Page:The farm labourer in 1872.djvu/17

 machine or an animal), if it be practically shown that not only the solution and settlement of this question, but also the interest of employers will be promoted by such a course, surely reason and moderation will not be on the side of those who can leave this matter to be settled by banded unions of contending employers and employed.

In some of the southernmost counties, considerable care will have to be taken to prevent a collision between capital and labour. For there other incidents have been aggravated by a vicious system of poor law acting upon a superabundant and immovable population, and it is probable that the quality of the labour has been unnaturally depressed by the quantity being unnaturally maintained, namely, through low wages supplemented by out relief. The application of the same remedies, namely, a concession of an interest in the soil to those it is desirable to retain, and an interest in their work to all will be found even here effective, but seeing that the case is an aggravated one, the remedies must be more carefully applied. The highest intelligence and sympathy will be required to educate the labourer back to even a normal standard, and side-by-side with it, probably, a large migration. Happy will those districts be, where, by wise regulations and intelligent action the best men are retained, and the lower stratum only migrated to where labour is in greater demand. Happier still are those districts