THE LABOURERS OF BLENHEIM.
FOR downright mischievous unreasonableness commend us to an Evangelical Duke with an opinion. Every one who has watched the progress of the Labourers' agitation is aware that as the year draws on the struggle between masters and men tends to become more bitter, and before Feb- ruary threaten the public peace. The labourers, who were at first very quiet and subdued, are becoming excited by the hope of success, by the dogged resistance of some employers, and by increased intercommunication. They now strike with- out warning, defy the masters, and show signs of deep irrita- tion under the rebukes, quite just, though needlessly severe, administered by the magistrates. Their leaders, Mr. Arch more especially, excited by their own oratory, are losing their modera- tion, and employing language which would be unjust, even if it did not stir the men up to a mood in which a contest for wages may be conducted like a civil war. On the other hand, the farmers, always unreasonably angry at what seems to them a revolt, irritated by what seems to them ingratitude, and in- spirited by the approach of a season in which they can dispense with labour, are in some places using most imprudent language, talking of a general lock-out in winter to " pay the rascals off," and forming associations which bind them not to employ a unionist, not to take a labourer without a char- acter, and to prosecute all cases of breach of contract. To judge by their language, they consider that a farmer who throws up a farm because it is not profitable is a wise man, but a labourer who throws up his "stint " be- cause it is not profitable is a criminal ; and as they have a monopoly of the market, the control of the Boards of Guardians, and weighty influence with the magistrates, they can treat him like one. So fierce, in fact, is the feeling between the two classes, that we should not be surprised in the least to , hear in some of the wilder districts, and in districts whence the men can escape to the towns, of scenes like those of a quarter of a century ago,—when the farmer began to use machinery as a weapon, and the labourer retorted with the torch.
In this state of affairs the best hope lay in the moderation and fairness of the landlords. The farmer, aggrieved by what he considered ingratitude—he having been trained to think that in assigning work to a labourer he gives instead of receiv- ing a favour—frightened by the pressure upon his very scanty margin of profit, and irritated beyond bearing by the new demeanour of his men, formerly as respectful as the rabbits, is for the moment past reflection, but the landlord is not. Better educated than the farmer, more accustomed to be resisted, and less in fear of losing his living, he can judge- more calmly of the attitude of the labourer, and try to conciliate his interests with those of the man who pays the rent. Usually he has behaved well, has raised the rate of wages on his home farm—thus giving all labourers on the estate a chance of improvement—has arbitrated between farmer and tenant, has been lenient about cottages, and has, above all, frequently endeavoured to meet the desire for small patches of ground. This wise course of action, however, which did not resist the Strike, but moderated its effect, and gave both parties time to reconsider themselves, has not seemed acceptable to the Duke of Marlborough, who, though he has sat in Cabinets, believes that force is the best instrument in a social war. He has issued from Blenheim a letter to his tenantry, which has been read in every Chamber of Agriculture in the kingdom ; which has encouraged all the more peremptory kind of farmers as a Duke's approval was sure to do ; and which, if generally accepted as the counsel of a statesman, will do incal- culable mischief. In words so badly arranged that we hope the steward who signs the letter also wrote it, he informs his tenantry that the labourer, " in the hope of bettering his condition, has " followed a mischievous agitation," " contrary to every principle of the causes which regulate supply and demand," and has " quarrelled with his best friend,"—the farmer. The strike has no economic cause, but has been " brought about by agitators and de- claimers," who have, unhappily, disturbed too easily the "friendly feeling " which used to exist between employers and employed. Why a man should not lecture on the advan- tage of high wages and the means of getting them, as well as on high crops or high profits and the means of getting them, —how Mr. Mechi of Tiptree differs from Mr. Arch, while doing precisely the same thing—his Grace does not explain, any more than he explains why a man who thinks his pay too little should not ask his friend, or his father for that matter, for a higher rate of wages. Oliver was not Bumble's enemy when he asked for more. The thing is so, the Duke says, the labourer is in the wrong, and therefore he shall no longer stand between him and the farmer. He surrenders him to the farmer's justice, only bidding the latter not hurt the poor fellow too much. The farmer must "show prudence and forbearance," but "with the view of placing matters as between farmer and farm labourer on a better footing, by bringing each in nearer relationship to the other, his Grace considers it will be more advisable that for the future he should not let allotments to agricultural labourers, but give leave to his tenants to
make arrangements with their own labourers similar to those under which allotments have been hitherto held under him for the occupation of land, not exceeding forty poles for each allotment-holder, for the growth of vegetables.
His Grace also considers that the cottages on his pro- perty ought, as far as possible, to be made available for the occupation of those who are employed in the cul- tivation of the land. It is, therefore, his intention, as far as he can, without unnecessarily disturbing existing holdings, to let any that may be in your neighbourhood to persons whom you may wish to nominate, on the understanding that rent will be demanded monthly." " This," exclaimed one
astounded listener at a Chamber of Agriculture, "makes slaves of the men," and unless neighbouring proprietors resist sharply, which in Oxfordshire is nearly impossible, so it will. The Duke owns entire parishes. His farmers, thus possessed of the cottages and of the allotment lands, will grant both only to those labourers who accept their terms, while the latter, under the settlement law, cannot move away for fear of losing their right to out-door relief. If they remonstrate, their bits of land—the possession of which is a pleasure as well as a relief—will be taken away from them at a month's notice, their wives and families will be expelled from the cottages, and as no tenant of the Duke's will employ them, they themselves will be left with the alter- native of entering the Union or tramping over the country with wives and babies in winter-time in search of work. Dis- missal, in fact, will be to them utter ruin, even if the farmers do not send them by whole villages into the House in the slack time. Let our readers just picture to themselves the facts. John Hodge, the ditcher, has 10s. a week, for twelve hours' work a day, and by the aid of his forty poles and his cheap cottage and his extra £4 at harvest, contrives to keep his strength at about half-power, to feed his wife, clothe his children, pay his sick club, and get along somehow through manhood until the Union receives him, to live through an old age in a barrack upon gruel. Suddenly, in the midst of a time of unprecedented prosperity he finds bread dearer, bacon much dearer, and meat hopelessly unattainable, and inspired by what he hears, he asks for a little more. For that offence, committed every day by every kind of State employe, a great Duke, lord of all that Hodge knows as his " country," a Being only to be approached with awe and reverence, suddenly stretches out his hand in wrath, and tells him that the only two alleviations of his lot—his cheap cottage and his rood of land—shall be held at the mercy of the farmer, of the man with whom he is contesting the right to live, of the man who has every interest an employer can have in grinding him to the ground. If he resists, he and his poor sticks shall be thrown out to find shelter where they may, provided it is not within miles of the only place he knows. He is a dour man and a determined, and but for the wife and children he would tramp half across England rather than submit to such treatment ; but as it is, what can he do but yield with a sullen heart, and a fixed resolve that somehow or other he will have what he considers "justice," a resolve none the less strong because he will hear from his " agitators and declaimers" that this question of eviction is the one on which the Unions are most determined, and the landlords have hitherto shown most sympathy, so much sym- pathy that Mr. Disraeli recently, in one of his happiest repartees, claimed for the landlords the credit of being infi- nitely more liberal and just in this matter than the specula- tive builders, who on estates like Blenheim will not be able to find sites for their rackrented streets of hovels ?
There is, we sadly fear, but one remedy for all this. We cannot make Dukes sensible, or interfere when they are stupid with the management of their property. We cannot make farmers think their men free men, who have a right to sell their one commodity at their own price, even if that price is one which nobody can be found to give. We cannot make labourers endure this kind of treatment without casting about for some means of raising themselves out of the rank of serfs or aseripti gtebce, to which the farmers round Blenheim have now, if they are immoderate and injudicious, the privilege of reducing them. It comes to this, that we must give these men the Vote. We regret the necessity ; we see perfectly well that if we could put off the change for ten years the labouring electors might be a conservative force, and that if they get the vote now they will be driven without the needful instruc- tion to swell the great army of labour against capital. But there is no help for it. Nothing but the vote will give them enough respect from those above to secure them fair play, or the first right of freemen, that of selling their property in an open market. Nothing but the vote will make Parliament attend to them, even so much as, by an abolition of the law of settle- ment, to release them from their obligation to stay in the dis- trict where they were born. There was hope while the land- lords thought it their interest to hold the balance, while Mr. Disraeli, with a keen out-look to the future, posed as the labourers' friend, while the same man was not employer, and Guardian, and landlord. But now that a Tory Duke and Cabinet Minister sets, by printed circular, the example of handing over the Labourer, without allotment, without cottage, and without representative on the Board, to an employer who thinks him an ungrateful scoundrel for asking his market price, there is nothing for it but to arm him, as the Americans, under the same circumstances, armed the Negroes, with the only peaceful weapon of self-defence strong enough to do its work. Mr. Disraeli gave the vote to the borough householder. The Duke of Marlborough has given it to the hind.
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