

picious of changes which might affect their
interests, and with industrial capitalists who were
indifferent to agricultural questions. It was not
until the last quarter of the nineteenth century
^that these two obstacles were removed, by a
change in the market conditions on the one hand,
and on the other by the extension of the franchise.
i This change coincided with an acceleration in
\ rural migration, which the labourer had adopted
V on his own account as a means of improving his
condition. The effect upon the town population
of this influx of country workmen brought it
home to the industrial classes that rural difficulties
were not a matter of indifference to themselves.
The opinion grew that rural problems had an
industrial and, in the depletion of the countryside,
even a national significance. Thus, at one and
the same time, the power and the incentive to
take action were increased. With general interests
threatened, the public realised that palliatives for
the labourer's problem must be laid aside.
Attempts to find a radical remedy now began.
What that remedy should be is hardly to be found
in the history of the previous search for it, but
that story of blunders and hesitation must be
the starting point for future action. It shows
at least in what directions experiments have been
made ; it reveals what are the real difficulties

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 5

connected with agricultural labour, and what are
merely the difficulties artificially created by
misguided efforts at reform ; and it is suggestive
as to the obstacles that may lie in the way of
even the best advised method of settHng the
question.

The story of the labourer in these pages is a
dark one, but it is not so dark as the story told in
Parliamentary reports and by contemporary ob-
servers upon which this account is based. For it
must be remembered, and it has been remembered
here, that much of human happiness lies in personal
relationships, and even in the worst times the
labourer had that source of happiness open to
him. In the words of an old Suffolk woman, who
married in the Corn Law days, and eked out her
husband's earnings of seven to eight shillings a
week by her own labour, in the midst of bearing
and rearing a family of ten : " Yes, I was happy ;
I had a good father and a good husband." To us
the tragedy of her life reaches its culminating
point in the pauper allowance which for so long
was the outward reward of her hard-working life.
But to her its tragedies he in the failure of a Sunday
visit from a daughter sixty years old, living three
or four miles away, and in the neglect of grand-
children scattered over the world.

6 THE FARM LABOURER

(2) Before the Problems.^

Farmers and labourers had undoubtedly had
their difficulties long before the eighteenth cen-
tury, when the modern problems of agricultural
labour came into being. Yet in the early half of
that century the English peasant was, speaking
generally, prosperous and contented. Then about
the year 1760, agricultural and industrial changes
/set in which led to the economic degradation of
-«4 I the labourer. His moral degradation inevitably
V followed. Although neither the agricultural nor
the industrial changes were completed throughout
England at one and the same time, and were not
felt in every locality to the same extent, by 1790
their ill-effects upon the labourer were obvious
enough to call for Government action, while in
the early nineteenth century the problems of
agricultural labour were widespread and acute.
The fifty years prior to 1760 then appeared as a
halcyon period. Its chief feature from our point
of view was the existence of a vigorous pea-
santry, ill-housed certainly according to modern
standards, and living a strenuous, hard-working
hfe; but for all that prosperous and well-to-do,
and possessed of ample means of bettering their

• Hasbach, " History of the English Agricultural Labourer " ;
Levy, H., " Large and Small Holdings " ; Prothero, " British
Farming, Past and Present " ; Curtler, " English Agriculture."

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 7

condition. Even the poorest of their number had
a career before them, and meanwhile were well fed,
well clad, and well warmed. Conditions such as
these, so unhke anjTthing known in the memory of
living man, are worth a little attention, more
especially as both of late years and in the days of the
deepest degradation of the labourer in the nine-
teenth century, efforts have been made to restore
him to an approximation to his old position by
reviving one or more of the earlier features of
agricultural hfe.

There were three primary elements in the
prosperity of the labourer at that date. First,
there was the existence of wide areas of common
pasture land ; secondly, he possessed various
openings for his labour, and consequently various
sources of income ; and thirdly, there was a great
multiplicity in the sizes of agricultural holdings,
which involved an equally great variety in social
grades, and gave the labourer his opportunity of
rising in life. It is impossible to place one before
the other in importance to the peasant ; each was
a vital factor in his well-being.

The common pasturage consisted partly of land
termed " wastes," though it was often as good
land as the cultivated fields. On the wastes,
one and all cut their firing and grazed their
stock — geese, goats, cows, horses, and sheep.

8 THE FARM LABOURER

In addition, there were rights of pasturage upon
the common fields. For agriculture was still
carried on by the old medieval method of the
three field system. The three large unenclosed
fields were divided into some dozens of strips,
separated from each other by balks of grass,
these strips being apportioned amongst cottagers
and farmers large and small in such number as
they had a right to.^ But after the crops were
cut, the stock of large and small cultivators alike
was turned on to the land, where they grazed
at their own sweet will, regardless of " strips "
and their ownership. Rights to this common
pasturage, whether on wastes or on the common
fields, were the basis of the cottager's independent
husbandry. For the possession of these privileges
gave him the opportunity of carr5dng on stock-
farming, which paid well, even when conducted
upon a small scale.^ The garden or land attached
to his cottage or, when he possessed it even, his
strip in the common fields, formed too small an
area for profitable arable farming. He might grow
enough wheat to provide bread for his family for
the year or for part of it, but the smallest men
would never have a surplus for the market, and

1 For a full account of the various rights of cottagers, see
Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 89 — 96.

2 Levy, op. cit., pp. 4 f.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 9

the larger peasant proprietors would have very
Uttle, and that probably only in good years. But
both the largest and the least of the small holders
would have an appreciable surplus of eggs, butter
and milk, fruit and vegetables, poultry, bacon, and
possibly mutton ; and even the landless cottagers,
who had to depend entirely on commons and wastes
for the support of their stock, would have lesser
supplies of pigs, milk and eggs to dispose of.
Corn-growing was, therefore, only a secondary
feature of their husbandry, but in live-stock one
and all sank their capital, the farm-servant his
savings, and the day labourer his wages. Their
success in these lesser branches of agriculture was
due to the open field system and the existence of
waste lands. Had they been dependent for their
grazing upon land of which they were sole pro-
prietors, not one in a hundred of them could
have made stock-keeping pay. As things were,
it was the most advantageous branch of agriculture
that they could have adopted. At that date
industries and manufactures were scattered
throughout the whole country, and districts which
are to-day purely rural then possessed a consider-
able industrial population.^ Thus the small holder
had a good market at his door for the surplus

• See Prothero, " English Farming," pp. 308 — 312, for the
distribution and nature of local industries.

10 THE FARM LABOURER

produce of his live-stock and fruit trees. Meat,
fruit, vegetables and dairy produce found a steady
demand/ From this point of view alone, the
common pastures were of vital importance to the
labourer, and they had a value as great, if not
greater, in suppljdng him with cheap food. Thanks
to the commons, even men who could raise nothing
for the market could produce some food for home
consumption.

As important a factor in the peasant's prosperity
were the various openings for his labour, one of
which has already been considered in connection
with his rights of pasturage. The sale of his
surplus produce was one of three main sources of
income upon which the peasant had power to
draw. A second and perhaps more important
source was wages for labour rendered to others.
The essential labour on the large farm, which was
to be found in most parishes, and on farms which,
though comparatively small, required paid labour,
was performed by farm servants, who were boarded
and lodged in the farm houses, receiving in addition
a small money wage. It was they who were the
shepherds, carters, ploughmen, ploughboys and
dairymaids. But extra labour for seasonal work
was employed in varying amounts, and seasonal
work then was more regular than it is now, for

' Levy, op. cit., p. 4.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS ii

even when harvest was over, threshing and work
in the woods offered employment in the winter.
The farm servants were recruited from the sons
and daughters of the peasantry. But the wages
for seasonal work were drawn by the cottagers
themselves. According to the size of a man's
holding and its power to support him, he would
work less or more for wages. The majority of
cottagers did so work either regularly or occasion-
ally. Their wives and children also worked at
times upon the farms, but their employment was
sHght except in harvest. Their time was generally
fuUy occupied in looking after the hve-stock and
in the pxirsuit of by-industries at home.

The prevalence of home crafts was a great
asset to the labourer, and the earnings gained from
such work constituted his third main source of
income. In those days there was hardly a district
which had not several flourishing industrial centres,
the existence of which gave the peasant's family
the opportunity for practising home industries.
Work was given out from these centres, and in
them the goods manufactured in the cottages
found a market. The lesser branches of the
woollen trade were the most widely practised of
the domestic crafts. Throughout England spin-
ning and some weaving were universal by-employ-
ments for women and girls. But there was

12 THE FARM LABOURER

domestic work in other trades also, Cowper,
writing in 1739, declared that in most open field
parishes the inhabitants " besides their employ-
ment in husbandry " carried on large branches of
the linen as well as the woollen manufacture.^
Lace-making was practised in the cottage homes
of certain districts of Devonshire, Bedfordshire
and Buckinghamshire. Straw work, chiefly plait-
ing, was common in Bedfordshire and extended
into Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bucking-
hamshire. The glove trade of Worcester was
carried on not only in the city itself, but gloves were
also given out to cottagers to be sewn at home. So,
too, with the stocking trade in Nottinghamshire.^
We have lastly to consider the prospects which
agricultural work offered to the peasant. Those
prospects were pecuUarly bright. At that date
the work of farming rested in the hands of small
men, for though the large farm, whether pasture
or arable, was to be found in every district, the
small farm, tenant or proprietory as the case
might be, and the small holding, were still the
dominant agricultiural units.* Small holdings
varied in size from a mere plot to several alcres.
The squatters on the wastes generally had some

1 John Cowper. Inclosing commons and common field lands
is contrary to the interest of the nation.
^ Prothero, op. cit., pp. 308 f.
' Hasbach, " English Agricultural Labourer," p. 82.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 13

scrap of land which they had unlawfully enclosed
as a garden patch, while cottages in the village
had almost without exception some land attached
or adjacent. An Act of Elizabeth's reign had
made compulsory the provision of four acres of
land with every cottage, and though it is unlikely
that this Act was universally observed,^ it yet is
clear from contemporary writers that cottagers
quite commonly rented two, three, and as much as
five acres of land. This multiplicity in the sizes
and grades of holdings provided a " practicable
ladder " up which a man could cUmb from the
smaU plot to the small farm, and from the small
farm possibly to the large. Even the ploughboy
had prospects. For his small money wage could
be saved against the day when he should marry
and set up for himself, leasing a cottage with but
a scrap of land perhaps, and keeping a goat on
the common if he could not purchase a cow, but
with the surety of rising in Ufe through steady
work and thrifty management.

Thus the economic and material conditions of
the peasant were sound. He and his family
possessed various sources of income ; and since
they were not dependent on agricultural wages,
slackness in employment could be met with
equanimity. The produce of their own holdings

» Hasbach, op. cit,, p. 75.

14 THE FARM LABOURER

and earnings from home work tided them over
bad times.

A few words axe necessary as to their moral
condition. Bad housing is, of course, one of the
chief factors in moral degradation. And their
housing imdoubtedly was bad. The cottages
were frequently ill-built, and were often little
but hovels. Many were constructed of mud and
straw, and sanitation and a good water supply
were unknown luxuries. Overcrowding was not
uncommon. In Northumberland the cottages
contained often but one long low room, which had
to accommodate its inhabitants for all purposes
in hfe. In short, although there was little
crowding together of dwellings at this date, and
the air and space around the worst hovel mitigated
to some extent the evils of bad accommodation
within, the labourer's housing was such as to
suggest the worst possible results. But as a
matter of fact compensation was made for bad
housing by other conditions of his life. Bad food
was not added to an uncomfortable dwelhng to
drive him to drink. Even the smallest cottager
had a sufficient supply of milk, eggs and bacon ;
the better-to-do produced their own meat and a
part of their bread corn, and one and all had their
own vegetables and fruit. Although they sold
their surplus produce in the local towns, they had

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 15

no need to stint their own tables in order to raise
money for rent and for goods they could not make
themselves. For, as we have seen, they had other
sources of money earnings. And they had not
to pay middleman's prices for the food they were
unable to produce at home. Corn, which was their
chief article of purchase, not only was cheap in
this period, but could be bought direct from the
small farmer. Meat, too, he was very ready to
retail locally to those who did not rear and kill
their own beasts.

Yet another factor in maintaining the character
of the peasantry was that village government for
matters agricultural which the common-fields
system of cultivation made necessary. The
peasant proprietor, and the day labourer whose
cottage entitled him to some share in the land, had
a voice with the large farmer in deciding the
rotation of crops and other matters. In most
villages, annual meetings were held of farmers
and common-right owners to consider such ques-
tions and settle disputes, while there were officers
appointed by themselves to supervise the alloca-
tion of strips.^ Another minor but important
influence in the labourer's life was the common
practice of carrying on the regular work of a

* Slater, " Enclosure of Common Fields," p. 87 ; Hammond,
B. and J., " The Village Labourer," p. 103.

i6 THE FARM LABOURER

farm by means of indoor farm-servants. The
prevalence of work under good conditions for
single men and women set a premium upon later
marriages, and encouraged prudence and thrift.
But, above all, the certainty of rising in life by
hard work and economy fostered an industrious,
thrifty, independent, and wide-awake labouring
class, whose virtues were loudly acclaimed and
fully appreciated at the close of the century when
the change in the labourer's condition had led
to their loss.

(3) The Creation of the Problems.

This change set in about 1760. First, the
labourer lost the commons which had been a
mainstay of his existence ; then he lost his home
manufactures. He became a member of a mere
proletariat, dependent upon wages which, as we
shall see, did not rise sufficiently to compensate
him for the loss of his other sources of income,

{a) The Agricultural Revolution. Enclosures.

The radical cause of the labourer's troubles was
the rise in the price of corn in the middle of the
century, due in the first place to bad harvests,
and secondly, to the increase of population just
when the bad years were reducing the amount
of wheat which could be put upon the market.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 17

The nineties saw a yet further rise. The outbreak
of the French war in 1793 would in itself have
kept prices high ; but the scarcity was aggravated
and prices were driven yet higher by continued
bad harvests, by Napoleon's Continental System,
which checked the import of corn, and by a yet
more rapid increase in population.'^ The new
prices gave a great impetus to corn-growing. But
extensive corn-growing was hampered by the
methods upon which land was cultivated. In
almost every parish, although there might be one
large compact farm, most of the land, as we have
seen, was farmed in strips, which had to be culti-
vated by a rotation of crops agreed upon by the
majority of owners. Such a system was extrava-
gant in time and labour, since a man's strips might
be scattered throughout the length and breadth
of the parish. Moreover, it prevented the adop-
tion by better farmers of new and improved
methods of cultivation, and it prevented the
extensive growth of corn which could be profitably
produced only in wider areas. Thus with the
rise in corn prices there were many farmers ready

• Levy, " Large and Small Holdings," p. ii : " The population
increased by 3,000,000 persons in the twenty years from 1790 to
181 1." lb., p. 10 : " The average price of qorn was 345. ixd. m
the period 1715 to 1765 ; 455. ji. during 1760 to 1790 ; and
55s. ixd. in the next decade. From 1805 to 1813 the annual
average price was never below 73s. and often over loos. In 1812
it reached 122s. M."

F.L. C

i8 THE FARM LABOURER

and eager to sink capital in the land. But
although landlords had already thrown small
farms into one wherever they had the power to do
so in order to meet the needs of large pasture
farmers, there were still not large farms enough
to meet the new demand of corn-growers. Spurred
on now by the inducement of increasing their
rents, they therefore resorted to stronger measures.
The engrossing of farms had injured small farmers,
for many tenant farmers were driven out of their
business when the holdings they had cultivated
were consolidated ; and others, whether tenant
or proprietary, were crushed out of existence by
the competition of larger rivals and by higher
rents. But the peasantry was as yet little affected
by the agricultural changes. Their turn came
now. For it was the wastes and unenclosed fields
which landowners sought to acquire for corn-
growing. The unenclosed fields, extravagantly
cut up in strips, and the waste lands or commons,
large areas of which were excellent farming land,
obviously would become much more productive
if enclosed. While the desire to increase their
incomes was the motive force with landlords, it
could be urged, and was so urged by the chief
agricultural writers of the day, that enclosure was
economically advantageous for the country. Only
by enclosure, it was stated, could the best methods

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 19

of husbandry be adopted, and the best use be
made of the land. The farmer's prosperity would
be reflected in the greater prosperity of the
labouring classes, there would be more employ-
ment, and the population would increase. The
waste lands were worse than valueless to the
peasant ; they merely encouraged him in idleness
and vice, and prevented his putting forth his best
labour by rendering him independent of wages.
Though landlords might reap the greater profits
of enclosure, it was pointed out by Arthur Young
that the higher rents rose, the better it would be
for the farmer, since it would compel him to adopt
improved methods of cultivation.^ The rising
price of corn made it possible to regard enclosure,
which was the necessary preliminary to arable
farming, as a national duty. Landlords, then,
had the bulk of educated public opinion behind
them in their work of transformation. And they
had the power to achieve their ends, " since they
were almost always the chief owners of land and
chief holders of common rights in any given parish,
or at any rate by purchasing land, they could
become so."^ The work went on apace. Between
1702 and 1760 the enclosure of about 400,000
acres had been effected by 246 Acts of Parliament ;

' Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 65 and 147 f.
2 Levy, op. cit., p. 24.

C 2

20 THE FARM LABOURER

while in George III.'s reign, 3,554 Acts were passed >
and 5,686,400 acres were enclosed.^ Before the
century was out enclosure had taken place to a
greater or less extent in every part of the country,
though there was less enclosing in the hilly north
than in the eastern counties and those districts
where both the soil and the formation of the land
were more favourable to corn-growing. Enclosures
varied in their nature, but as a rule they involved
both the disappearance of the common fields
through the consolidation of strips, and the division
of the waste lands. Sometimes, however, only
the consolidation of strips took place, or the waste
lands were enclosed where the strips had been
already consolidated. In a few cases, as in the
Isle of Axholme, while the wastes were enclosed,
the strip system of the old arable fields was pre-
served ; but this was rare.

Much has been written upon the rights and
wrongs of enclosure, but there can be no doubt that
the strip system of cultivation was completely
out of date, and was a barrier to the introduction
of better methods of farming which the growth
of scientific knowledge now made possible. It
may also be urged that the extensive growth of
corn was the right course to adopt not only
from the farmer's but from the national point

' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 58.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 21

of view, for only by enclosure and the extension of
corn-growing could the nation be fed during the
great war. On the other hand, it is clear that
landlords pressed forward enclosures in order to
increase their rents, and that this desire blinded
them to the elements of justice in the small
man's opposition. They set it all down as
stupidity and blindness, which, if it could not be
removed by fair means, should, in the common
interest, be beaten down by more effective means.
That the small man was so beaten down and
disregarded cannot be denied. " A landlord pro-
posing to make an enclosure," says Dr. Hasbach,
" wordd, in the first place, buy up as much land
as possible in those parishes which were possessed
of common pastures, and get all the manors,
supposing more than one was concerned, into
his own hands. Next he would have a Bill
drafted, of course providing for his own interests,
and nominate surveyors and commissioners. So
far he would proceed quietly. After that, such
landowners as were by reason of class or sex more
or less ignorant people would be prevailed on to
put their names to a petition in favour of the BUI,
the hearts of the more obdurate being softened
by a good dinner, with significant threats to
follow if that failed. Then a circular would
inform the remaining persons concerned that the

22 THE FARM LABOURER

more important owners of property had agreed
to join the great man in laying a Petition before
Parliament. Here again the pill would be sugared
to begin with, but in the last resort the landlord
threatened the refractory with all the evils in his
power ' as a magistrate, as a lord of the manor,
as an appropriator of tythes.' Few would have
the courage to stand in opposition, and to claim
that the majority, though their names might be
subscribed to the petition, were, in fact, against
the proposal. Even if some one were found with
the requisite spirit, how were the very considerable
expenses of the Bill to be provided ? And the
whole matter was regarded as one of private
concern only. No member of Parliament not
directly interested would take any notice of the
Bill in its passage through the Houses. The
Crown, now become the servant of the governing
classes, had no longer even the wish to interfere.
So the Commissioners of Enclosure would get to
work, and their decision would be practically
final. If appeal were made to Quarter Sessions,
the prime mover, against whom the appeal was
directed, would be on the bench, and even if he
did not vote on this particular question the
complainant's chance of an impartial decision
would be remote. The Commissioners were, as a
rule, attorneys, nominated by the man or men

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 23

most interested in the measure. They had to
take an oath, but it was too general in its terms
to withhold them from prejudicing the weaker
parties in face of the interests they had in obliging
their patron. The appointment was a profitable
one, and if they gave satisfaction they might
hope to be recommended for similar employment
in the future. And the Bill would go through
its stages practically unregarded." ^

Yet another German writer on English agricul-
ture states : " There was an actual persecution
of small owners, whose land was often practi-
cally stolen from them. The Commissioners of
Enclosure well understood how to manage matters
in the interests of the great landlords so, for
instance, that the land allotted to the small
proprietors should lie as far as possible from
their houses and farm buildings. The consequent
increased expenses of cultivation did away with
their small margin of profit. The little yeomen
knew very well what enclosure meant to them.
But all their efforts to oppose it were frustrated
by the power of the great landlord or the large
farmers, who only saw in the abolition of the small
proprietors an opportunity for increasing the
land in their own hands." ^

• Hasbach, " English Agricultural Labourer," p. 6i.
'' Levy, " Large and Small Holdings," p. 27.

24 THE FARM LABOURER

Few indeed would be able to preserve their
interests against this combination of forces.
" Coaxing, bribing, threatening, together with
many other arts, which superiors make use of,"
says a contemporary writer, " will very often
induce the inferiors to consent to things which
they are convinced will be to their future disad-
vantage." ^ In the district known as the Isle of
Axholme, near Doncaster, the small men were
numerous enough and sturdy enough to withstand
both bribes and threats. An attempt to enclose
was made by " educated and influential people "
in 1795, but the cottagers opposed it so success-
fully that the " strip " lands of the open fields were
untouched, and only waste lands were enclosed
which it was to the advantage of the whole
community to have drained.^ The Annual
Register of 1767 testifies to like sturdiness in a
Middlesex parish, the small farmers of which
came up to London and withstood a Bill for
enclosing the common, " which, if carried into
execution, might have been the ruin of a great
number of families."^ But as a rule opposition
was broken down in the early stages of the Bill and
none was offered to its passage through the House.

' " A Political Enquiry into the Consequences of Enclosing
Waste Lands," 1785, p. 108.
^ Slater, " Enclosure of Common Fields," p. 57.
' Hammond, " Village Labourer," p. 55.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 25

The effects of enclosure, good and bad alike,
were instantaneous. The landlords and the large
farmers rolled money into their pockets and corn
into their granaries ; the small holders were
degraded to the status of labourers, and the
labourer's status now was but little removed from
that of the pauper. Contemporary writers in the
later eighteenth century, and the General Report
on Enclosures in 1808, bear evidence to the
degradation of the less substantial classes of the
agricultural community, evidence which is the
more impressive because in many cases the writers
gave it despite their bias in favour of the new
methods of farming.

An enclosure might in more than one way deal
a heavy blow at the small men of the village.
First, the expenses of the Bill itself, and the
subsequent charges of the Commissioners for their
work of division, were heavy. Secondly, the
cost of fencing was considerable. Both lawyers'
charges and the fencing expenses fell upon all
who established their rights to any plot, however
small, or to any right of pasturage, within the
area enclosed ; and in many cases a man's share
exceeded the value of the plot assigned to him,
and he was obliged to sell, sometimes even before
he had taken possession. The General Report
on Enclosures admits that " in many cases the

26 THE FARM LABOURER

poor had unquestionably been injured . . . the
cottagers could not pay the expenses of the
measure, and were forced to sell their allotments."
Even the better off among the small men suffered
in this way. " When their fields are enclosed,
not a few of these small proprietors are obliged
to sell their land, because they have no money to
enclose it." ^ Arthur Young, who was an ardent
supporter of enclosures, gives evidence to the
same effect.^ Even of those who for the moment
survived these expenses, many did so only by
borrowing money or mortgaging, and in the bad
times for small holders could not, thus crippled,
carry on the struggle for any length of time.
They, too, were forced to sell.^

In the third place, enclosure injured the small
holders and landed cottagers quite apart from
the expenses in which it involved them. In
exchange for their rights of tillage strips on the
arable fields and of pasturage on the meadow and
stubble land, they received a few poles of land,
an acre, or two or three acres, according as they
were smaller or less small men, over which they
now had complete proprietorship. But even
where the awards were not definitely unjust, such

' Report, 1808, pp. 12 f.

2 Young, " Annals of Agriculture," XXXVI. 566.

* Levy, op. cit., p. 26.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 27

allotments were not an equivalent to their old
rights. The privilege of keeping two cows and
three sheep on common land was not compensated
by the sole possession of one acre which would
not support them.^ The General Report admitted
the hardship involved in the exchange of wide
general rights for sole proprietorship over a
narrow area. " Many, indeed most, who have
allotments have not more than one acre, which,
being insufficient for the man's cow, both cow and
land are usually sold to the opulent farmers."

Fourthly, the enclosure of the common wastes
cut at the root of village prosperity. The entire
class of small agriculturists was injured ; the
peasant proprietor or small yeoman who had
possessed rights in the common fields, the tenant
cottager whose cottage gave him rights on the
common, and the squatter who assumed such
rights, had all alike depended largely on their live-
stock as a source of income and of home supply.
Pasturage and cow-run were now lost to them;
so, too, was their right to cut firing. The im-
possibility of carrying on their stock-farming in
the face of this loss of pasturage drove many of the
medium-sized men out of the ranks of farmers.
The small tenant farmer sold his stock and gave
up his farm ; yeomen, who before the enclosures

» Young, op. cit., XXXVI. 513.

28 THE FARM LABOURER

had been in a fairly substantial position, sold their
holdings. For those who could raise sufficient
money, trade or emigration offered new openings.
" Many of the small farmers who have been
deprived of their livelihood have sold their stock
in trade and have raised from ^^50 to £100, with
which they have procured themselves, their
families, and money, a passage to America."
Some of those who could not raise sufficient money
" actually sold themselves for three years to supply
that deficiency." ^ Others who had been indepen-
dent men, though in a smaller way of life, now
were reduced to the level of day labourers.
" Thousands of families," says Da vies, " which
formerly gained an independent livelihood on
those separate farms, have been gradually reduced
to the class of day labourers."** One writer
estimates the number of farmers or small holders
so reduced at 250,000, a figure which " though not
statistically accurate, shows the impression made
upon a capable judge." ^

If the men who had been more or less indepen-
dent thus suffered, it is not to be wondered at if
the circumstances of their inferiors were corre-
spondingly reduced. Davies declared that " an

' " Cursory Remarks on Inclosure by a Country Farmer," 1786,

P- 5-

' Davies, " The Case of Labourers in Husbandry," 1795, p. 55.
' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 108, n. 2.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 29

amazing number of people have been reduced from
a comfortable state of independence to the
precarious condition of mere hirelings, who when
out of work immediately came on the parish."
There was a general complaint of the increase of
pauperism. Lord Winchelsea wrote in 1746 :
" Whoever travels through the midland counties,
and will take the trouble of inquiring, will generally
receive for answer, that formerly there were a
great many cottagers who kept cows, but the land
is now thrown to the farmers ; and if he inquires
still further, he will find that in those parishes the
poor rates have increased in an amazing degree
more than according to the average rise throughout
England." ^ The squatters in many cases were
not only injured, but ruined by the enclosures,
and had little choice but to come on the parish.
Those who could not prove their claim to be left
undisturbed were evicted and their cottages were
pulled down, and the land they had cleared was
included in the area to be divided. The greater
number of them were thus driven off the commons.^
The eviction of the squatter from his dwelling
must have made housing something of a problem
in the enclosed districts. The housing of the
agricultural labourers as a whole was in fact

' Young, " Annals of Agriculture," XXVI. 243.
' Hasbach, op. cit., p. no.

30 THE FARM LABOURER

deteriorating at this date, not so much in the
quality of the buildings, for squatter dwellings
and those of peasant proprietors were often ill-
built, but in accommodation. Greed for land and
eagerness to consolidate on the part of the ruling
classes led to the repeal, in 1775, of the Eliza-
bethan Act, requiring a cottage to be provided
with four acres of land. This opened the door to
overcrowding, while the engrossing of small tenant
farms into large, and the sales of small holdings
brought about by the expenses of enclosure, led
to the destruction of many cottage homes. The
policy now adopted was to crowd two or more
famiHes together in the old farm houses or better
cottages, the gardens of which were often absorbed
by the large farms. The ample space for out-
buildings and rubbish heaps around his dwelling,
and the comparative roominess within which had
compensated the peasant for poor construction
and even poorer sanitation, were now too often
lost to him.

Although enclosures did not take place in every
part of the country at the same date, wherever a
parish was enclosed the effects were immediate,
and only thirty years after the acceleration in
the movement set in, the impoverishment and
wretchedness of the rural labouring classes was
sufficiently marked and general as to excite the

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 31

attention of writers, philanthropists and poU-
ticians.

(&) The Industrial Revolution.

Unfortunately for the labourer at the very
time he was passing through his agricultural
crisis, the industrial revolution was depriving
him of the support he had hitherto drawn from
local industries. The development of machinery
drew manufactures away from the country towns,
and concentrated them around water power and
in the coal and iron area of the North. Thus
the labourer lost his local centres of industry.
And stiU worse, hand-work now had to compete
against machine-work. Consequently, earnings
for home-work fell to the level of factory rates,
and industry ceased to be a substantial source of
income for the peasant. Eden gives an interesting
description of the change that took place in the
Wiltshire villages. " Unfortunately, since the
introduction of machinery, which lately took place,
hand-spinning has fallen into disuse, and for these
two reasons ; the clothier no longer depends on
the poor for the yam which they formerly spun
for him at their own homes, as he finds that
50 persons, (to speak within comparison), with
the help of machines, wUl do as much work as
500 without them ; and the poor, from the great

32 THE FARM LABOURER

reduction in the price of spinning, scarcely have
the heart to earn the Uttle that is obtained by it.
For what they used to receive is. and is. 2d. the
pound for spinning before the appUcation of
machinery, they now are allowed only ^d., so
that a woman in a g6od state of health, and not
encumbered with a family can only earn 2s. 6d.
a week, which is at the rate of one pound of
spinning-work the day, and is the utmost that
can be done : but if she has a family, she cannot
earn more than 2d. a day or Is. a week, or spin
more than two pounds and a half a week : the
consequence is that their maintenance must
chiefly depend on the exertions of the man, (whose
wages have not increased in proportion to this
defalcation from the woman's earnings)."^ The
introduction of machinery into other trades
brought about similar results in the other cottage
industries. Where wife and children still engaged
in home crafts it was at sweated rates, in
competition with machinery, to eke out the
husband's wage, upon which, as Eden says, the
labourer and his family now must depend.

(c) Inadequacy of Wages.

In itself the labourer's dependence on wages,
or, in other words, the loss of opportunities of

' Eden, " State of the Poor," III. 796.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 33

working and earning as his own master, was a
change for the worse. But his troubles were
aggravated. The fact that he had formerly
possessed a choice of occupations affected him
injuriously now. The agricultural wages system
had been constructed to suit an age in which the
labourer divided his time between various employ-
ments. With some exceptions, engagements were
for short terms, daily hirings for a daily wage being
most general. This had been to the interest both
of farmer and labourer, for the one could offer
employment and the other accept it, just as it
suited them. But when the labourer became
dependent upon wages, the advantages of the
system were no longer equal. The peasant
suffered from a system which left him unemployed
and wageless on wet days or in seasonal slackness.
Labourers hired for the year or half-year and
regular farm servants escaped this evil, but the
long hirings were usual only in certain districts
in the North, and the custom of taking indoor
servants, which had been universal, was rapidly
dying out. Even the chief servants on the farm
were now in increasing numbers engaged for short
terms. This short hire system in itself would
not have been injurious if wages had risen suffi-
ciently to allow of saving against unemployment,
which now could not be tided over by private

F.L. D

34 THE FARM LABOURER

work. A slight rise there was, but not enough
to meet all the new demands which now were made
upon wages. Whereas the rate of daily wages had
been about lod. to is. up to 1767, it was only about
IS. to i/[d. from 1767 to 1792.^ This can be fairly
taken as an estimate of the general movement.^

This was not a rise sufficient to compensate the
labourer in full employment for the loss of his
former home supply of a large portion of his food.
It certainly could not cover periodical unemploy-
ment. Lack of work, even for a few days, through
illness or bad weather, must have meant a serious

' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 120.

' Young's tours, the Agricultural Surveys, and the writings of
Eden, Davies and other contemporary investigators, give a large
amount of information as to wages. A detailed comparison and
consideration of wages is, however, outside the scope of the
present work, for the information is almost sufficient to form a
book of itself, and to deal briefly with the figures opens the way to
misconception. For rates of wages in themselves afford only a
rough indication of comparative wages. Rates vary according to
seasons and to grades of labour, but there is often no indication
in the eighteenth- century figures upon what data they are based.
Moreover, the value of allowances given in kind, the steadiness of
emplo5rment, and the prices of provisions, vary in different dis-
tricts, and at different dates, and these must all be considered in
any estimate of real wages. Following Arthur Young, and bear-
ing in mind the figures of other writers. Dr. Hasbach concludes
that the " average wage between 1767 and 1770, leaving out of
account the neighbourhood of London and the extreme east and
west of the country, was about fourteen pence a day. In the
neighbourhood of the capital it was sometimes considerably
higher ; and in the more distant parts of the country it fell to one
shilling and even less. Further, Young seems to be right when he
says in another place that there was no change in the price of
agricultural labour between 1767 and 1793 " (ib., p. 119).

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 35

depression in the standard of living, while a more
prolonged period of unemployment involved
recourse to the poor rates.^ The advocates of
enclosure had prophesied that the labourer would
be better off, he would work less hard, for better
wages, and have more employment.^ The pro-
phecy was not fulfilled. The better farming
which followed the engrossing of farms and
enclosure of wastes encourages the supposition
that more labour would be employed. But,
actually, farming on a large scale, just as businesses
on a large scale, allowed of economy in labour.'
The amount of unemployment, especially winter
unemployment, increased.* As early as 1788 a
Bill was proposed for the relief of agricultural
labourers in the winter. This, and the high poor
rates throughout the country, bear witness to the
gravity of the problem. Wages, then, were not
sufficient to cover periodical unemployment. And
they were now required to do more than this.
The labourer had to face a serious rise in prices.
They rose gradually from about 1760, but from

' Davies, " Case of the Labourers," p. 55.

' Arbuthnot, " An Enquiry into the Connection between the
Present Price of Provisions and the Size of Farms," 1772, p. 128.

3 This is urged in a pamphlet of 1772 on "Advantages and
Disadvantages of Enclosure," and in a tract of 1786, " Thoughts
on Enclosures by a Country Farmer. " See also Slater, ' ' Enclosure
of Common Fields," pp. 97 — 100.

* Hasbach, op. cit., p. 135, deals with some of the minor causes
which differed in different districts.

D 2

36 THE FARM LABOURER

1793 the rate of increase became rapid. Com
rose in the nineties from an average of 45s. 7^.
the quarter to an average of 55s. iid. The rise
continued in the early nineteenth century, and
from 1805 to 1812 it was never less than 73s.,
and in some years it rose to over loos.^ The
enormous growth of the population combined
with a period of war, heavy indirect taxes,^ and
inadequate imports to drive up prices of pro-
visions generally. Wages perforce rose, but not
proportionately. While the prices of provisions
rose between 1760 and 1805 " by from 50 to 100
per cent., and in the more distant parts of the
country even by several hundreds per cent.,"
wages in the same period rose only 60 per cent.^

Taking England as a whole, the labourer had to
purchase provisions the price of which had trebled
out of wages which had only doubled. A more
adequate rise was prevented by that sufficiency,
and more than sufficiency, of workmen, due in part
to economy of labour on the large farms, and
partly to the influx into the wage-earning class of

* Levy, op. cit., p. lo.

^ Howlett, writing in 1783, puts the increased cost of articles
affected by indirect taxes, soap, salt, leather, candles, spirits, at
one-fifth their former price. {" The insufficiency of the causes to
which the increase of our poor and of the poor's rates have been
commonly ascribed," p. 53.) See also Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 117

—131-
' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 175.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 37

small farmers and small holders who had been
ruined by the enclosures. Contemporary writers
are unanimous as to the inequality in the rise of
wages and of prices, and are agreed as to the
hardship inflicted thereby on the labouring classes.
They recognised that the shortage had to be met
by a reduction in the standard of living. This was
inevitable when not only goods which had always
been bought became more expensive, but when
enclosures forced the labourer to buy also the
bulk of his food at the new enhanced prices. It is
in this period that the standard diet of the labourer
became bread, cheese, tea and kettlebroth. It is
now, too, that the costliness of firing brought about
dependence on the bake-house oven, and a decline
in household craft. And now also begins that
dependence for supplies on the village shopkeeper
which increased the difficulty of stretching wages
to meet prices. Hitherto, the peasant had pur-
chased much of what he could not supply himself
at cost price or a low price from the local farmers.
But at this date farmers were adopting wholesale
methods of disposing of their produce. Davies,
writing in 1795, describes the disadvantages in
which the new wholesale system involved the
labourer,^ and similar evidence comes from other
quarters. Kent, in discussing this point in 1775,

• " Case of the Labourer," pp. 34 f.

38 THE FARM LABOURER

said : " Formerly they could buy milk, butter,
and many other small articles in every parish, in
whatever quantity they wanted. But since small
farms have decreased in number, no such articles
are to be had : for the great farmers have no idea
of retailing such small commodities, and those who
do retail them carry them all to towns. A farmer
is even unwilling to sell the labourer who works
for him a bushel of wheat which he might get
ground for three or four pence a bushel. For
want of this advantage, he has to go to the meal-
man, or baker, who, in the ordinary course of their
profit, get at least lo per cent, of them on this
principal article of their consumption."^ Milk
was unprocurable : the cottagers had lost their
cows, and the farmers, who had contracts with
middlemen and retailers in the towns, would not
sell it. Meat was too expensive for the general
run of labourers, and pigs were no longer generally
kept : the cottagers had not sufficient garden
room, and could not procure the bran and other
feeding stuffs upon which to fatten them. Eden
says that meat once a week was considered a sign
of unusual comfort. This fall in the stand'ard of
living was common to the country as a whole

' " Hints to Gentlemen of Landed Property." The question of
food supplies and prices is dealt with by Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 120
— 131, with full references to contemporary authorities, which
cannot be given here.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 39

south of the coal fields, though there were excep-
tions. In Kent, for instance, many cottagers had
good gardens and some kept cows.^ In other
districts where, as at Soham, the commons had
been preserved, the labourers were better off. In
the North the standard of Uving was kept up by
the competition of factories and mines for labour.
Payment in kind continued to be usual, and cow-
runs were common, so that the North Country
labourer was not greatly affected by the rise in
prices, and was preserved from physical and moral
deterioration due to bad food. The reports of
the middle of the nineteenth century speak of him
as though he was of a different breed from the
labourer in the South, whereas in the eighteenth
century, before the inequality in conditions of
life and labour had worked their effect, there
was no such adulation of the North countryman.^
Marshall, a Yorkshireman, had praised the Norfolk
labourer of the seventies, hereafter to be amongst
the most depressed and degraded, as the best of
their class.^

(4) The New Labourer.
The land problem, the wages problem, and the
housing problem were now in being. The rural

' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 147, quoting Boys' " Agriculture of
Kent," 1813, Board of Agriculture Survey.
^ Hasbach, op. cit., p. 145.
» " Rural Economy of Norfolk," 1787, I, 41.

40 THE FARM LABOURER

exodus had begun, though as yet in a very slight
way, as a result of the loss of prospects and hope
in agricultural work. And the moral degradation
of the labourer, consequent upon the change in
his conditions, was already affecting the farmer
and causing concern amongst social observers.

The new class of farmers had desired to have at
their command labour which was wholly depen-
dent on wages, and available, therefore, in greater
or less supplies whenever required. Lord Win-
chelsea observed that the generality of farmers
had a dislike to seeing labourers rent any land, in
part because they desired the land for themselves,
and partly because " they rather wish to have the
labourers more dependent upon them ; for which
reasons they are always desirous of hiring the. land
and house occupied by a labourer, under pretence
that by that means the landlord will be secure of
his rent, and that they will keep the house in
repair." ^ Marshall, in 1810, wrote of the farmers,

' Letter in Young's " Annals of Agriculture," XXVI. 242.
See also Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 69, 100, 132, 136 ; and Levy,
" Large and Small Holdings," p. 36 : " The reasons why the large
farmers and their friendly landlords objected to labourers holding
any land are not difi&cult to discover. The old-fashioned small
farmers had found it convenient to have the labour of the cotters
at their disposal during harvest and on other like occasions, as by
this arrangement they were free from any necessity of keeping
labourers all the year through. The large farmer's interest was to
the exact contrary. He was simply the manager of the farm, and
he needed a supply of labour permanently at his disposal. He
needed besides labourers who would not be hampered in their

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 41

" they, like manufacturers, require constant
labourers, men who have no other means of
support than their daily labour, men whom they
can depend upon."

The combination of agricultural or industrial
changes had certainly now created an agricultural
class which had no other means of self-support
than wages. The value of the change, however,
was not so great as the farmer had expected. For
the quaHty of labour was reduced. The incidental
results of enclosure were, as we have seen, the
labourer's loss of prospects, overcrowding, and a
deterioration in the quahty and abundance of his
food. Only in the North, where wages, whether
in money or kind, were sufficiently high to make
good feeding, thrift, and a future possible, did
labour maintain its character. It is difficult to
gauge the physical deterioration elsewhere, but
the moral degradation was both great and im-
mediate. Complaints were universal of the vice,
idleness, drunkenness and thriftlessness of the
labouring class. Some observers saw no further
than this : all blame rested with the poor them-
selves; let there be moral regeneration amongst
them, and they would once more be happy and

work for Mm by consideration of the needs of their own holdings,
and he wanted his men to be as dependent as possible upon their
employer, and consequently to depend for their UveUhood on
their wages."

42 THE FARM LABOURER

prosperous. Others saw further. Amongst them
was Arthur Young, who had been a champion of
enclosure, but now was quite open as to the evils
it had brought upon the labouring class. He and
others realised that the radical cause of the
peasant's degradation lay in his material condi-
tions. " Whatever their vice and immorality,"
wrote Howlett as early as 1787, " I must again
maintain it has not originally been the cause of
their extreme indigence, but the consequence, and
therefore should only be an additional motive to
an eager concurrence in any wise and judicious
plan for bettering and improving their condition.
This accomplished, everything else will follow." ^
The labourer's degradation was, in fact, inevitable.
Driven to depend on a wage which could not
support him when in health and work, it was
impossible for him to save against sickness and old
age, and he lost all sense of moral obligation to do
so. His independence and self-esteem were broken
by unavoidable appeals to the parish ; poor feed-
ing, which undermined his physique, led him to
rejoice when he could scamp his work. Deprived
of all means of rising in life, he lost the
ambition to rise. There were only the ale-houses
to dispel the grejmess of life, to soothe the cravings
of his underfed body, and to blot out the sight of

* Cf. Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 147 — 170.

THE CREATION OF THE PROBLEMS 43

the workhouse whither he was tending. " Go,"
wrote the champion of enclosure in a well-known
passage in the " Annals of Agriculture," "Go to
an ale-house kitchen of an old enclosed country,
and there you will see the origin of poverty and
the poor rates. For whom are they to be sober ?
For whom are they to save ? (Such are their
questions.) For the parish ? If I am diligent,
shall I have leave to build a cottage ? If I am
sober, shall I have land for a cow ? If I am frugal,
shall I have half an acre of potatoes ? You offer
no motives ; you have nothing but a parish officer
and a workhouse. Bring me another pot." ^

1 " Annals of Agriculture," XXXVI. 508.

CHAPTER II

ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY

The problems of agricultural labour were now
in being, and were firmly established in the very
bedrock of rural and agricultural economy. From
this time onwards, the history of the labourer is
little more than an account of the efforts made to
undo evUs created in the eighteenth century
and aggravated subsequently by many of those
efforts themselves.

So rapid and so general was the decline in the
labourer's prosperity, that he himself as well as
the ruling classes were forced to seek for remedies,
even before the agricultural and industrial changes
of the eighteenth century were completed.

(i) The Labourer's Remedies. Migration.

The labourer's contributions to the solution of
his problem at this time were drunkenness and
migration. So far as immediate results were con-
cerned, it is doubtful whether drink were not the
better solution of the two : there was at least
oblivion and some measure of happiness in the pot,

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 45

whereas migration at this date appears to have
been too sUght to effect much improvement in the
condition of those who remained on the land.
Still, this early migration marks the beginning of
an important policy and deserves consideration.

It would appear that the fall of the standard in
comfort and the loss of hopes and possibilities of
rising in life had the immediate effect of driving
the labourer from the land. At any rate, the
labourer's loss of his cow and common rights
coincides with a considerable rural migration.
It is, however, difficult to estimate the exact part
played by dissatisfaction with the new conditions,
for then, as now, the causes of the rural exodus were
mixed. Certainly discontent was one factor, but
not the only one. To a certain extent migration
was forced upon the rural population. Many
small farmers, as we know, were driven off the land
by enclosures, and betook themselves to the towns
or to America. Labourers, too, were driven away,
whether they would or no. In spite of the better
farming on large farms, less labour was required
for the cultivation of the land after engrossing
than had profitably been put into it before. The
large farms allowed of economy of labour through
better organisation, and though more corn was
grown, much of the land was still kept in pasture,

*

and remained in pasture until the much higher

46 THE FARM LABOURER

prices of the war period set in, so that from 1760
to 1790 or later, the possible economy in labour
was not neutraUsed by a greater demand for work
upon the corn land. That there was not employ-
ment enough at sufficient wages to support a rural
population bereft of its former independent em-
ployments is clear from the complaints of winter
slackness and the rise in poor rates. Deficiency in
house accommodation was added to lack of em-
ployment to compel migration. The large farmer,
who threw perhaps half a dozen farms together,
pulled down many of the cottages, or allowed them
to fall into ruin, maintaining only sufficient house
room for his own labourers, whom he frequently
crowded into the old farm houses. Such a policy
enabled him to throw the land attached to cottages
into his farm, reduced the expenses of repairs, and
saved him in poor rates. The rise in poor rates,
consequent upon the loss of the labourer's stock
and common rights, played a very important part
in the new deficiency of housing. So heavy were
they, that the opportunity of saving expense in
rates by decreasing the number of possible paupers
was a real inducement upon landlords to pull down
or shut up cottages.^ The first result was over-
crowding, a striking example of which is given
in the " Annals of Agriculture," where forty-five

' Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 112, n., 129.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 47

persons are spoken of as having been crowded into
three small farm houses which formerly had been
occupied by fifteen.^ The second result was
migration, owing, of course, partly to discomfort,
but also in part to the needs of young people who
upon marriage could find no dwelling locally.

On the other hand, it has to be remembered that
a part at any rate of the rural migration may have
been purely voluntary. The first half of the
eighteenth century saw a great expansion in trade
and commerce, so that even before the industrial
revolution set in, manufactures were offering
increasingly good employment. The numerous
manufacturing centres to be found throughout
the length and breadth of England in the little
country towns made it comparatively easy for the
enterprising of the agricultural classes to transfer
themselves to industrial work ; they could more
easUy acquire knowledge as to its conditions and
the available openings now than they could when
manufactures were localised mainly in the great
industrial areas of the North, and the migration
in itself was not so great an undertaking. More-
over, the eighteenth century saw an improvement
in the means of transport. By this date, too, the
Ehzabethan law making a seven years' apprentice-
ship compulsory upon all who engaged in a trade

» " Annals of Agriculture," XXXVI. 115.

48 THE FARM LABOURER

or handicraft was not strictly observed, and in
the more rural districts was probably no great
deterrent to the influx of adults into industrial
occupations.^ That there was some immigration
of labour from the country to the towns at this
time is clear from the complaints of the legally
apprenticed craftsmen, who considered that com-
petition of the newcomers was injurious to them-
selves.^ But it is not possible to estimate the
extent to which it occurred, nor how far the
labourer was attracted to the towns by the
increasing lucrativeness of trade, or was being
driven into industrial work by the wretched-
ness of his agricultural life. All that can be
said is that it is unfair to assume that every
desertion of the field for the workshop was due to
bad conditions in the former. There were other
motives for the change.

Migration may, too, have been willingly entered
upon owing to a preference for town rather than
country life. Arthur Young attacked the increas-
ing migration as being due to mere pleasure-
loving. " Young men and women in the country
fix their eye on London, as the last stage of their
hope ; they enter into service in the country for
little else but to raise money enough to go to

' Dunlop, " English Apprenticeship," pp. 223 f.
" lb., pp. 233 f.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 49

London, which was no such easy matter, when a
stage coach was four or five days creeping an
hundred mUes ; the fare and the expenses ran
high. But now ! a country fellow, one hundred
miles from London, jumps on to a coachbox in
the morning and for eight or ten shilUngs gets to
town by night ; which makes a material difference,
besides rendering the going up and down so easy
that the numbers who have seen London are
increased tenfold, and, of course, ten times the
boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools,
to induce them to quit their healthy, clean fields for
a region of dirt, stink and noise." ^ No doubt
mere idle ambition and a love of excitement
played its part in this movement of the young
people to the towns, but this eagerness for the
new life reveals the unsatisfactoriness of the old.
As to the number who for one reason or other
now left the countryside, we have unfortunately
no trustworthy figures. In a pamphlet of 1786
it is said that of several hundred villages which
forty years before contained between four and
five hundred inhabitants, very few now had half
that number.^ The instance is given of a typical
parish with eighty-two houses, twenty of which

' Young, " Farmers' Letters," pp. 353 f. See also Levy, op.
cit., pp. 37, 38, and notes.

" " Cursory Remarks on Enclosures by a Country Farmer,"
1786.

F.L. E

50 THE FARM LABOURER

were small farms, and forty-two were cottages.
The twenty farms were now consolidated, into
four ; sixty cottages had been pulled down or
allowed to fall into ruins ; and the work of the
whole area, hitherto performed by eighty-two
persons and their families, was now said to be
done by four herds and eight maidservants.^
It is possible that there is some exaggeration in
these figures. Another writer, in 1776,^ speaks
of the thousands that were emigrating yearly.
Yet another observer, writing in 1772, declares
that " In the counties of Leicester and Northamp-
ton, where inclosing has lately prevailed, the
decrease of inhabitants in almost all the inclosed
villages . . . cannot but give every true friend of
the country a most sensible concern. The ruins of
former dwelling-houses, barns, stables, etc., show
everyone who passes through them that they were
once much more extensive and better inhabited." '
These and similar observations by contemporary
writers are too vague to allow of any estimate of
the numbers of migrants, but the movement
evidently had obtained considerable dimensions,
and this even in the seventies, only ten years
after the acceleration in enclosure had set in.

' See Slater, op. cit., p. loo.
" Peters, " Agriculture," 1776, p. 171.

' Addington, " An Enquiry into the Reasons for and against
Inclosing Common Fields," 1772, p. 43.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 51

The rate of migration appears to have been
maintained even after 1793, when the vast exten-
sion of arable farming led to an increased demand
for labour. At any rate it could be said at the
turn of the century, " the agricultural system has
depopulated, and is depopulating the shires
wherein it prevails." ^ The truth is that the rise
in wages, which did at last take place in the
nineties, was not commensurate with the rise in
prices, and still less, therefore, was it sufficient
to make up the shortage in the labourer's budget
caused by the loss of common lands. Conse-
quently, industrial work, although its wage was
not so high relatively to agricultural wages as it
had been,^ continued to draw the peasant from
the land. The substitution of the shuttle for the
spade was said to have led to an actual scarcity
of labour in the North.* The development of the
new industrial centres in the coal and iron area,
of course, gave pecuUar facilities for migration to

' Chalmers, " An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of
Great Britain," 1802, p. 318.

' See Hasbach, op. cit., p. 137. At the end of the seventeenth
century the pay of the industrial worker was supposed to be twice
as much as that of the agricultural labourer ; at the close of the
eighteenth, industrial wages were still ahead of agriculture, but
not by so much. Dr. Hasbach attributes this to the influx of
labourers from the country, and the competition of child labour
on the new machines, both of which tended to keep wages down.

» Marshall, " Review of the Reports to the Board of Agriculture
from the Northern Department of England," 1808, p. 257.

E 2

52 THE FARM LABOURER

the surrounding rural districts. But migration
everywhere was favoured by a cessation in the
efforts of boroughs and the old handicraft com-
panies to enforce their monopolies/ and by the
relaxation in 1795 of the law of settlement. The
Settlement Act had probably not been very greatly
observed for some years past ; certainly it was
not strictly enforced. Still, a potential barrier
against migration was demolished by the new
policy which allowed the poor man to travel
without a certificate and delayed the removal of
strangers to their own parishes until they were
actually on the rates. Enlistment during the war
aided in the depopulation of the countryside, for
recruiting for the army and navy was enormous
during the twenty years of the struggle.

Yet when all is said and done, the results
achieved by the rural migration were not great
from the labourer's point of view. In the North
it was sufficiently extensive to compel the main-
tenance of good conditions of employment, but
in the country as a whole the supply of labour
was still large enough to meet the requirements
of the new farming, and the rise in wages was
too small to effect any real improvement in the
labourer's condition. Individuals may have bene-
fited by their change in occupation, but those

' Dunlop, op. cit., p. 238.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 53

who were left behind were Httle affected, and
helped to negative such improvement as the
exodus brought about by rearing large families
with the recklessness ever bred of wretched
conditions. It is not in its results, but in certain
attendant circumstances, that the interest of the
eighteenth-century migration lies. Immediately
upon the deterioration in the conditions of
agricultural life, the labourer began to forsake
the countryside ; he preferred industrial work,
despite its laboriousness and accompanying " dirt,
stink and noise," to labour without prospects
in clean fields. At once, too, we find that an
exodus, for which agricultural conditions were
at any rate largely to blame, is charged to the
account of the pleasure - loving, idle-minded,
younger generation. Lastly, the peculiar difficulty
in the agricultural world of effecting improvements
in conditions of labour by a shortage in its supply
at once appears. The farmer is a manufacturer
who perhaps more than any other can change his
line of business, and we find the Northern farmers,
threatened by a scarcity of labour, escaping from
the perils of higher wages by acting as graziers
instead of corn producers.^

' Marshall, " Review of the Reports to the Board of Agriculture
from the Northern Department of England," 1808, p. 257 ;
Hasbach, op. cit., p. 135, n.

54 THE FARM LABOURER

(2) Public Effort.
(a) Diet ; Benefit Societies ; Allotments ; Poor Law.

Meanwhile, the upper classes had been awakened
to the dangers of wretchedness and discontent in
the masses, and were discussing the remedies
which could be applied. From 1787 onwards,
various schemes were suggested. It is interesting
to find amongst them, even though it came to
nothing, a scheme for compulsory insurance.
According to this scheme, which was devised by
Haweis, a clergyman, friendly societies were to
be estabUshed throughout the country, and every
man or woman who laboured for hire and earned
three shillings or more a week was to contribute
each week from a twenty-fourth to a twenty-sixth
of their earnings. Every occupier of lands and
tenements was to pay in place of poor rates one-
twentieth of the rent of such lands or tenements
into the insurance fund.^

A more popular subject of discussion was reform
in the labourer's diet. His condition would be
vastly improved, so it was said, if he would
abandon his extravagant habit of eating wheaten
bread ; potatoes he could use more largely if he
were not too stubborn ; while milk would form no
bad substitute for other animal foods, if only he

> Eden, " State of the Poor," I. 398.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 55

could be prevailed upon to drink it instead of
the tea which obviously must have a bad effect
upon his physique. As Davies pointed out, the
labourers would be ready enough to drink milk
if they could get it, but it was not to be obtained ;
they would gladly grow potatoes if they had the
land ; while wheaten bread was the only substitute
they had for their former staple foods.^ But his
common-sense arguments were not accepted as
final, and the discussion continued.^ The same
idea that the labourer could effect his own salvation
led to the promotion of benefit societies and
savings banks. But the labourer had too little
to save for the banks to be of any use to him,^
while the benefit societies were for the most part
so ill-managed and unsound that they were a
curse rather than a blessing.

The movement to supply allotments showed a
greater understanding of the labourer's case.
This early movement, though it attained no great
results, is important as laying the foundation of
a policy which was to play a big part in the future.

' " Case of the Labourer," pp. 31 f.

2 Hammond, J. L. and B., "Village Labourer," pp. 123 f., on
contemporary opinion on diet.

3 " Report on Labourers' Wages," 1824, p. 40 : " There are
scarcely any agricultural labourers who deposit in the savings
banks ; deposits seem to be confined, in general, to domestic
servants, to journeymen and to Uttle annuitants." Hasbach,
op. cit., p. 171 : " The savings banks were too thinly scattered
over the country to be of much service to the labourer."

56 THE FARM LABOURER

Kent, in 1775, had urged upon landlords the
importance of suppl57ing cottages with half an
acre of garden land, and of allowing " a small
portion of pasture land, of about three acres " to
the better-class labourers, " to enable them to
support a cow." ^ His suggestion was taken up
by Davies in 1795, and by Lord Winchilsea in
1796, whose scheme appeared in the " Annals of
Agriculture." ^ That same year saw the founda-
tion by Wilberforce and Thomas Barnard of the
Society for Bettering the Conditions and Increas-
ing the Comforts of the Poor, which included in
its policy the increase of allotments. The
combined efforts of the Society and of Young,
Davies and others who had made the labourer's
condition their concern, had some effect in
inducing landlords to institute allotments upon
their estates. Lord Winchelsea himself, of course,
was one, and Lord Carrington and others philan-
thropically minded adopted the suggestion. They
were rewarded with at least some measure of
success. The " General Report on Enclosures "
of 1808 bears witness to the superior condition
of cottagers in parishes where, upon enclosure,
cow plots had been reserved for them,^ while in
villages where the allotment system was adopted

' " Hints to Gentlemen," p. 231,

2 XXVI. 235 f.

° " General Report," p. 156.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 57

by philanthropic landlords the labourer preserved
his character.^ But the evidence tendered by
such localities and by those districts in the North,
where it was still customary for farmers to provide
their labourers with cow plots and potato ground,
did not avail to carry the new movement far.
There was no compulsion behind it ; the majority
of landlords were indifferent, and the labourers
affected were but the favoured few.

The years 1795 and 1796 also saw a reform in
the poor law. The Act of 1795, which modified
the law of settlement, was a measure of labour
organisation rather than of poor relief, its object
being to increase the mobility of labour. The Act
of 1796, on the contrary, was definitely a poor law,
and does not strictly come into any consideration
of the remedies proposed for the agricultural
labour problem. But the policy it inaugurated
had so much influence on the wages question and
upon labour generally, that it must be briefly
noticed. This Act made it obligatory upon
parishes to relieve the able-bodied outside the
workhouse. Most parishes naturally sought to
lighten this obligation by finding work for their
unemployed. As a rule they were sent round the
parish to solicit work, and only what they could

' Hammond, op. cit., p. 158 ; Slater, " Enclosure of Common
Fields," pp. 52 i.

58 THE FARM LABOURER

not earn in wages was made up out of the rates.
Sometimes they were employed upon parish work,
and sometimes again they were put up to auction
and were sent to work for the farmer who offered
the highest price. These last two methods were
probably only exceptionally used in the period to
1815, but the first-mentioned form of the rounds-
man system was common. For, as we have seen,
although the great extension of corn-growing from
1795 to 1815 meant more and steadier employ-
ment, most parishes suffered from unemployment,
especially in the winter. The roundsman system,
combined with aids out of the rates in relief of
wages, was thus firmly established. It was ready
to hand when the farmer, in the days of his
adversity, sought to reduce working expenses by
employing only rate-aided labour ; and it was
there as a well-established system upon which
could be engrafted all too easily a minimum wage
scheme of the worst type, the origin of which has
now to be considered.

(&) Minimum Wage Scheme.

The chief interest of the movement for improve-
ment in the nineties centres in the efforts to
increase wages. Kent had pressed for a rise of
wages in 1775. Taking the average wage as
IS. 2d. a day, he declared for an increase of ^d.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 59

A daily wage of is. 6d., he urged, would enable
labourers to meet the rise in prices, clothe them-
selves decently, and enjoy perhaps eight or ten
pounds of meat to which they were surely entitled
by " the laws of Nature and the ties of humanity." ^
This, however, was merely an appeal to the sense
of true economy in farmers. It bore no fruit.
But the accentuation of the agricultural problem
in the eighties led to the institution of a national
policy in respect to wages. Gilbert, in 1782,
succeeded in passing an Act to allow parishes to
maintain the able-bodied unemployed outside the
workhouse. Parish officers were to find them
work and were to receive their wages. If a living
wage were not paid, it might be supplemented out
of the poor rates. The wages clauses were, how-
ever, optional. Sir William Young sought to
introduce a wider scheme on the same lines in
1788 ; according to his Bill, vestries were to be
empowered to settle a rate of winter wages, and to
distribute the unemployed amongst parishioners
in proportion to the rates the latter paid. Two-
thirds of the wages were to be paid by the em-
ployer, and one-third was to come from the rates. ^
This Bill, had it been adopted, might have brought
fewer evils in its train, bad though its principles

' Kent, " Hints to Gentlemen," pp. 273 f.
* Eden, " State of the Poor," I. 397.

6o THE FARM LABOURER

were, than did Gilbert's scheme, since it fixed th^
minimum which employers might pay. But it
was not passed into law.

These Bills were avowedly limited in their
intentions. They sought to relieve the unem-
ployed but did not attempt to touch low wages,
which were largely the cause of the labourer's
instantaneous recourse to the parish in periods of
slackness. In 1795, the more drastic remedy was
attempted. At the close of the year, Mr. Whit-
bread, junior, brought in a Bill the purpose of
which was to establish a minimum wage for
agricultural labourers.^ The Bill was read a
second time on February 12th, 1796. Whitbread
urged upon the House the necessity of a public
regulation of wages for agricultural labour ; volun-
tary adjustment was a failure, for though wages
had been raised, they had not been increased pro-
portionately to the rise in the price of bread and
other articles. The result was that the labouring
classes were in a condition truly deplorable, and
their misery was increasing while the poor rates
had risen by an enormous amount. According to
his scheme, the daily wage of the labourer was to

•"House of Commons Journals," LI. iii, 205. Novem-
ber 25th, leave given to bring in a Bill to explain and amend so
much of the Act of Elizabeth, c. 4, as empowers justices of the
peace to regulate the wages of labourers. December gth, first
reading.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 6i

be regulated, the justices of the peace in every
district acting as a wages board. Pitt himself
replied. He was not prepared to support the Bill,
and side-tracked it by a lengthy speech on poor
law reform. Such reform would do more for the
poor, he urged, than the adoption of a minimum
wage which, devised to meet the requirements of
a man with an average family, would prove no
assistance to those whose families were above the
average. He spoke, too, on an extension of the
schools of industry and the advantages of early
employment of children ; their more general
instruction and employment would increase family
wages and the comfort of the working class.^
The lack of statesmanship which, according to
modem ideas, underlies this suggestion needs no
comment ; but the proposal was in accordance
with ideas of the day, and Whitbread, repljTing to
Pitt's speech as a whole, remarked merely that
poor law reform and the increased labour of
children lay in the future and supplied no remedy
for present suffering. But the Bill was rejected.
Howlett, who was in favour of the minimum wage,
attacked Pitt for his lack of support.^ But the
Bill had really no chance of success, even if it had
been taken up and improved by the Government.

' " Parliamentary History of England," XXXII. cols. 705 f.
^ " Examination of Mr. Pitt's Speech in the House of Commons
. . . Relative to the Condition of the Poor."

62 THE FARM LABOURER

It is impossible to estimate how far opposition to
its principles was due to hostility of employers of
labour within the House. ^ Certainly the landlord
and farmer interest was strongly represented.
But apart from all private interests, the House
was totally opposed to the regulation of wages and
the interference of the Legislature with labour.
The doctrines of Laissez Faire had a firm hold.
In itself, too, the working of a minimum wage
would have been difficult. The magistrates of
the county of Chester^ in their petition against
the Bill, urged that it would tend to the oppression
of labourers and prevent their being employed by
the day, while it would be extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to carry it into effect, owing especially
to the difficulty " in determining as to the extent
of the abilities of old and infirm persons to work as
labourers in husbandry." They declared that the
Bill would in many instances be the means of
depriving such labourers of employment.^ This
is an objection which can be urged against almost
any legislation that has for its object improve-
ment in the condition of labour. It is not insur-
mountable, but the temper of the times did not
allow of any effort to surmount it.

' It was on this account that others who spoke against the
Bill opposed it : " Parliamentary History of England." XXXII.
cols. 710 f.

^ " House of Commons Journal," LI. 383.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 63

Having failed in their efforts to oblige employers
to pay a minimum wage, those who desired to
effect improvement by higher wages in the
condition of the poor now fell back upon devices
for achieving the same end out of public monies.
In 1795, Davies wrote in favour of a minimum
wage, which was to be regulated in accordance
either with the needs of a married man with a
family or with the price of bread. " The properest
way of making up the deficiency of their earnings,"
he wrote, "is by an allowance out of the poor
rate."^ This suggestion was put into practice
in Berkshire that same year. Acting under the
powers given them by Gilbert's Act, magistrates
met at Speenhamland, by the name of which
place the system was afterwards known, and drew
up a wages scale based upon the size of a man's
family and the price of bread. If the wage paid
by the employers fell short of the wage set out
in the scale, the deficiency was to be made up
by an allowance from the rates. Thus the
principle of a minimum wage was actually brought
into practice, but, as time was to show, the
scheme adopted was the worst possible. For the
time, however, the Speenhamland system was
limited to the place of its origin and a few districts
which copied the Berkshire model.

• " Case of the Labourer," p. 119.

64 THE FARM LABOURER

In judging the remedies attempted in the
nineties, allowance must be made for the lack of
experience in social legislation and the strain of
a Continental war under which the ruling classes
laboured. Yet it cannot but be recognised that
their monopoly of political power and the security
of their position deadened capitalists and landlords
to the national needs. The wretched condition of
the poor was not sufficient spur to action. All
that the ruhng class contributed towards the
solution of the social problem was tolerance for
such schemes of the humanitarians as they
believed to be innocuous to themselves. The
full strength of British statesmanship was not
applied to the problem, and Gilbert's experimental
Act was allowed to become the chief contribution
of the House of Commons to the labourer's relief.
This remedy created evils almost greater than it
sought to remove, and the chief result of the
eighteenth-century reform movement was to
plunge the labourer, whose degradation might
seem to have been complete in the nineties, into
even deeper depths.

CHAPTER III

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834

The story of the English agricultural labourer
from 1814 to 1834 is a pauper's story. For the
chief feature of these years is the payment of
doles out of the poor rates to supplement his
inadequate wages. Such a policy had a depressing
effect upon wages, and they became so inadequate
that labourers throughout the country were forced
to become recipients of parish allowances. But
though the prevalence of the allowance system is
the outstanding and distinguishing feature of this
period, it saw on the one hand a continuance of
the movement for allotments and benefit societies
which began in former years, and the continuance,
too, in the problems of housing and rural migra-
tion. And on the other hand, in this period
begins an emigration poUcy in which the year
1834 forms no special landmark, whilst the
labourer instituted certain methods of self-
assistance, chiefly along the Unes of crime.

(i) The Allowance System.

The year 1814 saw the beginning of an agricul-
tural depression which plunged the farmer into
F.L. F

66 THE FARM LABOURER

heavy losses and the labourer into unemplo5mient.
Both were compelled to utilise to its fullest the
contrivance of rate-aided wages, until the power
to do so ended with the reform of the Poor Law
in 1834. Although the system of parish allowances
had been devised in the nineties, its use had not
been general before 18 14. For until that year
farmers prospered, and the labourer, though his
condition was that of a sweated worker, managed
to struggle along, thanks to the enormous extension
of arable farming which brought both more and
steadier employment. But with the close of
the war the farmer entered upon bad times, and
the labourer was, of course, the first to suffer
from the agricultural depression.

It was the prosperous days of farming up to
1814 which dug about the feet of the farmer the
pit into which he was to fall. There were few
good harvests from 1795 ; 1804 and 181 1 were
particularly bad years, and this, combined with
the war, rendered the price of corn very high.
Landlords and farmers, however, failed to take
into account the special causes of the high prices,
and based their calculations upon the permanency
of factors that were purely temporary. Farmers
readily took farms, the rents of which were
increased as much as fivefold upon the rents of
1790. Landlords shortsightedly allowed the

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 67

ploughing up of pasture land which had been
perfected only in the course of centuries. Huge
sums were sunk in the land and in improvements.
Land speculation and jobbing were rife, the land
being sold sometimes for as much as forty years'
purchase, and many estates were mortgaged at
high rates of interest which in the good days
seemed no burden.

In 1814, with the close of the war, came the
collapse. Not even the high duties on imported
corn availed the farmer. He required still higher
prices than they created to protect him from the
evils inherent in the one-sided development of
arable farming. As early as 1816, the clamour of
distress was so great that the Board of Agri-
culture instituted an inquiry into the state of
agriculttue. It was found that already there had
been an average fall in rent of 25 per cent., while
farmers who had their farms on long leases and
could not obtain a reduction in rent had in many
cases failed completely. Indeed, many farmers
had become parish paupers ; others threw up their
tenancies ; and landlords, who were already finan-
cially embarrassed by the agricultural collapse,
were often quite unable to carry on the work of
fanning themselves. Thousands of acres were
allowed to fall out of cultivation, and became a
mass of thistles, weeds, and coarse grass, which

F 2

68 THE FARM LABOURER

was too poor to support stock — even had the
farmers possessed the capital to substitute pasture
farming for corn growing. In 1815, 3,000 acres in
one small district in Huntingdonshire were left
uncultivated, and in the Isle of Ely, nineteen farms
were left vacant.^ Pasture farmers suffered with
arable farmers, for the commercial and industrial
depression, consequent upon the revival of Conti-
nental manufactures after the war, led to a
decreased demand for their produce by the town
population. The figures of bankruptcies, seizures
and arrests rise with a leap in 1815. The return
to cash payments in 1819 led to a great rise in the
value of gold ; and the consequent decline in the
price of goods generally, including agricultural
produce, combined with the good harvests and the
wet season of 1822 to prevent a recovery. Petitions
and complaints continued to pour into the House
of Commons. The House responded by keeping
up the Corn Duties, which really only aggravated
the evils, and by appointing Select Committees in
1820, 1821, 1822, 1833 and 1836, to consider
matters agricultural. Meanwhile, in the country,
thistles took the place of corn, sheriffs' officers the
place of hve stock. At the best the farmer
struggled through by exhausting his capital,
reducing his wages bill, and gathering in what he

• " Prothero, " English Fanning," p. 322.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 69

could from land which was exhausted from
excessive croppings, and was under-cultivated,
both in respect to labour and to manure.^

As would be expected, the labourer suffered.
Wages were reduced either directly or indirectly
through inconstant employment : while the reduc-
tion in the staff of those farmers who could keep
their heads above water, and the diminution in the
area under cultivation, increased the number of
the unemployed. The general fall in prices in
1819 was of Uttle assistance to a labourer who had
no money with which to purchase. There was,
however, one remedy available, the system of
parish allowances devised in the nineties. This
was now generally applied. Men, women and
children were sent upon the rounds, were put up
to auction, or were billeted upon farmers in
proportion to the rates at which the latter were
assessed, and their insufficient wages were supple-
mented by the parish. This was the usual method
of meeting distress, although sometimes the un-
employed were set to work upon parish work.
But whatever the system, allowances out of the
rates was the common feature. Until 1817 or
181 8, few parishes appear to have had a definite
standard for allowances, but after that date the

' Prothero, op. cit., pp. 322 f. Cf. Curtler, " History of English
Agriculture," Hasbach and Levy, op. cit.

70 THE FARM LABOURER

Speenhamland system of fixing allowances accord-
ing to the size of the family and the price of bread
was commonly adopted. The results of this
" remedy " were disastrous, morally and economi-
cally. The labourer's independence was finally
and completely undermined; however hard he
might be willing to work in order to keep himself
and his family off the rates, upon the rates he must
go or work he would not have. For farmers,
driven by the bad times to reduce all possible
expenses, practically refused to employ any
but rate-aided labour. The Report of 1824 on
labourers' wages states that " Men have been
discharged as supernumerary or superfluous, and
have been ordered to receive a certain sum
(perhaps loc^. or is. a day) from the Poor Book.
Some of the farmers have then taken them into
employ and given them plenty of work." ^ Farmers
thus effected great reductions in their wages bills
at the expense of their neighbours, landlords,
small farmers and tradesmen, who employed no
labour, but had to contribute to the poor rates.
Moreover, high poor rates could be used by farmers
as a lever to effect reductions in their rents.^ As to
the labourers, those who had a little property of

' " Report from the Select Committee on the Rate of Agricul-
tural Wages ; and on the Condition and Morals of Labourers in
that Employment, 1824," p. 36.

» lb., p. 57-

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 71

their own, a cottage or a bit of land, and were the
aristocracy of labour in the parish, had nothing
for it but to stand unemployed until they were
ruined. When they had lost the last relic of their
independence they could get employment as rate-
aided workmen, but until then " they could not be
employed because persons having property could
not be put on the Poor Book." ^ All inducements
to thrift and to hard work were lost, for a man
was sure of support, however lazy or however
idle.

" Under the operation of the scale system
idleness, improvidence or extravagance occasion
no loss and consequently diligence and economy
can afford no gain." So runs the Report of 1834.
" In many places the income derived from the
parish for easy or nominal work actually exceeds
that of the independent labourer ... In such
places, a man who does not possess either some
property or an amount of skill which will ensure
to him more than the average rate of wages, is
of course a loser by preserving his independence."
But as the Report points out, " the severest
sufferers are those that have become callous to
their own degradation," who claimed rehef as a
right, and gave the least amount possible of work
in return for wages which they squandered

* lb., p. 24.

72 THE FARM LABOURER

because they had not to be earned.^ Degraded
and pauperised, the labourer was prepared to
adopt any method of ameliorating his wretched-
ness. And he found the method ready to hand
in reckless and prolific marriage.^ With an almost
incredible blindness the scale of allowances was so
drawn up that it set a premium on early marriage
and on unwedded motherhood. The unmar-
ried man received less from the rates than the
married man, and the latter's allowance increased
with the size of his family. In addition, as the
burden of the rates increased, the married men
were usually given such work as was available in
order that their wages might keep their famihes
to some extent off the rates, and the unmarried
man was left to support himself on the 3s. allowed
by the parish. Thus, a man's one chance of
bettering his position was by marriage and the
production of a family, while the mother of
illegitimate children was offered a better income
than the worker in the fields. Such is the picture
drawn by the Reports of 1824, 1828, 1831, and
1834.

There were, of course, districts where conditions
were not so bad. In the Report of 1831 it was

' " Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1834,"
pp. 77 f.
" " Report on Wages, 1824," pp. 34, 42, 48 f.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 73

said no allowances were given in the parish of
Alford in Lincolnshire, but the fathers of large
families were reheved by having their children
put out to cottagers and farmers.^ And in the
Report of 1824, Northumberland, Cumberland,
Lincolnshire, most of Yorkshire, some districts
in Lancashire and Staffordshire, were said to be
free of the worst evils.^ But in the Report of
1834 only Northumberland and Durham are
described as having completely escaped, though,
in the North generally rate-aided labour was not
so universal as in the South. The system, it was
said in 1831, had been adopted during the high
prices of the war period, but it was used only as a
transitory measure, and did not become permanent
as it did in the South.*

The moral degradation of the rural population,
as to which the Reports are unanimous, was the
direct result of the Poor Law solution of the
agricultural labour problem. Its indirect results
were only less serious. First of these was the
yet further aggravation of the housing difficulty.
The increasing heaviness of the poor rates led
to a yet further demohtion of cottages in order
to reduce the number of potential paupers, at a

• " Report of Lords' Committee on the Poor Laws, 1831,"
p. 196.

' " Report on Wages," p. 4.

* " Report of Lords' Committee on the Poor Laws," p. 147.

74 THE FARM LABOURER

time when every encouragement was being given
to early marriages and large families. The conse-
quent overcrowding contributed yet more to the
moral degeneration which was already in full
swing. This overcrowding took two forms : on
the one hand there was overcrowding within the
cottages, now that an increasing population was
forced to accommodate itself in a decreasing
number of dwellings. On the other hand, the
cottages themselves were crowded together without
gardens or proper space for outbuildings, and
in undue proximity to each other. For the
demolition of cottages by large landlords who
owned all the property in the parishes, " close "
parishes as they were afterwards called, drove the
population into " open " parishes, where property
was owned by many small men. There the
demand for houses was so great that tradesmen,
jobbing builders and mere speculators not only
saw a safe investment in the acquisition of existing
cottages, but built others on such spaces as were
available, spaces which had meant gardens, air
and health for the original inhabitants of the
village. This in itself was bad enough, but the
increased rents now demanded complicated the
housing problem. The speculators, of course,
invested in cottage property for the purpose of
making an income, which the large landlords had

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 75

never looked for in labourers' dwellings. They
charged high rents even for wretched cottages
without gardens. In these rents the labourer
acquiesced, sometimes because he had no power
to resist, but often because he had no inducement
to do so. For allowances were often given in
kind, in the form of tickets to shops, and also in
house room; thus the rent came not out of his
pocket but out of the ratepayers'.^ A customary
rent was thus established above the value of the
property and above the price a labourer could
pay if unassisted by the parish.

Lastly, the allowance system had an injurious
effect upon wages, and this not only while it
was in vogue, but even after it was abolished.
Farmers paid as little as three and five shiUings
a week to an adult labourer partially supported
by the parish, and though a rise in wages neces-
sarily took place when aid from the rates was
no longer given, it took time to bring them up
to anything approaching sufficiency.

Had the allowance system maintained the
material comfort of the labourer through a period
of agricultural distress, its promoters might have
pleaded that it was justifiable. But it did not
even succeed in doing this. In the early years of
its existence sufficiently large allowances were

' " Report on Labourers' Wages, 1824," p. 47.

76 THE FARM LABOURER

given to secure the labourer a certain standard of
comfort. But as the system developed, and whole
villages were brought upon the rates, and as many
small farmers and tradesmen became impoverished
under their heavy assessments, the money required
to keep up the standard was not forthcoming.*
The standard of maintenance accepted by the
parish in 1816 was below that thought necessary
in 1795,^ and by 1830 it was so inadequate that
rioting, bred of wretchedness and discontent, was
rife in many districts. Reports refer to a lower
standard of diet in many localities : * bread was
often the chief food, some families being unable to
supply themselves even with cheese or potatoes,
while tea was drunk " when they could get it,"
Though some witnesses before the Lords' Com-
mittee of 1831 declared there was no change in
diet in their districts, so far as they knew, others
spoke of a deterioration in the last ten years or so.
Moreover the allowances, even where apparently
high, were often paid partly in kind and partly in
tickets to shops, and the small tradesman knew

' " Report on the Depressed State of Agriculture, 1821," p. 95.
Difi&culty in collecting rates owing to poverty of the farmers at
Battle, Sussex.

" Hammond, " Village Labourer," p. 184.

» " Report on Depressed State of Agriculture, 1821," p. 65 ;
" Report of Lords' Committee on the Poor, 1831," pp. 34, 37, 113 :
Sussex (cf. p. 44); Northants, where meat is eaten (p. 11);
Beds ; etc.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 V

well how to make a profit and repay himself with
interest for his high rates by supplying poor goods
at high prices to the parish paupers. High prices
for necessary provisions and high rents ate up the
labourer's allowance and small wage, often before
he could supply himself and his family with suffi-
cient food. The general result of the allowance
system upon rent has been already noted : in some
cases rents were so enhanced that they were said
to be " one of the chief causes of the agricultural
labourers being in a worse state than they ever
were." This same witness declared, " I have
known many instances where the amount paid by a
labourer for a cottage was greater than the amount
of relief which he received from the overseer." ^

Such then were the results of the chief remedy
adopted for the agricultural labour problem. The
evils it brought in its train were too apparent to
escape notice : the Committee of 1824 had urged
the ill-consequences of the system of supplementing
wages from the rates, and the Committee of 1828
had emphatically declared that it must be
abolished. But it was not until 1834, that the
allowance system came to an end with the
Reform of the Poor Law and the Repeal of the
Act of 1796, which had made it compulsory upon
parishes to give outdoor relief.

' " Report on Labourers' Wages," p. 47.

78 THE FARM LABOURER

(2) The Labourer's Remedy. Crime.

The failure from its very outset of the one
general remedy that was contrived, prompted the
philanthropic to continued efforts on the labourer's
behalf, and drove the labourer himself to attempt
remedies of his own.

The remedies adopted by the labourer, ignorant
and isolated as he was, and blinded by wretched-
ness, were not, as may be supposed, of a nature
really to improve his condition. The local benefit
societies which he formed and joined, under the
patronage of the village publican, rested too often
upon an unsound financial basis, and collapsed
when several members came upon the funds in
illness or old age, just when a club might have been
of service. The attempt to improve his position
by early and prolific marriage has been already
noticed. His third method of self-help was equally
deplorable. Driven by want, fearful that the
allowances would be still further reduced, and
beUeving that the adoption of machinery by their
employers would work their yet greater ruin, the
agricultural labourers of many districts sought to
protect themselves by rioting and incendiarism.^
Machinery was broken up, higher wages were de-
manded, and those farmers who opposed the new

' Hammond, B. and J. L., " Village Labourer," XI., XII.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 79

demands had their ricks fired and received menacing
letters from " Captain Swing," containing threats of
worse to follow. The rioting began in 1830 and
continued for eighteen months, and there was
hardly a district east of Dorsetshire and south of
Lincoln in which the " Captain " had not his
followers. The riots were finally suppressed only
by the aid of the military, and by methods which
reveal that terror blinded the Govermnent both to
its own dignity and to the British reputation for
just administration of the law. The most per-
manent results of the disturbances were a diminu-
tion in such good feeling as still remained between
employer and employed, and the creation of
suspicion towards any movement of agricultural
labourers. The immediate result was a rise in
wages. Thus, regarding the matter from this
point of view only, the labourer may claim a
greater measure of success than his rulers. The
rise, however, was granted only under pressure,
and farmers dropped back to the old rates wherever
they felt their position strong enough. A witness
before the Committee of the Lords in 1831, while
acknowledging that the disturbances had raised
wages of 4s. to 9s. in his district to a general level
of 12s., prophesied that they would not be kept up.^

*" Reportof Lords' Committee on the Poor," p. 109. (Weston,
Sussex,)

8o THE FARM LABOURER

Equally opposed to the interests of the ruling
classes, but much more effective than rioting from
the labourer's point of view, was another method
he adopted for the improvement of his condition.
He turned to crime to fill his pot and keep a fire
on his hearth. " The weekly allowances cannot
supply more than food ; how then are clothing,
firing and rent to be provided ? " demanded a
clergyman who gave evidence before the Com-
mittee on wages. " By robbery and plunder,"
was his reply. The allowance system " has
most rapidly effected the demoralisation of the
lower orders ; and while the pittance allowed to
sustain hfe has driven those to despair who still
cherish the feelings of honesty, it has made those
who are more void of principle poachers, thieves
and robbers. Were I to detail the melancholy,
degrading and ruinous system which has been
pursued, with few exceptions, throughout the
country, in regard to the unemployed poor, and
in the payment of wages of idleness, I should
scarcely be credited beyond its confine." ^

Wood-stealing and poaching were rife in all
districts where, as was all too general, no com-
mons and common rights had been preserved to
the labourer. Almost every unemployed or casual
labourer was a poacher, and in many villages there

' " Report on Wages, 1824," p. 57. Cf. p. 35, etc;

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 81

were regularly organised gangs who poached and
thieved. Not the most brutal Game Laws and the
creation of numerous new capital offences, nor
the common use of man traps and spring guns/
could check the labourer from employing this
mode of self-help. How prevalent it was is
revealed by the figures of criminal conviction,
one in every seven of which in England during
the years 1827 to 1830 were convictions under
the Game Laws.^ Thieving was, of course, but
one step removed from poaching. One man
who gave evidence before the Committee of 1824
said that in many parishes five to forty persons
made a Uving by robbing on the highways and
by stealing the corn of the small farmers.* The
moral results do not need to be pointed out.
Yet from the material point of view poaching
and crime were as successful as any other method
adopted, publicly or privately, for the amelioration
of the labourer's lot.

(3) Allotments and Emigration.

The efforts of philanthropists and of the
Government in ways other than dole-giving were
too sUght to effect any general improvement.

1 Especially from 1817 to 1827, in which year their use was
forbidden by statute.
** Hammond, op. cit., p. 188.
* " Report on Agricultural Labourers' Wages," p. 57.

F.L. G

82 THE FARM LABOURER

The allotment system was extended, and emigra-
tion schemes were instituted, but it was only
favoured localities that benefited by them. In
1819 the Government gave official recognition to
the value of allotments by a Bill empowering
poor law authorities to acquire land up to
twenty acres, either by purchase or on lease, for
the employment of the poor or for allotments.
Twelve years later the area was extended to fifty
acres, which might be leased, purchased, or, if
Crown or uncultivated land, enclosed by consent
of the Crown or the lord of the manor. In 1832
another Act was passed to allow a certain propor-
tion of land to be reserved and let out as allot-
ments in any district where enclosure might be
undertaken. The result of this Act was practi-
cally nil, and the two earlier Acts were of equally
little value. For comparatively few parishes
took action under the laws of 1819 and 1821.
Thd' governing body in the parish was the vestry,
then in the hands of farmers, tradesmen and
landlords. Farmers were opposed to the allot-
ment system, as they feared it would make the
labourer too independent, idle and neglectful of
their interests, and they urged that they wanted
the land themselves and that the labourer would
not pay his rent. Tradesmen had no wish to see
the labourer producing food for himself, and voted

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 85

with the farmer. And the majority of landlords
were ignorant as to the rights and wrongs of the
question, and were naturally inclined to accept
the views of their best tenants. Moreover their
absorption of the economic doctrines of Malthus
made them fear that if the labourer's position
were improved the opportunity would be given
for the reckless multipUcation of the population.^
Though proof lay all the other way, this fact was
not yet recognised. Consequently, the promotion
of allotments depended on private rather than on
pubUc efforts. The interest in the subject was
more general now than in the nineties, the benefits
of allotments were frequently discussed in periodi-
cals, some of the most interesting contributions to
which came from the pen of Denson, a small
peasant cultivator of Waterbeach, near Cam-
bridge. Papers such as the Labourer's Friend,
which was in circulation in the twenties, philan-
thropists, and societies, as, for example, the
Society for the Encouragement of Industry and
Reduction of Poor's Ra,tes, nursed the movement.
They were rewarded by seeing opinion put into
practice by well-disposed landlords, who, though
they took action without any ulterior motives,
found that their good deeds were not without
material reward. Allotments paid, both in rent

• H,asbach, op. cit., pp. 213 f.

G2

84 THE FARM LABOURER

and because the amount of spade labour and
intensive culture put into them, wrought great
improvement in the land. The rector of Broad
Somerford, in Wiltshire, gives a naive account of
the adoption of allotments in his district. In
1820 a neighbouring parish was enclosed by the
lord of the manor. " He had some very inferior
land, bearing gorse or furze, and brambles ; he
threw out eight acres for the purpose of benefiting
the poor." The following year he enclosed a
large common of " very wet, poor land," which
was allotted wholly to the poor. It was land of
the worst description, " boggy and clayey, and
nobody could cross it with a horse." In 1831,
thanks to the toil and care of the poor, it was
bearing fine crops.^

Though the chief obstacle to the extension of
allotments lay in the preliminary difficulty of
finding the land, there were other hindrances to
their establishment, and they did not always prove
advantageous to the poor. In the parish of
Byfield, Northamptonshire, allotments of quarter
and half acres were instituted, but farmers some-
times refused work to men who had allotments.^
And at Alford, Lincolnshire, where allotments were
let under rules and conditions, the labourer hired

• " Report of Lords on Poor, 1831," p. 38.
lb., p. 43.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 85

land only " under great disadvantages." ^ Still,
speaking generally, allotments were successful,
and improvement in the labourer's condition took
place in those localities where they were adopted.
The Poor Law Report of 1834 is quite definite as
to this, provided the allotment was of not more
than half an acre. More than this, the Commission
stated, could not be cultivated by a wage-earning
labourer ; he had neither the time nor the capital
to work more. Besides standardising the area of
allotments, as to which there had hitherto been
discussion and dispute, the Report set the system
on a fair way to becoming more popular by
emphasising the fact that the labourer did not
become idle or over-independent, and that to the
landlord there was economic profit in letting land
for allotments.^

Towards the close of this period a new remedy
was adopted in the form of systematic emigration.
A Committee of the House of Commons reported
on the subject in 1826 — 7. The Committee was
of opinion that emigration would afford rehef both
to the agricultural and the industrial population,
but it was not prepared to adopt any State-aided
scheme. It laid down three rules which it urged

' "Report of Lords on Poor, 1831," p. 196.
' " Report of the Poor Law Commissioners," 1834, pp. 15, 116,
170a, 223, 225, 234, 378, 406, 410, 670.

86 THE FARM LABOURER

should be followed : ^ emigration must be volun-
tary ; money should be advanced only as a loan ;
and only that part of the population which, though
healthy, was in a state of permanent pauperism
should be pressed to emigrate. Emigration, how-
ever, advanced at no great rate. The Committee
had expressed its opinion that the poor man
would " accept this opportunity of bettering his
condition, by laying the foundation for future
independence, with eagerness and gratitude, when
sufficient time has elapsed, and proper pains been
taken to make him understand the true nature
and character of the change that is proposed for
him." But time it did of course take, and even
in districts where distress was great, the people
were often unwilling to emigrate ; ^ also it required
money. Hodges, a member of Parhament for
Kent, was instrumental in emigrating a consider-
able number of persons to America,* a policy which
effected great reductions in the local rates ; and
both in his district and in parishes generally, the
poor law authorities were alive to the advantages of
emigration, even if they should have to contribute
to the expenses.* But from the Poor Law Report

• " Report on Emigration, 1826," p. 5.

' As the Rector of Weston, Sussex, told the Lords' Committee,
1831, pp. 106 f.

» " Report of Lords on Poor, 1831," p. 17. One hundred and
forty-nine persons emigrated in two years.

* " Report on Emigration, 1826," p. 5.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 87

of 1834 it is evident that emigration was still on a
very small scale ; its beneficial effects were
checked for want of legal authority to appropriate
rates.^

(4) The Northern Farmer's Solution of the
Labourer's Problem.

From the preceding pages it will be seen that the
extreme North of England escaped from the
agricultural labour problems in their acutest form.
It was in the English counties of the Midlands, the
South, the South-West and South-East that
wages were lowest, that poor living and drunken-
ness were most prevalent, and that there was the
greatest distress from unemployment. And it was
there, too, that the unsuccessful attempts to solve
the problem described in this and the previous
chapter chiefly took place. Allowances were
commonest there ; rioting and rick-burning were
confined to the southern counties, and the move-
ment for allotments travelled little further North
than Lincolnshire. The North, it would appear,
had already contrived some solution for the labour
problem. The question is, what ?

The superiority of conditions of labour in the
North over those in the South dates back to the
enclosure period. Northumberland, it will be

• " Report of Poor Law Commission," Appendix, p. 170.

88 THE FARM LABOURER

remembered, had possessed a peculiar system of
labour before the acceleration in enclosing set in.
In the first place, the chief farm-servants, such as
shepherds, stockmen, carters and ploughmen,
though hired for a definite term like the indoor
farm-servants of the South, did not live in the
farm house, but in cottages adjacent to the farm,
supplied by their employers. In the second place,
the greater part of their wages was paid in kind,
in free housing and cow-runs, and in wheat, barley,
oats, peas, wool and other farm produce. Thirdly,
there was very much less casual labour than in the
South. The southern farmer made great use of
occasional labour supplied by the numerous class
of land-cultivating cottagers. The Northumber-
land farmer took occasional work into account
when organising his regular staff ; extra labour
might be required in harvest, and some semi-
casual labour was supplied by women, whom the
regular farm-servants were bound by their con-
tracts to supply when required. But the bulk of
all work, regular and casual, was performed by
labourers in permanent employment. Much the
same system obtained in Westmorland, while in
Cumberland, Durham and Wales, payment in
kind was prevalent, though the chief labourers
were generally indoor farm-servants, as in the
South.

REMEDIES FROM 1814 TO 1834 89

In the nineteenth century we find these charac-
teristics were still preserved. This was due partly
to sociological differences. But economic reasons
also played their part. There was less upheaval
from enclosure and corn-growing in the North
and Wales than in the rest of England, but
enclosing and engrossing did take place there too.
What maintained the better conditions of work
in these areas was the competition for labour
which accompanied the industrial revolution,
rather than freedom from the effects of the agricul-
tural revolution. The mines in Wales, and the
mines and rapidly expanding industries of the
North of England, drew upon the farmers' labour
supply, which was already less abundant than in
the South. Wages, whether in money or kind,
necessarily rose, and rose sufficiently to recompense
the labourer for anything he lost by enclosures or
by the rise in prices. Higher rates of wages were
paid in the North, and higher real wages, for the
labourer was not bade to stand off wageless in
bad weather or in seasonal slackness. Conse-
quently, though the roundsman system was
adopted in the North during the acute distress
of the war period, it was never carried to the
excesses from which the South suffered. And the
labourer was spared, too, the physical and moral
evils of unemployment and under-feeding. The

go THE FARM LABOURER

indoor service system of Wales and Cumberland,
the long hirings in Northumberland, Westmorland,
and parts of Durham and Yorkshire, which were
forced upon the farmer by scarcity of labour,
preserved the peasant from the privations from
which his fellow in the South sought to escape
by proHfic marriages, poaching, drunkenness and
rioting. In short, the Northern farmer in solving
the employer's labour problem — scarcity in supply
— showed how the labourer's problem also might
be solved. Higher wages was the solution for
both. With higher wages agricultural work
remained a profitable and dignified employment.
It was immaterial to the labourer if he were
without a holding of his own, " divorced from the
land," for he had another basis of independence,
other channels for his hopes, other sources of
comforts and of sufficient food for himself and his
family. Though he might own no plot of soil,
he did not need the bribe of " re-union with the
land " by means of an allotment to keep him in
agricultural work. The problem of a landless
labourer was solved by higher wages, while still
in the South every solution but higher wages was
being desperately tried.

CHAPTER IV

FROM 1834 TO 1870

The outstanding feature of the period 1834 until
the opening of the seventies is the exploitation of
the labour of women and children. The allowance
system, bad though it was, had ensured the
labourer starvation wages, but now this small
measure of security was lost. With wages terribly
low, with unemployment prevalent, and in the
absence of all other aid, he was compelled to adopt
any available means of increasing his income.
The wage-earning power of his wife and children
had to be exploited. The youngest children, who
had hitherto brought in is. 6d. a week by their
mere existence, were driven by their parents'
necessity into the fields to earn what they could
by the sweat of their brows. Even had the
labourer been less ignorant he was too hard pressed
to count the cost of the remedy he now adopted.
To tide over the present hour was a struggle ;
the morrow must look after itself. And on the
morrow he found that the competition of his
children's labour was keeping his own wages down,
and that the total family income tended to be

92 THE FARM LABOURER

no higher than that which he had brought in
alone in none too prosperous days. Yet again
the labourer's attempt to help himself had
increased his difficulties. For his insufficient
income now was won only by a greater expenditure
of labour, food and clothing. Thus the dismal
story of wretchedness and privations and of
ineffective remedies drags on. Still, there are
indications in this period of better things. The
tendencies towards combination on the part of
labourers grew stronger : co-operative societies
may not have been wholly spontaneous, benefit
societies may have been often unsound, and the
agitations for higher wages may have been small
and local ; yet these were the seeds which were
to bear fruit later. Moreover, at the close of the
period the movement for education set in, with
all its important effects upon migration and unions.

(i) Exploitation of the Labour of Women
AND Children.

The utilisation of the wage-earning powers of
women and children began almost immediately
upon the abolition of the allowance system.
During the preceding period the labourer's family
had not engaged in agriculture to any extent
except in the eastern counties, where the gang

FROM 1834 TO 1870 93

system was in use. These gangs ^ developed early
in the century in districts where land hitherto
often uncultivated was broken up for arable
farming, and where wide areas in the fen country
were drained and put down to corn. Both the
weeding required on the recently drained land
and the regular work on the new isolated farms
caused a sudden and large demand for labour.
The lack of cottage accommodation on the new
farms and the system of close parishes rendered
the local supply insufficient and fostered the
employment of gangs, composed of men, women
and children, who lived in the open parishes and
went out to work upon farms where their services
were required. Sometimes the farmer himself
engaged the gang, but more often he contracted
with a public gang-master for the completion of
definite pieces of work.

The system suited the farmer, since he paid for
his labour only when he required it. And it was
not without its advantages to the labourer.^
The gang-master served as an intermediary
between him and farmers at considerable distance
from his home, and the labourer found that his
employment tended to be more constant, since

' " Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
ture, 1843"; "Sixth Report of the Children's Employment
Commission, 1867" ; Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 193 f.

^ "Report, 1843," p. 223.

94 THE FARM LABOURER

his gang would go the round of farms in a wide
district. This system was firmly established in
the parish of Castleacre, in Norfolk, as early as
1826, and it spread into other districts in the
thirties.

Although it was known that the labourer there
supplemented his income by the earnings of his
family, it was not foreseen in 1834 that this
method would be generally adopted. The allow-
ance system was regarded as the radical cause of
all the labourer's miseries, including inadequate
wages, and a rise in wages was expected upon its
abolition. The rise, however, did not take place.
For two factors which played a primary part in
regulating wages were inevitably left untouched
by the reform of the poor laws. The excessive
surplus population remained, for it needed time
before any adjustment between supply and demand
could take place. And the agricultural depression
continued, and with it the farmer's constant
efforts to save expenses and preserve profits by
reduction in his wages bill.

It was the Corn Laws which were largely to
blame for this continued depression.^ They
propped up belief in high com prices ; these high
prices did not actually occur, but with infinite
faith agriculturists continued to expect them,

• Levy, " Large and Small Holdings," p. 49.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 95

and farmed by methods which could only pay if
they had been in existence. The cultivation of
com to the detriment of other branches of agricul-
ture, large farming, and enclosing, which had
promoted the prosperity of the farmer up to 18 14,
were still carried on from 1814 to 1846. But now
these old methods led to bankruptcies rather than
to fortunes. We have seen how distressed farmers
effected economies in the twenties by employing
only rate-aided labour. With the reform of the
poor law this opportunity for making others pay
his working expenses was lost to the farmer, and
though his rates now fell, he was threatened with
a disproportionate rise in his wages bill. Some
rise he could not avoid, for not infrequently he
had paid absolutely nil in direct wages. But the
surplus population gave him the opportunity of
checking the rise at starvation level.

Such were the causes of the labourer's desperate
phght in 1834. Married men especially suffered,
but, even where a man had not a family to main-
tain, wages were too low to provide against
unemployment, which was now a regular feature
of the winter. Fortunately, it was a time of
industrial expansion and of railway construction,
and many men were able to find employment in
the towns or on the new railroads.^ In other

' " Report on Agriculture, 1836," Part I., pp. 441, 455,

96 THE FARM LABOURER

districts rioting and rick-burning were resorted
to in order to raise wages. But neither the one
nor the other device afforded any general reUef.
In the bad winters of 1837 and 1838 the people
were eating nettles and rotten apples, and in
1838 the workhouses were so overcrowded that
the guardians were compelled to allow outdoor
relief.^ Then the labourer adopted the scheme
of increasing the family income by the earnings
of his wife and children. In the Report of 1836
their employment is mentioned as being general
only in certain districts ; , by 1843 it was the
exception to find a district where they were not
employed. The tremendous increase in the
employment of women and children amazed and
astonished contemporary observers. And it may
well be asked to-day how employment was found
for them by the farmer.

The answer is to be found in the Reports of the
preceding period. It had been said by witnesses
before the Committees of 1821 and 1831 that a
great deal more labour could profitably be put
into the land, but that farmers could not afford
to pay for it/ the result being that in many parts
of the country farms were grossly under-cultivated.

'■ Hasbach, op, cit., p. 223.

" "Report on Depressed State of Agriculture, 1821," pp. 45,
80, 95, etc. ; " Report from the Lords on the Poor Laws, 1831,"
pp. 72, 106, etc.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 97

This was still true, and farmers everywhere readily
made full use of the cheap labour now put into
the market. • There was a quantity of work which
was well within the powers of children. Stone
picking, bird scaring, potato setting and weeding,
were especially suited to their size and strength,
and in the fruit and hop districts they could be
employed to gather in these crops. In harvest,
their work would be more general. • Women were
employed usually in weeding and hoeing, and in
the hop gardens and upon fruit farms. Their
labour, however, was extremely varied, and in
one district they would be engaged in work which
in another was confined to men. Thus, in the
South- West women prepared and loaded manure,
and in parts of Devon and Somerset they acted
as carters. There were, in fact, few branches of
agricultural work in which, in one locality or
another, women were not employed.^ Only in
one or two districts was there actually no work
for women and children. This was so in the dales
of the north-west of Yorkshire, where pasture
farming and grazing prevailed. Here only a few
men were employed in draining, and the rest of
the work was done by farm servants. Women and
children occupied themselves in knitting stockings,

' Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
ture, 1843, pp. 133, 147, 166, etc.

F.L. H

98 THE FARM LABOURER

jackets and sailor caps, the work being given out
by a local manufactory.^ And in parts of Devon
and Dorset there was apparently no demand for
their services, for they were engaged in various
forms of home industries, such as button and
lace making.^ But though these were districts
where peculiar conditions limited the demand for
agricultural work, the labourer as a rule found
a voracious market for the labour of his family.
Even young children were in demand, boys of
nine, ten, or even seven, finding constant employ-
ment, while girls became regular day labourers
at the age of twelve to sixteen, or in the gang
districts at an earlier age.^

Yet the relief gained by the family from their
combined output of labour was but slight. And
the price paid for it was high. The Commissioners
spoke of the moral deterioration of girls through
their labour in the fields. The moral effects of
field work for women and girls were particularly
bad in the gang districts. Men and women
worked together, tramped long distances together
to their place of work, and when this was so far
from their homes that the daily journey was im-
possible, they were lodged together in bams upon

• Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
ture, 1843, pp. 286, 295.
^ lb., p. 16.
' lb., pp. 40, 150, 217, etc.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 99

the farm.^ It was not until 1867 that the public
gangs were regulated ; then, after forty years or
more of their existence, the Gangs Act was passed,
forbidding the employment of children under
eight years old, making compulsory the separation
of the sexes into their own gangs, and obliging a
gang-master to obtain a licence. The physical
evils of agricultural work generally were con-
sidered less serious by the Commissioners than the
moral/ though in the gang districts the children
suffered through the long distances they had often
to walk in addition to their work. But both boys
and girls lost their opportunities for education by
the need of contributing very early to the family
income.

That income, even when the whole family was
in work, remained very low. Women earned
from 8^. to is., according to occupation and
locality, for an eight to ten hours' day ; more was
paid in harvest as a rule, but longer hours were
worked. Girls earned from 2d. a day in Suffolk,
where they were employed very young, to 6d. a
day at the age of sixteen. Boys earned at the
lowest from id. a day below the age of twelve,
to 4s. a week at sixteen years old.^ Thus it is

1 Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
tnie, 1843, p. 224.
3 lb., pp. 133, 215, etc.
' lb., pp. ly, 166, 282, etc.

H 2

too THE FARM LABOURER

quite true to say that the family earnings played
a very important part in the labourer's budget.
But the net gain was reduced by the necessarily
greater expenditure on clothing.^ And the com-
petition of his family kept the father's wages low."
When Caird made his tour in 1850 the average
rate of men's wages in the South was 8s. ^d., in the
East, 9s. id., and in the West, ids. In 1853 an
agricultural revival set in, due partly to the
Crimean war, which checked foreign importation,
and partly to improved methods of farming
induced by the abolition of the Corn Duties ; but
as landlords instantly claimed their share by
raising rents, the labourer gained little from this
period of prosperity.^ The rise in the price of
com and other articles during the Crimean and
American wars forced on a slight rise in wages.
But the employment of women and children was
now firmly established, and the farmer, having this
supply of cheap labour to hand, had no need to raise
wages in proportion to prices. Such were the results
of the labourer's attempt to improve his circum-
stances by calling to his aid the labour of wife and
children, admittedly the only aid he then had,

' Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
ture, 1843, p. 129.

» lb., p. 138.

' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 251. For tables of wages, see Caird,
" English Agriculture," p. 512 ; Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 224, 226,
251-

FROM 1834 TO 1870 101

(2) Conditions of the Labourer's Life.
The information as to his mode of Ufe, contained
in the Reports of 1843 and the sixties, and in
Caird's narrative of his tour, gives a better idea
than do mere wages rates of the peasant's lot
during the period of family labour. The Com
missioners of 1843 gave evidence of considerable
underfeeding. Maladies from under-nourishment
were common in Wiltshire and Somersetshire.^
It was the opinion of medical men that the quality
of food was not too low so long as the labourer was
in good health and the quantity was not deficient.^
But as there was almost constant unemployment
at this date, the quantity could seldom have been
sufficient. The Vicar of Cohie declared that
though much was done by charitable persons to
relieve the poor, he " never could make out how
they can live with their present earnings." * Only
from the extreme North came evidence of a
sufficiency of wholesome food.* Caird had a
similar story to tell. Bread, potatoes, cheese
occasionally, and hot water poured upon burnt
crusts, formed the staple food of the districts
where wages were lowest. Still, the fall in the

» Report, 1843, pp. 17, 58.
2 lb., pp. 18, 58.
s 76., p. 57.

' lb., pp. 284 f., 296, 300. Cf. Unwin, J. Cobden, "Hungry
Forties," labourers' own accounts qf their condition.
" Caird, " English Agriculture," pp. 84, etc.

102 THE FARM LABOURER

prices of provisions consequent upon Free Trade
was already, Caird thought, making a change for
the better. Flour had fallen almost to half the
price it had been in 1840 ; tea was less than half,
and sugar almost half.^ But in 1867, Stanhope,
the Commissioner for Dorset, Kent, Chester,
Salop, Staffordshire and Rutlandshire, said that in
all six counties the greater number of agricultural
labourers were sadly underfed ; their diet was
bread and potatoes, with cheese perhaps in good
times ; only the really better off had bacon.^ In the
country generally, there was found to be a great
difference between the diet of the North and that
of the rest of England, the inferiority being all
with the latter.^ Of course both now and in 1843
it was the married man with a young family who
suffered most. The noxious system of increasing
the family income by the earnings of wife and
children rendered his unaided wages totally in-
adequate for their support. Caird pointed out
that the labourer's position improved so soon as
the family could go out to work.* " We never see
such a thing as butcher's meat," said a Somerset-
shire woman, whose sole source of income was her

1 Caird, op. cit., p. 518.

^ Second Report on Children's, Young Persons', and Women's
Employment in Agriculture, 1868-9, P- 102.

' Report on Employment of Women and Children in Agricul-
ture, 1867, p. 116, etc.

* Op. cit., p. 84.

From 1834 TO i8/d 105

husband's earnings. " Our food is principally
potatoes with bread . . . Sometimes when cheap
we buy half a pound of butter a week, but most
frequently fat which we use with the potatoes to
give them a flavour. . . . We lay out about z^d.
a week in tea, chiefly to let my husband have
a comfortable breakfast on Sunday. . . . Our
common drink is burnt crust tea. We also buy
about half a pound of sugar a week. We never
know what it is to get enough to eat, at the end
of the meal the children would always eat more."
Their clergyman gave them a little milk a week.^
What added now as hitherto to the evils of poor
quality of food was the impossibility of serving
warm meals. The labourer's meagre income
obliged him to economise in fuel, and often he had
great difficulties in obtaining it, even when he
could pay the price, since there was no market for
fuel within his reach.^ Here again the advantage
lay with the North where cheap fuel allowed of
" such fires " as were " unknown in the South of
England." This enabled the labourer to partake
of hot meals and preserved the house craft of his
wife. And more than this. Cheap fuel meant
dry clothing,^ whereas, in the rest of England, the
labourer and his family were obliged to put on in

' Report, 1843, p. 68.

2 Jb., p. 75 ; Second Report, 1868-9, p. 102.

« Report, 1868-9, P- "7-

104 THE FARM LABOURER

the morning the wet clothes they had taken
off at night. The Commissioners of 1867 were
agreed that though there was little physical
injury to women and children from agricultural
work in itself, their inability to provide them-
selves with dry clothing constituted a serious
evil.^

There were other conditions of the labourer's
work and life which render the mere rate of wages
no true indication of his actual circumstances.
In the South-west of England part of his wages
were, as in the North, often paid in kind. But
the Northern labourer as a rule received fair
va:lue, though in bad years the potatoes and corn
supplied him would be the worst of the crop ;
in the South the allowances generally consisted
of such produce as was unmarketable and were
estimated by the farmer at the market price of
his better crops. Secondly, the wages actually
earned in the week were frequently less than the
weekly rate. For even where there was not
actual unemployment, the ordinary labourers on
a farm were compelled to stand off in wet weather.
In 1867 it was said that about half the men on
the farm thus lost time.^ Lastly, the labourer

' Report, 1843, p. 22.

2 Second Report, 1868-9, p. 10. In Dorset, as in the North,
men were hired by the year. But, unhke in the North, there was
a supply of surplus labour, and farmers employed the long-hire

FROM 1834 TO 1870 105

suffered through having to make his purchases
from a shopkeeper who was free from competition.
" All which they buy, therefore, is burdened with
the intermediate profits of a petty trader, accumu-
lated upon the town price. Even where there is
a disposition to deal fairly with them, general
ignorance of prices and an absence of competition
to adjust the price offers some temptation to
sell at rates inordinately high."^ The village
shops generally charged high prices for inferior
goods. Yet the labourer had little choice but
to deal with them, for his wife had not the time
to undertake marketing at a distance in addition
to her agricultural or other work. Not infre-
quently, moreover, he was under compulsion to
give his custom in the village. In some villages
in Kent wages were paid partly in cheques on the
village shop,^ and sometimes wherr small tradesmen
were also landlords, their tenants were expected
to deal at their shops. ^ Where the labourer had
a good garden or an allotment,^ he could, of course,
produce certain articles for himself, and this
opportunity of escaping from the extortions of
shopkeepers was recognised as one of the advan-

system against the labourers' interests. Wages were as low as
8s., and a man lost time in wet weather or illness, which was
not the case in the North.

' Report, 1843, p. 140.

2 lb., p. 141.

» Report, 1867-8, p. 191.

io6 THE FARM LABOURER

tages of the allotment system. In a few villages
the drawbacks of the local shop were so clearly
recognised that landlords and better class
labourers had promoted co-operative stores. These
were of real value to the labourer where they
existed, but their existence was all too rare.

Cottage accommodation struck the Commis-
sioners of 1867 as almost the worst feature of
agricultural life. The housing question was
unanimously declared by all the investigators to
be very serious, and this although considerable
sums had been spent by many landlords in recent
years. ^ Cottages, as we know, had been destroyed
by landlords in order to decrease their poor rates.
The Unions Chargeability Act of 1865 equaUsed
rates throughout the Poor Law Union, thus
bringing to an end the inducement to limit the
number of inhabitants in the close parishes.
But the evil had been done. Shortage of house-
room had created overcrowding, had sent up
rents, and had led to the rise of a new class of
small landlords. Speaking generally, the cottages
owned by such men were infinitely the worst. ^
They grudged repairs and charged high rents for
dwellings which most landowners would not have
tolerated upon their estates. And numbers of

1 Second Report, 1868-9, p. 33.
Report, 1867-8, p. 99.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 107

cottages were owned by this class. Less than
half the cottages in Norfolk were held by large
owners,^ and a similar condition obtained in
Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.^ Of the rest,
the majority belonged to small speculators, though
some were owned by their labourer occupiers.
Such cottages also were very bad.' But even on
the estates of large landowners there was con-
siderable cause for complaint. Fraser, afterwards
Bishop of Manchester, said that in his district
" the majority of the cottages that exist in rural
parishes are deficient in almost every requisite
that should constitute a home for a Christian
family in a civilised community. " * It is impossible
here to follow the Commissioners in detail through
their reports of dilapidated cottages, frequently
below the level of the ground, and with no proper
sanitary arrangements. One or two bedrooms
had to accommodate families often consisting of
five to ten persons ; and where the house was of
a better size high rents led the labourer to take in
lodgers, so that the overcrowding frequently was
as great as in the worst hovels. Even in the North,
where the conditions of labour generally were
much better than elsewhere, though many of the

» Report, 1867-8, pp. 99, 165.
2 lb., pp. 184, 191.
= Second Report, 1868-9, P- i43'
* Report, 1867-8, p. 95.

io8 THE FARM LABOURER

cottages were good, others were said to be " some
of the worst." ^ And the overcrowding was very
bad, one long, low room often being the only
accommodation for an entire family, in which
they must live, cook and sleep. One witness said
of conditions in Cambridgeshire that " labourers
as a rule are worse lodged than cattle and worse
cared for."^ And the evidence of the Commis-
sioners generally reveals that this, excepting in a
few fortunate districts, was true of the country
as a whole. It was acknowledged that immo-
rality and the frequenting of beer shops were the
inevitable results of overcrowding and discomfort
in the home.

The Commissioners recognised that the housing
problem was an intricate one. The worst landlords
were the small owners of property ; there were no
two opinions about that. Yet they alone let their
cottages upon business lines, and could make
building pay. If their methods were to be ruled
out, as clearly they must be, upon what lines were
large landowners to build ? And how were their
cottages to be let ? The stand could be taken
that cottages " ought to be considered as a neces-
sary part of landed property, the adjunct of a
farm leased to a tenant for occupation. Viewed

' Keport, 1867-8, p. 125.
» lb., p. 163.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 109

in this light the building of cottages, if built by
the landlord, will return a fair interest for his
money." ^ The labourer, therefore, would not be
expected to pay a fair rent. But if labourers'
cottages were to be regarded as part of the farm,
it almost necessarily followed that they must be
reserved for labourers employed on the farm.
In other words, the farmer and not the landlord
must have the letting of them. But such sub-
letting was opposed to the interests of the labourer.
It opened the way to his oppression by the farmer,
for he and his family would be bundled out into
the street if he ventured to change his employment,
or in any way gave offence. On the other hand,
what both the labourer and his friends, and the
Unionists of a later date, failed to consider was
that if the farmer had not control he might be
deprived of the power of procuring the labour
necessary to carry on his work.^ Fraser, one of
the Assistant Commissioners of 1867, held that
property ought to be put upon an economic
basis. He hoped to see it become remunerative,
" partly by the adoption of a more economical
plan of building and partly by an improvement
in the circumstances of the labourer enabling
him to pay a higher rent." ^ He thought that a

' Report, 1867-8, p. 98.
» lb., pp. 97. 99-
' lb., p. 98.

iro THE FARM LABOURER

rise in wages combined with a rise in rent would
materially improve the relations of all parties.
CuUey, another Assistant Commissioner, thought,
on the contrary, that even if the labourer had
higher wages he would not be willing to spend
more on rent.^

However that might be, there were practical dififi-
culties in the way of landlords' effecting building
improvements even had they dared to risk putting
a better class of dwelling into the market. Where
estates were encumbered or entailed, it was hard
to raise the necessary money, for a small portion
of the estate could not be sold in order to benefit
the rest. It was said that " entail is one of the
chief causes of bad housing." ^ Again, over much
accommodation, as well as too little, brought evils
in its train. " The lowest type of rural civilisa-
tion," said Fraser, "is to be found in those large
over-peopled open parishes in which at the slack
season of the year there is always a considerable
number out of employment." ' It was, in fact,
no kindness to supply accommodation for more
labourers than could find profitable employment
in the district, yet as large landlords in many
parishes owned only half, or less than half the
cottages, it was beyond their power to regulate

' Second Report, 1869, p. 168.

= lb., p. 169 ; Report, 1867-8, p. 165.

' Report, 1867-8, p. 97.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 iir

the supply. The Duke of Bedford's agent pointed
out this difficulty to the Assistant Commissioner
for that district. " The landowner, if he erected
all his land requires, has no power of pulling down
or of restraining others in building, hence the
fostering of over-populated districts by inducing
young persons to stay in their native place instead
of looking for work in the more thinly populated
districts, consequently, when the least slackness
of work sets in, there is an immediate outcry of
over-population." ^ In short, the housing pro-
blem was not merely a landowners' question, and
though they were largely to blame for the dis-
graceftd condition of rural housing, in fairness to
them it has to be said that where building im-
provements had taken place, it was chiefly on
their initiative.

(3) Development of the Old " Remedies."

Whilst the labourer was seeking to stave off
starvation and the workhouse by utilising the
earning powers of his family, other attempts to
improve his condition were being simultaneously
carried on. The old remedies for alleviation of
his wretchedness, allotments, benefit societies and
migration, were still applied. The allotment
movement made distinct progress during this

* Second Report, i868-g, p. 172.

112 THE FARM LABOURER

period. The Labourers' Friend Society, founded
in 1843, and similar Associations, pressed the
matter before the notice of ParUament and of
landowners ; in 1843, a Select Committee was
appointed to consider the question, and the Com-
missions of that year and of 1867 included allot-
ments in their subjects for inquiry. So far as the
House of Commons was concerned, the only
results were that it threw out three allotment
Bills during the forties, and made a feeble attempt
to promote the system by recommending in the
Enclosure Act of 1845 that a certain amount of
land thereafter enclosed should be reserved for
the poor. Owing, however, to private efforts, the
allotment movement made some progress.^ It
was most extensive in 1843 in Kent, where the
farmers were more favourably inchned, but allot-
ments were to be found in most districts in Surrey
and Sussex, in many parts of Wiltshire, Dorset
and Devonshire, and in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and
Suffolk. In 1867 the Assistant Commissioner for
Northamptonshire stated that there were few
parishes in that county which were without
allotments, though the supply was by no means
equal to the demand.^ The system was widely

> Report on Employment of Women and Children, 1843 ;
Report from the Select Committee on the Labouring Poor
(Allotments of Land), 1843.

' Report, 1867-8, p. 179.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 113

extended, too, in Dorsetshire and Rutlandshire,
but we hear that it prevailed now only on some
estates in Kent. This was the case in Stafford-
shire also.^ In Shropshire allotments were very
rare, but potato ground was supplied instead. In
Cheshire allotments were Uttle known.^ As in
1843, there were scarcely any allotments in the
extreme North. There they were not in demand,
since most labourers either had good gardens, cow-
runs or potato plots, were paid largely in kind, or
lived in the farmhouse. Under these conditions
they were not required. The labourer in the
South welcomed allotments in spite of the extra
hours of labour they entailed, because low wages
compelled him to. increase his income in any
way possible. But in the North, where wages
whether in money or kind were relatively high,
the labourer was " seldom disposed for further
work." ^

The extension of allotments was still blocked by
the opposition of many farmers, although others
now regarded the scheme with favour. The
unreconciled urged as before, that the labourers
would shirk their employers' work and steal their
corn : that they were put to inconvenience by
labourers asking for leave to work on their own

1 Second Report, 1868-9, p. 100.

2 lb., p. 228.

F.L. I

114 THE FARM LABOURER

land ; ^ and that they could not get cheap manure,
since the men wanted it for themselves.^ The
underlying cause of their objections was, however,
the fear that they would be deprived of cheap
labour.

Both the Reports of 1843 and those of 1867 — 9
dealt with the size, rents, and moral advantages
oi allotments. The Committee of 1843 pointed
out that as " the profits of the allotments should
be viewed by the holder of it in the light of an aid,
and not of a substitute for his ordinary income
accruing from wages, and that they should not
become an inducement to neglect his usual paid
labour, the allotments should be of no greater
extent than can be cultivated during the leisure
moments of the family." The exact size must
therefore depend upon the size of the family and
the nature of the soil, but as a rule not more than
a quarter of an acre was advisable.* Although
many allotments were larger than this, and
labourers both in 1843 and in 1867 would have
been glad to have more land,* it was held that in
general the labourer had not the time nor the
capital to work more ; he became a pseudo small-
holder, with no security of income, and was liable

» Report, 1867-8, p. 180.

" Report of Select Committee, 1843, Evidence, qu. 29 f.

* lb., p. iv.

* Report, 1867-8, p. 180.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 115

to most pressing want in bad years. In Dorset-
shire, even the half-acre allotments, on which
ploughing was permitted, led to irregular work on
the part of the labourers, and increased the
employment of young children and the tendency
of the labourer to depend on his potato
crop.^ Spade culture, and an area small enough
for spade culture, were the general recommen-
dations.

Intensive culture by hand labour increased
enormously the productivity of the soil. This led
to difficulties as to rent. Although the new value
of the land was entirely due to the labourers'
exertions, farmers sought to get a share of the
profits by charging high rents. The Committee
enunciated the principle that, " though the land
will yield larger profits under this mode of cultiva-
tion, than under the usual method of tillage, the
proprietor who wishes to benefit the poor man
should not exact more rent than he should expect
to receive if he let it out to be farmed in the
ordinary way." ^ Unfortunately, allotment ground
was often land sub-let by farmers, and they
ignored the justice of this axiom. Exorbitant
rents for allotments and potato plots were com-
plained of in Dorsetshire and Shropshire in 1867 ; '

» Second Report, 1868-9, P- loo-

2 Report of Select Committee, 1843, p. iv.

» Second Report, 1868-9, p. 100.

I 2

ii6 THE FARM LABOURER

and except where allotments were entirely in the
hands of philanthropic landlords, rents every-
where were higher than were required by the
ordinary rental value of the land, the charges on
it, and the cost of fencing.

The material value of allotments was pointed
out by the Committee. It was estimated that an
allotment was worth about 2s. a week to its
cultivator,^ and the average net profit was reckoned
at £4 a year ; ^ the produce of a quarter of an acre
being sufficient to feed a man with a large family
for thirteen weeks.^ The moral value was equally
emphasized. Allotments encouraged thrift and
kept men from the public houses ; it was said
after thirty-seven years' experience of allot
ments at Kingwell, near Bath, that convictions
for crime were almost nil amongst allotment-
holders.*

A few words only are required as to the progress
of the movement for benefit clubs and societies.
It had originated at the same date as the allot-
ment movement, but had not met with the same
measure of success. There were charitable coal
and clothing clubs in several of the villages,
supported partly by labourers' subscriptions, and

• Report from Select Committee, 1843, Evidence, qu. 344.
^ lb., qu. 18, 19, 20.

« lb., qu. 1657, 16591

* Second Report, 1868-9, PP- I99 — 206.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 117

partly by the philanthropic.^ They were never
popular. There was probably in their manage-
ment too much of that demand for respect to
superiors and for regular Church attendance,
which we hear of at a later date in connection with
such clubs. The benefit societies were generally
unassisted, and were free from these drawbacks.
Yet it was said that when uncontrolled by superiors
they were apt to degenerate into opportunities for
convivial meetings, yearly banks or a kind of
lottery ; which was " little wonder considering the
lack of education, temptations, and little inter-
course and no convivialities in daily life." ^ Such
clubs varied in their nature and methods. Usually
they gave benefits in sickness or at death. They
so frequently failed through ill-management that
they were of doubtful value to their supporters,
and whereas in their early years they had been
extremely popular, they later were regarded with a
considerable measure of distrust. In 1843 it was
said that though in parts of the country many
clubs were in a flourishing condition the number
had been reduced by half within the last five or
six years.^ Stanhope, in 1867, spoke of the rotten-
ness of most friendly societies in his district.

> Report on Employment of Women and Children, 1843,
p. 22.

' lb., p. 144.
» lb., p. 144-

ii8 THE FARM LABOURER

Sometimes the treasurer absconded ; sometimes
through ill-management the money was spent on
the annual feast ; or the monthly payment was
not, and never could be, sufficient to provide the
promised benefits, so that owing to miscalcula-
tions the labourer's sacrifice had been useless from
the first. " In hundreds of cases after years of
patient self-denial and saving against the day of
trouble, the poor labourer has been sent on the
parish, because there is nothing ' in the box of his
club,' or because as he and others were getting old
and were likely to come upon its funds the younger
members of his club have dissolved it and reconsti-
tuted it without him." ^ Naturally, " the con-
fidence of the poor has been to a great extent
shaken by the failure of the club on which they or
their fathers have relied." ^ The young men, if
they joined a club at all, tended to join the large
societies, such as the Oddfellows, and the old local
clubs, which in some districts had existed to the
number of two to the parish, died out.^

The policy of migration and emigration con-
tinued through this period. Migration was the
most effective weapon the labourer possessed
against the farmer, but he required intelligence
and courage to use it. He was often so completely

' Second Report, 1868-9, p. 105.

» lb., ib.

' Report, 1867-8, pp. 194 — 209.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 119

Ignorant of conditions elsewhere that he hesitated
to quit the way of life he knew, miserable though
it might be. A considerable migration took
place, however, immediately upon the abolition
of allowances. The towns of the Midlands and
the North drew labour from the land in those hard
times, and the railways were of the very greatest
assistance to the agricultural labourer, since they
passed through the rural districts and offered him
work not far remote from his old home. And
from the Census Reports of 1861 and 1871 it is
clear that the rural exodus was increasing, due
partly to the continuance of wretched conditions,
and in part to the adoption of machinery in farm
work which tended to displace labour, though the
displacement was not so great as is sometimes
imagined. In 1861 the total number of labourers,
farm servants and shepherds in England and
Wales was 1,188,786. In 1871 it was 980,178,'
a decrease of 208,608. The emigration figures
are also suggestive during this period. The
number of English emigrants only from 1853 to
i860 was 454,422, and rose to 605,165 or, at a
re-estimate, 649,742, between the years 1861 and
1870. The rural districts must have contributed
their quota, though emigration was ever more
difficult to the labourer than migration.

' Or 962,348, if 2 per cent, are subtracted as incapable of work.

120 THE FARM LABOURER

The most striking feature of the migration
movement in this period is the work of Canon
Girdlestone, an account of which was written in
1874 by Mr. Francis Heath, who visited North
Devon and met and knew the Canon personally.
From Lancashire, where the conditions of the
working classes were good, Girdlestone went, in
1866, to North Devon as vicar of the parish of
Halberton. He could not but be struck by the
wretched state of the peasantry there. Wages
were as low as ys. and seldom more than 8s.
a week for the ordinary day labourer, with an
allowance of three pints to two quarts of inferior
cider. For this poor wage the men gave nine
hours of work, exclusive of meals, and were
often kept overtime, while in harvest they
worked imtil nine or ten at night, generally
receiving their supper but no extra wages. The
women were paid yd. or 8i. a day. There
was a good deal of oppression, peasants often
being forbidden to keep pigs or hens in case
they stole food ; potato land was let only at
high rents, which were sometimes four or five
times the value of the land. Bread, burnt crust
tea, skim milk and cheese formed the staple
diet. The labourers were " crippled up " by
forty-five or fifty through rheumatism, due to the
damp clothing which the insufficiency of their

FROM 1834 TO 1870 121

fuel rendered inevitable. And the lack of nourish-
ing food made them at all times feeble and prone
to disease. Such were the conditions which
Girdlestone met with, not only in his own parish
but in North Devon generally. In March of 1866,
Girdlestone sounded the trumpet of revolt, and
set the whole parish by the ears. The district
was suffering from a cattle plague, and Girdlestone,
giving out as his text, " Behold the hand of the
Lord is upon thy cattle," demanded of the farmers
in the presence of their labourers whether they did
not think that God had sent the plague as a judg-
ment upon them for the manner in which they
treated their men. A storm of abuse broke round
him, and he and his church and his family were
ostracised by the local gentry and farmers. But
he found at least some measure of pubhc support.
He sent a letter to the Times, giving an account
of local conditions, and received replies from all
parts of England and Ireland, and letters from
farmers offering good wages and comfortable
homes for such men in his district as would accept
them. Some remitted the money to pay expenses,
and subscriptions from philanthropic persons were
sent to the vicar for the assistance of his
parishioners. He now organised a regular system
of migration, faced always with two difficulties,
the opposition of local farmers and the " home

122 THE FARM LABOURER

sickness " of the labourers. From October 1866
until June 1872, the work was systematically
carried on; four to five hundred men, many of
them with families, were removed to Lancashire,
Yorkshire, Durham, Kent, Sussex and other
counties. A number were sent to the Manchester
and the West Riding Police Forces. All met with
a rise of from 5s. to 14s. on their old pittance of
8s. Those who prospered in their new homes
found situations for friends and relations, and thus
the Canon's work became the centre of a great
system, while the movement in Devonshire stirred
the stagnation of the neighbouring counties of
Dorset, Wiltshire and Somersetshire.^

(4) New Influences.

Two new factors in the amelioration of the
labourer's lot appear during this period. One was
the furtherance of education ; the other, and the
most hopeful feature of the times, was the com-
bination of labourers over wider areas than
hitherto, and for more ambitious objects than the
supply of coal and clothing. Their entrance into
societies such as the Oddfellows is one indication
of the new spirit, and this period saw, too, the
beginning of movements for co-operation and for
raising wages. It must be said at the outset, that

' Heath, F., " English Peasantry," pp. 138 — 156.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 123

no one of these three developments effected any
general improvement in the labourer's position
during this period ; that he was indebted to the
industrial population of the towns for example and
inspiration ; and that such improvements as were
locally achieved were due to the help he received
from those who were socially and intellectually
above him. The larger societies, which he was
now beginning to join, were either managed and
largely supported by the industrial classes, or were
based upon principles which their leaders had laid
down. The repeal of the Combination Laws in
1824 had stimulated the recognition of the common
cause and common needs of the working classes,
and not merely had allowed the growth of Trade
Unions, but had fostered united action generally.
The isolation of the agricultural labourer delayed
a similar awakening in rural districts, but some
labourers at least shared in the benefits created by
the new spirit in the towns. The rural co-opera-
tive movement was also prompted from above,
and was as yet narrowly locaUsed. A co-operative
store at Assington in Suffolk, promoted by a
landowner there, is spoken of warmly by Fraser in
1867 ; ^ there was another at Tortworth ; and in
Northamptonshire there were successful stores in
many parts of the county, the most prosperous

' Report, 1867-8, p. 108.

124 THE FARM LABOURER

being the Self-Assistance Industrial Society of
Long Buckley.^ Assington had, too, a co-opera-
tive farm, started by the same landowner in 1830.
The success of this experiment led to his establish-
ment of a second in 1854.^ But these rural co-
operation societies were but pioneers in a move-
ment the very existence of which was as yet hardly
known in other parts of the country. Combined
attempts to raise wages were equally localised and
isolated. The first orderly attempt, rick burning
and rioting being not here considered, was made
in 1831, in the village of Tolpuddle in Dorsetshire.
There some labourers requested a rise in wages ;
they were perfectly orderly and well-behaved, and
were given to understand their request would be
granted. But the only change in wages was a
reduction from gs. to 7s. a week. Loveless, one of
the labourers concerned, gives the account of
what followed. " The labouring men consulted
together what had better be done, as they knew
it was impossible to live honestly on such scanty
means. I had seen at different times accounts of
Trade Societies ; I told them of this, and they
willingly consented to form a friendly society
among the labourers, having sufficiently learnt
that it would be vain to seek redress either of

1 Report, 1867-8, p. 181.
Ib^ p. 107.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 125

employers, magistrates or parsons. I inquired of a
brother to get information how to proceed, and
shortly after two delegates from a Trade Society
paid us a visit, formed a Friendly Society among
the labourers, and gave us directions how to
proceed. This was about the latter end of October,
1833. Nothing particular occurred from this
time to February 21st, 1834, when placards were
posted up at the most conspicuous places, pur-
porting to be cautions from the magistrates,
threatening to punish with seven years' trans-
portation any man who should join the Union."
Shortly after. Loveless and his companions were
arrested and taken to prison to await trial. There
they were visited by their parson, who told them
that the labourer was better off than his master,
which Loveless replied he found hard to believe
considering the number of horses kept for no other
purpose than to chase the hare and the fox. The
Combination Acts had been repealed ten years
before, so that the men had a right to form a
society or union, and there was no evidence of ill-
conduct forthcoming against the men. But
" when nothing whatever could be raked together,
the unjust and cruel judge, Williams, ordered us
to be tried for mutiny and conspiracy, under an
Act 37 Geo. IIL, c. 123, for the suppression of
mutiny amongst the marines and seamen, a

126 THE FARM LABOURER

number of years ago, at the Nore." The trial
appears to have been unfairly conducted. A
charge was trumped up against the men for having
administered illegal oaths, and the judge passed
sentence, saying, " that not for any thing that we
had done, or, as he could prove, we intended to do,
but for an example to others, he considered it his
duty to pass the sentence of seven years' trans-
portation across His Majesty's high seas upon
each and every one of us." On the way back to
prison, Loveless tossed to the crowd a scrap of paper
on which he had written the following lines : —

" God is our guide ! from field, from wave.
From plough, from anvil, and from loom ;

We come, our country's right to save.
And speak a tyrant faction's doom.

We raise the watchword liberty.
We will, we will, we will be free 1

" God is our guide ! no swords we draw.

We kindle not war's battle fires ;
By reason, union, justice, law.

We claim the birthright of our sires.
We raise the watchword liberty.

We will, we will, we will be free ! " ^

In spite of the outcry raised by Trade Unionists,
who stigmatised the act as one of unmitigated
tyranny, the men were shipped off to Botany Bay.
Though a pardon was eventually secured for them,
this was not until 1836.

Loveless, " Victims of Whiggery," pp. i f.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 127

The violence with which this harmless effort at
self-help was suppressed is perhaps partly respon-
sible for the fact that nothing is heard of similar
combinations for many years to come, although
in the towns Trade Unionism was everywhere
increasing and higher wages were being won by
united action. In 1866 an Agricultural Labourers'
Protection Association was formed in Kent, " to
organise the agricultural labourers with a view
to the amelioration of their social condition and
moral elevation, and to endeavour to mitigate the
evils of their serfdom." The first step was to
raise wages, and as labour was then scarce this
was achieved without much difficulty. The result
was that migration was checked, labour became
more abundant, and employers thus getting the
upper hand again, reduced their wages. When
the Assistant Commissioner, Stanhope, visited the
county in 1867 — 8, the Association had ceased to
have any influence.^ Stanhope further reported
that when machinery was first introduced into
farm operations, labourers' combinations were
formed to resist it, but without much success.
Yet even in the sixties, strikes for an increase of
wages were not uncommon in Lincolnshire at
busy times of threshing. In the heath districts
south of Lincoln, where bad conditions of work

' Second Report, 1868-9, p. 105.

128 THE FARM LABOURER

were aggravated by lack of cottage accommodation
near the farm, Unions were formed and supported
by subscriptions for several months. Their object
was to reduce the hours of work, since the man had
to spend so much time in tramping from his home.
But the Union came to an end before it had
effected its purpose.^

There can be no doubt that the furtherance of
education amongst agricultural labourers gave
an impetus both to migration and to combinations
for definite ends. A movement for the education
of the poor had been consistently, if slowly,
carried on since the foundation of the National
Society in 1812. In 1843, however, education
was still very poor except where the labourer
made arrangements himself for the education of
his children. This was in certain Northern dis-
tricts. In Northumberland education was both
good and general. " No greater stigma," it was
said, " can attach to parents than that of leaving
their children without the means of ordinary
education, every nerve is strained to procure it."
Almost every village had its school, where the
children were taught reading, writing and arith-
metic, and where night classes were often held for
young men, while in sparsely populated districts
shepherds often hired a schoolmaster for their

1 Second Report, 1868-9, p. 105.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 129

children.^ In Yorkshire^ and in the South of
England education was poor both in quantity
and quality. In Kent, Surrey and Sussex, where
the early employment of girls was not usual,
their education was not much interfered with,^
but boys, both in these counties and in Wiltshire,
Dorset and Somersetshire, were taken from school
so soon as they could earn anything.* In Suffolk,
Norfolk and Lincolnshire, the universal employ-
ment of young children caused neglect of educa-
tion.* The Report in i860 on the Educational
Condition of the Poor, and those of 1867 — 9 on
the Employment of Women and Children in
Agriculture, reveal that the voluntary system was
still ineffective. The schools were inadequate and
the teaching supplied was often poor, while even
where good schools existed attendance was
irregular, and the children left as young as eight
or nine to work in the fields.® With a view to
overcoming these obstacles, a Bill for compulsory
part-time education for agricultural children was
introduced in the House of Commons in 1867.'^

1 Report on Empl05mient of Women and Children, 1843,
pp. 122, 292.

2 Ih., p. 292.
8 lb., p. 150.

' lb., pp. 40 — 42, 152.
' lb., p. 217.

« Report, 1867-8, pp. 72 f., 79 f-, 84, 185, 189 ; Second
Report, 1869, p. 80.

' Hansard, vol. 189, 437 f.

F.L. K

130 THE FARM LABOURER

But the House was to be opposed to the com-
pulsory principle for yet another decade, and the
Bill had to be dropped. As in 1843, education
was still most advanced in the North.^ Further
South, in Bedfordshire, 34 per cent, of the women
could not sign their names, and in Cornwall
42 per cent., in Nottinghamshire 43 per cent., and
in Lancashire 49 per cent, were thus illiterate.^
Yet girls almost always had longer at school than
the boys. Nevertheless, education was making
headway sufficient to cause uneasiness in the
breasts of farmers. Poor though it was, it gave
a stimulus to migration. The Dorsetshire farmers
were " especially suspicious of education," for
they found that all the young men who were
sufficiently well-educated to find work elsewhere
fled the low wages on their farms.^* Of the
Somersetshire farmers it was said that they
" do not see the good of what they call over-
education ; it raises a man above his work,
he thinks himself fit for higher employment,
and goes away to the towns or railways, con-
sequently there is a scarcity of labour, and
men who stay behind are less fit for their
work than those who migrate, and require

» Report, 1867-8, pp. 158, 159.

^ Quoted in the course of the 1867 debate from a paper on
Mortality and Marriages (Hansard, op. cit.),
» Second Report, 1868-9, P- 80.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 131

the same, nay even higher wages." ^ And again
we hear that farmers consider that " more than a
httle [education] is very much too much ; they
are afraid that labourers will be spoiled for field
work. . . . Their object is to keep the school
down and not to let it rise beyond a certain level,
and in consequence of this their contributions to
the school funds often amount to a small sum."^
•It was admitted that " the object of the labouring
class in seeking [education] is not to make their
children better agricultural labourers, but to
enable them to rise to a higher sphere in life."^ •
Those who have followed the story of the degra-
dation of the labourer will feel with Mr. Fawcett
that one of the chief virtues of education was the
encouragement it would give to migration. " If
the labourers of Dorset and Wiltshire were
educated and knew what was going on in other
parts of the country," he declared in a fine speech
during the debate of 1867, " they would acquire
a spirit of enterprise and energy. They would
never be content with the miserable wages of
ten shillings a week, but would betake themselves
to localities where they would receive a higher
amount of compensation."* Education was,

' Second Report, 1868-9, p. 200.

2 Ih., p. 68.

» lb., ib.

* Hansard, vol. 189, 487.

K 2

132 THE FARM LABOURER

indeed, and was partially seen by the labourer
to be, one of the best means of reducing that
surplus supply of labour which placed him
at the mercy of the farmer, and compelled
him to adopt remedies which but increased
his wretchedness. Farmers in the North had
no need to fear education, for they had
eliminated the danger of shortage in supply
by paying fair wages. The same means
lay to the hands of the Southern farmer.
But he preferred to try to " keep the school
down." And many of his social superiors
shared this point of view. Onslow could say in
the House, in the debate on the Education Bill
of 1870, which made compulsory the provision of
public elementary schools, that he trusted " there
would be no attempt to establish a very high class
of education in our rural schools, as over-education
would have the effect of driving away manual
labour from the country."^ The ignorance and
apathy, which is not contentment, of the rural
working classes should be tenderly preserved, it
would seem, in order that they might be willing
to labour as the beasts of the field. This is a
view which has not wholly disappeared even
amongst educated people in the year of grace
1913-

• Hansard, vol. 229, col. 1930.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 133

(5) Difficulties and Incidental Dangers of
Action Taken and Proposed.
In conclusion, one word must be said as to the
effects generally of the various solutions which
were applied to the agricultural labour problem.
In the North it had been an employers' problem
and, as we saw in the preceding chapter, it had
been solved by higher wages. Wages were higher
both in actual rates and, owing to the long hire
system, in total amount. The long hire system
had its disadvantages, as was pointed out by the
Assistant Commissioner, for the labourer, when
once his contract was made, was at the mercy of
a bad master or steward.^ But the advantage of
receiving his wage in sickness and bad weather
recognisedly outweighed the drawbacks of the
system. The result was that in the North the
labourer's problem was practically non-existent ;
consequently, the employment of very young
children was rare, education was not sacrificed,
and low feeding had not to be resorted to in order
to escape the workhouse. In the South, the
problem was one of the very existence of the
labourer, and it would appear that most of the
attempts to solve it but led to its accentuation.
Allowances and family labour certainly did so.
Charity in aid of wages, whether it took the form

• Report, 1867-8, p. 112.

134 THE FARM LABOURER

of doles or of clothing and coal clubs, was of
doubtful benefit. A country clergyman, who knew
well the difl&culties of the poor, declared that in
parishes where help from charitable persons was
forthcoming, the labourer's rent was raised or
his wages were reduced.^ One of the Assistant
Commissioners of 1867 was of the same opinion as
to charitable support of schools. He considered
that in parishes where the labourer was assisted
in this way the imposition of low fees had a
tendency to keep down wages.^ This, of course,
is not an objection which could be raised against
completely free education, since under the free
system conditions are alike in all districts. He
considered also that it was a mistaken kindness
for landlords to charge low rent, since this, too,
prevented wages from rising. Wages would neces-
sarily rise if rents rose, as was the case in the
neighbourhood of London.^ Whether allotments
kept wages down is a more difficult question.
They were certainly most general in the district
where wages were lowest, but this is not in itself
a proof that they were the cause of low wages.
A Northamptonshire clergyman considered they
did have the effect of preventing wages from

* Report on Emplo3mient of Women and Children, 1843,
p. 76.
' Second Report, 1868-9, P- 138.
» lb., p. 148.

FROM 1834 TO 1870 135

rising.^ But the Assistant Commissioner for that
county could find no information leading to this
conclusion. He admitted, however, that " if a
farmer knew that his labourer is in the habit of
spending a portion of his strength upon his own
land, he will be unwilling to pay him as much as
he would if he knew that the whole of his strength
is given in return for his wages. Probably, too,
if a labourer knows he can make something by
his allotment he will be willing to accept less
from his employer than he otherwise would."
But he pointed out that wages had risen within
the last thirty years although allotments had
increased. This fact is not, however, of much
weight, for the rise in prices and the increase in
migration must be taken into account. There
can be very Uttle doubt that where wages were
raised it was due chiefly to migration or to a
shortage of labour from some other cause. Any
device, therefore, which had the effect of recon-
ciling the labourer to his lot tended to prevent a
rise in wages. At this date, however, the Com-
missioner seems to have been right in saying that
the men who held allotments were too few, and
the amount of land held was too small to have
any appreciable effect on wages.^

1 Report, 1867-8, p. 693.
» lb., p. 180.

136 THE FARM LABOURER

The Commissioners of 1867 were well aware
that wages both were at the root of rural difficulties
and were sensitive to every change in the other
conditions of the labourer's life. They constantly
laid stress on the higher wages and better condi-
tions of the North. Yet, as one of their number
pointed out, " to say ' raise the wages,' is easy ;
but it is very difficult for the farmer to do so.
There is pressure brought to bear upon him from
above and below. Everyone, except perhaps the
farmer himself, wishes to see the wages raised.
Nay, he would be willing to raise wages if he could
do so without impoverishing himself ; but with
the present great demand for land the rents paid
by the farmers are gradually rising, and it is im-
possible for them to pay higher rents and higher
wages at the same time. At more than one
meeting of Guardians that I attended it was stated
that the wages could never be raised till rents were
lowered, and that as long as rents continued to
rise, the least that could be expected is that wages
shall not fall. It is equally difficult to expect the
landlord to lower his rent in the face of a rapidly
increasing demand for land and to expect the
occupier to raise wages in face of an increasing
demand for rent." Rents, of course, fell only when
agriculture was depressed and the farmer was no
more inclined to pay higher wages then than in the

FROM 1834 TO 1870 137

good years when his rent was being raised. It
was always one thing or the other. Meanwhile,
so long as there was no compulsion upon landlords
and farmers to come to some adjustment, the
labourer must suffer. In the next period the
labourer attempted to apply that compulsion by
combined action with his fellows, with what
success we shall see.

CHAPTER V

THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS* UNIONS

The wages question was recognised by the
Commissioners of 1867 as the radical cause of the
agricultural labourers' problem. The year 1872
saw the engineering of the best organised and
most direct effort which had yet been made to
raise wages. The action of some Warwickshire
labourers inspired a movement for agricultural
unions which was destined to spread through the
whole country and agitate the wages rates. But
the Union men found that in tackling the wages
question they were confronted with innumer-
able difficulties. The labourers whom they were
attempting to combine were ignorant, socially
depressed, politically insignificant, lacking in
wholesome ambition. High wages might secure
for them the social weight which would bring
with it respect and political power ; the better
housing, which in itself would be uplifting; the
release of their children from toil which hindered
education ; the means of rising in life, which would
foster self-esteem and hope. But it was hard with
conditions as they were either to unite the labourers

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 139

in a common cause or to win them higher wages.
The temptation to fight by flank movements and
indirect fire was great. And, almost from the
first, this was the policy of the Unions. While
they still carried on the main struggle against low
wages and long hours, they sought to impose
allotments and benefit societies between the
labourer and the pauperism which rendered him
useless as a Unionist, and they strove to win the
pohtical power which would lessen the opposition
to his right to combine, and might even win by its
own means the chief object of that combination.
It cannot be said that they were wrong. Although
the Trade Unions concentrated for many years
upon improvement in the conditions of work, the
labourer's case was different, and deductions as to
the wisdom of their policy cannot be drawn from
the greater ultimate success of the Trade Unionists
and the less success of the agricultural. Still it has
to be admitted that the strength of the new unions
was deflected from what originally was their main
object, and though on their collapse much was
achieved, the labourer's problems had not been
solved.

(i) The Early Unions.

Labourers' Unions had been attempted before,
as we know. Omitting the Tolpuddle effort,

140 THE FARM LABOURER

which was too long ago to have any influence in
the seventies, there were Unions in Buckingham-
shire and Hertfordshire in the late sixties, while
Unions supported by contributions and working
by means of strikes had been formed in Lincoln-
shire. And in 1871 an extensive Union had been
set on foot in Herefordshire. Starting in the
village of Leintwardine, where it had been urged
on by the rector, it spread through six counties,
and enrolled 30,000 members. Its objects were
those of Girdlestone, whose work no doubt
inspired it. Wages were raised through the
creation of a scarcity of labour by means of
migration and emigration. The surplus labour
was sent to Yorkshire, Lancashire and Stafford-
shire, while about forty men were emigrated to
America. The result was a rise in wages by
2s. a week in Herefordshire itself, where wages
had been often as low as ys., and in other
counties where the Union took hold, improvements
were also effected.^ The Herefordshire Union
probably had an influence in Warwickshire, but
as in 183 1, the chief impetus came from the Trade
Union boom amongst industrial workers. There
was a widespread revival in Unionism throughout
England in 1871 — 2. The success of a strike in

• " Joseph Arch : the Story of His Life. Told by Himself,"
p. no.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 141

Newcastle led to others in all the principal towns,
the reports of which spread into rural districts.
Here the questions of shorter hours and better
wages could be more intelligently discussed than
hitherto, for cheap newspapers were now available,
while in most villages there were " some men who
at one time or other in their lives had worked in
towns and had some knowledge of Trade Unions
and their practices." ^ Some such men perhaps it
was who, in the village of Westerton-under-
Weatherley, near Leamington, wrote to a local
newspaper describing the hardship of their lives.
This was read by fellow labourers in Charlcote,
near Wellesbourne, one of whom had been in the
Black Country, and they resolved to make an effort
to improve their equally wretched conditions by
combining for higher wages. On February 7th,
1872, they held an open air meeting at Wellesbourne,
which was reported in the Leamington Chronicle,'^
the movement thus having the assistance of
advertisement in the Press from the first. But
they needed a leader and bethought them of
Joseph Arch, the son of a peasant proprietor, with
something of a local reputation as a labourer who
had travelled, and had made his way in the
agricultural world by the acquisition of skill in

» Eraser's Magazine, 1872. " The Agricultural Strike."
a Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, December 20th.

142 THE FARM LABOURER

hedging and other special branches of farm work.
He was also a Primitive Methodist preacher, and
had thus developed a power of oratory. He
agreed to speak for them on February 13th. The
news spread from farm to farm by word of mouth,
and when the night came the size of the meeting
astonished its promoters. A thousand persons
were gathered under the chestnut tree which
spread its branches over the village green ; to
them Arch made a simple but inspiring speech
during a breathless silence, and when he had
finished, the names of those who wished to join
the new Union poured in so rapidly that the
secretary could hardly write them down.^ A
letter was then sent round to employers requesting
2S. 2d. a day, and the limitation of the working
day to the hours of 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a half
day ending at 3 p.m. on Saturday.^ The letter
was treated with contempt, and on March nth,
200 Wellesbourne men struck work. Unlike most
strikes, this attracted a fair measure of public
interest and sympathy ; Matthew Vincent, the
editor of the Leamington Chronicle, was through-
out a good friend to the movement, and the
labourers owed a great deal to the favourable light
in which he placed it before the pubhc. The

' Heath, F., " The English Peasant," p. 52.

' The Congregationalist, 1872. " Labourers in Council."

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 143

Daily News also was of service ; Archibald Forbes,
the war correspondent, was sent to Warwickshire
and wrote a series of special articles,^ which
reached a wider public than that of the Leamington
journal. Meanwhile, Henry Taylor, a carpenter,
who was the secretary of the new Union, issued
appeals to the Trade Unions throughout the
country, and general public subscriptions began
to come in. The Union movement spread through
the country and when, on March 29th, the War-
wickshire Union was finally inaugurated, there
were sixty-four branches containing some 5,000
members. The meeting was presided over by
Auberon Herbert, M.P., and was supported by
other of the labourers' friends ; a donation of £100
was received, and letters of six members of Parha-
ment were read at the meeting.^ The news was
now spreading further afield than Warwickshire,
and Unions were formed all over the country.
Such action on the part of mere field labourers was
regarded as insolence by all too many of the
farmers, landlords and clergy ; it was said that
the men were ruining the " good relations between
employers and employed," and destro5dng the
feelings of " generosity " on the part of masters
towards their men. The Unions were accused of

> Arch, op. cit., p. 83.

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, December 20th. Calendar.

144 THE FARM LABOURER

being the work of paid agitators. But though
there is no doubt that the movement received
great aid from Trade Union men, the skilled trades
furnishing many of the new Union officials, the
labourers' desire to combine was genuine and
spontaneous. The lead given by Warwickshire
gave them courage to try. In April a meeting of
labourers at Shoreham spontaneously resolved to
form a Union in Kent, on the same basis as that of
Warwickshire,^ and a few days later the Agri-
cultural Labourers' Union for Kent was formed
with Maidstone as its centre.** Though wages
there were nominally 13s. a week, the compulsory
abstinence from work in rain or frost reduced the
average earnings to 105. or lis. for sixty-three
hours' work.** In the hamlet of Horcutt, in
Gloucester, the men formed a Union " in a rough
sort of fashion by themselves without any external
assistance from more experienced agitators." Their
objects were a minimum wage of 15s. a week, and
the exclusion of married women from field work,
which " they considered injures their own chances
as women are paid at the lower rate and set to
work which men ought to do." ' In South Devon
more than a hundred men and boys of Buckland
Monachoum formed a Union to raise their wages

' Times, 1872, April 20th, 26th.
^ lb., April 30th.
' lb., April 29th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 145

of gs. to IIS. a week to an average of 15s. all the
year round, and appointed a committee to draw
up rules.^ Meanwhile in the Midlands, Unionists
were striving to form the labourers of Gloucester-
shire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shrop-
shire into a Union of 30,000 members, and nightly
meetings were held. Such a one took place one
moonhght night in an orchard, in a district which
the Commissioners of 1867 had reported to be one
of the most wretched.^ On the side of the hill
where the meeting was held lay a tract of common
land covered with gorse and heather, and studded
with cottages which were mere hovels, and in
which the greatest poverty prevailed. It was the
iU-paid, ill-housed, ignorant men spoken of by the
Commissioners in this district who met under the
moonlit fruit trees, and with a new hope in their
hearts pledged themselves to union. To such
small Unions throughout the country the War-
wickshire Committee sent a circular letter inviting
them to join in forming a National Union. A
Congress of Delegates from Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent,
Dorset, Yorkshire and other counties was held at
Leamington on April 30th. WiUiam Morrison,
M.P., presided, and other friends of the labourer
were present, among them Girdlestone, Jesse

■ Times, 1873, April 30th.
' lb.
F.L. L

146 THE FARM LABOURER

CoUings, Auberon Herbert, George Howell, Lloyd
Jones, and Charles Trevelyan, as well as Arch and
Strange, the secretary of the old Herefordshire
Union.^ Many of the delegates spoke of their
sufferings, and with eloquence and ability, though
they prefaced their remarks with apologies for no
learning. Their frequent use of preachers' phrases
revealed the indebtedness of the new movement to
the Methodist revival. The tone of the speeches
was temperate ; the men repudiated all idea of
coercion or of " serving masters out," and declared
their willingness " to let bygones be bygones."
One or two men from the towns whose speeches
were fiery were called to order .^ In the evening a
public meeting of 3,000 persons inaugurated the
National Agricultural Labourers' Union, with
Arch as president, Henry Taylor as secretary, and
Matthew Vincent as treasurer.

It is not possible here to follow the growth of
the National Union night by night and week by
week, nor that of the other Unions which worked
outside its fold. For the next two years the work
went on quietly. Arch, Taylor, George Shipton, the
secretary of the London Trade Council, and other
delegates from the Central bodies, gave up their

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, December 20th : Calendar;
Congregationalist, 1872 : " Labourers in Council."
' Congregationalist, op. cit.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 147

whole time to the widening and strengthening of
the movement, and together with the local
secretaries held constant meetings. " Night by
night during seed-time and harvest, summer and
winter, in barns, cottages and ' conventicles,' in
public rooms, in ' pounds,' and in sheepfolds,
in market places, on village greens and by the
roadside, meetings have been held, addresses have
been given, members have been enrolled ' in
union,' ' branches ' have been formed." Gala
days there were, too, when the members and their
wives and daughters, who gave real assistance by
their keenness for the movement, paraded the
street with brass bands, flags, banners, and
" suitable mottoes." Meetings followed at which
the men were urged to keep strong " in union,"
to keep their wives and daughters at home, and
to have ever an eye for Canada. Such a meeting
was held at Wicken, where 800 marched to the
village green and sat down to tea at tables lent
by the vicar and spread with the good things
provided by three labourers.^ Even the small
branches had their festivals. At Garford, near
Newbury, where there were twenty-six members,
they and their families met under the elm trees,
ornamented with wreaths of flowers made by
the school children, while a Union flag was put

• Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, August and.

L 2

148 THE FARM LABOURER

in the stump of an old tree. At six o'clock they
sat down to " nice cake and tea " provided by
labourers' wives. " After tea speeches, songs,
and about to do accounts, when a friend came
in and put five shillings on our books, wishing us
every success."^ Songs were very popular at
these meetings : —

" Ours are the voices that for ages were unheard.
Ours are the voices of a future long deferred ;
Cry all together, we shall speak the final word.
Let the cause go marching on ! "

Such were the refrains that stirred the heart of
the peasant from end to end of England. For
there were few districts between the Humber and
the Channel in which Unionism was unrepresented,
the local societies being affiliated to one of the
four or five central organisations, of which the
National Agricultural Labourers' was the chief.^

Small strikes took place in some districts,' and
in Oxfordshire a good deal of indignation was
aroused in 1872 against the Government by its
permitting the employment of soldiers in harvest
work to break the strike.* But striking was not
encouraged except as a last resort. Farmers,

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, June 21st.

' Congregationalist, 1876 : " Agricultural Labourers' Move-
ment."

" Times 1872, June nth, October i8th ; Labourers' Union
Chronicle, 1872, onwards.

* Times, August 20th, 22nd, 30th, September i6th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 149

especially during haymaking and harvest, granted
some rise before such pressure was brought to
bear. The National Union claimed to have raised
wages by is. to 4s. a week. Wages were, however,
by no means the only question with which the
Unions concerned themselves. Shorter hours,
better housing, exclusion of married women from
field work, migration and emigration, were all
subjects both considered by the Union leaders
and discussed in local meetings. And other
matters than the conditions of labour were included
from the first in the National Union's platform.
At the inaugural meeting Jesse Collings spoke of
rural education. Sir Baldwin Leighton on allot-
ments and cow-lots, the Rev. J. W. Leigh on
co-operative farming. The land laws and land
monopoly were discussed at the mass meeting of
labourers and their friends at Exeter Hall, in
December of the same year. In small village
meetings, too, enclosures, education and other
subjects were considered. The Labourers' Union
Chronicle had been started in Jime, with Matthew
Vincent as editor, and did much to educate the
labourer in all the poUtical, economic, social and
agricultural questions of the day. From 1873
the extension of the franchise and the disendow-
ment of the Church received considerable attention
in its pages, and interest thus awakened in the

150 THE FARM LABOURER

franchise question is reflected in the speeches of
labourers at insignificant httle village meetings.

It is doubtful whether the inclusion of these
wider objects in the Union programme was not
a cause of weakness. Arch, looking back at the
work of the Union, regretted " the cart of agricul-
tural reforms stuck before the Union horse."
The mistake, if mistake it were, was largely due
to the union of politicians with labourers. The
politicians, though their support was invalu-
able to the labourers, underestimated the diffi-
culties of righting mere conditions of labour,
and eager for their own reforms, loaded them
too early into the cart. The Trade Unions,
though they had been in existence long before,
did not enter the poUtical field until 1878.^ And
Trade Unions had far more of the elements of
strength than had the agricultural. Their mem-
bers were better able to pay subscriptions, and
the constant intercourse with each other kept
them firm in their common objects.

(2) Difficulties of the Unions, Collapse.

The agricultural Unions had to meet all the
usual difficulties inherent in forming and preserving
combinations of workmen, and were beset as well
by special difficulties. Their members could not

I Howell, " Conflicts of Capital and Labour, 1878," p. 174.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 151

contribute at Trade Union rates, yet the cost
of forming and preserving Labourers' Unions
was greater. Constant meetings were necessary
to keep the movement strong amongst men who
were scattered and who were so much at the
mercy of their employers. Acts of petty tyranny
were constantly being practised, and with the
greatest success, for men threatened with the
loss of their allotments, or with loss of work if
they joined the Union, dared not stand firm by it.
The system of letting cottages with farms now
appeared as a greater grievance than ever before.
Labourers complained at their meetings that the
sub-letting of cottages by farmers enabled them
not merely to discharge their men, but to turn
them and their families from their homes.^ In the
Cirencester district farmers gave the men notice
to quit their cottages, and resolved to let in the
future only by the week, in order that any Union
man might be easily evicted.^ Landowners and
clergy united with the farmers in the persecution
of Unionists. As landlords, as magistrates, as
poor law guardians, as the dispensers of charities,
they had great powers of oppression. Cases of
tyranny were constantly reported by the local
secretaries, a few instances only of which must

1 Times, 1872, June 27th.

* Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, September 13th.

152 THE FARM LABOURER

here suffice to show what the labourer had to
meet. Not infrequently landowners and farmers
in their capacity of magistrates refused to allow
open-air meetings to be held, on the plea of
obstruction of the highways. A test case was
fought out over a meeting held by Arch and
Mr. J. C. Cox in 1873. They were charged at
Farringdon Petty Sessions, a Bench which had
fined several Union delegates before, but in this
case Queen's Counsel was employed by the
defendants, and the local justices dared not
confirm the charge.^ But the magistrates still
had great powers of persecution left them. They
avoided giving police protection to labourers'
meetings,^ which were not infrequently disturbed
by employers. In the Brampton district an
innkeeper was threatened with the loss of his
licence if he permitted meetings to be held on his
premises.^ Unionists were constantly summoned
for trivial offences, or for leaving their work at
the end of the week. As they were paid by the
week they had really a right to do so, but not
infrequently they were fined. Yet when the
Union tried a case against a farmer in the Swaffham
district, where several men had been so fined, for

' Arch, op. cit., p. 137.

^ Hansard, 1873, ccxvii. 805 ; Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873,
October 4th.

' lb., 1873, June 14th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 153

discharging his men without notice, the case was
dismissed.^ " In serving summonses for such
cases they send them about two days before they
have to appear before the Bench, so there is no
time to get a solicitor to defend the cases, and if
the parties summoned want to adjourn the case
they will not allow them."^ In a trumped-up
case at Compton Abbas, two men were taken
into custody and kept in prison nine days before
they were tried. One employer was heard to
remark, " They are Union men, give it them."
Nothing could be proved against the men, and
they had to be dismissed.^ This sort of thing
was so common that Auberon Herbert, in the
House of Commons, moved to appoint a Commis-
sion to inquire into the powers of county magis-
trates, " with special reference to their repeated
convictions of labourers for trivial offences, or
for no offence at all." But he was counted out.
In the committal of some labourers' wives to
prison on a charge of impeding strike-breakers,
the Oxfordshire magistrates went too far. Public
indignation was aroused, and the Chipping Norton
case became proverbial for the " justice " of
county magistrates.* The landed interest also

' hdbourers' Union Chronicle, August 2nd.

» lb.

' lb., 1873, August 2nd ; cf. Times, 1872, July 2nd, 26th.

* Arch, op. cit., p. 142.

154 THE FARM LABOURER

used-its power as Poor Law Guardians to victimise
Unionists. One man was refused relief or a
ticket for the house in Warwickshire ; another,
in Hampshire, was refused a coffin for his child.
It was alleged that guardians were strict where
Unionists were concerned in forcing them to
contribute to the support of aged parents.^ As
trustees of charities, the gentry and clergy also
abused their powers. In Clopton, Suffolk, the
churchwarden gave notice that " the society calling
itself the National Agricultural Union having
ordered strikes in a portion of the county of
Suffolk, all members of the same in this parish
have notice to give up their allotments, and will
be struck off the list of parochial and bread
charities."^ In a parish near Aylesbury, charities
were withheld, but the men here had enough spirit
to open a correspondence with the Charity
Commissioners.^ The clergy, for the most part,
sided with squire and farmer. It was two clergy-
men magistrates who were to blame in the Chipping
Norton affair, and oppressive guardians and
untrustworthy trustees numbered clergy in their
ranks. The country vicars were not above the
pettiest acts of oppression ; two young women

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, August 2nd.
•^ lb., 1874, April i8th.
* lb., 1873, June 7th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 155

were turned out of the choir of a Buckinghamshire
church because they spoke at labourers' meetings ;^
one old Suffolk woman was threatened by the
parson with the loss of her allotment if she allowed
her barn to be used for a meeting,^ and another
Suffolk parson gave the Unionists notice to quit
the glebe allotments.^ " The Church has once
more shown itself not the Church of the Nation
but the Church of a class," wrote in 1874 a
prominent statesman of the present day.* The
labourers had many excellent friends amongst the
clergy, such as the Bishop of Manchester, Girdles-
ton, Attenborough and others ; and lesser men
whose names are now forgotten subscribed to
the labourers' funds, took the chair or spoke at
meetings, and lent the church field for the accom-
modation of the speakers and their audiences.*
But the little acts of tyranny by less enlightened
parsons aroused a feeUng of severance between
labourers and the Church. So, too, with land-
owners ; the majority perhaps were opposed,
but many were sympathetic, they raised wages
unasked, and spoke up at dinners of agricultural
societies for the Unions and for moderation and

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, July 19th.

" lb., 1873, July 5th.

" lb., 1874, April i8th.

* lb., 1874, March 21st.

» lb., 1873, June 7th, July 5th, 26th, October nth, etc., etc.

156 THE FARM LABOURER

justice on the part of farmers and landlords.^
The landowner's position was a compUcated one,
for those who were willing to act fairly by the
labourer yet had duties to the farmer too. The
Duke of Bedford was a " good friend of the
labourers," ^ yet he held that farmers must have
the right to evict labourers from their cottages ;
his cottages were built " for the accommodation
of those who work upon the farms, and their
appropriation must follow that arrangement." '
Lord Denbigh issued a circular to all the labourers
on his estate, saying he had never opposed the
Union and would not support tenant farmers in
any attempt to impose unfair conditions of work
or wages. But cottages were for the men who
worked upon the estate, and he would not restrain
farmers who gave notice to their tenants.* Thus
the housing difficulty comes up again. Both the
landowner's frequent good-will and his difficulties
were, however, put into the shade by the ill-will
of the many, and whereas the Union movement
had opened with every disposition on the men's
part to good feelings and moderation towards

• Times, 1872, April 30th, May 28th, December loth, etc. ;
Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, June 21st, 28th, etc. ; cf.
June 14th, etc., re friendly farmers.

" Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1872, August 2nd.

' lb., 1874, April nth.

' lb., 1873, June 2ist.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 157

those above them,'^ a feeling of class distrust and
of isolation was created, and the Union movement
became more bitter. The bitterness of that date,
the grudging spirit and suspicion so often found
to-day, were not the work of demagogues and
paid agitators, but of the farmers, clergy and
gentry of the seventies and eighties. The labourer
has more time than the townsman to chew the
cud of memory.

The lump of prejudice and injustice in the

Church and the landed interest would have been

leavened in time by the more enlightened of their

numbers, but there was a difficulty which the

Unions had to meet less hopeful of removal.

This was one which had always beset the labourer,

the difficulty of limiting the supply of labour.

In such limitation lay the best chance of raising

wages. But the farmer had great powers of

self-protection. He could alter his methods of

cultivation, almost his line of business. He could

put down crops which required less labour, or

allow the land to lie idle for a time. Thus, and

by the use of machinery, he was able to economise

in labour whenever he felt the pinch. And the

pinch he felt but slowly, for he possessed wide

sources of supply in the general labourers, the

casual workers of the towns and immigrants

' Times, 1872, April 20th, May i6th, December 5th, nth.

158 THE FARM LABOURER

from Ireland. By the use of such outside labour
he constantly evaded the men's demands. In
1872 soldiers were employed in several districts
to gather in the harvest ;^ next year, when the
outcry raised against the authorities had com-
pelled them to forbid such use of the military,
the farmers obtained an ample supply of labour
from Ireland and the towns, by issuing, it was
said, false reports as to wages.^ Those who were
compelled to raise wages in haymaking and
harvest, or during the busy season on pasture
farms, were able to reduce them again as soon as
the winter set in. This occurred both in 1872
and 1873, and many Unionists were dismissed
even though they were prepared to accept lower
wages.^ In 1872, so soon as harvest was over,
many Dorsetshire farmers lowered the wages of
their men, in some cases by as much as five shillings
a week.* They also reduced the amount of work
put into the land to a minimum ; men were
dismissed and others were locked out until they
accepted their employer's terms.° The land of
course suffered, but that was the landowner's and

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1872, August 22nd, etc.

" lb., 1873, August 30th, September 13th.

^ lb., 1872, June nth; 1873, July 12th, September 20th,
October 4th, etc. ; Times, 1872, October i8th.

' Times, 1872, September 30th.

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, October 25th ; 1874,
January 25th, February 7th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 159

the nation's loss rather than the tenant farmers ;
even as early as 1873 the harvest revealed the
under-cultivation of the land.^ In Suffolk, farmers
combined together and borrowed labour from
each other. ** And they employed women and
children, presumably the families of non-Union
men, to replace Unionist labour. This gang
system was " a great curse to the labourers,"
and it was said the farmers were " acting as bad
cis locking out."^ But as was pointed out at a
laboiurers' meeting, " as long as we hve in their
cottages they will force us to send our boys out
to work."* The evil system of raising wages in
harvest time instead of paying a fair wage through-
out the year was also denounced by the labourers.
It was but in the nature of things that farmers
should introduce foreign labour from the towns,
Ireland and elsewhere, and that they should form
their own unions, such as the Oxfordshire and
Adjoining Counties Association of Agriculturalists,
started in 1872, the Farmers Protection Society
in Dorsetshire, and the National Federation of
Employers, formed at the close of the year 1873.
That any Union would have to expect. But
the pecuUar powers of self-protection which

' Labourers^ Union Chronicle, 1873, September 20th.
» lb., 1873, September 27th.

• lb., 1873, June 7th.

♦ lb., 1873, July 5th.

i6o THE FARM LABOURER

farmers possessed placed special difficulties in
the way of Agricultural Unions.

The results were that the Unions always had some
hundreds of names on their relief list, and that
very early in their career recourse had to be had to
emigration. Joseph Arch had been at first opposed
to it, as emigration robbed the nation of its best
men, and he recognised that there was really no
surplus of good labour on the land.^ But migra-^
tion did not give sufficient rehef, and as early as
September, 1872, the National Union was com-
pelled to adopt definite emigration schemes.^
There was still reluctance among the men to leave
their homes, but constant articles in the Labourers'
Union Chronicle, and persuasion by delegates at
village meetings, overcame this to a great extent.
All the year through men were emigrated, largely
by the aid of public subscription, and the numbers
rose to hundreds regularly every winter.^ In
July, 1873, Arch went to Canada to prospect, and
made excellent arrangements with the Canadian

' Times, 1872, December loth.

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873 : Calendar. Arch, op. cit.,
p. 40, says lack of education was a difficulty both in migration and
emigration. Men could not write, and dared not leave home.

' Times, 1872, September 30th, October i8th, December loth ;
Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, September 13th, 20th, Octo-
ber nth, etc. July 13th, Arch announced at a meeting that in
five months 7,000 men had been engaged to make railroads in
New Zealand alone.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS i6i

Government for the financial assistance and
reception of his members.

All the difficulties inherent in Agricultural
Unions became apparent in the great struggle of
1874. A small Suffolk branch asked, in " moderate
and conciliatory language," for a rise in wages of is}
The farmers replied by locking them out at the end
of February. By the close of March the lock-out
had spread into the neighbouring counties and into
Hampshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, and
2,000 men were out. The number rose to over
8,000 by the beginning of May, and eventually
the total number reached 10,000.^ Some were
locked out because they had asked for a rise in
wages, but others, and " by far the greatest
number," merely because they were Union men.^
The expenditure in relief was inevitably immense ;
^^21,365 was paid for strikes by the National Union
alone in 1874 — 5. The public supported liberally.
Contributions came in from gentry and clergy,*
and labourers throughout the country collected
their pence at village meetings. But by far the
greatest support came from the Trade Unionists
and the general working-class population of the
towns. Demonstrations were held to express

' Times, 1874, August 22nd.

^ Hasbach, op. cit., p. 285.

» Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, March 21st.

* lb.. May gth, i6th, 23rd.

F.L. M

i62 THE FARM LABOURER

sympathy with the labourers in many of the
manufacturing cities,^ such as that in Manchester,
where there was a procession of 300,000 through
the city, followed by a meeting addressed by Arch.
There £192 13s. 3^. was collected " chiefly in
pence during the procession through the streets." ^
A hundred labourers from the Newmarket
district were sent on a march through England,
holding demonstrations and collecting subscrip-
tions.^ " Men of England, you, the toilers in
mines and at forge and loom, and you their
generous employers, remember this is not simply a
peasant's question, it is a condition of England
question." Such had been the appeal of the National
Union to the trades.* And they responded nobly.
They recognised clearly, of course, the advan-
tages to themselves of Agricultural Unions. The
wretched conditions of the field labourer were
pulling down conditions of work in the towns,
where the immigration of numbers of first-rate
men from the country was increasing competition.
They realised that improvement in the status of
the industrial classes must go side by side with
improvement in the conditions of rural labour.

' Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, May gth (Birmingham,
Liverpool, Leeds), April aStli (Manchester), April 29th (Bolton),
May 5th (Liverpool), May 6th (Wigan), May gth (Hahfax),
May nth (Bury), etc.

^ lb., 1874, June 27th.

' lb., 1874, July 4th, nth, i8th, August 8th.

' lb., May gth.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 163

The first must be ephemeral miless the second also
were achieved. But none the less generous was their
sjTmpathetic response to the new Unions' appeals.
The money was spent in rehef of the locked out
men and in emigrating and migrating all for whom
the openings or the money could be found. Week
by week the National Union Executive Committee
reported the removal of men in twenties and
thirties from district after district. All too often,
however, the fresh men locked out equalled the
number of those who were now off the reUef Usts.
Every effort was made by the labourers' friends to
mediate. Samuel Morley, M.P., and George Dixon,
M.P., were in close touch with the two parties at
Newmarket and Leamington. Arbitration suc-
ceeded in the case of the Lincolnshire Labour
League. The farmers against whom it was opposed
recognised the men's right to unite, and the
League withdrew certain of its rules.^ But the
mediation elsewhere was unsuccessful. The men
did not show themselves unreasonable but, as was
the general opinion of the press and the dis-
interested pubUc, the employers did. They were
out, the Times correspondent as well as Arch
averred, not to protect their wages bills, but
to break down the combination of the men.^

■ Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, May 30th.
" lb., 1874, April 4th ; Times, 1874, August 9th.

M 2

i64 THE FARM LABOURER

Dr. Eraser, the Bishop of Manchester, one of the
Commissioners of 1867, declared in an article in
April, that the result of the farmers' obstinacy
was that the seed was not sown and the land was
being grossly neglected, while labour was driven
from the country.^ Again we see how the farmer,
from the very nature of his work, possessed a
peculiar strength. The Times correspondent
wrote that " the farmers affect to be able to do
without the labour of the men, but the fact that
at Chippenham (near Newmarket) half-a-dozen
girls have been prevailed upon to do the ordinary
work of farm labourers, such as hoeing in the
fields, by the presentation of dresses, etc., indicates
that the employers are really suffering inconveni-
ence." In spite of this and though the Union
delegate was making conciliatory proposals, the
farmers refused to take back their men unless they
gave up the Union.^ Newmarket was the centre
of the disturbed districts, and there weekly meet-
ings were held on the Severals in order to keep a
good heart in the men, who flocked into the town
from surrounding villages. They formed in pro-
cession, men, women and children, wearing blue
favours, and marched through the town, headed
by a brass band and flags, to the Heath. There

> " Are the Farmers of England going mad."
' Times, 1874, April 7th.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 165

they were addressed from wagons by the Union
delegates and by emigration agents, who took
down the names of the men who wished to emi-
grate.^ But in June, the numbers at the weekly
meeting were falling off. At the end of July the
blow fell. The financial resources of the National
Union were nearly exhausted,^ and at the usual
meeting on the Severals it was announced that the
Union could no longer support the men, and they
must find work, but not give up their tickets,
" which they promised not to do." ^ The failure
was regarded by those who knew not as a defeat,
but as a temporary check. The Times corre-
spondent declared that there was no sense of total
defeat amongst the labourers. And the farmers
had failed just as much. They were no more
united than the labourers, and throughout the
struggle half the Union labourers in Suffolk had
been kept in employment.* If at the end of the
lock-out neither side appeared to be victorious,
" the sequel proved that the men conquered. At
this moment (1876) they are receiving the higher
wages which they demanded ; they are maintain-
ing the Union which their employers conspired to
destroy, and are extending it on every side. The

1 Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, April nth.

2 lb., August 8th.

3 lb., July 25th.

* Times, August 29th.

i66 THE FARM LABOURER

Suffolk district instead of being one of the weakest
is now both in men and funds the strongest in the
Union, and is enKsting recruits at the rate of
several hundreds per month." ^ Though the lock-
out revealed the difficulties of the Agricultural
Union movement, and tried its strength severely,
it was really other causes which brought about its
decline.

There had never been complete union within
the Unionist ranks. Various organisations had
stood outside the National's fold, not approving
either of its policy or its political tendencies.
The National Union believed in centralisation ;
local secretaries there were, but the branch
societies were not autonomous ; they took their
policy and their direction from the Central
Executive Committee, and to it forwarded the
greater part of their subscriptions. Other Unions,
the majority of which hung together in the Federal
Union of Agricultural and General Labourers, held
aloof from what they considered this autocratic
government. They were also not in agreement
with the political views of the National Union,
which even in 1873 was strongly Liberal, nor did
they consider that work for political objects was
advisable. Then, in the autumn of 1875, came a

' Congregationalist, 1876 : " Agricultural Labourers' Move-
ment."

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 167

split within the National Union itself, Matthew
Vincent and others, feeling perhaps the failure of
1874, agreed that the labour problem was not to
be solved through the raising of wages by Trade
Union methods, but through the re-instatement of
the labourer on the land. Allotments were
regarded as the first step, and the revival of the
class of small farmers and the institution of
co-operative farms were to follow.

The National Union Executive opposed the
policy, a part of which had already been tried
without great success, and the rest of which could
very doubtfully be carried into effect. Vincent
and his followers thereupon formed the National
Farm Labourers' Union. Its members contri-
buted a penny a week to a Land Fund ; small
farms were eventually to be bought ; and all
possible pressure brought to bear upon the
Government in order to acquire Crown lands for
small farms.^

In addition to dis-union amongst the labourers'
leaders, the year 1875 saw the beginning of an
agricultural depression. The American Civil War
and the Franco-German war had for the time kept
up com prices, and delayed the general adoption
of new methods of farming, and those farmers who
had not altered their agricultural economy upon

1 Labourers' Chronicle and Industrial Pioneer, 1876, January ist.

i68 THE FARM LABOURER

the introduction of Free Trade suffered severely
when the general peace allowed the full effects of
Free Trade to be felt. The cheapening and
quickening of transport which took place at the
same time increased the English farmer's pre-
dicament.^ The depression lasted until agricul-
turaUsts generally substituted those branches of
farming in which there was little or no foreign
competition, for the traditional branches of English
agriculture. The acceleration did not set in until
1880.^ Meanwhile farmers were hard pressed,
owing to the high rents fixed in the period of
prosperity of 1850 onwards, the fall in the prices
of their produce, and the demand of their men for
higher wages. Consequently, many farms were
given up, and land everywhere was under-culti-
vated, growing weeds rather than crops, as the
farmers again sought to save expenses by reducing
their wages bill.^ With many men standing
unemployed through this reduction in the demand
for labour, the Unions could not oppose that
reduction in the wages of those who were employed
to which the driven farmer now took recourse.
When in district after district wages were
reduced, the Union leaders could but advise the

' Levy, " Large and Small Holdings," pp. 75 f.

2 lb., p. 78.

» Arch, op. cit,, pp. 303 f.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 169

men to submit. Emigration was continued, but
in the face of the great economy in labour it was
ineffective in maintaining the wages of those who
remained on the land. They fell by is. to 3s.
Naturally the Unions could not retain their
members.^ Not only could the men little afford
subscriptions from their lower wages, but they
were unwilling to contribute to an organisation
which brought them, apparently, no material
advantages. Added to this, the stalwarts in most
districts, who might have kept the Union spirit
aUve, had been emigrated. Further, the Agri-
cultural Unions had always largely depended on
the contributions of the better-paid artizans in
the towns, but in 1879 there was a general depres-
sion from which the Trade Unions suffered acutely,^
and financial assistance was no longer forthcoming
for agricultural labourers. The membership of
the National Union which had been 71,835 on
April 30th, 1873, and 86,214 the following year/
sank to 55,000 in 1877, 24,000 in 1878, and about
20,000 in 1879 and 1880. There was a revival,
especially in Norfolk and Suffolk,* during 1883,
but in 1889 the Union had only 4,254 members.
Meanwhile, many of the smaller Unions had dis-
appeared altogether, though the Kent and Sussex

• Arch, op. cit., p. 300.

" Webb, " Trade Unions," p. 31.9.

• Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, June 13th.

• English Labourers' Chronicle, 1884, January 5th

170 THE FARM LABOURER

Union was said to have over 10,000 members.
But both it and the National Union were now
living upon their capital.^ Joseph Arch attributes
the marked decline of the National Union to the
fact that its work had been largely achieved. In
1884 the franchise was extended, and the men now
thought that they could get what they wanted by
the vote.^ The sick benefit society, which had
been formed in the Union in 1877, was, in his
opinion, also largely responsible for the decline.
In 1888 it was " pulling the Union to the ground." ^

(3) Revival in the Nineties.

In 1890 the Agricultural Unions saw a revival.
Again the industrial population gave the impetus.
The success of the Trade Unions of unskilled
workers, culminating in the victory of the dockers,
aroused the Union spirit in farm labourers. And
the dockers took active measures to stimulate it.
It had been brought home to them very forcibly
by their frequent defeats that the cause of the
working class, whether rural or urban, was one.
The existence of a mass of ill-paid labourers in the
country placed the unskilled workers in the towns
at the mercy of their employers. The strike of the
employees of the South Metropolitan Gas Company

' Hasbach, op. cit., p. 296.
' Arch, op. cit., p. 376
• Arch, p. 380.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 171

had failed owing to the ease with which its
managers had obtained blackleg labour ; the
Dockers' strike a few months later succeeded only
owing to the fact that it took place at hay and
harvest time.^ The Dockers' delegates at the
Trade Union Congress were instructed to urge
upon the meeting the need of organising agri-
cultural labourers, since most of the blacklegs
were drawn from their ranks " owing to their
scanty and unorganised condition."^ Delegates
from the Dockers' Union were active in Oxford-
shire and Lincolnshire in 1890.^ Many new
Unions were formed and some of the old now
revived. The old Kent and Sussex Labourers'
Union was reorganised under the name of the
London and Counties Labour League, and extended
its branches through the south-eastern counties.
The Norfolk and Norwich Amalgamated Labour
Union was estabUshed in that county, while in
Suffolk, the Eastern Counties Labour Federation,
founded in May, i8go, soon had 3,000 members in
the villages around Ipswich, and by 1892 spread
into Essex and Cambridgeshire, and had 174
branches containing 10,000 members.* Its success
stimulated the activity of the National Agricul-

' Congregationalist, 1891, X. p. 35.

^ lb; p. 34-

« Church Reformer, XI. p. 112.

' lb., 1891, X. p.'i3i ; Hasbach, op. cit., p. 297.

172 THE FARM LABOURER

tural Labourers' Union in those parts of the
eastern counties where it was still a power. Its
membership rose from 4,254 in 1889, to 14,000 in
1890.^ In Norfolk alone it had 12,000 members in
1891, and in Essex, 1,335, while in Suffolk many
new branches were formed/ and in 1892 the work
was extended into Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire.'
But the " distrust left in men's minds by the
breakdown of the old Union " was said to be a
very real and serious hindrance to its reorganisa-
tion. Hence the need for the new Unions and
their greater success.*

The Land Restoration League assisted in the
work of revival. Its red vans with literature and
speakers were sent from village to village in Suffolk
in 1891, and to Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Somerset-
shire, Herefordshire and Yorkshire in 1892 and
1893. In the six months' campaign in 1891 the
League claimed to have trebled the number of
members.^ In 1893 the Wiltshire Agricultural and
General Labourers' Union was organised, and
though at first the work seemed hopeless, by
Whitsuntide it had forty-two branches and 1,400
members." But though the revival thus spread

1 Hasbach, p. 298.

" English Labourers' Chronicle, 1892, January 2nd.

' lb., January i6th, March 4th.

* Church Reformer, XI. 1892 : " The Agricultural Labourer."

» lb.

e lb., XII. p. 137.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 173

to the South-west of England and to Herefordshire
and Warwickshire, Unionism had httle force
beyond the south-eastern counties. The new
Unionists met with some opposition,^ the Red
Van agitators especially, their political views
being peculiarly obnoxious to the landed interest,
and they and their van were liable to be overturned
or pitched into the river.^ But nothing like the
hostihty of the seventies was shown.

The new Unions differed from the old in that
general labourers everjAvhere were encouraged to
enrol ; secondly, the attempt to organise labourers
from a distant centre was given up, even by the
National Union itself. Experience had taught
Unionists that " constant and watchful help of
experienced leaders " was necessary if the scattered
members of a rural Union were to be held together.
It was impossible to keep enthusiasm alive, or to
get the men to pay subscriptions regularly, when
their leaders were a central executive somewhere
in the distance.* Thirdly, the new organisations
did not attempt to combine Union work with
that of sick benefit societies. The wages of
labourers were recognisedly too small to bear both
charges, yet since migration might still play a

> Church Reformer, XI. pp. 142, 161 ; English Labourers'
Chronicle, 1893, January 7th, 28th, April 15th.
» lb., XII. p. 212.
» 76., XI. p. 112.

174 THE FARM LABOURER

prominent part in Union work, sick benefits could
not be paid unless the subscriptions were very
high. " It is the best Hves in the actuarial sense
which are being drawn from the villages," and the
old and feeble remained on the land and in the
Union in disproportionate numbers. Sick benefits
had given rise to serious trouble in the National
Union, and more lately a severe epidemic of
influenza had so heavily taxed the resources of
the London and Counties Labour League as to
give rise to a serious financial crisis in that body.
" The moment the pinch comes and the ready
payment in full claims for sick pay and burig,l
money becomes impossible, the younger men
refuse to go on pa57ing their subscriptions, and
only the old members remain."^ Lastly, the new
Unions trusted to the power of the vote rather
than to that of strikes.^ They did not, however,
abandon the old policy of combining political
aims with the attainment of better conditions
of work. Again this was due largely to outside
influence, for the assistance of the Land Restora-
tion League naturally led to the inclusion of wider
objects.

The new movement had considerable success in
raising wages in those localities where the Unions

' Church Reformer, p. 113.
> lb., p. 114.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 175

were strong, and even managed to prevent
reductions in the winter.^ But the area of its
influence was distinctly Umited. And it was but
short hved. The drought of 1893 brought a poor
harvest, less work during harvest for the men, and
less profits for the farmer. To meet the agricul-
tural crisis he reduced Wages and his labour power
as soon as the harvest was in. In Norfolk there
were so many men out of employment through the
changing of farms, and other farms doing with as
few men as possible, that the men were losing
heart and becoming disorganised.^ They dropped
away from their Unions, or left them upon migra-
tion. The winter was peculiarly severe, and with
unemployment rife and wages lowered, the men
could not afford their subscriptions, and still more
of them dropped away. In 1894 nine Unions
were still in existence ; in 1897 there were six,
with a membership of 3,879. Ten years later,
only two remained, one in Norfolk and the other
in Dorset.®

The second collapse, in 1894, discredited the
emplo57ment of industrial methods in the solution

> English Labourers' Chronicle, 1892, January 2nd, gth ; 1893,
March 4th; Church Reformer, 1892, XI. p. 112; XII. 1893,
p. 137 ; MiUin, " Life in our Villages," p. 32.

2 English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, August 19th, October nth,
December 30th.

» Hasbach, op. cii., pp. 302, 359-

176 THE FARM LABOURER

of agricultural problems, both with the labourer
and his friends. Centralised and local Unions had
both been tried. Unions freed from the burden of
sick benefits, and Unions offering that added
attraction, had each had their day. But the
insufficient wages of the rural labourer, the ease
with which the farmers could obtain general,
casual or industrial blacklegs, or could reduce their
demand for labour by the use of mechanical con-
trivances and changes in their methods of farming,
the isolation of the labourer, and the loss of home
which followed loss of work, had allowed of the
permanent success of neither. Added to these
obstacles was the impossibility of winning any
fight without weakening the Union. The surplus
supply of labour had to be reduced by migration
and emigration ; both depleted the ranks of the
most determined men, and left the countryside
without its natural stalwarts. In the first nine
years of its existence the National Union alone is
said to have been responsible for the emigration
of 700,000 persons.^

(4) Results of the Union Movement.
Wages Question.

Still, the Unions had done much. By their
weekly papers and in their nightly meetings they

' Prothero, " English Farming," p, 411.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 177

had educated the labourer in a variety of social,
economic and political subjects ; they had
awakened him to his true condition ; given him
an outlook, given him ideas, and given him a
spirit which the EngUsh peasantry had not known
for a hundred years. Such bitterness as was
instilled into him — and there was bitterness — was
not primarily the fault of the Unions. Their
educational value was real, and it was lasting.
The Unions had been, too, of real assistance to
the labourers' friends in their passage of the
Education Bill of 1876, the Allotments Acts of
1882 and 1887, and the Small Holdings Bills of
1892 and 1894. The work of Jesse CoUings and
other indefatigable champions of the labourer
would have been carried on without the assistance
of the Unions. But the very existence of organised
bodies of labourers awoke others less devoted
and discerning to the need for action, and the
Unions may well claim to have hastened the
passage of these measures into law. How far
they really affected the extension of the franchise
is another question. The agricultural labourers
formed but a small section of the classes enfran-
chised in 1884, and it is hardly possible that they
could have been left out if an extension was to
be made at all. Still, they took their share in the
fight There was hardly a village meeting which
F.L. N

178 THE FARM LABOURER

did not express itself in favour of the suffrage, not
a mass demonstration in which the labourer was
unrepresented.

With respect to the main object of the

fight, the increase of wages, the Unions had

achieved temporary successes. Wages had been

raised in the summer, and more permanently in

those districts where the surplus labour had been

most successfully reduced. But frequently there

had been reductions again in the winter. And

rises were effected, of course, largely because the

seasons were good. This was acknowledged even

in the Labourers' Chronicle ; the better wages

of 1873 were admittedly due " largely to the

prosperous year and heavy crops of fruit and

hops." ^ The agricultural crisis of 1893 saw a fall

in wages, in some districts to rates lower than

they had been for many years ; in one parish

in Essex, 8s. was accepted.^ Finally, we have

to notice a behef that obtained amongst some of

the Unionists themselves, namely, that even

where the rate of wages had been raised by the

Unions, real wages had not risen, or at any rate

not to the same extent. They considered that

prices rose with the rise in the rates of wages, and

that they were therefore in no better a position than

• Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1874, January 17th.
"^ lb., 1893, December 30th,

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' UNIONS 179

formerly.^ How far they were right it is hard
to say. We know, however, that it had been
maintained previously by educated people that
the local shopkeeper and others put up their
prices whenever the labourer's financial position
was improved, whether by low rents or by charit-
able doles and assistance. It was pointed out in
respect to the dockers that the rise they had
effected in wages was a tempting source of exploita-
tion to their landlords, and that there was a
serious risk of a large part of their gain in wages
going to increased rents.^ In the country an
increment in wages was far more exposed to the
greed of landlords, for there was infinitely less
competition amongst them, and infinitely less
choice of dwellings for the labourer in the country
than there was in the town. Further, the
labourer's wages, far more than those of the
artisan, were at the mercy of the business
propensities of the village shopkeeper, who, except
in a few favoured districts, had no competitors.
Perhaps one of the lessons to be learnt from the
Union movement is that higher wages in them-
selves may be of little value to the labourer.
Though prices naturally rise with the increased

1 Labourers' Union Chronicle, 1873, August 2nd.
' Pall Mall Gazette, 1889, September 8th ; Church Reformer,
1889, VIII. p. 232.

N 2

i8o THE FARM LABOURER

demand that follows widespread and general
prosperity, an unnatural and artificial rise is
liable to take place locally upon improvements
in the financial position of the rural labourer,
and unless fair rents and opportunities of fair
marketing can be secured for him, the higher
wages may be of little value.

CHAPTER VI

FARMER AND LABOURER, 1880 TO I913

The disappointed Unionists and their friends
found solace in the various social and political
measures which, undoubtedly hastened by their
movement, promised amelioration in the labourer's
lot. There was an augury of better things in
another direction, namely, the improvement in the
general conditions of agriculture, and an improve-
ment in a special condition, the relations of em-
ployer and employed. But the latter was as yet
too slight to be appreciated, while it was not
sufficiently recognised that the interests of farmer
and labourer are fundamentally identical for the
former to afford much consolation. Nevertheless,
developments along these lines constitute one of
the more promising signs of the period.

(i) The Agricultural Revival.^

The changes which were taking place in agri-
culture, by strengthening the foundations of the
farmer's prosperity, were destined favourably to
affect the labourer's position. The depression of

'■ Levy, op. cif., Chapters III. and IV., full account.

i82 THE FARM LABOURER

English agriculture had been mainly due to the
continuance of methods of farming which were
suited only to periods of high corn prices. Large
farming and extensive corn-growing had made the
fortunes of farmers during the war. But it was
the fortunes then made which were largely
responsible for the depression of the succeeding
thirty years. The rise in rents, the breaking up of
valuable pasture, and the enclosure of much poor
land, the working of which required a large
expenditure of capital, were not features of
agricultural economy which could be changed all
at once. As compared with those of to-day, corn
prices were high under the Com Laws and
remained at much the same level for thirty years,
in spite of Free Trade. But they were not
high enough to suit the war period methods of
farming, and, save in some exceptional years, the
arable farmer was none too prosperous. It is
therefore somewhat surprising to find that
although in 1846 the fear of a fall in corn prices
led to some revival of stock-farming and to other
changes for the better, agriculturalists for the
most part continued to farm upon the old lines
until the eighties. The truth is that the profits to
be made from other branches of farming were not
great enough to overcome the conservatism of
English farmers and the difficulties in the way of

FARMER AND LABOURER 183

transference from one branch of agriculture to
another. Here again, com prices were responsible ;
though they injured the arable farmer by being
too low, from the consumer's point of view they
were high, and he could not ofEer any great
demand for other farm produce. In the eighties
the case was altered. The fall in the price of com,
due to the cheapening and quickening of trans-
port, brought about the yet greater depression of
arable farmers. On the other hand, it led to the
increased purchasing powers of the industrial
population, and there was a corresponding increase
in the demand for fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs and
poultry. The market for such produce was yet
further enlarged in the nineties by the importa-
tion of frozen meat. Farmers now had a double
inducement to abandon com growing in favour of
dairying, market-gardening, and stock-farming,
which was profitable in spite of the importation of
frozen meat if carried on for the production of
first-class meat and for breeding. The change
took time, of course. Although the men who
were already established in these branches of
farming were obviously prospering, corn-growing
had become second-nature to the farmer, and he
tended to be averse to any change. And there
were economic as well as psychological obstacles in
its way. Poor arable land could not be trans-

i84 THE FARM LABOURER

formed into pasture, and new methods of farming
could not be introduced, without a considerable
expenditure of time and money. " Unreasonable
complaints were made against the obstinate
conservatism of agriculturalists, because they
were unable to effect a costly change of front as
easily as a man turns in his bed. The aims and
methods of farming were gradually adapted to
meet the changed conditions. As wheat, barley
and oats declined towards the lowest prices of the
century, increased attention was paid to grazing,
dairying, and such minor products as vegetables,
fruit and poultry. The corn area of England and
Wales shrank from 8,244,392 acres in 1871, to
5,886,052 acres in 1901. Between the same years
the area of permanent pasture increased from
11,367,298 acres to 15,399,025 acres." ^ The change
to the more productive branches of farming was
meanwhile assisted by the reversion of landowners
to small farms, which were generally speaking
much better suited to those branches than were
large farms. Consequently, landlords found that
large tenant farmers were not forthcoming, while
there were numerous applicants for the medium-
sized and smaller holdings ; and in spite of
increased cost of buildings, economic considera-
tions led to the division of the larger units.

' Prothero, " English Farming," p. 378.

FARMER AND LABOURER 185

Between the years 1885 and 1895, farms of 50 to
300 acres increased from 104,073 to 106,955, while
those of 300 to 1,000 acres and over decreased
from 16,148 to 15,578.^ Unfortunately, this
tendency, so well suited to the agricultural needs
of the day, and so necessary now to the prosperity
of English farming, was hampered by the non-
economic preference of landowners for large farms.
The social and political motives of their landowner-
ship, and their sports and game preserving, which
will have to be considered in connection with the
small-holding movement, stood in the way of
agricultural reform. In spite of this, however, the
promise held in the development of the lesser
branches of agriculture was great enough to give a
tremendous impetus to the acquisition of technical
skill. Marvellous technical progress was made in
stock-breeding, dairying, market-gardening and
poultry-farming,^ and with the aid of new scientific
knowledge the farmer drove ahead. The improve-
ment in his position which was thus taking place
was furthered by the action of the Legislature in
his interests. A series of Acts, starting with the
Ground Game Act of 1880, were passed for his
assistance, chief amongst them being those which
reHeved him from the burden of tithes, protected

1 Levy, op. cit., p. 96.

» Prothero, op. cit., pp. 384, etc.

i86 THE FARM LABOURER

him from adulteration, secured him compensation
for improvements, and safeguarded his stock, so
far as was possible, from contagious diseases.
Equally valuable was the Government's assistance
in the realm of education, whether by the distri-
bution of leaflets through the Board of Agriculture,
grants in support of technical instruction, or
County Council classes. From this combination
of causes, the changes in the market and in agri-
cultural production, and the new encouragement
and protection given to the farmer, agriculture
saw a marked revival towards the close of the
nineties.

(2) Recognition of Common Interests.
{a) The Labourer.
Labourers, however, were far from appreciating
their interest in the farmer's prosperity, and, as
we have said, found no cause for self-congratula-
tion in his increased stability. Events within the
memory of many of them might have shown that
the labourer could not prosper, and never had
prospered, when the farmer was depressed.
Whether the causes of his depression were high
rents, bad harvests, low prices or high wages,
or their combination, the result so far as the
labourer was concerned was the same — ^less employ-
ment. But superficially it seemed as though their

FARMER AND LABOURER 187

interests were opposed. The labourer wanted
low prices and high wages, the farmer exactly
the reverse. Arch had always maintained that
this opposition was apparent only, and had
championed the tenant-farmer in respect both to
compensation for improvements and for damage
by game. Other of the early Union leaders
followed in his footsteps. But although the
Union journals and meetings had disseminated
economic and general agricultural knowledge, the
rank and file of labourers were stiU far from the
wider point of view to which Arch and his seconds-
in-command had attained. Indeed, the immediate
effect of Unionism was the clouding of the horizon.
When the hard-won increase in wages was lost in
1875 and 1893, labourers tended to regard the
reduction as due to the farmer's inherent wicked-
ness and lack of good faith ; they overlooked the
pressure laid upon him by the agricultural crises
of those years. The Unions, in fact, incidentally
fostered a distrust and hostiUty on the part of
the labourer towards his employer which has not
completely disappeared to-day. The offers of
membership in the Chambers of Agriculture had
been repulsed with suspicion in the seventies
and later ; and Lord Winchelsea's attempt, in
1893, to form a Union of all agriculturalists,
landowners and labourers included, met with a

i88 THE FARM LABOURER

poor response from the labourers. In fairness to
them, however, it must be admitted that this
was largely due to the fear that, although Lord
Winchelsea wished politics to be omitted from
the Union, protection would be its eventual
object. For this reason the Union leaders stood
aloof and encouraged the rank and file to abstain
from joining.^ As to class feeling generally, the
labourers had not met with that treatment from
their employers which would render them quick
to appreciate their common interests. When
Winchelsea asked Lord Salisbury what he thought
as to the chance of the ultimate adoption of his
scheme, the latter replied : " You will find the
difficulty chiefly in the older generation of
labourers, who remember that when times were
good they were badly treated, and who look
therefore with a good deal of suspicion upon any
overture made to them by the other two classes." ^
In Mr. Prothero's words, " Slow-witted as Hodge
proverbially is, his memory is singularly tenacious.
Deeply hidden in the recesses of his intricate
mind lurk vague theories of lost rights and more
distinct traditions of past wrongs."* On both
rights and wrongs from the time of the enclosures

' English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, January 7th, 14th,
28th, etc.
a lb., 1893, May 13th.
' " Pioneers and Progress of English Farming."

FARMER AND LABOURER 189

onward, the labourer had been instructed by his
Chronicle. Only time and continuous good treat-
ment could remove that suspicion of employers
which was to be found in almost every village,
and is clearly revealed in all the later articles in
the labourers' weekly journals.

(b) The Farmer's Awakening — Its cause.

On the farmer's side the perception of mutual
interests was only now palely dawning. Hitherto
such a sufficiency of labour had been at his com-
mand that he had regarded the welfare of his
employees as a matter immaterial to himself.
But a change of attitude was being forced upon
him which, though not complete to-day, and
but slight in the eighties and nineties, is one of the
more hopeful features of that period. It was the
deterioration in his labour supply, both quanti-
tatively and quaUtatively, which forced him to the
new point of view. The land would not yield its
best, he learnt, if labour was grudging or, through
the flight of men from the land, even lacking.
The report on agriculture of the Royal Com-
mission on Labour, which appeared in 1893, bore
witness to a shortage of labour and an inferiority
in that still available. The best of the men were
leaving the land, and the labour of those that
remained was poor, either because they were old

igo THE FARM LABOURER

or because they were half-hearted in their work.
Complaints were most frequent in Norfolk and
Suffolk; but with a few exceptions they were
heard in every district.^ Men were not to be had
for the really skilled work, and everjrwhere there
was a difficulty in obtaining men to look after
the stock, which made itself especially felt in the
pasture counties. Though such work meant
regular employment and better pay, it entailed
longer hours. Mr. Rider Haggard, who made a
tour through England in 1901 and 1902, found
that one of the chief difficulties against which
English farming had to contend was this lack of
labour. His evidence as to complaints in the
decline, both in quality and quantity, is identical
with that of the Commission ; even where there
was not an actual deficiency there was a decline
in efficiency.^ Although farmers employed more
machinery where the work allowed of it, while
in the West some had given up dairying and
taken to grazing, farming was carried on often
under great difficulties.^ In some districts it was
said that there was not half enough labour.* The
decline in quaUty was attributed by farmers to

1 Part I., Bear's Report, p. i8 ; Part III., Wilson Fox, pp. 33,
56, 66, 102, 103.

" Haggard, " Rural England," pp. 23, 29, 141, etc.
» lb., pp. 28, 30, 149, etc.
' lb., p. 29.

FARMER AND LABOURER 191

education, which prevented a boy's thorough
apprenticeship in his work ; ^ to the migration
of the younger and best men to the towns, leaving
only the old and unfit on the land ; ^ and to the
shortage in supply, which rendered the men
fearless of dismissal.^ The Commissioners pointed
out that additional causes were the unwillingness
of men to learn the skilled work, as, for example,
stock-tending, and the supersession of much of
the old skilled work by machinery.* Further, the
decrease in the number of all-round skilled men
on the farms was due to the tendency of such
men to leave the ranks of daily labourers and
set up for themselves as independent jobbers.
" These men, while finding work in the neighbour-
hood during busy seasons, take jobs all over the
country at other times, and often remain idle
rather than accept the wages paid to unskilled
labour." ^ The labourer's own explanation of the
decline in efficiency was probably as true as any
of the reasons adduced by his employers. " A
constant perseverance in sweating processes,"
said the Chronicle, commenting on the Report

1 Haggard, "Rural England," pp. 23, 141.

^ lb., pp. 22, 141 ; Haggard, " Farmer's Year," pp. 338, 408 ;
Report of Royal Commission, 1893, P- 18, etc.

s " Rural England," p. 23.

* Part II., Chapman, pp. 17, 50 ; Part VI., Wilkinson, pp. 13,
21.

s Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part IV., Richard's Report,

P- 77-

192 THE FARM LABOURER

of the Commissioners, " will be met by a resolution
on the part of the workman to give no more labour
than that for which he is paid. Poor pay will
produce poor work. It has often been pointed
out that the farm labourer ,^ like all other workmen,
can accommodate his services to the scale of his
wages. He can give a half-crown's worth of
work in a day if he receives half-a-crown for it,
or two shillings' worth if that be the wages paid
him. To talk of skilled workmen in a department
of a great national industry that yields compara-
tively bad wages, and no material or social
improvement, is to speak of that which no reason-
able person has a right to expect. Under such
circumstances, spiritless and indifferent labour is
all that the workman is paid for. Good work
is certain to be produced by good pay ; bad work
by bad pay. It is useless to blame the men."^
But this was a view not held by employers, except
perhaps in the extreme North.

The decline in the quantity of labour was due
partly to the compulsory education, which pre-
vented the employment of children. Many
farmers complained of the difficulty of obtaining
boys. And in part it was due to the disinclination
of women to engage in farm work. Women were
very generally employed in many Norfolk parishes

' English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, June 24th.

FARMER AND LABOURER 193

pulling and cleaning roots, stone-picking, weeding
com and singling turnips. Both here and in the
district of Witchford, in Cambridgeshire, gangs
were common. The Norfolk gangs were composed
chiefly of girls and widows, the farmer contracting
for their services with the gang-master. In the
Glendale district of Northumberland the hind
still agreed to supply so many women workers
and generally employed his own daughters. But
though women's labour was a definite feature of
agricultural economy in these districts, and was
to be found in other parts of the country also,
it had decreased almost by half since the last
report. In 188 1 the number of women engaged
in agriculture had been 40,346 ; by 1891 it had
fallen to 24,150. This reduction is to be explained
partly by the Gangs Acts and Education Acts
which by rendering children unavailable for the
gangs, led to their decline. Where the gang
disappeared women's employment tended to dis-
appear ; women had been useful in a body, but
were not so useful if they had to be engaged and
employed singly. Further, the whole influence
of the Unions had been directed against women's
labour, and even where, as in Norfolk, their
employment was still common, there was said to
be an increasing objection to it on the part of
fathers and husbands ; it spoilt their own labour
F.L. o

194 THE FARM LABOURER

market, and, moreover, they liked their wives
to look after the home.^ Public opinion also was
becoming increasingly opposed to women's labour
in the fields, and the influence of parson and squire
was exerted to prevent it. In the village of
Tuddenham, near Bury St. Edmunds, the incum-
bency of one clergyman of the eighties saw the
agricultural labour of women transformed from
the universal rule to a thing almost unknown.
There, and in other parishes throughout the
country, the flow of women's labour was diverted
from agriculture into domestic service. The
change probably would not have taken place if
economic and social conditions had not given the
opportunity. But public opinion ripened just
when a general rise in the standard of living
increased the demand for servants and contracted
the sources of former supply ; the daughters of
small tradesmen, farmers and artisans now became
clerks, shop assistants, or entered upon other
work which was considered higher in the social
scale. Better education gave them the chance
to do so, just as it gave the labourer's daughters
that notion of manners and refinement which
opened the door for them into private houses.
Above all else, however, the farmer's labour

1 Report of Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part III., Wilson
Fox, p. 68.

FARMER AND LABOURER 195

problem was caused by the rural migration
That migration had begun, as we know, from the
moment when the decline in the conditions of labour
set in, and had received a tremendous impetus
from the Union movement, which was brought
into being by the continuance of bad conditions.
But now a change for the better was taking place
in the labourer's fortunes, and it might have been
supposed that migration would diminish.

(3) Conditions of the Labourer 1880 to 1911.

The improvement which took place during the
ten years from the rise of the Unions was perhaps
not sufficient to check the migration. The Royal
Commissioners on the depressed condition of the
agricultural interest speak of a marked change for
the better in the labourer's position in 1881 ; but
as we know, the increase in wages won by the
Unions was but ephemeral, while unemployment
was rife and prices remained at much the same
level as in the seventies. The Report of the
Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes, published in 1885, reveals that rural
housing was far from satisfactory, and, indeed,
that there had been but little improvement since
1867. In the next ten years, however, there was
an essential change for the better in conditions
generally, and Mr. Rider Haggard found this

o 2

196 THE FARM LABOURER

change still in progress in the following decade.
The Commissioners of 1893 found that superiority
still lay with the North. There, rates of wages
were higher and employment was more regular,
the hirings still being for longer periods than in the
South. Northumberland still preserved its
peculiar system of labour, Cumberland still had
its "indoor farm-servants, while the married men
both in that county and in Lancashire, though
nominally engaged by the week, were in fact
regarded as part of the permanent staff. Similar
conditions prevailed in Wales. Wages were com-
paratively high owing to the competition of
mining and manufactures, and this same cause,
combined with the prevalence of pasture farming,
led to long hirings and regular employment.
Hours tended to be longer than in England, but
the chief grievance of the labourer was bad
lodging and board in the farmhouses. In the
rest of the country, conditions had certainly
improved. In the South, rates of wages were only
slightly higher than in 1870, and lower than in
1881, and the labourer's total income tended to be
lower than in 1867, since wife and children now
contributed less or nothing at all. The rate of
wages was as low as los. in the districts visited by
the Commissioners in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire,
los. 6d. to I2S. in Hampshire, Sussex, Berkshire,

FARMER AND LABOURER 197

Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cam-
bridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, and in
Somerset, Gloucestershire, Worcester, and War-
wickshire.^ But real wages had risen. In the
first place, the hours of work were shorter, and in
the second, prices of provisions were lower.
Thirdly, there was an increasing tendency to pay
in money rather than in kind. Lastly, employ-
ment was more regular. The increasing difficulty
of obtaining labour had compelled farmers to
make sure of a definite supply, and even those men
who were nominally daily or weekly labourers
were now, many of them, as permanently engaged
as in the North. Mr. Chapman reported that in
the districts visited by him in Berkshire, Cam-
bridgeshire, Devon, Cornwall and Shropshire,
" the majority of farmers, in order to prevent
their labour supply running short in spring or
summer, and to keep the men on good terms,
make a point of employing as many as possible all
through the year." * And in Wiltshire many
farmers were keeping on their men " wet or dry,
in order to have a sufficient supply of labour in
the busy season." ^ Thus the labourer's position
was improved by an increase in real wages.

1 Hasbach, op. cit., p. 323.

' Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part II., Chapman's Report
pp. 20, 59.
• Ih., Part v., Spencer's Report, pp. 8, 13.

igS THE FARM LABOURER

He now also possessed greater powers of supple-
menting those wages. By 1892 the majority of
labourers in the low wage districts had allotments
where they had not gardens. Mr. Prothero,
writing in 1888, said that " few cases remain in
which the want is not supplied." He estimated
that three-fourths of the agricultural labourers,
farm servants and cottagers in England and Wales
had potato grounds, cow-runs, or field or garden
allotments, and that a considerable number of
those who were without were lodgers or sons
living with parents.^ The Commissioners of 1893
found that allotments were unusual in the North,
since there, as before, the comparatively high
wages of the labourer freed him from the necessity
of supplementing his income by extra work. And
in those districts which were visited in Devon and
Shropshire there was no demand for allotments as
the labourers mostly had good gardens.^ But in
districts where there was a demand for them
there was generally a sufficient supply. And their
value to the labourer had increased, both because
continuous intensive culture had rendered the soil
more productive, and because the curtailment of
hours of work gave him more time to spend upon
his allotment. The average size was a quarter of

' " Pioneers and Progress," p. 232.

» Report of Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part II., p. 36.

FARMER AND LABOURER 199

an acre, the annual value to the labourer being
reckoned at £1 to 30s. ; ^ but the amount of produce
raised would of course tend to vary with the nature
of the sou. Canon Stubbs, who kept some of the
land he let for allotments in his own hands, states
that the average value of his allotments during the
years 1878 to 1882 was 17s. 2ii.,per quarter acre,
but he allowed for the cost of labour in his estimate
of expenses.^ George Cadbury, on the other hand,
gives a higher estimate, for he values the produce
of one-eighth of an acre at ys. 6d. a week where
fruit and vegetables were grown/

The question arose again in the nineties as to
whether the increase of income from allotments
kept wages down. Millin, who made a short tour
through some of the southern counties for the
Daily News in 1891, stated that, much against his
will, he was obUged to beheve that this was the
case. " The competitive principle in its action is
as certain as the law of gravitation, and it tends
gradually to bring down their wages to the point
at which they can subsist only by the help of their
allotments." He added, however, that of covirse
if the young men leave, labour would rise in price,
" but allotments tend to make them more con-

1 Report of Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part II., p. 36.
' Stubb's " Land and the Labourer," p. 14.
5 Millin, " Village Problems," p. 42.

200 THE FARM LABOURER

tented and to keep them on the land." ^ In short,
he concluded from what he had seen and heard
that allotments might have a depressing effect if
migration ceased, or was checked by their economic
value or social attractiveness. The Commissioners
touched upon this question in 1893. Mr. Chapman
disputed the idea that if a man had an allotment
the farmer was justified in paying lower wages,
"It is a fallacy to speak of allotments as if they
were a part of a man's earnings which are to go to
the credit of the farmer. That is not the case.
They are a means by which the labourer turns his
leisure to account and enables him to live upon
less than he would otherwise find it necessary to
demand." ^ Mr. Bear more directly deals with
the question. That wages were lowered by allot-
ments, he said, " is obviously true up to a certain
point where their possession prevents labour from
becoming scarce in a district. But if the point
which farmers can afford to pay for such labour as
they can obtain is reached, the lack of allotments
would not make them pay more. They would
throw all their land down to grass, and do with
hardly any labour. The question of rent comes
in here, of course, but land all in grass would
command as much rent as land partly arable."

1 Millin, "Village Problems," p. 24. Cf. Millin, " Life in our
Villages," pp. 63 f.

2 Op. cit.. Part II., p. 36.

FARMER AND LABOURER 201

Allotments, in his opinion, then, would lower
wages only if they checked migration, and this he
said emphatically they did not do. He added,
" Besides, even if allotments tend to lower wages,
it is because they make men too comfortable to
migrate excessively. There is every reason to
beheve, too, that the value of allotments to
labourers is a great deal more than any increase
in wages which they would obtain by the painful
method of making themselves scarce if they gave
up their plots of land." ^

Improvements in other conditions of the
labourer's life had also taken place by 1893.
Housing was better, though as we shall see, there
was still some shortage in supply and stUl many
very bad cottages. There were better oppor-
tunities for insurance ; the old village clubs had
died out, and men now joined the larger and
sounder societies. And drunkenness had decreased
amongst the men, though there was said to be a
slight increase amongst the women.

Turning now to a matter with which the Com-
missioners did not deal, the labourer's social
position, we find that again progress had been
made. This was due largely to a change in the
labourer himself. The work of the Unions had
been valuable in inspiring him with a new self-

' lb.. Part I., p. 24.

202 THE FARM LABOURER

respect, and that spirit had been strengthened by
education and the grant of the franchise. The
new generation of labourers had grown up under
the Education Act of 1876, and better education,
however much our system may be criticised,
made a difference in the labourer, which led
naturally to a change in the attitude towards him
of his social superiors. His leaders recognised
the change ; they perceived with satisfaction the
diminution of that autocratic and overbearing
spirit of parson and squire towards the labourer,
which had been keenly felt and resented, whether
by those who dared to voice their feelings, or by
those who preferred others to speak for them.
They set the change down to the self-interest of
parliamentary vote-catchers.^ There is no doubt
that the extension of the franchise, whatever its
value politically to the labourer, had a great social
value. Politically, he now was a member of the
farmer's and landowner's world, and no longer in
some underworld of his own ; he was a man not a
thing, and the new consideration which had to be
paid him during elections automatically extended
itself into daily life, a:nd influenced the every-day
manner and conduct of his superiors towards him.
But the Union leaders' explanation of the change
was hardly fair ; there is no doubt that the

' English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, January 7th, loth, etc.

FARMER AND LABOURER 203

extension of more liberal ideas amongst farmers
and landlords was also due to improvement in the
labourer himself, through education and other
influences.

The upward tendencies, economic and social,
which were apparent in 1893, continued in the
following decade, as Mr. Rider Haggard found in
his tour at the opening of the new century. This
being the case, it may well be asked why the
labourer was leaving the land. It is probable
that more improvement had taken place in the
decade of 1880 to 1890 than in the whole course of
the previous eighty years, and that the rate of
progress though slower in the next ten years was
stiU considerable. But the rate of migration did
not slacken. It was not so great as it had been
in the decade of 1861 to 1871, but migration then
was explainable by lack of employment. This
did not appear to be the main reason now for
farmers were complaining of shortage of labour.

(4) Causes of the Rural Migration.

The Census Report of 1871 lays stress on the
attraction of the towns and the comparative
monotony of agricultural life as causes of the rural
exodus. And the farmers blamed education for
the loss of their labourers ; it unfitted a lad for
farm hfe, made him discontented, and encouraged

204 THE FARM LABOURER

him to seek a more lively career in the towns.
There is no doubt that both played a part in
migration. Better education gave the young
men a chance of obtaining work elsewhere, and
almost everyone had some relative in the towns
whose life there contrasted brightly with his own.
But, as Dr. Hasbach points out, " it was a very
superficial view which attributed the exodus
solely to the neighbourhood of the railways
and the pleasures of the great towns. . . . The
labourers did not depart where good allotments
could be obtained, where good houses could be
had at a fair rent, where, as on Lord ToUemache's
estates, three acres of pasture were provided with
every cottage, or where they had a good hope of
becoming independent. This was repeatedly re-
marked in Cumberland and Lancashire. There
much arable land had been turned into pasture,
and mines, and great manufacturing towns with
their pleasures were in the neighbourhood, but
nevertheless the labourers migrated very little :
the farm-servants received high wages and saved
so that they might some day be able to rent a
small farm." There was some evidence given to
the Commissioners of a desire for a less dull and
less monotonous life, but it was " infrequent, and
probably relates rather to the women than the
men ; and secondly, it does not appear whether

FARMER AND LABOURER 205

the motive was not rather the shorter hours of the
industrial workers, together with the possibiUty of
independence during leisure. One of the Assistant
Commissioners expresses this view without any
quahfication ; and it is supported by the fact
that there was a special difficulty in keeping
unmarried cowmen and married stablemen." ^

Pleasure-seeking was not the real reason for the
rural exodus : the causes were social and economic.
The lack of freedom in village life was undoubtedly
felt irksome by the younger generation, as is clear
from the labourers' journals. The " old semi-
feudal, patronising relationship " still hngered on
in many villages. The labourer resented the fact
that " nine-tenths of the population in the country
parish have at this moment not merely less share
in local government than belongs to French
peasants, but less than belonged to French
peasants during the eighteenth century monarchy.
The humblest member of a Presbyterian congrega-
tion in Scotland is made to realise that he is a
citizen, but the ordinary English farm labourer,
accustomed to depend on the clergyman in
spiritual matters, has to depend on the squire for
his cottage, and on the farmer for his wages, and
does not feel himself a citizen." ^ Much the same

1 Hasbach, Op. cit., pp. 344, 345.

'^ English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, March 25th. Article by
George Broderick.

2o6 THE FARM LABOURER

complaint came from two parsons who attacked
the feudal character of rural life. Not tidy foot-
paths and gabled roofs, but progressive freedom
was the village need.^ The town offered that
progressive freedom and the chance of rising in
the social scale.

Bad housing was another cause of migration.
There had been much improvement since 1867,
but the actual condition of the cottages was
very far from satisfactory ; sub-letting by farmers
and the consequent insecurity of tenure was a
serious cause of dissatisfaction ; rents were often
high for very poor cottages ; while actual
deficiency of house-room led to migration even
when the other conditions were not bad. In the
Western district there was some deficiency, as
more old cottages had been pulled down than new
rebuilt. The structural condition was generally
good, but in Harlington some were " more like
inferior stables and lofts than human dwellings."^
In Suffolk the lack of surplus cottages kept up
rents. There was a great difference between the
cottages in close parishes where they were owned
by large landlords and those in open parishes where

• Fry, F. C, " Social Policy for Churchmen," in Economic
Review, 1892. Cf. Taylor, A. D., " Hodge and His Parson," in
Nineteenth Century, 1892.

" Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part I., Bear's Report,
p. 21.

FARMER AND LABOURER 207

the owners were small men. In the former, all
conditions, including water supply and rentals,
were generally good. But the cottages owned by
small tradesmen and speculators were often in
a deplorable condition, with low ceilings, only
5j feet high in parts, and with windows but a
foot or two square. In such cottages as had two
bedrooms, many were " little better than a
passage," and had no window.^ Similar conditions
prevailed in Norfolk. Yet the rent of such
cottages was often as high as £$, while large
landowners, for better cottages, were charging
about half that sum.^ In Cambridgeshire the
housing was " the worst feature." Most cottages
were owned by small proprietors. The opinion
of the medical officer of one district was that few
were fit for habitation.^ Both in this county
and in Berkshire, where again many cottages were
owned by small men, a single bedroom was usual,
the rooms were often as low as 5 or 5| feet,
and with few exceptions they were " absolutely
neglected with regard to repairs." Cottages which
were above the average were those of landowner
and squire. The high rents charged by small
landlords led the labourer to take in lodgers,
without whose presence it is easy to see there

1 Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part III., p. 35.

" lb., p. 70.

' lb.. Part II., pp. 81, 67.

2o8 THE FARM LABOURER

could have been ample overcrowding.^ Sons who
might have found work oii the land were naturally
influenced to leave it by the discomfort of such
homes, in which perhaps a tribe of younger children
were growing up. The general verdict of the
Commissioners was that in spite of the real progress
which had been made by large landlords, housing
conditions were still often very bad.

Economic considerations were, however, the
main cause of the rural exodus. Farmers would
have liked to have at their command a surplus
supply of labour upon which to draw for occasional
work. But irregular wages, which was all that
the surplus supply could count on, were not
sufficient, even with the aid of allotments, to
support a man all the year through. The Com-
missioners of 1893 found that regularity of
employment had increased, but this meant that
casual workers were leaving the land. Men turned
off after harvest were compelled " to drift into the
towns or the workhouse," ^ and sons living at
home and working as daily labourers, then as
now, when a period of slackness came, joined the
police or enlisted rather than be " kept " by their
parents, although in a month or two perhaps there
would be another job for them. Even where

' Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part II., p. 82.
" Millin, " Life in our Villages," p. 23.

FARMER AND LABOURER 209

work was regular, economic considerations drove
men from the land. Rates of wages were, as we
have seen, still very low in many counties in 1893.
It is a favourite defence of farmers that earnings
are much higher than rates owing to perquisites
and to extra payment for overtime, piece work
and harvest work ; but according to the labourer,
the increase of wages by these means is not so great
as at first sight might appear. Mr. Bear worked
out the earnings of a skilled day labourer in the
Woburn district, who was in regular employment,
though he did not receive wages in illness. His
average weekly earnings, including piece work
and harvest payments, was 15s. a week, this
being 2S. more than the weekly rate of wages.^
The average wages of other and ordinary day
labourers in the same district, whose earnings were
similarly examined, he found to be 14s. 'jd.,
including harvest money and the value of the
beer allowed them.^ Shepherds and stockmen
earned on the average is. bd. extra a week, or had
free cottages. But labourers very well knew, and
the Commissioners also recognised, that many
men could not count upon such averages. The
tendency towards regular employment was increas-
ing, but Mr. Wilson Fox found that in Norfolk and

1 Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part I., p. 21.

2 Ih., p. 20.

F.L. P

210 THE FARM LABOURER

Suffolk many men lost time in bad weather. On
large farms jobs were often found for them if the
-rain prevented field work, but he " constantly
came across men who had to lose time." In this
respect these counties were the worst, for the
men might be sent home in the middle of the day
if the weather turned bad, in which case they
received only the half day's wage. This is still
customary on small farms in Suffolk, whatever
may be the case in Norfolk. The labourers
whom Mr. Wilson Fox questioned considered
that they lost a shilling a week on the average by
the wet and dry system.^ In Mr. Chapman's
district one-fourth of the men were employed on
the wet and dry system ;^ and Mr. Bear found
that in his district most day labourers lost time
in wet weather, " though farmers say they always
find something for the men to do."* A Sussex
man maintained that what the ordinary labourer
lost in wet weather was more than what he gained
at harvest.* The ordinary weekly wage of many
labourers was thus diminished, and extra pay-
ments were, as the labourers pointed out, pay-
ments for extra work. Thus Suffolk horsekeepers
and stockmen worked from 4.30 or 6 a.m.

• Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part III., p. 34.
" lb., Part II., pp. 20, 59.

8 lb.. Part I., p. 9.

* English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, June 17th.

FARMER AND LABOURER 211

to 6 or 7 p.m. in summer, the longer day being
most usual, and from 5 or 6 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m.
in winter, and they had Sunday work. Generally
speaking, they had a 13 or 14 hours' day in place
of the 8J or loj hoMis worked by ordinary
laboturers.^ For harvest work, Suffolk men usually
received a lump sum of £7 to £g, and took their
chance of being delayed in wet weather, in which
case the weekly average might fall very low.
This system obtained elsewhere, and the opinion
of labourers as to harvest work generally was
that wages for it did no more than pay for the
extra labour ; the wages were earned ten times
over, some said ; and, at any rate, since a nine
day week was often put in during harvest, and
more food was of course necessary, laboiurers
objected that harvest earnings should not be
estimated in full in computing weekly averages.^
It is true that the men handled the extra money,
but seeing that it was earned only by extra and
severe labour it is not a matter for much surprise
if they thought themselves better off in the towns,
where an equal or greater sum could be earned
for an eight or ten hours' day. It was exactly
the same in the case of allotments, from which

» Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part III., p. 34. Cf.
Part I., p. 9. etc.

^ English Labourers' Chronicle, 1884, January 12th, etc. ; 1893,
June 17th, 24 th.

P 2

212 THE FARM LABOURER

an increase of income was secured only by
extra labour. Moreover, that increase was not
always obtainable. The Commissioners found
that allotments were generally, but not invari-
ably, obtainable, and that in some dis-
tricts they were not provided under those con-
ditions which alone, the Commissioners agreed,
rendered them of value, namely, fair rental,
suitable soil, proximity to village, and absence of
hampering rules. Thus Mr. Chapman said of
his district that the supply was not equal to the
demand,^ and that at North Witchford, in
Cambridgeshire, allotment land was in the hands
of speculators who were letting it at the rate of
£13 an acre. Rentals in Mr. Spencer's district,
Dorsetshire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Surrey, Essex,
Kent and Worcestershire, varied from £x, a rent
no more than the farmer paid, to as much as £8
an acre.^ In Norfolk and Suffolk some of the
allotments were so far from the villages that the
men would not take them.* In the Ascot district
the soil was unsuitable, and their tenants gave
them up.* That labourers did not find the
allotment system satisfactory is clear from the

■ Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part II., p. 55.

> lb.. Part v., p. 17.

« lb.. Part III., pp. 37, 71.

* lb.. Part II., p. 55.

FARMER AND LABOURER 213

criticism by Union leaders of the Commissioners'
Report.^

Allotments had, at any rate, some influence in
keeping men on the land. " I have no doubt,"
wrote Mr. Spencer, " from what I have heard and
seen, that allotments tend to make labourers
contented, help them to eke out a livelihood when
the wages are small, and tend to keep men on the
land."^ Mr. Bear, on the other hand, said that
allotments did not prevent migration, but did
keep some on the land who without that power to
supplement wages might have been forced to go.*
But the value of allotments with respect to the
rural exodus lay largely in the interest they added
to rural hfe ; and there were many who were
not to be won to remain by their tie with the
soil when their economic condition could be
bettered in the police force or army, or in the
towns.

For after all, agricultural work offered a young
man iis. to 15s. a week, and he had no prospect
of earning more, however long his service. Nor
had he much prospect of saving against old age.
" The pauper allowances which reward the most
industrious career," said Mr. Prothero, in 1888,
constitute one of the worst aspects of rural

1 English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, June 24th.
^ Op. cit., p. 18.
• Jb., Part I., p. 24.

214 THE FARM LABOURER

life.^ The Commissioners of 1893 also give the
desire for higher wages or the prospect of provision
for old age as the main cause of migration ;
Mr. Bear stated that all the men he questioned
said that this was so, and he was sure it was
correct.^ " Young men constantly seek service,"
wrote Mr. Chapman, " in the police force, the
post office, or railways, or in tramway companies,
where the pay is often small, but the rise is
certain and a pension probable."^ Mr. Rider
Haggard urged that the migration was purely
economic ; the labourer left the land because
the land could not pay him sufficient ; there was
no lack of applicants for the post of groom, keeper,
under-gardener, in which the work was compara-
tively light and the pay a few shillings a week
better. Maltsters also could find plenty of labour,
and of the very best class. Better housing,
education and holidays would not suffice if the
labourer was getting 12s. or 13s. a week and
thought he could get 20s. or 25s. by going to the
town.* And this was now becoming the general
opinion.^
Not only were rates of wages higher in the towns

1 " Pioneers and Progress," p. 224.

2 Op. cit., p. 18.

Op. cit., Part II., p. 12.
* " Farmers' Year," p. 464.

« lb., p. 462, Correspondence ; Millin, " Village Problems " ;
Prothero, op. cit. ; Wiltshire Times, 1893, February 4th.

FARMER AND LABOURER 215

but real wages also were higher. More, it is true,
had to be paid for rent, but provisions were no
dearer than at the village shops, and country
produce, eggs, milk, butter, far from being
cheaper in the country, was often unobtainable.
In spite of the general improvement which had
taken place by 1893, it still had to be admitted
by the Commissioners that, " It is only necessary
to compare the weekly budgets with the weekly
earnings to realise that the large majority of
labourers earn but a bare subsistence, and are
unable to save anything for their old age or for
times when they are out of work. An immense
number of them live in a chronic state of debt
and anxiety, and depend to a lamentable extent
upon charity."^ " The great majority of agricul-
tural labourers who outlive their power of work
have no resource for the support of their old age,
except the poor law."^ Or again, " The general
condition . . . judged by appearances, has greatly
improved. His standard of life is higher, he
dresses better, he eats more butcher's meat, he
travels more, he reads more, and he drinks less. . . .
All these things combined are of considerable
importance, but they give an impression of pros-

1 op. cit.. Chapman, pp. 12, 17, on Berks, Bucks, Cambs,
Devon, Herts, Oxon, Salop, Cornwall.

" Ih., Spencer, p, 70, Dorset, Essex, Wilts, Somerset, Kent,
Surrey.

2i6 THE FARM LABOURER

perity which is hardly borne out by the facts
when they are carefully examined."^ The
labourer's son knew the facts from the inside, and
he migrated.

(5) Farmers' Solutions for the Mutual
Problem.

The agricultural labourer's problem thus became
the farmer's problem. While making all allow-
ance for the facts that he desired a surplus supply
and that, even if he had possessed that supply, he
would still have complained if the best and strongest
men deserted the land, there is yet no doubt that
he was really feeling the pinch. Consequently, he
began to see that his interests and those of the
labourer were not opposed, and for the sake of
solving his own problem he did what he could to
solve the labourer's. Opposition to allotments
died down. " The best farmers are beginning to
realise," wrote Mr. Chapman, " that the supply
of labour is maintained by such opportunities
afforded to the labourer of working a bit of land
for himself ; and that a man who is pleased
with his allotment is a better man to work with
than one who is wholly discontented." ^ Hours of

' Royal Commission, etc., 1893, p. 44, quoted Hasbach, op. cit,,
p. 326.
" lb., Part II., p. 37.

FARMER AND LABOURER 217

work were shortened and defined. Piece work
was increasingly offered by many farmers where
it was found that the men appreciated it. In
Suffolk many farmers extended the system to the
satisfaction of their men, who considered they
could earn 2s. 6d. a day under it,^ Mr. Wilson
Fox thought that much improvement could be
effected if it were generally adopted/ but some
farmers were opposed as they considered that the
men scamped the work, and others found it more
difficult to organise.^ On the other hand, in
many districts the men were opposed, since it
tended to increase unemployment, and they con-
sidered that the farmer set too low a price ; while,
where the ground was in a bad condition through
years of insufficient cultivation, they did not find
it profitable.* Meanwhile, farmers were coming
to the opinion that weekly wages lay at the root
of the matter. The labour and wages questions
were the chief topics of conversation in Hertford-
shire.^ The Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture
Hstened, in 1899, to what would have been regarded
as heresies in earUer years, and discussed the
better methods of remunerating skilled agricul-

' Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Part III., p. 34.

^ lb., p. 6g.

» lb., p. 34-

' Hasbach, op. cii., p. 335, from the Report, 1893.

6 Haggard, " Farmers' Year," p. 462.

2i8 THE FARM LABOURER

tural labour.^ One farmer went so far as to
propose a Wages Board.^ And by 1901 many
farmers had raised their wages.' " The point
which I hope farmers will remember is that high
Wages do not necessarily mean dear labour. In
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and the North generally
wages are much higher than in the southern
counties, yet labour is no dearer, for the labourer
is a better man owing to his better food, clothing,
etc., and more than repays by his intelligence and
capacity the extra amount given him in wages." *
So wrote Mr. Turner in igii. This was in essence
what the Union leaders had pointed out since
1872 ; and it was a point which farmers were
beginning to see, though it was as yet far from
being generally recognised.

Yet, although it is obvious that farmers might
have the power both to improve immediate
material conditions and to make of agricultural
work something of a career by raising wages, their
profits might not always allow of a rise sufficiently
attractive. In Kent, where single men could
earn £1 a week, and married men £2 with the aid
of wife and children, there was a shortage in labour

' Haggard, " Farmer's Year," p. 464.
" English Labourers' Chronicle, 1893, January 21st.
" Haggard, " Rural England," pp. 28, 30, etc. ; " Farmers'
Year," p. 462.

* " Land Problems," p. 132.

FARMER AND LABOURER 219

in 1901, and Mr. Rider Haggard came to the
opinion that no wage that the employers could
pay seemed to be sufficient to induce the men to
stop.^ In North Wiltshire the farmers had raised
wages and stiU the men were leaving, and their
employers declared that a further rise was econo-
mically impossible.^ Farmers not infrequently
make such statements ; still it did not follow that
unless rents were considerably reduced the South
Country farmer could afford the wages given on
farms which had been consistently well-cultivated,
and where their occupiers had at their command
labour with a good tradition behind it. Nor
could aU soils allow of wages which would enable
the farmer to compete for labour against other
employers, and except through wages he had little
control of the conditions of rural Ufe. Housing
improvements were not within his power and
often not within that of his landlord. He had
Uttle influence over the social conditions of village
life, and he could not offer the labourer a career
by giving him access to the land. The farmer's
power to solve his problem and that of the labourer
was therefore limited. The State, however, was
now coming to the aid of both. That migration,
which was the result of the labourer's problem

I " Rural England," pp. 149, 174.
" lb., pp. 28 f.

220 THE FARM LABOURER

and the cause of the farmer's, had attained a
magnitude where it ceased to be a matter only
of agricultural concern ; it had assumed a
national significance and become a national
problem.

CHAPTER VII

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER.

(i) " Back to the Land."

If the recognition of the identity of farmer's
and labourer's interests was but slowly dawning
at the opening of the twentieth century, the
national significance of the labourer's problem was
already a commonplace. The industrial classes
of the towns had realised in the eighties that the
cause of agricultural and industrial workers was
one and the same. The danger to themselves of
masses of Hi-paid labour in the country, the great
rural immigration into the towns, the contraction
of what should have been the best market for
home manufacturers, had forced upon them the
fact that the two great industries of agriculture
and manufactures must prosper or suffer together.
Social reformers of urban conditions were also
keenly alive to the significance of rural conditions.
" In recent years," wrote Lord Carrington, " they
have come to see that the solution of many problems
of the town is to be found in the country, and
increasing attention is being paid to the causes of

222 THE FARM LABOURER

the rural exodus and the best means by which it
can be arrested." ^ Meanwhile, the general public
was alarming itself over the matter.

The Census figures revealed a decrease in the
rural population which created general concern ;
the number of agricultural labourers in England
and Wales had fallen from 962,348 in 1871 to
870,098 in 1881 ; ^ while the number of males,
including farmers and others, engaged in agricul-
ture was only 13-8 per cent, of the total male,
population in 1881, whereas it had been i6'8
in 1871, and 21 "2 in r86i ; a fall by half, therefore,
took place in twenty years.^ The increase in
gamekeepers and other employees in private
rural work was far too slight to afford any consola-
tion to those who saw a national danger in the
decline of the rural population. Moreover, the
Census figures showed an actual decrease of
population in many of the mainly agricultural
counties, while as a whole the rural population
had increased in a much smaller proportion than
had the urban. There was no change in these
tendencies during the next twenty years. The
number of agricultural labourers fell to 780,777
in 1891 and to 732,927 in 1901. The total number
of males engaged in agriculture had again declined,

'■ Introduction to Slater's " Enclosure of Common Fields."

^ Hasbach, op. cit., p. 296.

' Porter, ed. Hirst, " Progress of the Nation," p. 40.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 223

and again the mainly rural counties were showing
either an actual decrease in population or a lower
rate of increase than the urban districts.

A Parliamentary Report of 1890 voiced the
general opinion that this depopulation of the
countryside was a serious national danger. " All
agree," the Committee stated, " that the existence
of a numerous and prosperous peasantry is a
condition of national safety, and that the more
general distribution of ownership in land would
lead to the security of property, and to the
contentment of the population. . . , The prospect
of improvement for the thrifty and industrious
labourer is a matter of the highest social
importance. It is the chief means by which a
remedy can be found for that migration from the
country into the towns, which has to some extent
depopulated the rural districts, and has, at the
same time, intensified the competition for employ-
ment in the manufacturing towns. "^

Thus the idea gained hold that efforts must be
made to effect a re-settlement upon the land.
That idea had a force behind it which no desire
to assist the labourer had ever before possessed.
It lay in his vote, and in the common bonds
between him and the new class of industrial

1 Report from Select Committee on Small Holdings, 1890,
p. iii.

224 THE FARM LABOURER

voters, who had been amongst the first to see the
connection between agricultural and industrial
problems. The franchise was extended in 1884,
and instantly there was a distinct briskening up
in legislation, which became also more ambitious.
The labourer's friends within the House no longer
addressed empty benches. There was a different
tone there on agricultural matters, and only five
years after the labourer was enfranchised the
Government took up a Bill which was in essence
one of Jesse CoUings'. The organised labourers
had realised that the good intentions of busy
legislators would be transformed into action when
the vote was won, and they had consistently
worked for it since 1872. Subsequent years
proved how right they were.

The earUer movement for the restoration of the
labourers to the soil had been prompted by
philanthropic feeling towards the half-starved
peasant, and was promoted chiefly by private
societies for the furtherance of the allotment
system ; the new movement at the close of the
century received its impetus from the recognition
of national needs and was promoted by the
Legislature. And its objects were more ambitious.
Although the allotment system was strengthened,
attempts were now made to recreate the class of
peasant proprietors and cultivators. Acts of

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 225

Parliament are dull reading, but it is necessary
to follow the course of legislation step by step,
since after the labourer was enfranchised reform
emanated from ParKament.

(2) Extension of Allotments.

The new movement took place first in efforts
to improve the allotment system. Although the
Commissioners of 1867 had found allotments in
most districts, they admitted that the supply was
not always equal to the demand. Between 1867
and 1881 many of the allotments which had been
created had disappeared. They had been granted
" only by the friendly disposition of landowners,"
and if the land were asked for by their larger
tenants the extension of the labourer's lease
might be refused. Much land, which the labourers'
intensive culture had rendered more valuable,
thus fell back into farmers' hands.^ Moreover,
the Commissioners of 1867 had pointed out that
allotments were not always satisfactory even
where they existed, either because of exorbitant
rents or distance from the village. Their tenants
were also not infrequently subjected to hampering
rules and conditions of tenancy. The Unions
had strongly resented the allotment holder's
dependence on the good will of the landlord,

1 Hasbach, of. cit., p. 304.
F.L. Q

226 THE FARM LABOURER

fanner and parson, and had striven to obtain a
supply of allotments free from objectionable
restraints. They petitioned the Charity Com-
missioners to compel the uSe of trust land for their
purpose, but without success. Their failure,
together with the shortcomings of the allotment
system as it then stood, explains the efforts of
Mr. Jesse CoUings and others to persuade the
Legislature to come to the labourer's assistance.
For many years, however, Parliament proved no
very effective champion. Mr. CoUings succeeded
in obtaining the Allotments Extension Act of
1882, which marks a new and important departure
in the movement ; it contained compulsory clauses
with regard to the letting of certain charitable
trust land, the trustees of which were to give the
labourers every year the option of hiring it in
allotments of one acre and under. Mr. CoUings
had intended that appeals for its use should be
directed to the County Court. The House of
Lords greatly reduced the value of the Bill by
replacing the County Court by the Charity
Commissioners, who had already proved them-
selves unsympathetic, and by a clause giving to
the trustees power to refuse to let " unsuitable "
land. The Act thus aUowed of considerable
evasion by unfavourable trustees, who demanded
that rents should be paid in advance and placed

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 227

other obstacles in the way of intending tenants.'^
The only remedy the labourers had in such
situations was to " appeal to a permanent body
sitting in London whose actions made the Bill
a necessity, and whose hostility to the principle
of the Bill was openly avowed."^ An Allotments
Extension Association was formed in order to
fight the trustees and Commissioners.' But the
clumsy machinery of the Act gave all the advan-
tages in the contest to its hostile administrators.
So far as Jesse CoUings and his friends were
concerned, the only result of this opposition was
to drive them to go further, and it was only because
the Government felt obliged to bring in a measure
of their own that Jesse Collings did not push on
with a Bill which he introduced in 1887. The
Government Act of that year followed along its
hues. The compulsory system was extended, for
it had been made clear that compulsion was
necessary. Six parliamentary electors might
petition the Sanitary Authority to provide allot-
ments, and that authority was given powers to
rent or buy land, compulsorily if necessary, for
the provision of allotments not exceeding one
acre for any one person. So far all was well. But

1 Hasbach, op. cit., p. 307 ; Report on Charitable Trusts Act,
1884 ; English Labourers' Chronicle, 1884, March 29th, etc.
' English Labourers' Chronicle, 1884, June 28th.
» lb., 1884, January 19th.

Q2

228 THE FARM LABOURER

the Sanitary Authority was left to decide whether
there was a sufficient demand for allotments.
Thus the Act of 1887, Uke that of 1882, opened
the door to evasion. " The labourers were
entirely dependent on the good will of the Sanitary
Authority ; the authority might demand the rent
in advance, the rent must be sufficiently high to
cover all expenses, in which, of course, the high
fees of the necessary legal proceedings were
included. If the authority resolved on compulsory
purchase landowners could demand 10 per cent,
above the value of their land " for disturbance,"
and 15 per cent. " for severance," i.e., for the
loss of a part of their estate.^

The Allotments Act, of i8go, attempted to
overcome some of these difficulties by giving a
right of appeal from the Sanitary Authority to
the County Court, which was empowered to take
over the duties of the former if it failed to take
action. The Rural Labourers' League, at a
meeting presided over by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain
in 1892, claimed that 100,000 labourers had been
able to secure allotments under these Acts, but
the Labourers' Chronicle pointed out that the
tenants of these allotments were many of them
tradesmen and artisans, they were by no means

• Hasbach, op. cit., p. 315.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 229

all agricultural labourers/ And the Commis-
sioners of 1893 found that the demand for allot-
ments in rural districts still exceeded the supply.
This was not entirely the fault of the Sanitary
Authorities. Though it is true that only 56 out
of 518 authorities had taken action by 1893/ it
was the mechanism of the Act that was largely
at fault. Mr. Chapman declared that " there is
good reason for the complaint constantly made,
that with every desire on the part of the authorities
to supply the want, there is so much trouble
involved in putting the law in motion that the
Allotment Act seems really useless except as a
means of stimulating public opinion."^ In this
respect, namely the impulse it gave to land-
owners to provide allotments voluntarily, the Act
was generally admitted to have been of service.
Many Sanitary Authorities had no need to take
action because by private effort the work had
been done.* By 1890 the labourer undoubtedly

• English Labourers' Chronicle, 1892, February 27th.

^ Contemporary Review, Wilkinson, J. F., " Pages in the
History of Allotments." ,

' Royal Commission, etc., 1893, Chapman's Report, p. 55.

' Returns of the cases in which Rural Sanitary Authorities,
under the Allotments Act, 1887, and County Councils, under the
Allotments Acts, 1887 and 1890, have acquired land by compul-
sory purchase, purchase by agreement, and hire by agreement
. . . giving also the reasons where rural authorities have not pro-
vided land, 1892. (" No application " and " Privately supplied
in suf&cient quantity," are the general reasons. Similar returns,
1895, 1898).

230 THE FARM LABOURER

had greater facilities than ever before for obtaining
a plot of land,^ and though the Commissioners
found that conditions of tenancy were by no
means always favourable, the Cottage Gardens
Compensation for Crops Act, of 1887, at least
ensured him compensation if he were ejected.
Thus progress had certainly been made. But
the allotment system was still not wholly satis-
factory, whether because the administrative
authorities failed to provide a sufficient supply of
land, or because too many of the allotments were
rented highly owing to the difficulty of procuring
land, or depended for their existence on the
good will of landowners. By the Local Govern-
ment Act of 1894 an attempt was made to set
these matters right. The compulsory hire of
land which this Act allowed gave the opportunity
for offering allotments at a lower rent than where
the land had to be purchased. And this power
of compulsory hire was put into the hands of the
new democratic parish councils, The parish
councils, however, proved not so democratic as
might have been hoped, and again the good
intentions of the Legislature were foiled by bad
administration. By 1906 very few parish councils
had taken action.^ Consequently, in 1907, allot-

* Returns of Allotments and Small Holdings, 1890.
" Jebb, L., " Small Holdings of England," p. 44.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 231

ments were included in the Act of that year for
small holdings, the development of which must
now be considered.

(3) Small Holdings,

The question of small holdings and peasant
proprietorship had been agitated at various times,
but it was not until the eighties that, owing to
the reaUsation of the national significance of the
rural exodus, any action was taken. In 1888 and
1889 Jesse CoUings succeeded in getting Select
Committees appointed to consider the question of
small holdings. The Committees reahsed that
even the larger allotments of several acres in
extent would not suffice to build up the rural
population. They were, therefore, ready to adopt
some scheme of small holdings. But they were
not prepared to allow powers of compulsory
purchase, and were in favour of peasant pro-
prietorship rather than of tenancies. When, there-
fore, a Bill was passed in 1892, the main principles
of Jesse Collings' scheme were either omitted or
not emphasised. There was no clause for com-
pulsory purchase, and though the ostensible
object of the Act was the creation of small pro-
prietors, small tenant farmers and agricultural
societies for co-operative production, it was
facilities for properties, not tenancies, which really

232 THE FARM LABOURER

were given. Small holders who could not pur-
chase their land might take it on lease, but the
area was in their case limited to fifteen acres, and
its value to a rental of £15 per annum. Moreover,
the County Councils, with whom lay the adminis-
tration of the Act, were to take action upon the
petition of one or more electors only after an
inquiry as to whether there was sufficient demand :
the decision lay with them, and they were not
inclined to favour tenancies. Nor were the pur-
chasing clauses of the Act very easy for small men.
A purchaser had to pay on the spot one-fifth of the
money. Of the remainder, one quarter might
remain as a permanent charge on the land, but
the rest had to be paid off in half-yearly instal-
ments of interest and capital. The capital for
the preliminary purchase of land, whether for
properties or tenancies, was lent by the State at a
low rate of interest ; the County Councils, there-
fore, were able to secure the necessary money.
But they made little use of their powers, and
between 1892 and 1906 only 170 acres had been
acquired, although labourers were in favour of
the scheme and there was a keen demand for
holdings.^ The failure of the Act, however,
though due partly to the indifference and laxity
of local authorities, which were less progressive

' Small Holdings Report, 1906, Index, pp. 444 and 445.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 233

than any section in the House of Commons, was
primarily due to causes over which the best of
them had no control. Experience in the case of
allotments might have shown that the power
compulsorily to acquire land was a necessary
adjimct to the success of the scheme ; but the
lesson had not been learnt, and the consequent
dif&culty of obtaining land at a price small holders
could afford was a serious obstacle in the path of
small holdings. It is a commonplace that land
has a social value apart from its economic value.
" In no country is the possession of land so much
desired for social and political reasons as in
England," writes a German student of English
agriculture. " Land-ownership gives the rich man
social standing and very often the possibility of a
political career." ^ This social value of land both
limited the amount that came into the market
and rendered the price of such land as was to be
sold higher than its economic value for agricul-
tural purposes. It will be remembered that
although good rents could be had for small farms,
and there were numerous applications for them,
many landowners preferred to lower the rents of
large farms, which without this assistance could
find no tenant, rather than cut them up into
smaller units for which there was a demand.

' Levy, op. cit., p. ii8.

234 THE FARM LABOURER

Small holdings were even less desirable from the
landlord's point of view, since to a greater extent
they lowered the sporting value of estates and
reduced the select privacy and general amenities
of the neighbourhood. The law of entail also had
the effect of keeping land out of the market, or of
raising its price above the economic value, since
sellers had to prove their right to alienate the land
in question, and the legal expenses were naturally
added to the cost price.^

The second of the chief reasons for the failure of
the Act was that it offered the labourer what in
most cases he did not want, namely, ownership.
At a mass meeting in London in December, 1891,
which was attended largely by labourers, a resolu-
tion was passed in favour of tenancy ; ownership
was not desired. Even the better class labourers
too often had not the capital to pay down one-fifth
of the price of the land and building and still have
sufficient working capital for the cultivation of
their holdings. Dr. Levy reckoned the amount
necessary at ;^400 for a holding of thirty acres, and
after this was paid the small holder would still
have to meet the yearly payments of the remainder
of the purchase-money.^ The English Labourers'
Chronicle, the chief organ now of the Unionists,

' Levy, op. cit., pp. ii8 — 124.
» lb., p. 133.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 235

pointed out these difficulties, and from the first
expressed doubts as to the practicabihty of the
scheme.^ Arch's opinion of the Act after a year's
trial was that it was a farce ; " the reason it does
not work is because it has a purchasing clause.
That clause means keeping the labourer off the
land ... To make a man purchase the land was
to put a mill-stone round his neck." ^ Un-
fortunately, the question of ownership and tenancy
was now dragged into the realm of party politics.
The Conservatives supported the former policy,
the Liberals the latter, and included compulsory
purchase in their programme. Consequently, the
Act of 1892 was left unamended for fourteen
years.

Meanwhile, the small holdings movement was
carried on by large landowners who appreciated
the national value of the reform. Lord Carrington
being one of the foremost. The success of the
small holders whom they created, and of such men
as were able to get on to the land under the Act of
1892, strengthened the movement by showing
that small holdings economically, as well as socially,
were a sound departure. Although small holdings
for fruit and vegetable growing did best, it no
longer could be urged that they were suited only

' 1892, February 27th, and 1893, April 29th, etc.
» lb., 1893, October 14th.

236 THE FARM LABOURER

to very limited districts, and to horticulture. If
the cultivator abstained from corn growing and
arable farming, which were not suitable for small
areas, he had every chance of success. Small
farmers who carried on mixed farming had a
struggling existence, owing chiefly to their in-
ability to borrow capital upon reasonable terms.^
Many of the small holders, it is true, added to
their income by engaging in occasional work for
the farmer, or had some other trade to fall back
upon, such as carrier work ; while others were
principally tradesmen and combined the cultiva-
tion of a holding with their work as butchers or
shopkeepers. Nevertheless, the economic sound-
ness of small holdings was established. If the
small holder could not cultivate by intensive
capital, he could and did farm by intensive labour,
and therein lay the chief cause of his success-
The labour which he expended upon his holding
was ungrudging, and the land responded. The
small holding produced more per acre than the
large farm, while on spade-cultivated allotments
the gross produce was 25 per cent, greater than
that of land farmed by the usual methods.^

While the practical work of small holders was

' Wilkins, L. (Jebb), " Small Holdings Controversy," p. 19.

" Ashby and Bolton King, " Statistics of some Midland
Villages," in Journal of Royal Economic Society, 1893 ; Hasbach,
op. cii., p. 349 ; Levy, op. cit., pp. loi f.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 237

thus doing its share to promote the scheme,
opinion was becoming more definite as to the
fomidations upon which that scheme must rest.
It was increasingly recognised that the creation of
properties rather than tenancies, even had it been
favoured by the labourer, was not the method best
suited to advance the social motives of the Act.
" The smaU freeholder, helped on to a holding at
agricultural prices by State aid, is at the mercy of
temptations to part with it owing to the enhanced
value offered by neighbouring landowners with
game preserves to be kept quiet, retired trades-
men, week-enders." ^ There was also a danger
that small cultivators might purchase their
holdings by money raised on mortgage during an
agricultural boom, " only to find themselves
ruined when the wave of depression set in." ^ In
either case the State would have to do its work of
reviving the peasantry all over again.

The new Small Holdings Act, introduced in 1907,
aimed at overcoming the difficulties of the acquisi-
tion of land, the laxness of County Councils, and
the burden and danger of purchase, which had
rendered the preceding Act unsatisfactory. The
Councils were now given powers of compulsory
purchase and compulsory hire, the interests of

1 Wilkins, L. (Jebb), op. cit., p. 17.
» lb., p. 20.

238 THE FARM LABOURER

landowners being safeguarded by a number of
clauses. It had been proved in the case of allot-
ments that the possession in itself of compulsory
powers led to voluntary agreements, so that com-
pulsion not often had to be used. It was expected
that this would be the case with small holdings,
but it was clear that the principle of compulsion
must be contained in the Bill. To ensure that
action should be taken by the County Councils the
Board of Agriculture was constituted the final
administrative authority. Its Small Holdings
Commissioners were to ascertain the demand for
holdings, and if the County Councils in districts
where there was a demand had not taken action,
and continued to refuse to do so, the Commissioners
were to take over the work, the expenses of which
were to faU on the local authority. Tenancies
were now placed upon as favourable a footing as
properties ; the financial arrangements were made
easy for the tenant, and he was secured from
disturbance provided he fulfilled the terms of his
lease, while compensation for improvements were
of course ensured. The Small Holdings and
Allotments Act, 1907, came into force on
January ist, 1908, and during the years 1908 and
1909 County Councils acquired 60,889 acres for
the purposes of the Act/ whereas under the earlier

^ Levy, op. cit., p. 147.

THE NATION AND THE LABOURER 239

Bill only 790 acres had been acquired in fourteen
years. Of the land acquired under the later Act,
34,234 acres were purchased, and at a price fair to
landowners and small holders alike. But the
applications for holdings greatly exceeded the
number created, and the administration of the Act
has been considerably criticised.^ The fact that
administration rests in the hands of a body of
permanent officials and of councils upon which
landlord and sporting interests predominate was
felt to be a danger by the more ardent supporters
of the movement, and in 1909 a Land Club
League was formed, its aim being to watch over
the working of the Act. The success of the move-
ment from 1907 onwsirds was largely due to the
adoption of co-operation among small holders.
Agricultural Co-operative Associations had been
strongly favoured by the Act of 1907, and in 1909
there were fifteen small holdings societies, culti-
vating 1,893 acres. The Small Holdings Com-
missioners, in their report of 1910, stated that
" the experience of the last two years has
strengthened our conviction that the method of
establishing [small holdings] with the best prospect
of success is to acquire an area of land and to let it to
a properly constituted Co-operative Association." ^

1 Levy, Op. cit., p. 148.

3 " Annual Report on Small Holdings," 1910, p. 14.

240 THE FARM LABOURER

" It is nevertheless necessary," writes Dr. Levy,
" to beware of ascribing such an extension of
small holdings as has yet been achieved either to
voluntary reforming zeal or to the Small Holdings
Acts. Neither has been in any sense a main cause,
of the progress shown by the statistics. Even so
far as they have been effective, it has not been
because their aim was socially justified, but
because it was economically possible. ... If the
branches of agriculture which form the proper
domain of the small farmer were still unprofitable,
all attempts artificially to create small holdings
would be unsuccessful."^ It was, in fact, that
change in the market which rendered com growing
unprofitable and the lesser branches of agriculture
remunerative which made possible the social
policy. A change back in the market does not
seem probable, but the small holder would not
remain on the land if economic changes should
render his work unprofitable. Whatever his love
of the land, the small man obviously cannot afford
to indulge it at the expense of economic
considerations.

' Levy, op. cit., p. 152.

CONCLUSION

There can be little doubt that the worst of the
labourer's troubles now are ended, never to return.
In the future it is possible that Enghsh agriculture
may see another revolution ; the cheap corn that
Canada and foreign countries can now put into
our market owing to their possession of huge
areas of -virgin soil, their lower taxation, or, as in
Russia, cheaper labour, may from changes in these
conditions so rise in price as to give an impetus
to English corn growing once again. A new
movement towards large farming then might
occur ; but the extreme depression of Enghsh
agricultural labour in the early nineteenth century
was due not merely to a more violent economic
and social revolution than any future changes in
the market can possibly bring about ; it was
aggravated by the Poor Law policy of allowances,
which depressed wages, morally injured the
labomrer, and increased competition in the agri-
cultural labour market by the stimulus it gave
to the rural birth rate. Then the sudden abolition
of the system forced the labourer to adopt a
method of self-help, namely, the utilisation of the
F.L. ^

242 THE FARM LABOURER

wage-earning powers of his family, which led to
identical results. The slow recovery has been
due to the curtailment of the farmer's labour
supply both by the decrease in women's and
children's employment, and the flight of male
labour from the land ; to changes in the market
which, on the one hand, have allowed the farmer
to develop new and more profitable branches of
agriculture, and on the other, have opened the
door to the labourer's return to the land as an
independent cultivator ; and lastly, to more
enlightened legislation. The institution of Old
Age Pensions has remedied one of the worst evils
of agricultural life, and State Insurance promises
mitigation of the penalties of illness from which
the labourer and his family have hitherto suffered
great hardship, and even permanent ill-effects, by
reductions in their already low standard of living.
Yet agricultural life still has its unsatisfactory
features. Though education and the vote have
done much to improve the social position of the
labourer, the worst elements of the old feudal
village life still obtain in many parishes. There
are still landowners and still parsons who virtually
deny the labourer's right to a mind and a soul of
his own, and if the undue influences which they
bring to bear upon the labourer are often hard to
define, they are none the less real and resented.

CONCLUSION 243

In this respect urban life has a great advantage
over rural hfe, and until progressive freedom is
allowed to the village it cannot be a matter for
surprise if the younger generation quits the
countryside.^ This is not a point which it is worth
while to emphasise here ; it is one which can best
be verified by personal inquiries, and no written
word will convince those who have no know-
ledge of rural conditions of the extent to which
this petty tyranny still prevails. As to local
government, generally speaking it is undemo-
cratic, since the classes below the rank of shop-
keepers and farmers are rarely represented on
the County and Rural District Councils, and
fear of increasing the rates of the classes they do
represent tends to encourage local administrators
to shelve matters which might involve heavy
expenditure, such as housing, small holdings, and
allotments, matters which closely affect the
labourer. Turning now from the social to the
economic aspect of the labourer's case, housing
remains an acute problem. Between 1884 and

1 The Preliminary Report of the Census, 1911, shows that the
increase in the population is again less in rural than in urban
districts, but the disproportion is not so great as it was ; and
that in twelve EngUsh and three Welsh counties the rate of
increase has actually risen since 1901, a fact which may be
due merely to growth of suburbs, etc. But between 1891 and
1911 there has been a serious fall in population in several
counties.

R 2

244 THE FARM LABOURER

1907, sanitation improved, but shortage of dwell-
ings increased, and the structural condition of
many cottages became worse ; cottages could not
be built in accordance with the increasingly
stringent sanitary and building regulations at a
rent the labourer could afford ; few local autho-
rities took action under the optional Housing Acts
of 1890 and 1900, for action meant increasing the
rates ; and if reformers forced the condemnation
of cottages, the inmates had nowhere to go. The
Select Committee of 1908 found that local autho-
rities did not do their duty under the Sanitary and
Housing Acts, and that those who tried to do so
were met by every possible obstacle. The new
Act of 1909 was therefore made compulsory. It
enforces periodical inspection and the closing of
dwellings unfit for habitation. Further pressure
is brought to bear by the Insurance Act, 191 1 : if
it is proved that excessive illness in any locality is
due to bad housing, and that the local council has
not applied the Housing Acts satisfactorily, the
council is liable to be charged with the extra
financial burden thus placed on the Insurance
Fund. Thus a chief obstacle to reform, local
reluctance to increase the rates, has been overcome.
But the outlook is still not very bright ; the rent
that the labourer can afford is too low to make
private building profitable, and public building is

CONCLUSION 245

proceeding at a far slower rate than the closing of
cottages under the Acts. The memorandum of
the Local Government Board on the results of the
last Act from 1909 to 1912, reveals that while 312
cottages have been built, 1,453 have been closed ;
thus the dearth has been increased by 1,141 dwell-
ings. There is a danger that while the standard
of such cottages as exist will rise, the combined
forces of the Housing and Insurance Acts will
increase the shortage and aggravate the housing
problem in one of its most serious aspects. Unless
the labourer's wages are raised, or unless the State
finances the building of cottages to be let at un-
remunerative rents, the rural exodus must con-
tinue, if for no other reason than lack of dwellings.^
As to wages, the latest official return, that of 1907,
gives 17s. 6d. as the average weekly earnings for
the whole country. But many labourers receive
only I2S. to 15s. a week ; and even with the aid of
allotments, family earnings and payment for piece-
work and harvest, their income is too low to permit
a wholesome standard of living and housing.
" There was not an important industry in which
those engaged in it were so miserably paid," said
the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to a
question in the House of Commons. " Their

' For full account, cf. Aronson, " Our Village Homes," Chapters
VI. and VII.

246 THE FARM LABOURER

wages and their housing conditions were a perfect
scandal, . . . Land was not cultivated in a
good many districts owing to the scarcity of labour,
because the conditions were not attractive enough
to induce men to remain there." ^ These state-
ments were affirmed by the Solicitor-General,^ and
the Agricultural Wages Boards Bills,' introduced
on May 7th and 27th, by members of the Con-
servative and Labour parties respectively, reveal
the concurrence of opinion as to the unsatisfactory
condition of agricultural workers. Their condition,
in fact, calls for a continuance in efforts for reform.
Small holdings alone cannot solve the labourer's
problem, though its every aspect must be affected
by their sound development. The labourer may
see his old dignity return to him when, with a
holding as his goal, he becomes in truth a journey-
man farmer. Hope, prospects, a career, will no
longer lie only in the towns. A practicable ladder
will be reconstructed from plot to a few acres, and
from the few to the more, by allotments and small
holdings on tenancy, which allow to a greater
extent than properties the possibility of movement.
Mounting up the ladder, he will rise not only
economically, but socially. So far as the farmer

' standard. May gth, 1913.

" Times, June 2nd, 1913.

« lb., May 8th and 28th, 1913.

CONCLUSION 247

is concerned, the greater the extension of small
holdings, the less should be his labour problem.
For the sons of small holders, with the prospect of
independence before them on the land, and no
longer despised as at the bottom of the social scale,
a sore point now, will not need to seek betterment
in the towns. The townsman's evils, too — over-
crowding and competition — ^will therefore be
decreased. Meanwhile, the nation will be recon-
stituting that independent peasantry which it has
come to desire. At present, however, the small
holding movement affects only the few, and its
extension is blocked by the continuance of un-
satisfactory conditions of hfe and work which
prevent those labourers who most need a change
in their circumstances from bringing that change
about by making a start as independent cultivators.
The problem of the labourer proper, therefore,
still remains, and the question how to increase his
wages still has to be answered.

That increase could take the form of a rise in
his rate of wages or of an increase in their purchas-
ing power. Co-operative stores would be of the
greatest value in the latter respect. They have
existed for many years in certain districts, but
speaking generally, the labourer's shopping is still
mainly carried on with the small privately owned
village store, or with the shghtly larger shop in

248 THE FARM LABOURER

the neighbouring market town. The village shop-
keeper, who sells only in small quantities and runs
the risk of bad debts, necessarily charges a higher
price for his commodities than are charged in town
shops which have a wider trade and are supported
partly by the large orders of the better-to-do
classes. But there are obvious difficulties in the
way of any general extension of co-operative
stores, while there is always the possibility that
an increase in real wages by such means might
keep rates of wages low, as was said to be the case
in the past in parishes where philanthropic assist-
ance was given to the labourer, or where, so it was
sometimes averred, he could eke out low wages by
means of allotments. As to rates of wages, the
agricultural history of the last two centuries
shows how inadequate have been the rises volun-
tarily granted, and how of the three chief economic
factors in the farmer's profits, prices, rent and
wages bill, it is the latter over which he has most
control, and the latter which has been the first to
be altered in bad years.

The old Unions were not strong enough to
prevent reductions in wages, and although there
has recently been a revival of Unionism, not only
in the eastern counties, where the movement never
quite died out, but in the Midlands also, the
difficulty of raising rural wages by collective

CONCLUSION 249

bargaining is as great to-day as it was in the
nineties. Rural Unions, the members of which
are not merely ill-paid, but are also isolated and
scattered, are faced with pecuhar obstacles. Wage
Boards and the institution of a minimum wage
would be of more value than Unions to the agri-
cultural labourer. Against State interference and
compulsory raising of wages, which any scheme for
a minimum wage would involve, it can be urged,
and is probably true, that the worse paid labourers,
the South countrymen, are not worth more than
they now receive. But in criticising the labourer
it has to be remembered that for several genera-
tions the conditions of agricultural work have
driven the best and most intelligent labour from
the land ; that inconsiderate treatment in the
past has not been conducive to whole-hearted,
ungrudging work in those that remained, and that
this and poor wages and poor feeding are respon-
sible for the lower value of labour in the South.
Superiority has not always rested with the North,
as we have seen ; before the Agricultural Revolu-
tion the Norfolk peasant was considered by a
competent judge to be the best of his kind. There
is every reason to believe that better wages would
not merely keep some of the best men on the land,
but would also improve the quality of the labour
now at the farmer's command. The usual objec-

250 THE FARM LABOURER

tions to a fixed minimum wage are that it would
inflict great hardship on the old men, who would
find their services dispensed with ; and secondly,
that if wages are raised above what the industry
will bear as carried on at present the farmer must
change his industry ; he would decrease his arable
land, and there would consequently be less em-
ployment. But any scheme for a minimum wage
could be made sufficiently elastic to allow of vary-
ing rates for different grades of workers, as well as
for local variations in living expenses. In neither
of the Wages Bills, introduced in May, 1913, was
it proposed to establish a " flat " rate. The con-
version of arable to pasture might be a temptation
to the incompetent farmer, but one object of the
agricultural education scheme now on foot will be
to encourage the disappearance of the farmer who
makes a profit of ys. 6d. per acre, when £2 3s. can
be made.^ The value of the land laid down to
grass in the last thirty years in the Midlands, is not
such as to encourage the intelligent farmer to adopt
this device wholesale. Stock farming on bad land
is an expensive pursuit ; either the farmer must
pay for large quantities of other foodstuffs, or be
content with poor profits for poor stock. Leicester-
shire pastureland, which fattens stock without the
assistance of other feeding, is not to be created at

' See Appendix.

CONCLUSION 251

will. There are, however, other difficulties in
connection with raising rates of wages. Real
wages do not necessarily rise in proportion.
Experience goes to prove that the value of a rise in
rates of wages may be negatived by that artificial
rise in rents and in the price of commodities which
the absence of competition amongst landlords and
shopkeepers in the country-side makes all too easy.
A really high minimum wage would render the
labourer indifferent to artificial rises in prices.
But to enforce a minimum wage such as would be
practicable, without ensuring that the rise in
wages should be real, might be of little value to
the labourer, while it imposed upon the farmer a
financial burden uncompensated by the better
labour which higher real wages presumably
would create. Thus, while an increase of real
wages by opportunities for co-operative pur-
chase might keep rates low, an increase in rates
of wages might bring little or no increase in real
wages. Thus much does the history of the
labourer suggest.

The last chapters of his story have still to be
written, for the final solution of the labourer's
problem hes in the future. It is to be hoped that
the next attempt at a remedy may, through the
united efforts of aU parties and of all classes, prove
to be this final solution. If aid be not given him.

252 THE FARM LABOURER

the labourer must continue to solve his problem
by methods of his own, which have not been in
the past, and in the future are not likely to be,
conducive to the general prosperity of the
nation.

APPENDIX

A NOTE ON SOME MATTERS CONCERNING
FARMERS AND SMALL HOLDERS, 1913.

Agricultural Education ; Co-operation ; Sportsmen
and Farmers ; Credit Banks.

Two schemes which are now on foot, though not
directly affecting the labourer, promise ultimately
to be of service to him. The one is an extensive
system of agricultural education designed for the
assistance of farmers and small holders ; the other
is the promotion of credit societies for the benefit
of the latter class.

The prosperity of the labourer must depend
largely, as it has done in the past, on the prosperity
of his employer. At present, although great
technical progress has been made of recent years
in agriculture, there are many farmers who lag
behind the times. Mr. Christopher Turner, one
of the foremost authorities on agricultural subjects,
is emphatic as to the difference between the show
men, the " star " farmers, and the average farmer.
He made an interesting comparison of fifty-six
farms, as alike as possible in soil, buildings and
market facilities, and found that on some the
gross yield of foodstuffs was £12 per acre and on
others only from £7 to £3 or less. At the time of

254 THE FARM LABOURER

his inquiry the average yield per acre of land
under cultivation in Great Britain was a little
tinder £4, "a low yield considering the richness of
our soil." * As Mr. Turner points out, the English
farmer met foreign competition by cutting down
expenditure ; he reduced his labour bill, reduced
his tillage, ploughed four inches deep instead of
six, neglected his hedges and ditches and drains.
To the labourer such poor farming and the
consequent limitation of his employer's profits
is of real moment. But the matter has also
a national aspect, for the land is not yielding as
much as it could. Fortunately the interests of
the nation and the labourer fundamentally coin-
cide with those of the farmer, for from his point of
view starving the land is false economy ; whereas
under scientific farming, an acre can yield a net
profit of ;^3, poor farming can bring profits as
low as ys. 6d. an acre.^ Here the dissemina-
tion of agricultural knowledge can be of aid,
and at last the nation is awakening to the
fact that education is the basis of agricultural
reform.

The projected scheme is for a graduated
organisation ranging from advanced research work
to elementary education. Research institutes,
to which ^30,000 a year will be devoted from the
Development and Roads Improvement Funds,
will have for their object the study of different
sections of agricultural sciences. Technical advice

1 " Land Problems," 1911, pp. 55 f.
" lb., pp. 80 f.

APPENDIX 255

to farmers, to which £12,999 a year has been
assigned, will be provided by " scientific workers
stationed at collegiate centres serving groups of
counties. These workers will make a special
study of the needs of particular localities."
Agricultural education, for which £325,999 has
been granted for the period ending March 31st,
1916, will be supphed by lecturers in universities
and colleges, by teachers employed at farm schools
to instruct pupils whose circumstances and pre-
vious education prevent their attending college
courses, and by peripatetic teachers whose work
will lie amongst those who cannot attend the
schools. Winter short-courses wUl be provided at
the farm schools for those who have had practical
experience on the land since leaving the elementary
schools, while summer courses will be provided
if required by local conditions. They will be
open to the sons and daughters of farmers and
small holders. So well graded a scheme is a
great advance upon anything we have known
before ; hitherto the local authorities have been
left to cope with agricultural education, and have
spent about £80,000 a year.

This better education and the new facilities for
research must, amongst other things, promote the
industrialising of agriculture. A start has already
been made, the cultivation of sugar beet and of
tobacco being two of the most notable experiments.
Under the auspices of the National Sugar Beet
Association, the cultivation of beet is prospering
in Norfolk and Essex, while experiments in

256 THE FARM LABOURER

tobacco are being made in Norfolk, Suffolk,
Hampshire, Surrey, Worcestershire, Warwick-
shire, Gloucestershire, Carnarvon and Kirkcud-
brightshire. The research institutes should be of
value in developing other subsidiary industries^

Apart from its direct advantages the new system
of education will necessarily have an influence in
promoting co-operation, which, in Mr. Turner's
words, " would do more for the immediate benefit
of agriculture than anything else." While the
large farmer can act as his own co-operator, both
medium and small farmers and small holders work
under unfavourable conditions, both in purchasing
and in distribution. The small or comparatively
small man purchases at a disadvantage, for his
orders for seed and other raw material of his
business are not large enough to secure him whole-
sale terms. He also labours under a disadvantage
in distribution. He cannot market his produce
either in the bulk or with the regularity which
fairly enough secures for the foreigner those cheap
rates as to which there is sometimes complaint
at home. Thus he is often unable to compete
with the foreigner in his own market. Both for
purchasing and distribution difficulties co-opera-
tion is the solution, and has proved its success
wherever tried. But the English character and
English social organisation render the extension
of co-operation slow and uncertain. " In little
village communities," writes Dr. Levy, " the
ground is prepared for co-operative action. . . .
But England is the land of capitaHst agriculture.

APPENDIX 257

Neighbours are not known to one another as they
are in the village community. They Uve outside,
more as in the Celtic type of settlement, and this
in itself prevents the intimate and friendly
relationships to be found among the true villagers.
The English countrjmaan can hardly be defended
from the charge of being extraordinarily suspicious.
He does not trust his neighbours, and would rather
go alone than in company. Moreover, the whole
idea of association is much more strange to him
than to the peasantry of a country where the
village community is still a reality. In the village
community any number of things are already done
in common." The English farmer has to be
"entirely re-converted to the co-operative mind."^
This re-conversion cannot but be assisted by the
extension of better education.

Education may have, too, an effect in limiting
sports, especially game preserving, in agricultural
districts. At present the tendency is all the other
way, since new men, bankers, merchants and
tradesmen are bujdng up estates for the social
prestige they confer and are putting more and
more money into preserving. It can, of course, be
claimed that the farmer receives compensation for
damage inflicted, and that the existence of hunting
or shooting is taken into consideration when his
rent is fixed ; sports bring money into the country-
side, some of which is spent in the country, while
fox-hunting gives general pleasure and increases
the social amenities of the neighbourhood for more

' Levy, " Large and Small Holdings," p. 198.
F.L. S

258 THE FARM LABOURER

than the subscribers to the hunt : the classes
which indulge in these sports have been and are of
service to the nation in local administrative work
and in local work generally, and the nation would
lose more by their going abroad for their pastimes
than it would gain in the increase of gross produce
per acre which might follow if their sports were
curtailed. From the agricultural point of view it
can be urged that the economic loss to the nation
is considerable owing to the best agricultural use
not being made of the land ; that the farmer does
not avail himself of the right to compensation,
whether because of the difficulty of estimating it,
because he dare not be a troublesome tenant, or
because no material damage is inflicted, he suffers
simply because he fears to incur it : he does not put
down the crop best suited to his land and his stock
because last year it was devoured by game ; he
gives up keeping a good breed of hens because he
will get a bad name if he asks for more than the
price of a common fowl for those devoured by the
fox. There is thus a divergence of opinion on the
matter, due probably not merely to self-interest,
but to poor farming. The man who farms for low
profits can obtain those profits in spite of sports.
When the weeds of technical backwardness and
lack of co-operation are cleared from the land,
such damage as is inflicted by hunting and shoot-
ing will become more evident, and though it might
prove a difficult matter for legislation to deal with,
landowners, or at any rate landowners of the old
class, who have already supplied pioneers for the

APPENDIX 259

various movements of agricultural reform, may
give the lead again.

Whilst every advance in the farmer's prosperity
is of vital importance to the labourer, the establish-
ment of small holders on a sounder footing is also
of concern to him. At present their prosperity
and therefore their multiplication is hampered by
various circumstances. Lack of co-operation and
its possible extension have already been considered.
Where small holdings are concentrated in a more
or less narrow district, co-operation is succeeding
well, but where they are scattered amid farms of
various sizes, combination is difficult until the
farmers are ready to join in.

The other chief difficulty in connection with the
small holding is that its cultivator has little or no
credit and has great trouble in obtaining capital.
Consequently, he lives from hand to mouth, and
economic waste is forced upon him even though
he may know the best course to pursue. Germany
possesses a vast system of co-operative credit ; at
the close of 1911, there were 14,506 credit societies
affiliated to thirty-seven central banks. Loans
are granted by the local societies generally on the
personal pledge only of one or two friends of the
appHcant, in other words, character is accepted as
security. A scheme is now on foot in England
which should give the small holder here some of
those facilities for obtaining capital which are as
necessary to him as to his German counterpart.
A number of leading joint stock banks are pre-
pared to offer advances to rural credit banks for

26o THE FARM LABOURER

the assistance of small holders and allotment
holders. The scheme, which is at present regarded
as experimental, is to be worked through the
registered co-operative credit societies, at present
about forty in number, whose operations with
agriculturaUsts generally are already extensive.
No one is to be admitted as a member to the local
society unless he lives within a certain circum-
scribed area and is personally known to most of
his fellow members, and he must be approved by
the committee as a man of good character. Loans
to members are to be granted only on approved
security, and must be utilised for a specific purpose,
while no member will be permitted to take out on
loan more than £50 at one time. The proposed
scheme is, therefore, not so favourable to the
small holder as is the German, but it should
nevertheless be of real value.

INDEX

Act of Elizabeth re acreage per

cottage, repeal, 1775. .30
Agricultural depressions —
1875 — 1880.. 168
1893, fall in wages, 178
1894.. 175
Agricultural education, neces-
sity for extending, and pro-
jected schemes, 252 — 259
Agricultural Labourers' Pro-
tection Association, 127
Agricultural labourers' unions-
agricultural depression,
1874, 1894, effects upon,

169, 175
difftculties of, 150 — 170
disunion among, 166
limitations of, 248
lock-out, 1 874.. 1 61 — 165
neglect of farmers' point

of view, 187
recourse to emigration, 160
revival, 1890. .170
value of work of, 176 —
177
Agricultural revival, 1880 on-
wards, effect on the labourer,
181— 186
Afford, Lincolnshire, allot-
ments in, 84
Allotments —

early movement for, 55

—57
1814— 1834..81— 85

extension of, new move-
ment for, 225 — 231
progress in, 198 — 201
unsatisfactoriness of, 212
value of, criticised, 213

Allotments Acts, 1882, 1887,
agricultural labourers' unions
assistance to passing of, 177,
226

Allotments Act, 1888, lines of,
227

Allotments Act, 1890, lines of,
228

Allotments Extension Asso-
ciation formed, 227

" Annals of Agriculture," 43,

56
Arch, Joseph, 146, 150, 162,
170, 187
champions cause of open-
air meetings, 152
emigration encouraged by,

160
Small Holdings Act, 1892,

criticised by, 235
Wellesboume labourers'
combination for higher
wages led by, 141 — 142
Assington, Suffolk, 123

Barnard, Thos., allotments

promoted by, 56
Bear, Mr., 209

on agricultural wages, 210

on allotments and wages,

200, 213

Bedford, Duke of, attitude

to agricultural labourers'

unions, 156

Benefit clubs, progress in, 1834

— 1870. .116 — 118
Benefit societies, promotion of,
55

262

INDEX

Buckland Monachoum, Devon-
shire, agricultural labourers'
union in, 144

Byfield, Northamptonshire,
allotments in, 84

Cadbury, George, on allot-
ments, 199
Caird, on agricultural condi-
tions, 100, loi, 102
Carrington, Lord —

allotments promoted by,

56
identity of rural and urban
problems stated by, 221
— 222
small holdings movement
encouraged by, 235
Castleacre, Norfolk, gang sys-
tem of agricultural labour
in, 94
Chapman, Mr., 197

Allotment Act, 1890, cri-
ticised by, 229
on agricultural wages, 210
on allotments, 200, 212
on economic causes of

migration, 214
on farmers' attitude to
agricultural problem,
216
Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire,
unjust prosecution of agri-
cultural union at, 153
Church, oppression of agricul-
tural labourers' unions, 154

—155
Clopton, Suffolk, unjust treat-
ment of agricultural union
members at, 154
Collings, Jesse, 146, 149, 177,
224
Allotments Extension Act
obtained by, 226

Collings, Jesse — cont.

small holdings question

brought forward by, 231

Commissioners of Enclosure,

procedure, 21 — 23
Common pasturage, 7 — 8
Compton Abbas, union men

charged at, 153
Co-operation, causes militating
against introduction of, 255
— 256
Co-operative Stores —
promotion of, 106
value of, 247 — 248
Com, rise in price of, beginning
of enclosure movement, 16

—17
Cottage accommodation —

conditions, 1880 — 1911..

195—196
1867 report on, 106 — iii
present-day conditions, 244
Cottage Gardens Compensation

for Crops Act, 1887. .230
Cox, J. C, champions cause of
open-air meetings, 152

Daily News, 143
Davies —

allotments promoted by, 56

on enclosure, 28, 29

on necessity for minimum

wage, 63
on wholesale system of
bujdng food supplies, 37
Denbigh, Lord, attitude to agri-
cultural labourers' unions,
156
Denson, of Waterbeach, 83
Diet—

of labourers, 1834 — 1870. .

102 — 103
of labourers, reform sug-
gested, 54—55
Dixon, George, M.P., 163

INDEX

263

Eastern Counties Labour

Federation founded, 171
Eden, on industrial revolution,

31
Education, conditions of la-
bourers', 128 — 132
Education Bill, 1876, agricul-
tural labourers' unions' assis-
tance to passing of, 177
Emigration —

encouragement of, 1826 —

1834.. 85— 87
increase in, 1834 — 1870..

118 — 122
National Union's encour-
agement of, 176
Enclosures, 16 — 31

one cause of labourer's
ruin, 2
English Labourers' Chronicle,
Small Holdings Act, 1892,
criticised, 234 — 235

Farmers —

agricultural depression in

18 14, consequences to,

66—68
agricultural revival, i8i

—186
attitude of, to agricultural

labourers' unions, 158
awakening to perception of

common interests with

labourers, 189
solutions for agricultural

problem, 216 — 220
unions started, 159
Farmers' Protection Society,

159

Farringdon Petty Sessions,
charge against labourers'
open-air meetings preferred

at, 152
Fawcett, H., speech on agricul-
tural education, 131

Federal Union of Agricultural
and General Labourers, dis-
agreement with National
Union, 166
Fraser, Dr., Bishop of Man-
chester, 123
on cottage accommoda-
tion, 1867. .109
support of agricultural
labourers' unions, 164

Game Laws, convictions under,

1827 — 1830.. 81
Gang system —

in agriculture, 92 — 93
in Norfolk and Cambridge-
shire, 192 — 193
moral effects of, 98 — 99
Garford, Newbury, 147
Gilbert's Act for minimum wage

for labourers, 59
Girdlestone, Canon, 145

rural migration movement
organised by, 120 — 122
Glendale, Northumberland,

gang system in, 193
Ground Game Act, 1880. .185

Haggard, Rider, 195, 203

on economic causes of

migration, 214
report on English fanning,
190
Hasbach, Dr. —

on enclosures, 21
on rural migration, 204
Heath, Francis, 120
Herbert, A., 143

county magistrates' power,

protested against by, 153

Herefordshire, labourers' union

movement in, 140
Hodges, 86

264

INDEX

Home-crafts, source of income

to labourers, 11
Horcutt, Gloucestershire, agri-
cultural labourers' union in,
144
House of Commons —

Allotment Bills in, 1834 —

1870. .112
Bill for education of agri-
cultural children in, 129
— 130
Education Bill, 1870. .132
Select Committees to con-
sider agricultural mat-
ters, 1820 — 1836. .68
HoweU, G., 146

Howlett, on labourers' degra-
dation, 42

Industrial classes, rural mi-
gration, effects upon, 4, 20
Industrial revolution, 31 — 32
Insurance Act, 1911. .242, 244
Isle of Axholme, opposition to
enclosures in, 20, 24

Jones, Lloyd, 146

Kent, shortage of agricultural

labour in, 1901 . .219
Kent, Mr.—

on allotments, 56
on wholesale system of
buying food supplies,
37—38
urges increase of labourers'
wages, 58 — 59
Kent Agricultural Labourers'
Union, 144

Labourers —

agricultural revival, 1880,
effect on, 181 — 186

agricultural unions move-
ment, 138 — 180

Labourers — continued.

allotment movement, 1834
— 1870. .Ill — 116

allotments and emigration,
1814— 1834..81— 87

average present-day earn-
ings, 242

benefit clubs and societies,
progress, 1834 — 1870..
116— 118

causes of downfall, 2 — 3

conditions before 1760, 6 —
16

conditions of, 1834 — 1870
. .101

conditions of, 1880 — 191 1
■ ■ 195—203

co-operative movement,
122 — 128

criminal efforts of, to
remedy state of affairs,
78—81

date of loss of indepen-
dence, 2

dependence upon village
shopkeeper for supplies,
106

economic and social im-
provement, i88£3 — 191 1
..195—203

educational movement,
128 — 132

1 8 14 agricultural depres-
sion, consequences to,
69

enclosure, its effects upon,
16 — 31

entire dependence of, on
wages desired by land-
owning classes, 40

industrial revolution's

effects upon, 31 — 32

migration, 44 — 53

migration and emigration,
1834 — 1870. .118 — 122

INDEX

265

Labourers — continued.

new movement to assist,
bcised on recognition of
identity of rural and
urban interests, 221 —
225

physical and moral deteri-
oration of, arising from
agricultural and indus-
tricil changes, 41 — 42

position of, at present
time, 243 — 244

public efEort to improve
condition of, 1787.. 54
-64

recourse to parish allow-
ances, and consequences,
65—66, 6g — 77

recourse to wage-earning
capacity of wives and
children, 90-— 100

remedies to supplement
wages, dangers of, 133

—137
rise in prices, effects upon,

35—37
rise of wages does not pre-
vent shortage of, 218 —
219
rural migration, influence
upon industrial classes'
attitude to rural prob-
lem, 4
shortage of, 1893, and

causes, 189 — 195
small holdings, 231 — 240
small holdings, prospects

afiorded, 246
strikes, 142, 148
wages system, inadequacy
of, 32—33
Labourers' Friend, 83
Labourers' Friend Society,
allotments' movement fur-
thered by. III — 112
F.L.

Labourers' Union Chronicle,
149, 178, 228
emigration encouraged in,
160
Land Club League formed, 239
Land Restoration League, agri-
cultural unions^ revival
assisted by, 172
Leamington, congress of dele-
gates of agricultural unions
at, 145 — 146
Leamington Chronicle, service
of, to agricultural unions'
movement, 141, 142
Leigh, Rev. J. W., 149
Leighton, Sir B., 149
Leintwardine, Herefordshire,

140
Levy, Dr. —

on co-operation, its diffi-
culties in England, 255
views on small holdings,
233. 234, 240
Lincolnshire Labour League,

163
Local government, lack of
labour representation in, 244
London and Counties Labour
League —
founded, 171

sick benefits, payments a
drain on, 174
Long Buckley Self-Assistance

Industrial Society, 124
Loveless, trial of, 125 — 126

Methodist revival, influence
upon agricultural labourers'
movement, 146

" Middlemarch," reference, i

Middlesex, opposition to en-
closures in, 24

Midlands, agricultural
labourers' unions in, 145
T

266

INDEX

Migration —

economic causes of, 214
increase in, 1834 — 1870..
118 — 122

Millin, on ailotments, 199

Minimum wage —

arguments for and against,

249—250
scheme, 58 — 64
Morley, S., M.P., 163
Morrison, Wm., M.P., 145

National Farm Labourers'

Union formed, 167
National Federation of Em-
ployers, 159
National Society, 128
National Sugar Beet Associa-
tion, 254
National Union of Agricultural
Labourers, constitution,
166
emigration encouraged by,

176
emigration schemes of, 160
inaugurated, 146
membership, decrease in,

1874 — 1880. .169
relief money paid out in

1874. .161
sick benefits, pa5rment a
serious drain on, 170,

174
work of, 146 — 150

Norfolk, agricultural wages in,
210

Norfolk and Norwich Amal-
gamated Labour Union
founded, 171

Norfolk Chamber of Agricul-
ture, agricultural problems
discussed at, 217 — 218

North of England, labour prob-
lem less acute in, reasons,
87— go, 133

Old Age Pensions, 242

Onslow, 132

Oxfordshire and Adjoining
Counties Association of Agri-
culturists, 159

Parish allowances, labourers'
recourse to, and consequences,
65 — 66, 69 — 77

Peasant proprietorship, econo-
mic and political considera-
tions in early nineteenth
century miUtating against,

3—4
Poor Law, parish allowances
system, its consequences, 73

—77
Poor Law Reform Act, 1795. .

57
Prices —

fall of, consequent upon

Free Trade, 102
rise in, serious effects upon
labourers, 35 — 37
Prothero, Mr., 188, 198

on agricultural wages, 1888
..213—214

Royal Commission on Housing
of the Working Classes, rural
housing referred to in report
of, 195
Rural Labourers' League, 228
Rural migration —

causes and effects, 44 — 53,

205 — 216
causes other than econo-
mic leading to, 203 —
205
Rural population, decrease in
1881. .222

INDEX

267

Sausbury, Lord, i88

Shipton, G., 146

Small holdings —

influence of, on labour

problem, 246
lack of capital and credit
hinders furtherance of,
258
national interest in, com-
mencement, 231

Small Holdings Act, 1892, prin-
ciples of, and failure, 231 —
234

Small Holdings and Allotments
Act, 1907, principles of, and
administration, 237 — 239

Small Holdings Bills, 1892,
1894, agricultural labourers'
unions' assistance to passing
of, 177

South Metropolitan Gas Com-
pany, strike, 170 — 171

Speenhamland minimum wage
scheme, 63

Spencer, Mr., on allotments,
213

Sport, influence of, on far min g
methods, 256 — 257

Stanhope, 127

Stock-farmiag, its dependence
upon system of common pas-
turage, 8 — 9

Straage, 146

Stubbs, Canon, on allotments,
199

Sufiolk, agricultural wages in,
211

Swafiham, 152

Taylor, H., 143, 146
Threefield system, 8
Tolpuddle, Dorset, labourers'

demand for rise in wages, 124

— 126

Tortworth,?i23;
Trade unions —

financial support of la-
bourers' lock-out, 1874
..161
influence upon agricultural

unions, 170 — 171
priaciples of, influencing
agricultural unions, 140
strength of, compared with
agricultural unions, 150
Trevelyan, G., 146
Tuddenham, 194
Turner, C, 218, efiect of agri-
cultural education on farm-
ing yields pointed out by,
252 — 253

Unions ChargeabiUty Act,
1865. .106

Village government of agri-
cultural matters, 15
Vincent, Matthew, 142, 1 46, 149

Wages (agricultural) —

average present-day, 245
boards, advantages of in-
stitution of, 248 — 249
conditions, 1880 — 191 1 . .

196 — 197
payments in kind, 104
rates, 1893. .209
rise of, insufficient to pre-
vent shortage of labour,
219
Warwickshire Agricultural

Union, 143
Wellesboume, labourers in,
combine for higher wages,
141
Westerton-under-Weatherley,
141

268

INDEX

Whithead, Mr., Bill for estab-
lishing minimum wages
scheme, 60
Wicken, 147

Wilberforce, allotments pro-
moted by, 56
Wilson-Fox, Mr., on agricul-
tural wages, 209
Wiltshire Agricultural and
General Labourers' Union
founded, 172
Winchelsea, Lord —

allotments scheme of, 56
attempt to unite land-
owners and labourers,
1893.. 187— 188
on enclosure, 29
on landowners' desire for
labourers entirely depen-
dent upon wages, 40 — 41

Witchford, Cambridgeshire,

gang system in, 193
Women and children's labour
in agriculture —
decline of, 193 — 194
exploitation of, a direct
consequence of labourers'
starvation wages, 90—
100
wages of, 99

Young, A. —

allotments promoted by,

56
on enclosures, 19
on labourer's' degradation,
42
Young, Sir W., minimum wage
scheme of, 59 — 60

BRADBDRY, AONEW, & CO. ID., PRINTERS, LOHDOH AND lONBRIDGE.

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