The Agricultural Labourer Volume 2; A Series of Letters Reprinted from the 'Daily News'. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1869 Excerpt: ... TO THB EDITOR OF THE 'DAILY NEWS.' Sir, --In my former letters I have confined myself to the home of the labourer and to those sanitary requirements which are essential to health and decency. I have shown that the amount paid by farm labourers in the way of rent forms but the smaller portion of what is due as interest on cottage-building; while the transfer of rates and taxation from the occupiers to the owners of cottages reduces the outgoings of the former with respect to his home to an amount which, compared with those of a lawyer's clerk or mechanic, is small; the whole payment for a cottage, with three bedrooms and a rood of garden ground, seldom reaching 5l. a-year, even when new cottages take the place of old ones, and contain all the appliances of modern times. The facts that the owner of cottages pays the rates, while the farmer employing the labourer often contributes an amount equal to the rent the labourer pays, are lost sight of by many of those who speak of the low wages prevailing in rural districts, though it is clear that the employer's contribution is made in consideration of his ability to command superior men, at the same time that their services are made more valuable by being brought closer to the D 2 scene of action. The substitution of superior dwellings for inferior ones without any appreciable increase of rent, is not accepted as it ought to be, simply because it is an advantage of an intangible character. It would be very different if the cost of the advantage were converted into an annual payment in money which would pass through the labourer's pocket. But surely if the employer pays Is. 6d. or 2s. a-week towards the acquisition of a cottage which secures the labourer, and the latter has the enjoyment of a better home in consequen..