On Our Agricultural Union and the Movement Stirring Around It 

*La Plebe.* 
No. 19, 18 June 1877 
14 June. 

I noticed that my last letter was incomplete, therefore I feel it my duty to write you the present one. I spoke to you in my other letter of the Agricultural Union, founded six years ago by citizen Arch, now famous in England for this initiative of his and for the special character of his oratory: he is a true tribune, a bit rough, but powerful in his roughness. 

He began his propaganda with the question of wages. The agricultural labourers were earning no more than 16 lire (Italian) per week. Arch, ably assisted by good friends, saw to it that in three or four years the Agricultural Union counted over 50,000 members, and was able to organise a strike of 30,000 men. The strike succeeded, and wages rose in the Eastern Counties by 2 lire 50 centesimi per week. At the same time, the measure of sending agricultural labourers to emigrate to America, to Australia, or to move from one English county to another was adopted. By these transfers the aim was achieved of raising wages where the number of hands was falling. This struggle was carried on favourably up to 1874. But after this time things changed. It was sought to take up the question of the expropriation of the land for the benefit of the State, as the celebrated economist Stuart Mill had already proposed. The questions of universal suffrage and popular education were also raised. Note, however, one very significant circumstance, namely that the movement in favour of collective property was almost exclusively the work of those who broke away from citizen Arch, who constantly favoured questions that did not touch the holy ark of individual property in land: indeed, in the presence of the collectivist movement, he felt inclined to preach a kind of conciliation between the agricultural labourers and their exploiters: in short, confronted with the revolutionary idea of collectivism, he felt himself a conservative: he limited all his hostility to the high aristocracy. He thought it useful to pay a little court to the tenant farmers, so as not to have them as bitter enemies in political elections. It will not therefore be difficult for us to see Arch in the House of Commons: there is already a certain agitation in this sense, and Arch is prepared to accept the candidacy. All this, however, does not prevent the collectivist movement from going forward: indeed, even at the recent meeting of the Agricultural Union something was said on the matter. Having recognised the necessity of great improvements in agriculture, the wish was expressed that a law should place all cultivable land in the hands of a Representative Body, indemnifying the proprietors: it is understood that this expropriation ought to be turned to the benefit of the working people, that is, those in whose hands lies all the future prosperity of agriculture. 
I have taken care to set this before you, because it matters to me that the Italian socialists should have an exact idea of the spirit of our Agricultural Union and of the movement stirring around it.