Baldwyn Leighton

“ Having lived among farmers and labourers most of my life, I wish to take this opportunity of saying that such is not at all my experience. The kindly relation between master and man, the care and sympathy shown for old workmen or their widows for instance, to which I can personally testify, entirely belie that accusation as one of general fact. It may be that in our part of England we are a little old-fashioned and still believe with Carlyle that "Cash-nexus" is not the sole relation between man and man. ”

“ I confess that I, for one, have yet to learn that the present teachings of political economy, competition, and cash payment, have improved the honesty of work; or that the dismal science, as it has been called, fulfils entirely the highest aspirations and purposes of humanity. ”

“ It has been shown to be quite practicable, to elevate the labouring man, not only without burdening the farmer and the landlord, but to the manifest benefit of both, to foster small holdings without depressing agriculture or retarding improvement, and to combine permanence with progress. ”

“ In one instance the man who took the lead was a farmer who dealt in timber, and employed occasionally thirty or forty men; he introduced a system of classification for his labourers just as he had worked his timber-men, which was adopted by others. In another case, a leading farmer of large intelligence and capital who had come from a distant country as a stranger to the local residents, set about a system of piece work in a low wage district, and with the help of an active landlord induced the surrounding farmers to do the same. ”

“ The landlord, too, is making arrangements for letting some of the best men keep a cow. But further than this landlords and tenants have joined together to start a co-operative farm for the labourers, the farmers themselves offering to take up the shares to help the men to start it, allowing the labourers to buy them out by degrees as they acquired capital. ”

“ Now on most boards the chairman and officials are well able to administer the funds on a sound principle; but they are overruled by the other guardians, who would substitute for broad economic views such suicidal motives as supplementation of wages, private interest, penny wise policy, or misdirected charity. The difficulty of the remedy is that even when right principles of discrimination are adopted, the change must be exceedingly gradual: you cannot unteach dependance in a day; self-reliance and thrift require more than a single winter to learn. ”

“ Then landlords were appealed to in a quiet friendly spirit to let allotments and cow land, and even under some favourable conditions a co-operative farm to the labourers. The consequence has been that gradually and without any serious ill-feeling a comfortable and satisfactory relation between employers and employed has been established; the men have not taken advantage of the farmers at the harvest, and the wages have been satisfactorily settled without any pressure. ”

“ T—— said he had known men get fifty bushels of wheat from their acre. I asked him if the farmers had objected as usual to the land being given, and he said they had, but that they had begun to discover that the men who worked best for themselves, worked best for them, and that the feeling of wishing to do what was best for the labourer had strengthened very much lately. The T——'s (that is the landlord's family) are very splendid in every way, while living most simply themselves. ”

“ The spirit of permanency and attachment will be found a most valuable one to preserve. On large farms, therefore, the better way to meet the tenancy and employment difficulty, to combine permanency and freedom, may be this. ”

“ C.—In a certain district in an eastern county (as also in many parts of Yorkshire) , most of the labourers keep a cow with the approval and to the advantage of the farmers. One eye-witness says of the men: "Although they get higher wages, they work far harder, and are cheaper workmen than those in the south, where I came from twenty years ago. We have no pauperism or 'poor people.' About two-thirds of the labourers keep cows. ”

“ The advantage of it is that the wife attends to the cow, and does almost all the labour required, leaving the man to attend to his daily work. Out of six of my own farm labourers four have a few acres of grass and keep a cow, and have done so for years; there never has been the slightest difficulty in their wishing to be at home when they were wanted by me, and their nett profit from the cow will be equal to five shillings or six shillings a week at least. ”

“ And one word of advice to those districts where the labourers have pressed unduly on the farmers, and taken undue advantage of the harvest to demand extortionate wages. In reducing the number of men after harvest, let there be no spirit of angry retaliation. Remember that if these men have been misled, they looked for the most part in vain to those who should have been their natural leaders. From some of the southern counties there may have to be a large migration; but let the men go with a God speed them; let landlords and others come forward where they are wanted to direct this exodus. ”

“ Where boys or single men do not board in a farm house, there may be attached to the cottage of some permanent and trustworthy workman on the farm, a boarding house or second cottage for boys or unmarried men, who might be changing every year without affecting the permanent cottagers. It must be borne in mind that the progress of farming has made the relative difference between classes greater than before; the better way to meet this difference is by some system of cooperation or industrial partnerships referred to later, giving all the labourers some sort of interest in the farm. ”

“ The cow club, of which I send you a copy of the rules, is managed by themselves, and prevents their being ruined by the occasional loss of a cow, which was of frequent occurrence during the time of the cattle plague. ”

“ The present system as administered in some unions has almost destroyed self-reliance in the poor, and farmers, labourers and landlords, in those parts have become the victims of a vicious circle, that will need a very careful correction. ”

“ Then as to Poor Law Administration, too large a subject to go into here; for years past the system adopted in some unions, of employers administering the rates directly or indirectly as a supplementation for low wages has been regarded by far seeing men with the gravest concern. Degradation, physical to the labourers, and moral to the farmers has been the result, and it is probable that the only real difficulty in meeting and arranging this labour question, will be where such a fatuous system has left its permanent traces. ”

“ It was formerly the custom as it still is in many parts for the labourers to live mostly in the farm houses, boarding with the farmers; and this has the advantage of providing them with better food, without their feeling the cost of increased prices, it also makes the service more permanent, generally lasting for a year at least. But the want of a separate home has its disadvantages, and probably a well regulated cottage with a longer engagement and a fair notice to quit is on the whole the best, except for the boys and young unmarried labourers ”

“ Improved farming has merged many of the small holdings of twenty or thirty acres which although not always maintainable economically were still of great value to the thrifty rising agricultural labourer, and created a grade in the social ladder which had its use. ”

“ Good cottages and large gardens with fruit trees, or allotment, which will go far to pay the rent for the cottage, and improve the quality of the workman by teaching him to work on his own account: "good homes are more than high wages," says Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne, in the Times, and practical experience entirely bears him out. ”

“ At one time it seemed as if emigration was the only way open to them, but these are not the sort of men that England can afford to lose. Under the guidance of the West of England Association migration to the North was promoted, and sent up wages two or three shillings a week. ”

“ One word here to improving landlords and agents. Don't be too hasty in improving away all these small places, especially on indifferent soil. Be careful whom you put into them; let the tenant be a rising energetic man, and always have some other mode of living than starving on the place ”

“ E.—In a West Midland county a clergyman a few years ago found a certain undefined feeling of discontent among the labourers of his parish. After taking counsel he set about a system of allotments of about one-third of an acre, which he is now extending in some cases of active thrifty men to as much as an acre. Thus giving an encouragement and way of rising to the most capable. ”

“ And note here the great value of the presence of one or two intelligent employers, who understand some of the conditions of labour apart from actual farm operations, and know the relative value of a good and an indifferent workman. ”

“ Leaving to others such generic facts, if they may be so called, as revival of trade, influx of gold, rise in prices, education, and the demand for colonial labour, it will be of more practical use to call attention to two specific causes ”

“ There was little or no difficulty in this district in meeting the rise of wages, and no ill feeling or trouble. The same might be done elsewhere at the cost of a little trouble, exterminating improvidence and Pauperism.
F.—In a certain Midland county, the clergyman of which was also a landlord and farmed as well, a most enviable state of things has been brought about, and is thus described by an eye-witness: "Most of the farmers pay by piece-work, and every man has land, varying from a rood to an acre: that is the limit. They always cultivate the land; cows are unknown, and Mr. ”

“ This is greatly required in some of the southern counties, but farmers and landlords should be careful to retain the best men by attaching them, in some of the above ways to the district, and letting only the inferior ones go. This will of itself legitimately raise wages. ”