Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/64

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58
AGRICULTURAL LABORERS OF SUFFOLK, NORFOLK,

you like; breed to the top of the tree. Breeding in all branches! (Cheers.) Go on with your breeding, gentlemen, but don't put too much fat upon lean bones. You are starving people by doing so. One of my tenants told me last week that he had two beautiful oxen for which he has got a prize. They were brought here to-day. They were fed with ten times as much as they ought to have been. Is this wise? Where is your money? It is not in your pocket. It is on the animal's back. One half of it will go into the chandler's shop, and into the soap-basin. Who will thank you? You have shown what you can do. See if you cannot do something better. I meant to say a great deal on the subject of the laborers, but I have not breath enough to do it well. But I must say this, that you and I may take counsel together and spend money; but if you forget the men whose labor gets all for you, you are acting ungratefully. I therefore, in three words say, 'Raise your wages.' I have done it myself, and I tell all my friends to do it. I tell you all to raise your wages, and I tell you this—there never was a man in your employ who ever struck a stroke for his master, but struck that stroke with redoubled force and energy (and if he does this, who profits?) when he knows he is well used. (Cheers.) How is he used? In Somerset they give what? (A voice, 'They give what it is worth.') I guessed I should be interrupted, but recollect my grey hairs. Recollect my experience. Recollect my triumphs in farming. Recollect how many laborers I have employed—how I have lived among them. Recollect, also, that though lower in the scale than some are, they are men before God as well as yourselves. (Cheers.) Woe be to him who will not mete out to others what he wishes to have meted out to himself. But must you do it if the rules of political economy say you should not do it? I say, ' Avaunt, political economy,' if