[TO THS EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—Whatever may be
the ultimate result of the contest now going on between our agricultural labourers and their employers, when the Unions become established on a firmer footing, and the labourers, by accustoming themselves to other kinds of work, are able to make themselves more scarce and consequently more valuable, there can be little doubt that the more immediate con- sequence will be great hardship and distress to the working-man. He may perhaps gain some temporary advantage during the harvest months, but winter is coming on, when hitherto the farmers have generally kept on considerably more men than they have actually required, partly, no doubt, that they might have a supply of good labour by them when they were in want of it, but partly also from charitable motives. In addition to this, many labourer's families are during the winter months half-supported by charities of various kinds, all more or less directly gifts from the employer to the employed. It would be scarcely natural to
expect that with the spirit of contest and raised by the strikes, this state of things will continue, at any rate to the same extent. All this, combined with the increasing rise in the prices of food and fuel, form, for this winter, at any rate, a melancholy prospect for the agricultural labourer.
There may be a great deal to be said for and against the system of striking, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view ; but I do not wish to enter into that subject here, nor into the principles by which the rate of wages should be governed.
We have to deal with this simple question,—this movement is an effort on the part of the agricultural labourers to improve their social position. If this ultimate object is a legitimate one, which (think, can scarcely be denied, should not we do the utmost in our power to help them to attain this right end in a right way, and not desert them because they have in their ignorance taken !what we believe to be a foolish and a wrong way.
Leaving, then, the question of wages alone, and assuming the somewhat dry theory that the price of labour, like that of any other commodity, must be regulated by the laws of supply and demand, what is it that the industrious agricultural labourer, re- oeiving the proper value of his labour in weekly wages, requires to snake his passage through life easier and better than it is at present?
I will here only mention one reform required as the most press- ing, and as more especially connected with wants of the agricultural labourer,—good food, clothing, and fuel at cheaper prices. This brings us at once face to face with the village shopkeeper. Till you can either greatly reform him or do away with him altogether, you will never make the agricultural labourer comfortable. There are often five or six of these shopkeepers in a village where there is scarcely trade enough to support one; they are usually persons with no capital, buying bad goods at large prices from some inferior 'tradesman in the neighbouring town, only a few shades better off than themselves ; to him they are generally too much in debt to be independent or able to select their goods ; and the only way they can induce the village labourers to pay the enormous prices they are obliged to charge is by entangling them, in their turn, in an abominable system of credit, by which they get them entirely into their power, and treat them just as they please. I need scarcely here observe that what I have been saying does not apply in the same degree to the butchers and bakers and what may be -called the operative tradesmen, but chiefly to the grocers and drapers and dealers of this kind.
If, then, this is the ease, and I appeal to all who know anything of village life whether I have drawn an exaggerated picture, what in the remedy ? I do, not think that regular co-operative stores, such as have succeeded so well in many of our large towns, would, for many reasons, be practicable in agricultural villages, but I do think that something of the kind might be tried with great success.
We all know that in order to be able to sell goods cheap we must not allow them to pass through more hands than is absolutely ,necessary, between the producer and the consumer. This is the
first point ; the tradesman must procure his goods direct from large and good wholesale houses ; but to make this answer his purpose, he must be sure of better customers than some fifty or a hundred labourers' families can possibly be.
Now, why should not the squire and the clergyman and the farmers combine together and set up a shop of their own,—s. real, good, substantial village store, where not only the labourers' families may obtain good and cheap food, clothing, &c., but where also the squire's family and the clergyman's family and the farmers' families may be able to buy all their ordinary commodities better and cheaper than they can elsewhere ? They surely will not object to buying their tea and sugar at the village shop, provided they can get it there as good and as cheap as they can in the county town or in London. Let them make use of the existing tradesmen if they can, but they must keep an eye themselves on the prices and on the quality of the goods. If one village or parish is not large enough to make a shop of this kind pay, let three or four parishes club together, and have smaller shops or agencies in the smaller villages.
I feel convinced that this or something of the kind might be done with great success, and without very great difficulty. It chiefly wants a little accommodation on the part of the richer to- wards the poorer ; and they will not find themselves the losers, even from a pecuniary point of view.—I am, Sir, &c., X.
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