Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/13

 point of fact, the farm labourer receives in a better home an equivalent to increased wages.

Let us now turn to the more direct earnings of the agricultural labourer, and see what they are. It appears to me that, although much has been said about wages lately, a great deal of misapprehension prevails.

It is not my object at the present moment to provoke any long discussion on the principles which govern the price of labour. That is too wide a subject, and would divert our attention too much from those facts it most desirable to establish to remove misapprehension. But, having had some considerable experience in nearly every county in England, I desire to state shortly and distinctly the conviction at which I have arrived—that, measured by the real value of the services rendered by the agricultural labourers in different parts of England, the prices peculiar to different districts are as high as the return to be gained from those services will sanction. I consider it a fallacy to suppose that the labourers of one district are as good workmen as the labourers of another, and that for the services of each, when applied to the same object, the same money should be paid. Still, it can only be on such grounds that the proposal lately enunciated for the formation of unions, even though "established on principles strictly defensive," among agricultural workmen, can be supported (see Appendix I.). Considering that combinations of workmen are injurious in proportion as ignorance prevails, and that the want of education is the special characteristic of the agricultural labourer, I can anticipate only the worst results from unions among them, and am quite at a loss to comprehend how any national benefit can arise by encouraging such a movement. If the labourer of Dorsetshire or Devonshire was as able a