FREDERICK ENGELS
LETTERS FROM LONDON
I
(STRIKE OF ENGLISH FARM WORKERS)
London,  April 20
The labour movement  in Eng land has made a tremendous advance in the last few days:
it has established itself, very firmly, among  the agricultural
workers. It is well known  that in Great Britain all the land
belongs  to an extremely limited number  of large landowners
the poorest  of whom  receive an annual income from rents
of 100,000 lire, and the richest many million. The Marquis
of Westminster has an annual income of over ten
million.
The land is divided into large plots, farmed by  very few
labourers, aided by  machinery, on  behalf of tenant farmers.
There are no  small farmers; the number  of farm labourers,
small as it is in relation to the area they cultivate, is decreasing yearly due to the introduction of new  machinery;
and thus, ignorant and tied to the soil as never before, and
at the same time victims of competition, the English farm
labourers constitute the worst-paid class of the population.
They have rebelled against their hard lot on  several occasions: in 1831, in the south  of England, they set fire to the
tenant farmers’ haystacks and wheat; a few years ago they
did the same in Yorkshire; from time to time they have tried
to form resistance societies, but  without  much  success. But
the present movement  has in the course of a few weeks assumed proportions  that ensure it a tremendous success. The

movement  began among  the farm workers  of Warwickshire,
who  demanded a wage increase from 11  or 12 shillings (13
or 14  francs) a week to 16  shillings (19 francs), and in order
to achieve it, formed a resistance society and went  on
strike.197  The landowners, tenant farmers and conservatives
of the county  were horror-stricken: after over a thousand
years the labourers, slaves in body  and spirit, had dared to
rebel against their masters’ authority! And  rebel they did,
going  on  strike, and with such success that within two  or
three weeks it had spread from Warwickshire to all eight
neighbouring  counties. The farm workers ’ union  became
for the terrified landowners and tenant farmers what the
International is for the reactionary governments  of Europe —
a bogy  the very name of which sets them quaking. They
opposed  it, but  in vain: the Union,  aided by  the advice and
experience of the resistance society of the industrial workers,
waxed in strength and spread daily, and even had the sup port  of bourgeois  public opinion. The bourgeoisie, despite
its political alliance with the aristocracy is constantly waging
a kind of small economic war against it; and since it is at
present experiencing great industrial prosperity and many
workers  are needed, almost all the labourers on  strike found
themselves transported to the towns  where they were em ployed and paid far better than they could have been in
agriculture. Thus, the strike was so  successful that the landowners  and tenant farmers throughout  England spontaneously  raised the farm workers ’ wages from 25 to 30 per
cent. This first great victory marks the beginning  of a new
era in the intellectual and social life of the rural proletariat,
which has joined en masse the movement  of the town  proletarians against the tyranny of capital.
Last week the English Parliament discussed the International. Mr. Cochrane, a rabid reactionary, accused the terrible workers ’ organisation of having ordered the Paris Com mune  to assassinate the archbishop and set fire to the city.
He  went  on  to demand repressive measures against the Gen eral Council at present established in London. Naturally,
the government  replied that the members  of the International, like all the inhabitants of England, are only  responsible
to the law, and that since they have not  yet broken  it, there

were no  grounds  for measures to be taken against them. The
General Council of the Association can be expected to reply
to Mr. Cochrane’s false allegations.
on  April 20, 1872
Published in La Plebe No.  48, Translated from the Italian
April 24, 1872
Signed: F. E.