feels his dependence on his employer is hardly a freeman. And you cannot expect the common virtues of freemen from those who do not live in freedom. Improvidence, want of energy and enterprise, childishness of mind, a feeble sense of filial and marital and parental responsibility, addiction to stupid pleasures, are the natural characteristics of persons living under the conditions in which our peasantry grow up. There is something both pathetic and irritating in the complaints which have been uttered by labourers and their wives at the Unionist meetings of this spring. They name their wretched wages, and go on to tell the public how many children as well as father and mother have to be fed and clothed out of them, and they ask despairingly how it is to be done. We may be inclined to reply to them, 'If you had any self-respect, you would not be trying to do it. A young man ought to do anything rather than stay at home and marry and breed children upon such wages. But the fact is, these people are helpless and acquiescent because their circumstances have made them so. Our labourers are too free or not free enough. If they are to be taken care of like the lower animals, they ought to be restrained like the lower animals. The comparison

between a rich man's stables and kennels and the cottages of his labourers is a fallacious one. No doubt the rich man would keep his labourers in as prime condition as his horses or his dogs if he had the same control over them. But he has not. This being a free country, the most dependent human creature has the liberty to make his house his castle, to frequent the publichouse as much as he likes, and to multiply as many likenesses of himself as it is generally the lot of the poorest to do. The alternative of restraining the freedom of the labourer is not open to us, and therefore we ought to desire earnestly that he may become more of a freeman than he is. We ought to welcome any assertion of independence that may come from himself, with the intention of keeping him to it. It is very likely, indeed it is certain,-that the labourer will not find independence, with its cares and risks and duties, altogether pleasant. His instinct will be, of course, to claim both the advantages of being independent and the comforts of being dependent. It may take a long time before he really learns providence and the sense of domestic responsibility. But there is no hope of his learning them whilst for a portion of his time he lives on the rate, and for the rest has

scarcely a better living than the rate is obliged to supply to him.

How much an Agricultural Labourers' Union may be able to effect for its members is a question not easy to answer. The objects of the Warwickshire Union are thus described :-To raise wages, to lessen the hours of labour, to promote the improvement of cottages, to obtain allotments, and to assist the migration of labourers. The rate of wages aimed at is 16s. a week in ordinary times, and 30s. during harvest. There are difficulties in the way of these Agricultural Unions which have not previously been encountered by Trades' Unions. It is a new thing, as I have already said, to form a union of men whose labour is little better than unskilled. A union has hitherto been-I think invariably-the union of a trade,—that is, of men who could not be replaced except by others similarly trained and skilled, of men with reasonably good wages, who could subscribe liberally and subsist for a time without employment. To many Trades' Unionists, I imagine, it must have seemed a hopeless attempt to construct a union of farm-labourers. But besides their extreme poverty, and the nearly unskilled character of their labour, the variations of the seasons must

make it difficult for these labourers in combination to insist on any specific terms. A vigorous and extensive union might have the farmers at its mercy during the height of harvest time; and on the other hand, in winter the farmers might retaliate with painful effect. The danger of carrying a contest to extremity is likely to tell on the men more than the employers. It seems possible therefore that the operations of the unions may be comparatively feeble, and may disappoint those who have hoped for much from them. But it will hardly be denied that the movement has decidedly helped that rise of wages which has been very general in the country districts. It is no small matter that men who have been receiving 12s. a week should have suddenly found themselves in the receipt

of 155.

I do not pretend to have an opinion as to the demands which may be made with right and with hope of success by the labourers in rural districts. But on two points we need not entertain any doubt. That migration of labour, with which the name of Mr. Girdlestone is so honourably associated, and which is obviously rational and desirable, is an object which a union may wisely propose to itself to promote.

A union may collect and diffuse information on this matter, and may supply the means of travelling, so as to better the condition both of those who go and of those who stay. The other point is the substitution of a money equivalent for the allowances from the farmer by which the labourer's wages have been eked That a labouring man should be partly paid in bad cider is an altogether noxious custom. Some of the other allowances are unobjectionable in themselves, but any payment in kind is now humiliating, and a source of discontent. A good-natured farmer will not be prevented from doing good-natured things in his dealings with his men, but it seems to be most desirable that there should be no longer any understanding as to allowances being a supplement to wages. An English working man in these days ought to be able to know exactly what he earns, and to be able to spend his wages according to his own discretion.

There are certain desirable results, therefore, which I think we may confidently expect will be directly brought about by the combinations of agricultural labourers. But I repeat that my main argument for them is that they are sure to increase the self-respect and independence of the