to meet this difference is by some system of cooperation or industrial partnerships referred to later, giving all the labourers some sort of interest in the farm.
Then as to Poor Law Administration, too large a subject to go into here; for years past the system adopted in some unions, of employers administering the rates directly or indirectly as a supplementation for low wages has been regarded by far seeing men with the gravest concern. Degradation, physical to the labourers, and moral to the farmers has been the result, and it is probable that the only real difficulty in meeting and arranging this labour question, will be where such a fatuous system has left its permanent traces. Now on most boards the chairman and officials are well able to administer the funds on a sound principle; but they are overruled by the other guardians, who would substitute for broad economic views such suicidal motives as supplementation of wages, private interest, penny wise policy, or misdirected charity. The difficulty of the remedy is that even when right principles of discrimination are adopted, the change must be exceedingly gradual: you cannot unteach dependance in a day; self-reliance and thrift require more than a single winter to learn. Let guardians give their confidence more freely to able and competent chairmen, and let the central board help instead of hindering. The present system as administered in some unions has almost destroyed self-reliance in the poor, and farmers, labourers and landlords, in those parts have become the victims of a vicious circle, that will need a very careful correction.
It has been said, and with individual exceptions, it may in some parts be true, that the farmers are rather hard on the men. Having lived among farmers and labourers most of my life, I wish to take this opportunity of saying that such is not at all my experience. The kindly relation between
