In Parliament on Thursday Sir Harry - Verney, speaking for the
Board of Agriculture, explained the view of the Govern- ment in regard to the deficiency of labour on farms. The work, he admitted, must be done somehow, but all other expedients should be tried before the employment of children was resorted to. One of the suggestions—and a sound one— was that reformatory boys should be used. He added, how- ever, that the employment of more women was the most hopeful way of meeting the difficulty. There was nothing a boy could do on a farm that a woman could not do better. We are quite in favour of this suggestion ; but provided that the use of boy labour is temporary, and that care is taken that the children are not physically overworked, we see no objection whatever to their employment on farms. It may well be, indeed, that the substitution of the fresh air of the fields for that of a stuffy schoolroom would be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. No one can say that three or four or even six months' holiday for a reason so special would do any great, intellectual injury to the children. It could easily be made up later. In view of the return of women to the land, why does not some enterprising publisher reprint "Dorothy," that charming poem of the "plough girl" in English hexa- meters by the late Mr. Munby ? It was, if we remember rightly, originally published in 1880.
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