OCR Text |
Show FARM LABORERS. ' If the word of the secretary of the National Agricultural Laborers and Rural Workers' union of England may bo accepted, compared with hia English cousin the American farmer ia a plutocrat. pluto-crat. Aside from tho fact that the Yankee Yan-kee farmer has a wider diversity of crops, better aoil, larger fields, more machinery and other numerous advantages, advan-tages, the American farmer, basically, socially and agriculturally, is generations genera-tions ahead of tho English worker in the fields. Fundamentally, there is a difference. Farm labor, or, for that matter, any kind of labor that gets its hands soiled, finds no sympathetic connection with the upper classes in England. The farmer himself, presuming he owns the land, is in a far different position. He may be an "English gentleman" or even a titled person. Actual farm labor, however, remains in England in a social rc.latidn which suggests the thought that if sorfdom has passed in tho "right-littlo, "right-littlo, tight-little island," the serf idea has not been entirely eradicated. There is not in England,, according to the secretary sec-retary of the agricultural laborers' union, such a thing as a farm laborer who lives with,his family, as he does in America, or is on the same social footing foot-ing as his American cousin. Neither does he have, if married and with a family, a cottage, a plot of ground, a few chickens and perhaps some stock of his own. In England the manor house idea prevails pre-vails and the farm laborer lives in quarters quar-ters with a few conveniences, if he resides re-sides on the estate. More often the farm laborers live in villages which are picturesquo enough but unsanitary. Rural housing conditions are such as to prompt tho English farm laborers' union to demand immediate improvement. To visualize conditions in rural England, an American must think of an English farm cottage occupying as much ground and possessing fewer conveniences thau the house of a day laboror iu the mill district of Pittsburg. There are exceptions, excep-tions, of course, where tho laborer may own a few acres himself. One of tho internal problems pressing for attention at the hands of the Lloyd George government has to do with rural housing conditions. Already the overcrowding over-crowding in the larger centers has created a very serious social situation in Great Britain. It would seem that rural England is not without a vital social problem as well. The British premier has promised government co-operation in working out plans for remedying matters. The practical application ol corrective theories will be watched with interest by sociologists the woitd over. |