The English Peasantry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 878, 28 December 1888, Page 11

The English Peasantry.

In Blackwood for October there is an article by Mr. T.- E. Kebbel upon f The English Peasantry,’ The writer begins by showing how vastly the lot of the agricultural labourer has improved of late years. He thinks it is necessary to caution the reader once more against the common error of confounding wages with income, and of supposing that when the labourer has received his alloted number of shillings on Saturday night he has nothing more to depend on.- His wages on an average do not represent more than three-quarters of his income. By. wages are. meant _the weekly money which the labourer receives every Saturday night.' By perquisites are meant : 1. The difference between the rent, which ho pays for his cottage and the rent which it is really worth; 2. Harvest-money ; 3. Beer ; 4.. Fagots ; ,5. Driving coals ; 6. Bacon; 7. Potatoes; and there may be more, according to the different customs of different countries. - ■' THE LABOURER’S INCOME.

Wages, perquisites, and agricultural cus-toms-differ so greatly . in various parts of England, that a resident in the north, acquainted only with the systerd prevailing'in his own county, would very likely be inclined at first sight to dispute the accuracy of figures relating to fche south and southwest. But it appears, on the whole, that the total yearly income of an ordinary English day-labourer, including both wages and perquisites of every kind, ranges from about £SO a year in Northumberland ,to'a little over £3O in Wiltshire and other southwestern conntiesl This gives an average of over £4O a year. But it is only the exceptionally low wages’ paid in a' fotv counties which pulls down the average even so low as this. In the eastern, midland, northern, and south-eastern counties it is more common to find the aum-total rising to £43 and £44 than sinking; to £37 or . £3B. Shepherds, waggoners,' and Btockmen-are paid at a higher rate, and their wages: average about £SO a year. Before the Education Aot of 1870 cams into general operation, and when it was more usual for women to* work in the fields than it is now, the earnings of the labourer’s wife and family made a considerable addition to his yearly income. Where women are employed now they earn from 4s to 6s a week at ordinary times and from 10s to 12s in harvest. Prom juvenile labour, as boys can usually get to work by the time they are twelve or thirteen, I calculate the average addition to the cottage income to be about £lB a year. Throw in an average of £2 a year for the woman, which is oertainly much below the mark, and that gives a total average of £6O as the annual income of an able-bodied English peasant, with the help of his wife and children. Under the head of perquisites I inolude cottages and gardens, let to the labourer considerably below their real value. But I have not included the value of his garden produce, nor yet whatever profit he may make from his allotment, both of which must therefore be added to the above total. The net profit on an allotment of one rood is usually calculated at about £5 a year. HIS EXPENDITURE. Such being his income, we have next to consider what he can buy with it; and this much seems to be certain at any rate, that he can buy more with it now than he could have done at almost any time within the pre. sent century. Ordinary commodities—bread, mutton, baeoD, cheese, butter, tea and sugar, boots, shoes, and coats —are all from- 20 to 30 per cent, cheaper than they were eighteen years ago, while wages are just about the same. The village labourer now is a wholly different man from what he was in the last generation. He wears different Clothes, eats different food, lives in a different house, and works in a different manner. He wears broadoloth on Sundays, and sometimes at his work too- The old smock-frock is entirely discarded, except by a few village patriarchs, who cling to it just as gentlemen here and there dung to their pigtails in the reign of George IV. That decent garb will soon become a thing of the past, equally with the more picturesque velveteen coat, corduroy knee-breeches, well-fitting gray worsted stockings, and neat well-greased boots, whioh formed the Sunday attire of the younger peasantry thirty years ago. They must all now have their black coats to their backs, and badly made trousers on their legs, and badly polished boots on their feet; the consequence being that they do not look a quarter so much like gentlemen as they did in their old oostume ; and are all the poorer for looking all the more vulgar. The average day‘labourer in regular work now eats

butcher’s meat four times a week. He wil have broiled bam for breakfast; and at harvest time, when his wife, or oftener his little girl, carries out ‘ father’s tea’ to him in the meadows, if you lift the Corner of her apron, or peep into her basket, ten to one you will find a tin of preserved salmon or a box of sardines stowed away between the loaf and the jug. Look into the window ofthe village shop and see the tale it tells—tinned meats and soups, delicacies and ‘ kickshaws,’ which to * the rude forefathers of the hamlet ’ would have seemed as strange and wonderful as the Tokay and Johannisberg of Lord da Mowbray, seemed to the savages of Hell House Yard. The labourers’ cottages, as a rule, are far better thau they used to be ; and houses with two sitting-rooms, three or four bedrooms, and a good garden, can now be had for the same rent (i.e.* Is or Is 6d a week) which 1 was formerly paid for a hovel. . HIS ASPIRATIONS. Those who oouverse with the educated young labourer of the present day will per* oeive that he is thinking of things only indirectly feonnected with the conditions of agriculture. With his former garb he has oast his former self. He has lost his relish 'for the country. He will tell you, if you oan only Tead-him on to talk frankly, that village life is ‘ a poor thingthat is a favourite phase with him. He will declare that his native village is ‘ a poor place ’ —and that not from any fancied sense of personal superiority in himself, but really because it fails to satisfy those newly felt yearnings in his own : heart; which education has planted there. He is conscious that ah agricultural labourer is not so' important a member of society as an artisan. He ha 3no corporate life ; no institute, no discussion, no power. The artisan seems to breathe a larger and freer moral and intellectual atmosphere. Tha young labourer has read quite enough at the Board school to put thought* of this kind into his- head. The young, clever, well* educated peasant wants to be something more than the best ploughman, or the best thatcher in the village. It is not with him a question of wages. Young, unmarried, skilful, and intelligent, if he gives his mind to faim-work, ho may earn wages that will give him all.he wants and more. It Is not altogether a question of the land either. He knows what kind of life the owner of three or four acrqs leads, and it has few charms for him compared with pushing his fortune in the city, It is only natural that it should be so. -Nearly all tbe young men in the rural districts between the ages' of eighteen and tweaty-five have now passed through the educational process. It has opened a new worlds to them. Whoever could have expected it to be otherwise? It has thoroughly unsettled them, and till the process of fermentation is over we mast be prepared for startling phenomena. The danger is lest this, which is only the natural disturbance consequent on a period of transition, shonld be mistaken for the symptoms of deep and permanent disaffection with the structure and conditions of society. The parliamentary suffrage' and the municipal suffrage have yet to bear their fruit. When the peasant finds he'can be ' as big a man ’ in his native village as ra the adjoining town, his principal inducement to leave the country will disappear. '■ ■