The Farmers seem still undecided as to their policy, and
inclined to compromise for 15s. a week, but their literary advocates bring forward three arguments. One is, that the labourers are amply paid in perquisites, though not in silver ; another, that the trade cannot bear the charge ; and a third, that even if it can, the 210,000 farmers in England who hold less than twenty acres certainly cannot. The answer to the first argument, which we have expanded elsewhere, is that the labourer wants wages which he can spend, not wages spent for him ; to the second, that if the trade cannot bear the outlay—which we question—rent can and must ; and to the third, that these minute farmers are less affected by the price of labour than any others, and can more easily come to some co-operative arrangement with the labourer. The most real of all the difficulties in the labourer's way is that of adjusting the arrangements of a trade in which prices are fixed by impor- tation from abroad to any new conditions. Change takes time, and neither labourer nor farmer can wait.
Previous page
