AGRICULTURAL DIFFICULTIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5566, 30 January 1879, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL DIFFICULTIES.

(From the Saturday Review.)

The strike of some farm laborers in Kent and Sussex forms a perceptible addition to the prevailing anxiety and distress. In such cases it is useless to express or even to form a moral estimate of the merits of the dispute. If it seems rash for a body of men who have no accumulated reserve of funds to refuse employment at the season when their services can best be spared, laborers have, like the rest of the world, in a certain sense a right to disregard their own immediate interests for reasons which seem to themselves sufficient. In this case the farmers have furnished occasion or pretext for the strike .by a concerted reduction of wages. If a similar measure had been adopted eight or ten years ago, the laborers would probably have submitted ; but they have since become acquainted with the system of Trade-Unions, and they perhaps rely with excessive confidence on the unfamiliar machinery of combination. If they persist in their refusal to accept reduced wages, they will have to suffer much hardship during the winter; especially as the Poor-law Guardians will not be disposed to relax in their favor the administration of the law. It appears that in the South-Eastern counties the cottages are generally in the hands of the tenant farmers, who cannot afford to sublet them to any occupiers except workmen actually employed on the land. Many of the laborers will therefore find themselves homeless in the dead of winter, with no alternative place of residence but the workhouse. There is no reason to suppose that the farmers will deal harshly with the men on strike ; but they must provides houses for substitutes whom they may be compelled to procure. At a meeting lately heldtheasscmbledlaborersacceptedan offerfrom a Canadian provincial Government to furnish them with land on certain terms; but it is not known whether the proposal includes the cost of passage for themselves and their families. Their leaders may perhaps exaggerate their schemes of intended emigration for the purpose of alarming the employers of labor ; but the Union has already sent out families to Australia. There is no doubt that the facility of obtaining a livelihood in other temperate climates materially affects the value of English agricultural labor. Mechanics and artizans sometimes find their trades overstocked in the United States, in Australia, or in Canada; but an able-bodied farm-laborer is always a welcome immigrant. The reduced wages will, according to the statement of the farmers, amount to about fifteen shillings per week. It is invidious and painful for persons who are iu comparatively comfortable circumstances to inquire into the lowest cost of wholesome food and decent clothing ; but, if the present condition of farmlaborers is compared with that of a few years ago, there is no reason to suppose that a reduction of eighteenpence a week will cause absolute distress. Bread, which forms a large proportion of their expenditure, has seldom been so cheap as at present ; and no ordinary article of consumption except tobacco has risen in price. The winter rate of wages is not the average of the year. In all parts of the kingdom additional money is earned during

harvest; and in Kent and Sussex the hops furnish a second harvest iu September. It may be added that the art of cultivating hops is to some extent a monopoly in the hands of the local laborers. The neighborhood of London probably secures the home counties against a redundance of labor. There is a constant drain of population from the country into the town, and various kinds of employment for unskilled labor, such as brickmaking, compete with the demands of the farmer. Wages have never been so low in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex as in tbe SouthWestern part of England, though they have not attained the level of Lincolnshire or Northumberland. The rate has been highest in East Kent, which includes some of the best arable land in England. At the beat, fifteen shillings a week is a scanty income; and if the laborers can obtain better wages, the strike is economically justifiable; but there is reason to suppose that the fanners had carefully considered the question before they determined on the reduction, and they will not bo easily moved from their purpose. In common with other employers, they have probably found that of late years labor has become less efficient with every rise in wages. The growth of idleness among the working population has been one of the most unsatisfactory results of the long season of prosperity which is now interrupted or closed. It may be permitted to tbe class which is not engaged in the irksome round of manual labor to regret a change which it would perhaps be ungenerous to blame. The case of the fanners is that their business is comparatively unremunerative, and that they are consequently compelled to reduce their expenses. Several bad seasons have greatly reduced the home production of grain, while increased importation 'is constantly lowering the price. Different kinds of cattle disease, and the measures which have been found necessary to check contagion, have at the same time injuriously affected the trade in live stock ; and, as it has already been remarked, labor has become dearer and worse. Long experience has shown that the competition of foreign live cattle is not to be greatly feared; but breeders and graziers regard with not unnatural anxiety the increased importation of dead meat. If disease could be abolished, there is little doubt that the English farmer would hold his own in the production of stock; but it is doubtful whether the growth of wheat will ever again be as profitable as in former times. Barley, which is often a more paying crop than wheat, can only be advantageously grown on certain soils. It has been said in the coarse of the recent controversy that the farmers have in the estimate of their receipts not given credit for straw, which always tends to rise in value, and which is not imported ; but either the straw must be returned to the land in the form of manure, or fertilising substances must be bought to supply its place. The return from green crops is included iu the value of the live stack on the farm. , It is strange that the growers of the greater part of the hops produced in England have in the course of the discussion scarcely noticed their peculiar crop. No other cultivation is so amply rewarded in favorable years, but the growth of hops is exceptionally costly aud both crops and prices are precarious. An acre of hops requires an outlay of between £3O and £lO a year, and in a cold and wet summer there may perhaps be no crop. As iu all other public misfortunes, philanthropic theorists console themselves by the reflection that some of the numerous objects of their antipathy will be injured. The speakers at Exeter Hall only repeated and expanded previous comments on the strike. The strike of the Kent and Sussex laborers suggests the hope that the landlords throughout England may be compelled to lower their rents, with the result of making it necessary for many among them to sell their estates. As the fixed charges on the land will not be affected, reduction of income will fall exclusively on the nominal owner. It is probable that in many cases the expected fall iu rents will occur. It seems that iu the home counties candidates for vacant farms are generally to be found ; but in other districts landlords find arable farms thrown on their hands. As it is impossible for any one but a professional farmer to cultivate land to advantage, owners will be compelled to attract tenants by a reduction of rent. It is not to be supposed that the majority of those who have been born and bred to the business of farming will relinquish the use of the only shill which they possess for the purpose of embarking capital which is generally small in unaccustomed employments. As long as any profit can be made by farming there will be a demand for land on terms to be settled in each case by negotiation. If the present depression passes away, landlords will again have the pleasure of discussing with a dozen or a score of competitors the terms of occupation. Landlords must, like all other classes, bear the consequences of the rise and fall of the market; but they have some cause te complain that in their seasons of adversity they become the objects of pedantic spite. They or their predecessors have invested their money, at a not excessive rate of interest, in a kind of property which is recognised by law. If it becomes at any time less valuable, their neighbors may at their pleasure regard them with compassion or indifference, but there is no reasonable ground for malignant satisfaction. The real cause of the ill-feeling with which they are regarded by sentimental economists is that they are few, and that they are for the most part of good social position. Above all, their possession of the land interferes with the doctrine that subdivision of landed property is commendable aud expedient. The causes which makelanda monopoly and a luxury are exclusively economical. The law may Tor all practical purposes be considered as neutral; for it is doubtful whether the abolition of settlements aud entails would increase or diminish the accumulation of landed property in few bauds. Complacent forecasts of the ruin of landowners are accompanied by the expectation that occupiers will hereafter become the owners of their farms. It the profits of agriculture diminish, farmers will be even less able than at present to sink in the purchase of the freehold the capital which might otherwise be employed iu cultivation. Between fifty and sixty years ago there was a heavy fall in rents, and landlords had much difficulty in finding tenants ; but, as other industries reviyed, agricultural distress passed over without any change in the tenure of land.