the condition of the agricultural laborer. That is a subject which
now greatly attracts public attention. And, in the first place, to
prevent any misconception, I beg to express my opinion that an
agricultural laborer has as much right to combine for the bettering
of his condition as a manufacturing laborer or a worker in metals.
If the causes of his combination are natural--that is to say, if
they arise from his own feelings and from the necessities of his own
condition--the combination will end in results mutually beneficial
to employers and employed. If, on the other hand, it is factitious
and he is acted upon by extraneous influences and extraneous ideas,
the combination will produce, I fear, much loss and misery both to
employers and employed; and after a time he will find himself in a
similar, or in a worse, position.

Gentlemen, in my opinion, the farmers of England cannot, as a body,
afford to pay higher wages than they do, and those who will answer
me by saying that they must find their ability by the reduction of
rents are, I think, involving themselves with economic laws which
may prove too difficult for them to cope with. The profits of a
fanner are very moderate. The interest upon capital invested in
land is the smallest that any property furnishes. The farmer will
have his profits and the investor in land will have his interest,
even though they may be obtained at the cost of changing the mode of
the cultivation of the country. Gentlemen, I should deeply regret
to see the tillage of this country reduced, and a recurrence to
pasture take place. I should regret it principally on account of
the agricultural laborers themselves. Their new friends call them
Hodge, and describe them as a stolid race. I must say that, from my
experience of them, they are sufficiently shrewd and open to reason.
I would say to them with confidence, as the great Athenian said to
the Spartan who rudely assailed him: "Strike, but hear me."

First, a change in the cultivation of the soil of this country would
be very injurious to the laboring class; and second, I am of opinion
that that class instead of being stationary has made if not as much
progress as the manufacturing class, very considerable progress
during the last forty years. Many persons write and speak about the
agricultural laborer with not so perfect a knowledge of his
condition as is desirable. They treat him always as a human being
who in every part of the