13 DECEMBER 1873, Page 3

Mr. Clare Read, M.P. for South Norfolk, made an excellent

speech on Monday to the Farmers' Club. He maintained that the farmers must accept the Unions, give higher wages, and work with as few men as they post:ably could. It was not his own ex- perience that low wages meant cheap labour, for the men on low wages always contrived to deserve them. He would pay good -wages, have rigid rules for overtime, stap all perquisites, and stop finally all out-door relief; which was merely a supplement in aid of wages. He would advocate the house-test and less early marriage, s.nd had a seVere word for the landlords who told the farmers,to rase wagee but never lcrwered rents, and who reminded him strongly of the Good Samaritan without the oil and the twopence. He did not oppose the agricultural franchise, but thought it would make no difference, for the tenant-farmer had had the franchise for forty years, and he was the only tenant-farmer in the House, —a remark which is perfectly true, but has not yet been tested under the Ballot. Besides, the farmers are few and free-spoke; and it is the reticent, cautious, but ' dour ' multitude which is coming in.