“West Suffolk Agricultural Association, established in 1833 for the advancement of agriculture and the encouragement of industry and skill and good conduct among laborers and servants in husbandry, President—the Duke of Grafton, Lord-Lieutenant of the county: This is to certify that a prize of 2_l._ was awarded to William Burch, aged 82, laborer of the parish of Stowupland, in West Suffolk, September 25, 1840, for having brought up nine children without relief, except when flour was very dear; and for having worked on the same farm twenty-eight years. (Signed) Rt. Rushbrooke, Chairman.” Now I need not press that point. It is admitted by honorable gentlemen opposite—and I am glad it is so—that after a very severe winter, in the midst of great distress among farmers, when there have been a great many able-bodied men wanting employment, still there have been fewer in the streets and work-houses than there had been in the previous year; and I hope we shall not again be told by honorable gentlemen opposite that cheap bread is injurious to the laborers. But the condition of the agricultural laborer is a bad case at the very best. You can look before you, and you have to foresee the means of giving employment to those men. I need not tell you that the late census shows that you cannot employ your own increasing population in the agricultural districts. But you say the farmer should employ them. Now, I am bound to say that, whatever may be the condition of the agricultural laborer, I hold that the farmer is not responsible for that condition while he is placed in the situation in which he now is by the present system. I have seen during the last autumn and winter a great many exhortations made to the farmers, that they should employ more laborers. I think that is very unfair towards the farmer; I believe he is the man who is suffering most; he stands between you and your impoverished, suffering peasantry; and it is rather too bad to point to the farmer as the man who should relieve them. I have an extract from Lord Hardwick’s address to the laborers of Haddenham. He says: “Conciliate your employers, and if they do not perform their duty to you and themselves, address yourselves to the landlords, and I assure you that you will find us ready to urge our own tenants to the proper cultivation of their farms, and, consequently, to the just employment of the laborer.”