PROFESSOR FAWCETT AND THE WILTSHIRE FARMERS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 161, 10 December 1874, Page 3

PROFESSOR FAWCETT AND THE WILTSHIRE FARMERS.

{From the Spectator.) Professor Fawcetfc, in a letter to the morning papers, asserted that in Wiltshire the farmers had decided among themselves to lower the wages of their laborers from 12s to lis a week, on the strength of the good harvest and the consequently cheaper bread. But the authenticity of the statement was yesterday denied by several Wiltshire gentlemen who had taken some pains to inquire into the facts. According to Mr Fawcett's authorities, the case for a lowering of wages was, that not very long ago the Wiltshire farmers raised wages by a shilling a week, because bread was so dear, iu order to bring the real wages up to a more tolerable point; and that having done so, they are justified by the very same consideration in lowering wages again, the reason for which they raised them having disappeared. Professor Fawcett holds that there is no justification for this change in the state of the labor market in Wiltshire, that there is neither a less de-

mand nor a greater supply of labor, and that the laborers, though hardly in a position to resist, feel intense indignation at the rumor that their employers intend to avail themselves of the cheaper prices caused by a plentiful yield, by which they are great gainers, to guard against their laborers securing any share of the advantage of that plenty, and that the move will tenrl to drive the best laborers out of Wiltshire into counties where they can secure belter wnges, or into emigration. If the rumour be not an idle one, this is very probable ; indeed, no line of action could be more beneficial to the Wiltshire laborers than an irritating one, for even the most active-minded of them nee J the spur of treatment they resent to make them seel; fresh lands and pnstnres new. The Wiltshire farmers would soon have ouly the skimmed milk of the labor market to live on —for they would have driven away the cream by their strategy. English farmers are very apt to act towards their laborers the part of philanthropists in disguise, but there seem?, fortunately, every reason to doubt whether in this case they are really to be credited with either the philanthropy or the disguise