FARM LABORERS' WAGES.

Hastings Standard, Issue 187, 3 December 1896, Page 2

FARM LABORERS' WAGES.

[To the Editor.] Sik, —"When Mr Comfort! delivered his address in Hastings on Monday evening lie made reference to the rate of farm laborers' wages in Oxfordshire, where an able-bodied man with plenty of bone and muscle worked for 8s per week; and since the above statement was made I have heard several try to doubt its accuracy. It has been said that it would be impossible for any man to exist on such a wage, and, Sir, I do not at all wonder at anyone thinking so. I do not suppose that Mr Cornford ever saw anything like it himself, and I sincerely hope that he never will, but, Sir, I have uo doubt about the accuracy of that statement. I can well remember my father working as a farm laborer in Worcestershire, where there is some of the best land in the world, and laborers' wages were 7s per week, and then in many cases the men lost time in wet weather: and out of the above pittance men had to keep wife and family. But, Sir, a word of praise is due to the minister's wife. She told my mother that working people should not have children. That advice was not adhered to, and the sons and daughters of the laboring classes kept coming on the scene, and they became a blessing to the old village, for now, behold, all things have become new. The old farms which were then held. I will not say cultivated, by three men, who had to work from 12 to 14 hours per day with scarcely enough bread to keep body and soul together. And why was all this beggary ? Firstly, in very close proximity to these small farms was what I will term a live lord. He had a very large estate—shall I say cropped with deer, partridges, pheasants, rabbits, hares, etc., but to make myself more clear the lord or landlord did not grow anything for all this vermin to to eat, but his tenants kept cropping, struggling, crushing, and starving ; the laborer, and indeed the farmer himself, was badly oft', for what he grew the game would destroy ; for if he made any attempt to destroy a rabbit or a hare the farmer's landlord soon let him know that he had the game laws to protect the game although the farmer had fed them with his corn. The above statements are pure facts, and what exists m Conservative England. The farms have been subdivided and the large estates cut up, and instead of producing game for the sport of the few the land is now in the hands of the laborers, and the population of that small village has incseased about three times and everyone employed, and where once was a crossing on the Great "Western it has been necessary to build a large railway station, and, further, the little dark village which was suffering from igorance and starvation has now a beautiful reading room and library, and I saw in a Home paper recently that the place is now booming, with substantial dwelling houses being erected everwhere. —I am, Ac, . A "Well-Wisher of the Masses. Hastings, December 3rd. 1896.