THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE FARMERS AND LABORERS IN ENGLAND.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 42, 18 July 1874, Page 3

THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE FARMERS AND LABORERS IN ENGLAND.

“ Land and Water” says There is then no prospect of increased wages, so long as the demand for labor is met, or more than met, by the supply. While the farmer gets the labor he requires at the present wages, he is not likely, nor can he reasonably be expected, to burthen himself with the further cost of additional wages, however unremunerativc those wages may be to Hie laborer himself. If he could grow more crops on bis land, or realise better prices for his crops, he could then afford to pay his men better ; or if there were a scarcity of agricultural labor, be might be compelled to do so. But the first of these conditions is impossible, the second improbable, and the last unrealised as yet. It appears then that the agricultural laborer can only benefit himself and bis class by emigration. But not all agricultural laborers are fitted to emigrate, for all arc not equally skilful, patient, and self-denying. Even in the case of the best of thorn, they will, doubtless, earn higher wages in Canada or in the States, for labor is scarce and therefore dear, but so is the cost of living. Emigration will not convert a laborer into a landowner ; or if it does, landowning will not make him a successful farmer. He will have a hard battle to fight in a rough, cold, and but sparsely inhabited country. He must look only to himself for sympathy, and in his time of need there will be no extraneous aid to fall back upon. It is very well for the untravelled ignoramus to draw brilliant pictures of land to be had “ almost for the asking,” of substantial homesteads, rich crops growing almost without labor, an ever-increasing hoard of wealth, and so on. A few, perhaps, realize thus much good fortune, but the bulk of emigrants, the last batch to Brazil to wit, labor far harder in’the new country than here, are quite as dependant in many things, and have less to depend upon in sickness or old age. The British farmer has all the heart to pay his men higher wages, but he has not the means: nor will he have, except one or more of these conditions —more produce, higher prices, and scarcity of labor—is realised. And of these, as we have shown already, one is impossible, another improbable, while the third, though possible and probable, has not yet come upon us. When it docs come, there will be no need for strikes. Either an improved rate of wages will follow, of course, or the old struggle between machine and human labor will berevived in agriculture. On ihe same subject “ The Field ” remarks.: —The longer the contest continues the worse will be the position of the farmers, and the less favourable will be the terms ottered to them, To crush the Union is a feat that at any time we should deem impossible, but at no time more so than now. The labourers have their own Union, which they have been organising for upwards of two years, and they have at their back all the trade unions of the country besides. The farmers have only a voluntary association, limited to the disturbed district. The men are rapidly placing themselves beyond the reach of want by removing bodily to the colonies and the States. The masters are tied down to their land by the terms of their holdings and the _ capital they have invested in it. It is plain, therefore, that at present the contending parties are not equally matched, and that the sooner the struggle is over the better it will be for one of them. That, when the existing dispute is arranged, the farmers should prepare themselves against a similar contingency in the future, is a matter in which we as consumers have some interest. When of two contending parties one is plainly weaker than the other, chagrin, pique, and exasperation often lead the former obstinately to continue the struggle, even when ultimate success seems hopeless ? and this seems to be the case with the farmers now. When two .parties to a dispute are pretty equally matched, they arc much more likely to agree to refer the question at issue between them to arbitration than when one is visibly inferior to the other. Agricultural strifes, if they lead, as it is apparent they must, to diminish production of food, we as consumers are concerned in preventing. If therefore wc counsel a seeming submission on the part of the farmers now, it is not that we arc unmindful of their interests, but that wc wish to see them well out of the untenable position in which the force of circumstances, their own obstinacy, and the better organization of their adversaries have placed them.