BOOKS.
THE AGRICULTURAL LOCKOUT.*
'Tine volume is composed Of the letters of the Times' Special Correspondent during the Eastern-Counties Lock-Out in 1874. Mr. Clifford tells us in his preface that the letters have been -" woven into a narrative," and that "any pasiiafes of mere passing interest have beeh omitted," but we cannot help thinking that if -the letters were worth republishing, it would have been better to have produced them exactly as they originally appeared, with the -dates annexed. Whether such a course might not have made a more interesting book, and one of greater value for purposes of reference, may be a matter of dispute ; but there can be no doubt -that it would have far more conduced to sustain whatever reputa- tion Mr. Clifford may have as a graphic or careful purveyor of news for the general public.
If these pages are compared with a file of the Times for last _year, it will be at once perceived that the pruning and weaving, to say nothing of considerable and important alterations from the -original text, have been carried out on a very extensive scale. This is unfortunate for Mr. Clifford in two respects, for it not only deprives him of all plea of hasty compilation, but it has also -bereft his letters of many of the most vivid and realistic details. A parent is one of the worst judges of the beauties or imper- fections of his children, and an author, in a like position to the reproducer of these letters, would do well to entrust the editing -to another hand. We can well fancy the gleam of satisfaction that pervaded the special correspondent's breast, as he reproduced in "a more permanent form," and without the omission of a single -comma, whole passages that had yielded him much pleasure when -originally composed, as they contained his personal reflections and judicial summing-up of the strife and its causes ; and we can also well imagine the impatient dash of the pen through many a short sentence that had been hastily jotted down on the scene of action, but which was, for that very reason, far more worthy of repro- duction than the most carefully rounded period conceived in the library amidst works of reference. Those, in short, who made use of their scissors when these letters were first appearing, will have a far better bargain, both in a literary and historical sense, than those who are the possessors of the unevenly trimmed volume 'before us.
After all this labour has been bestowed, and after the letters have been completely rearranged, so that the present ordering of the chapters in no way corresponds to their chronological issue, it is not too much to expect that obvious contradictions would be removed, and that the reader would not be left in doubt as to which of the opposite opinions is the one really held by Mr. Clifford, or which is the one historically true. A single instance of these contradictions (which would be amusing, if they were not so vexatious to the accurate inquirer) will suffice ; it is taken from a number all equally conflicting. In the introductory chapter, in which a summary of the whole course of the lock-out is attempted,
The Agricultural Lock-Out of 1874. By Frederick Clifford. London: William Blackvrood and BOWL 1875.
a quotation is given from certain statistics of the National Union, where it is asserted that the total number of men locked out belonging to that combination was 3,116, of whom 694 migrated, 429 emigrated, 415 were then still unemployed, 402 left the Union, and 1,176 went back to work retaining their Union cards. To this quotation Mr. Clifford adds:—
" It is difficult to reconcile the last statement with facts. The men may possibly have continued their allegiance to the Union in secret, but it is idle to suppose that employers would have dispensed with Union labour during eighteen weeks, including harvest-time' and then have knowingly surrendered the whole principle for which they had been contending by taking back Union men when the Union funds were exhausted."
But in chapter vi., which is headed, "The Strike and Lock-Out Reviewed," a totally different account will be found, which places the final result of the struggle in a more favourable light for the labourers than even any statements of the avowed partisans of the Union :—
"The hope and aim of the farmers were to stamp out the Union. The Union received a temporary check, and for a time its ranks may be thinned. But I did not find among the labourers any seas° of total defeat, or any stronger feeling than one of passing discouragement. The weak-kneed among them gave up their tickets, but by far the larger number held on, and including Nationals and Federals, six or seven thousand Union laboulrers were left in Suffolk even when the look-out was ended."
Lest, however, this should appear too strong, and cause the reader to forget the passage in the first chapter, we find, on turning over three more leaves, that the National Union, in the issue of this very lock-out, received "a severe fall." Mr. Clifford speaks in his preface of the keen responsibility with which he was animated to hold the scales evenly between the contending parties, but flat contradictions of this description are a singular way of redeeming his promise, for to most people they would appear as a rash shaking of the balances, now up, now down, just as caprice or the spur of the moment dictated ; and they most assuredly prevent either Unionist, anti-Unionist, or the impartial inquirer from placing any value on his conclusions. Should another instance of these contradictions be required, it would be well for the reader to turn to the three or four passages relative to the drinking habits of the peasantry, their extent, and whether or not they are encouraged by the customs of the farmers.
Nor are these pages more accurate in matters of fact relative to the very foundation of the struggle. We are assured, on page 10, that though the farmers appealed to the landowners at the com- mencement of the dispute to help them to crush the Union, that such support was not accorded; that the tenants had to fight their own battle, and that the landowners, however disposed, could do little more than look on. But at page 81, Mr. Clifford, with strict impartiality, allows the Duke of Rutland, by far the largestand most influential landowner affected by the lock-out, to contradict him. The Duke, in a circular to the labourers of the 8th of May, says, "When I heard that my tenants had decided to lock out the Union men, I thought it right to support them." It is, indeed, no secret that the attempted policy of " crushing" the Union was suggested, fostered, and vigorously sustained throughout by the prominent landed proprietors of the district. If it had not been for the positive assurance in black and white of security against any pecuniary loss given by the representatives of the landowners, the great majority of the farmers, especially of the smaller ones, would never have entered on the struggle, and would certainly have never sustained it-beyond a week or two as an experiment. Those who represent this contest as a mere matter of a shilling or two a week between farmer and labourer are much mistaken. It was for the right of combination and the principle of independence that war was being waged, and Conservative landowners saw in the gradual spread of rural Unionism a serious blow to their prestige and influence. They were wise in their generation to fight it when they did, but it was merely a temporary check that was given to its progress. And it is just the same at the present moment. It is the Duke of Marlborough who is now inveighing against the Union in Oxfordshire, and not his Grace's tenants. Farmers are beginning to perceive that they have, to a great ex- tent, been made tools of by the landlords, and to learn that colliery proprietors and millowners are able to work to a profit, even though every one in their employ is a member of one of these dreaded combinations ; whilst many a Liberal " outsider " continues his practical sympathy for the rural Unions, in the ex- pectation (as Professor Newman has recently remarked) of bring- ing about a gradual and beneficial change in the tenure of land, by working on the lower strata of society, now that so little impression can be made on the middle or upper.
With Mr. Clifford's strong disapproval of much of the heated
language of the labourers' paper, a paper which they have happily now disCarded, we cordially agree, as well as with his exhortation to both sides to observe a calmer spirit. We also thank him, notwithstanding all the drawbacks to this volume, for the informa- tion on wages, perquisites, cottages, allotments, agricultural machinery, &c., in the Eastern Counties which is here collected together ; although it is evident that the facts have been supplied almost entirely, if not exclusively, from the farmers and land- owners. The foot-notes are, with scarcely an exception, quota- tions from letters written to the author by the Eastern-Counties farmers, and it would have been well if they had been occasionally interspersed with statements that might have been gleaned from the labourers themselves. Mr. Clifford, on his own admission, sought counsel and advice from the leaders of the farmers, but not from the leaders of the men. This being the case, it is all the more satisfactory to meet with the amount of praise that he occasionally bestows upon the Unionists for their moderation. There is no reason to doubt that Mr. Clifford's numerous corre- spondents and acquaintances intended to give him a fair repre- sentation of the case, but no true judgment can be based on one- sided and ex-parts statements. The Blue-Book of the Commis- sion on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture should be read in connection with these pages. The evidence collected by the Commissioners in the Eastern Counties main- tains, to the letter, many of the labourers' assertions as to wages, &c., and a completely false impression as to the extent of harvest- hours will be made on the reader who trusts to the statement of the Times' Correspondent, without comparing it with the con- trary information gathered by official inquirers, at a time when no dispute was waging, and when there was no object to be gained, on one side or the other, by exaggeration or reticence. The Blue-Book may be regarded as a critical survey of the true con- dition of rural life ; and this compilation of letters from the Times as a useful appendix from the farmers' point of view, at a time when they were greatly exasperated.
It is perhaps unfair to compare the two volumes, but as the former was already accessible to the general public, there was certainly no necessity for the reproduction of the latter, which will not please the partisans of either farmer or labourer, and still less serve any impartial or critical purpose.
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