13 JUNE 1874, Page 2

The Suffolk farmers, under the guidance of Mr. Hunter Rod-

well, Q.C., have declared war to the knife upon their labourers.. At a meeting held at Bury St. Edmund's, with this gentleman in the chair, it was proposed that the Trades' Union of Farmers should decline any reconciliation with the Trades' Union of Labourers "until the course of action now adopted is dis- continued "7-which was explained to mean until the striking- power was expunged from the Union rules, until the voices of Mr. Arch, Mr. Ball, Mr. Taylor, and others, were no more heard, and until the Labourers' Chronicle was suppressed. The men, in fact, are allowed to combine, if they will combine as- the farmers like, if they give up their legal right to, hear lecturers, and if they surrender their right to read any newspaper they prefer. They had better enter the' Unions in a body, or lie down on the road and die quietly,. than submit to such monstrous terms, which have nothing- to do with the struggle, which can be intended only to snake- them feel they are not freemen, and which are offered in the face of proof that landlords like Sir E. Kerrison and the delegates can- get on excellently together. The terms, we perceive, are to be- met by some plan of action which the Union keeps secret, but which evidently is founded on some use to be made of the Poor Law.