Page:The English Peasant.djvu/247

 Wellesbourne, a village, or rather two villages, numbering 1,500 inhabitants, were there almost to a man. From the neighbouring hamlets the labouring men came in such numbers that a thousand and more had soon congregated in the little triangular green where stands the great chestnut. Arch urged upon them in his own earnest, sledge-hammer way the necessity of combination, and proposed a Union. The tinder was ready, and the spark was struck; the men came forward so fast to give their names, that they could not write them down rapidly enough. A week after there was another meeting, more names were given in, a committee was formed, a secretary appointed, and an organization instituted. Notices were sent to the farmers, asking that wages should be advanced from twelve shillings to sixteen shillings a week. The farmers made no reply, and so on the following Saturday the men struck. There were more than a hundred who thus "came out" in Wellesborne [sic] alone, while from the neighbourhood around nearly a hundred more joined them.

Of course the masters were somewhat surprised and much annoyed at this sudden outburst of their labourers. So war was proclaimed in the disturbed district, and the first action taken was to serve the men who joined the Union with notices to quit their cottages. Just as I entered Wellesbourne I saw several very nice large cottages, let, no doubt, much beneath their value. Sir Charles Mordaunt, the landlord, had given them all notice to quit because they joined the Union. A placard was issued, and posted up about the county, in which the Wellesbourne farmers declared their resolution to employ none who thus acted, and to eject them from their cottages.

Nevertheless the cause prospered. The 200 men who first joined the Union almost all found work, so that when I was there only 29 remained unemployed. Some had been engaged in a soap factory in Liverpool, some in the dockyards at Gateshead, others had emigrated to the Colonies. Very painful, however, to all concerned are the immediate effects of this revolution, uprooting old ties, and introducing much bitterness into the social life of the district. Hard must it be for the men to see the home, tended and loved for many a year, in the hands of strangers; while the masters will feel the want of their old, trusty labourers