Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/10

 fact that at the next general election that class of the community known as the agricultural labourer will be the only operating class which will be excluded from voting. I should much like, at a proper time and place, to enlarge on this point, for, in the practical view I take of the matter, I fail to discover any reason why operatives living in boroughs should be admitted to the franchise, while operatives living in the country should be excluded. I will now content myself by saying, that I recognise in the uneducated, dependent, and scattered condition of the latter the real reason why the country has tacitly allowed—as if by common consent—a distinction to be made between the wage-paid labourer of the factory and the wage-paid labourer of the farm. This distinction cannot have arisen because the premises occupied by the one are more valuable than those occupied by the other, for it would be difficult to say which labourer's dwelling—the rural or the urban—costs more money to provide, and it has often been shown in this room that the actual money rent paid by the farm labourer is no criterion of the value of the premises he occupies; nor can it be, because the