Farm labourer's letter to Newspaper (1867)

Post date: Mar 22, 2013 10:31:4 PM

This letter appeared in the Maidstone Telegraph of 23rd March 1867 in a section of the newspaper entitled Trades Intelligence (usually based on reports from society secretaries) and immediately preceded by a short report on a meeting in Maidstone of Agricultural Labourers Protection Association. Two weeks earlier, 9th March, the newspaper reported, rather mysteriously, that

WATERINGBURY.—The agricultural labourers of this district will meet for the transaction of important business, at the Barley Mow¹, this evening (Saturday)

Mechanisation of farm work started in the previous century but only spread extensively in the second half of the 19th century. A tractor engine was used in Wateringbury in 1858. But the reference in the first paragraph does not seem a literal or direct reference to mechanisation. The Combinations Laws which banned Trade Unions had been long repealed (in 1824) and Wateringbury seems to have avoided the disturbances in agricultural areas in the 1830s in Kent, known as the Swing riots. Whoever was the author must have had some education, although of course he may have received help in its composition: Wateringbury National Schools, aimed at providing elementary education to the children of the poor started in 1843.

To the Editor of the Maidstone Telegraph.

Dear Sir, —Will you allow me to make a remark on the great farm labour machine. I think if there was a little more oil applied to the machine it would do its work better than it has afore done. The working men that have worked that great machine have been badly paid and worse cared for of any class, according to the labour they have to perform.

I think it is quite time there was a change in the system of labour. Labour is labour, used in what channel it may be used. Is not the farm labourer useful a member of society as any other class of men He is educated and intelligent. Is there any just reason why he should not have his just share of the produce of the earth as any other class men when he labours for it ? Why should the farm labourer be depressed and cast down more than any other class of men are? Are we not all men and brothers ? By Gods creation we are all men and brothers. Every man is a man that acts like a man to his fellow man. The poor labouring man is shut out from the pale of the constitution of his country, and is there any just reason that he should be shut out of the world's market. In the name of reason I ask what he has done that he should not have a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, well as any other class of men. Union is strength, and knowledge hath great power. Without the power of combination you cannot work out your own redemption.

The farmers cannot make the excuse they cannot pay their labourers better. I know well they can do so. By the repeal of the hop duty most of the Mid Kent hop farmers this year will nearly pay all the rent of their farms. If the farmers think it is right to put all that money in their pockets, and give their labourers no reward for their labour, I think it is a very selfish game to play.

I will put the farm labourers day pay and his piece day pay at 16s. 6d. per week. You must deduct from that; rent 2s. 3d. tools 1s., benefit burial club 7d. per week. Now we should find what the labourer has got left out of his 16s. 6d. per week. When I put figures against figures I find the farm labourer has got 12s. 8d. left to buy food for his family for the week, say nothing about firing. If I am not wrongly informed there are 413 parishes in Kent. Put the small with the great there should 100 men in each parish to pay the society 1s. per month. In twelve months they would have a capital in the society of £24,780, without interest, so you see by figures what combination of numbers can do.

And now my brethren for little bit advice. Be sober, be honest, and above all be industrious, and leave off immoderate drinking and take yourselves to thinking, and you will come to be the pride of the world, and show your neighbours and the world that you are men of Kent, loyal, brave, and free.

A Poor Labouring Man.

Wateringbury, March 12.

1. Barley Mow=The Wheatsheaf in Pizien Well. License refused in 1917.