Page:The farm labourer in 1872.djvu/31

 real welfare of the people has been aggravated by a fatuous administration of the Poor Law, and with this or any other plan in your pocket, set all right in a day or in a year. You cannot! You cannot put such a district on a par with one where the results of a totally different policy have left their permanent traces. But you can commence the improvement at once, and perhaps the results of a few months will appear marvellous.

Thus a farmer employing say half-a-dozen labourers might, by apportioning one or two acres out of his farm, give each a quarter or a third of an acre, which would probably be more valued by the men than a considerable rise of wages; and at the same time, he might hold out a prospect to any of his men who should have saved sufficient money to give them a run for a cow, or apportion another two acres for that purpose. By such means, and by some classification and payment by results, or industrial partnerships, he might gradually raise the quality of his labour and the status of his labourer—meanwhile, attaching them to the place more surely than by any Cash-payment devisable; and if his neighbours declined to follow his example, he might come to command the best men in the district. And let the Landlords look to it also, and put off any inertness. Their personal direction and sympathy are not a little required down in these rural districts; and the mal-administration of the poor law is greatly