In previous chapters the agrarian policy of the landed aristocracy has been traced down to modern times, and the economic and social effect of that policy has been described. It remains now in this account of the English peasantry to inquire how the peasant fared under that policy after he ceased to be a real peasant (a man possessing land or rights in land) and became a mere wage-receiving labourer. There has been much correspondence lately in the Press on the subject of "The Deserted Village." That correspondence seems to have left the question pretty much where it was, for the simple reason that the writers have ignored the root cause of the depopulation they deplore, instead of making it the basis of their discussion. The charming and pathetic poem from which they borrow the very heading of their letters, was written with the sole object of describing the policy which caused the depopulation of our country-sides. In a letter (1770) to Sir Joshua Reynolds-to whom the poem was inscribed-Goldsmith writes: "I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege, and all my views and enquiries have led me to believe those miseries real which I here attempt to display. . . . In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me." A few lines will recall the object and meaning of the poem. Looking at the idyll by the light of our present experience, we shall see that the insight of the poet was truer than the arguments of the political economist. "Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey If to some common's fenceless limits strayed, 1 "The Deserted Village." In that gem of English literature, Gray's "Elegy," is pictured the ideal of village life; the "short and simple annals of the poor" who keep on "the even tenour of their way," and "over whose tombs no trophies raise." The poem calms like a soft lullaby the doubts and misgivings as to the actual state of rural life. But it was Crabbe who, following Goldsmith, described in realistic verse the miserable condition to which the rural population had been reduced. It was his poem "The Village" that no doubt led later writers-Carlyle and others- to deal with the subject. Crabbe's village is a place "Where Plenty smiles-alas! she smiles for few- The wealth around them makes them doubly poor." "The Village" (1783). At the time Goldsmith wrote the process was becoming more and more rapid by which the real peasantry were reduced to mere labourers. The story of the English agricultural labourers is one of the saddest in our history. Until they, as a class, became emancipated by flight from the land no pen can exaggerate their sufferings and the lowness of their condition. There were numbers of rural labourers in every country, but in no country but ours were they a class apart, a caste, a permanent part of a land system composed of landlords, tenants, and labourers. Our landless peasantry became a unique class, and their counterpart could be found in no other country in Europe, In all but the name they were worse off than serfs of olden times, for serfs, though slaves, had plenty of food, generally land to cultivate, and dwellings which they regarded practically as their own. It was sound economy for a feudal lord to keep his serfs -like his horses-in a condition fit for work.1 1 In times of famine, which often occurred, "freemen from above, could and did descend into serfdom" for the sake of food and shelter. "The English Village Community," Seebohm. CHAPTER XII PEASANT REVOLTS (continued) A REVIEW of the "rebellions" of the English peasantry would be incomplete without some reference to the movement of the labourers led by Joseph Arch in the seventies of last century. This uprising was not, like previous outbreaks, a struggle for the retention of rights in the land, because the divorce of the peasantry from the soil had been completed some years before. It was nevertheless a revolt-a revolt of that which is a portent for any nation-a landless peasantry-against conditions of life that had become unbearable. The year 1872 must be looked upon as an epoch in the history of the agricultural labourer. The nation. as a whole had been rapidly increasing in wealth, but the condition of the labourer had been steadily on the down grade.1 The attention of influential men be came more and more fixed on this blot on our social life. The continental Press, now and again, commented with much sarcasm on the shocking condition of the rural population in "the richest country of Europe," and compared it with the different state of things which existed in most of the continental States. The town workmen, by Trade Unions and other combinations, had secured better things for themselves. The severe penal laws against such combinations were partially repealed in 1824, and Trade Unions became legally recognized in 1871. The changes in the rela 1 The alleged betterment of the condition of the agricultural labourer by the fiscal policy adopted in 1846 will be dealt with later on. tionship between employers and employed caused by the increase of machinery, and the development of the factory system were such as to make these combinations absolutely necessary to enable the workman to protect himself from the increasing power of the large capitalist. These unions, on the whole, have worked well, and, in spite of some abuses which may exist in connection with them, they have proved beneficial, both to employers and employed.1 The spirit of combination had been quietly spreading, even among the rural labourers. Their eyes were becoming open to the power of union as a means for bargaining with employers in a manner individuals could not do, and of bettering their lot generally. A man was necessary to voice the new feeling and to lead it, as a man is always necessary to concentrate the forces of any social or political movement. In 1872 the man appeared. At an open-air meeting held under a chestnut-tree at Wellesbourne, a village in Warwickshire, Joseph Arch began a movement which was destined to become far-reaching and to have a permanent effect on the character of English labourers. Arch himself was a fine representative of the English peasant. Honest, energetic, of good character, and with a great gift of rude oratory that always swayed his audience, he entered into the struggle with the single aim of bettering the condition of his fellowlabourers, whose sufferings he knew so well. He had passed through the bitter experience himself and had discharged special family obligations with a courage 66 1 A well-written statement on the subject of Trade Unions is to be found in "Conflicts of Capital and Labour," by George Howell. For a more complete account of trade combination, see History of Trade Unionism," by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and "Problems of Modern Industry," by the same authors (Longmans, 1902). G |