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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
924 055 504 272
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A HISTORY
OF THE
ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL
LABOURER, 1870-1920
A HISTORY OF
THE ENGLISH
AGRICULTURAL
LABOURER
1870 - 1920
BY
F. E. GREEN,
Member of the Royal Conunission on Agriculture ;
Author of "The Awakening of England," etc.
LONDON :
P. S. KING & SON, LTD.,
ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER, S.W.
1 930
DEDICATED TO
"THE KING."
Who is the king ? The man who holds the plough 1
There in high heaven is his charter set.
Pricked in eternal stars, tho' never yet
Has thought to rule ; a thousand years, as now.
Has brought his brother bread, regardless how
The bread was shared ; and, heedlessly, has let
Knavish usurpers wear the coronet —
The regal crown alone awaits his brow.
And humbly he will serve, and be the king ;
Bringing the clean counsels of the sunny field
Unto his ParUament, and everjrthing
Shall know the wholesome wind and rain, and yield
To the inspiration of the open places ;
And God shall see His image in our faces.
Andrew Dodds.
^7752.
PREFACE
The history of farming should be written by a
farmer. A history of labourers should be written
by a labourer. This history suffers from the defect
that it is not written by a labourer. It is, however,
written by one who has tilled the land for many
years and has tried to survey rural England through
the eyes of a farm worker. Therefore I have written
this history of the agricultural labourer as a par-
taker of his life, rather than from the detached point
of view of the spectator, or the man of the study.
To my mind the only honest historian is he who is
not afraid to wear his heart upon his sleeve, as
Cobbett did when he wrote his Rural Rides. A
Gradgrind historian in exhibiting his selected facts
is accurate at the expense of truth.
I have tried to interest the student in a life
which has been considered prosaic to the point of
stolidity, by showing him that it is filled with great
adventures. He will find many references to Blue
Books, sufficient, at any rate, I hope, to satisfy the
academic mind ; but my chief authorities bear
names which it would be fruitless to mention, for
they are the obscure folk who follow the plough,
who drive the cattle from the pastures, and who
fold the sheep at the foot of the Downs. They are
the unrecorded men who give us our daily bread.
It is to them that I and my readers owe thanks.
One day, let us hope, some Englishman, who has
endured with fortitude the life on the land, with all
its pain and pleasure, will tell the story as it should
be told, in words of imperishable beauty.
F. E. GREEN.
Author's Note.
In the making of this book I have had the valuable
assistance of Mr. Arthur W. Ashby, who has kindly-
read the proof sheets ; and of Mr. Ernest Selley,
the author oi Village Trade Unions in Two Centuries,
who has provided me with much information
which has been laboriously acquired. Mr. Frederick
Verinder generously put at my disposal the only
complete copies in existence, I believe, of the Red
Van Reports, and the Church Reformer. The
Presidents and Secretaries of the two great unions
involved, the National Agricultural Labourers' and
Rural Workers' Union, and the Workers' Union,
namely Messrs. W. R. Smith, M.P., R. B. Walker,
John Beard, and Charles Duncan, have allowed
me free access to their books and papers ; and
Sir Henry Rew has helped me in the compilation
of the Appendices. To all of these and to many
others, my thanks are due; and I should like to
add, that I alone am responsible for the statements
expressed.
F. E. G.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction i
PART ONE.
Seed Time for Revolt. Conditions prior to 1872 . . -13
PART TWO.
The Upstanding Crop. 1872 28
PART THREE.
The Farmer Swings his Scythe. The great Lock-Out of 1874 49
PART FOUR.
The Aftermath or Thistles. The 'Eighties .... 67
PART FIVE.
The Winter of Discontent.
I. The 'Nineties 96
II. A Gleam of Sunshine: 1894. . . . . .121
PART SIX.
Stirrings of New Life. 1900 145
PART SEVEN.
Growth under Stormy Skies. 1910-14 177
PART EIGHT.
What of the Harvest ?
I. The Autumn of 1914 233
II. The Organizer at Work 259
III. The Com Production Act at Work . . . .288
IV. 1920 317
Chief Books and Papers used 332
ix
X CONTENTS
Appendices. page
I. Average Prices, per Imperial Quarter, of British Corn,
in England and Wales from 1850 to 1919 . . . 335
II. Average Cash Wages per Week of Ordinary Agricultural
Labourers from 1850 to 1907 . . . . . 336
III. Weekly Cash Wages, Allowances and Earnings of Agri-
cultural Labourers in England and Wales 1907, 1912-13
and 1919 337
IV. Minimum Rates of Wages (April 19, 1920) in Force for
Male Workers, 21 Years of Age and over, in England
and Wales ........ 339
V. Statement showing Changes in Cost of the Undermen-
tioned Items of Workmen's Expenditure in London
and Large Towns in Great Britain (Cost in 1900 = 100) 344
VI. Percentage Changes in Average Retail Price of Food
in the United Kingdom, to a Workman's Family
(Average Price in 1900 =. 100). — Percentage Changes
between 1905 and 191 2 in Rents, Retail Prices, and
Rents and Retail Prices combined, in London and 87
Large Towns. — Estimated Percentage Increase, on
the Prices of July, 1914, in the Retail Prices of Food. 345
VII. Number of Agricultural Labourers, Shepherds, Nursery-
men, Gardeners, etc., in England and Wales and
Great Britain, as returned at the Census of 1871, 1881,
1891, 1901 and 1911 respectively .... 347
Index
349
A HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL
LABOURER.
INTRODUCTION.
When German siege guns hammered at the gates of Western
civilisation and the waters of our island home were haunted
with enemy submarines, then it was that a " nation of shop-
keepers " awoke to the fact that the invaluable worker
was he who tilled its fields. Everybody who needed bread
to sustain life became alarmingly aware that it was the farm
worker who was the giver. A further discovery was made
by our manufacturing classes, and this was that the agricul-
turist was a highly skilled worker. Those who answered
to the Call of the Country to perform work of national
importance in the field and stockyard soon found how clumsy
were their attempts at agricultural work compared with the
skill of the ploughman, the shepherd, the stockman, and
even with that of the " ordinary " agricultural labourer.
As we delve into history what astonishes us most of all
is, that there should be any agricultural labourers sur-
viving in our country ; for though agriculture is the oldest of
the crafts, since factory chimneys have flourished at its
expense, it has been the least honoured and the worst paid.
During the war, a Member of the House of Commons startled
that august assembly with the truth steeped in irony, that
it was more difficult to replace a skilled carter than a Cabinet
Minister.
That we stUl have skilled agricultural workers amongst
us we owe to their supreme quality of patient endurance,
VOL. II. 1 B
2 INTRODUCTION.
rather than to any wisdom on the part of the governing
class. Robbed of his common rights by a succession of
overwhelming Enclosure Acts ; ill-nourished in his infancy
and badly paid as a hired, landless labourer ; degraded by a
gang system of service barely distinguishable from slavery ;
deprived of any form of agricultural education ; unrecog-
nised as a citizen until 1884 ; the wonder is that the EngUsh
agricultural worker has been able to retain any of his
old traditional peasant-crafts after a hundred and fifty
years of divorce from the soil.
Professor Thorold Rogers, one of our greatest authorities
on industrial workers, stated in 1878 that the agricultural
labourer possessed five or six more qualifications to the title
of skilled worker than did the artisan ; but no Government,
apparently, took the slightest heed of his words. Professor
Rogers might have added even more qualifications than five
or six to the title of skilled worker.
There is technique displayed in even the simplest of
agricultural work. You can detect it in the green-ribbed
meadows when harrowed and rolled with unerring uniform-
ity, in the dark and sUver-green bands visible at the season
of the year when the blackthorn flings its bridal wreath
across the hedge to May. It is discernible even through a
cloud of dust to the practised eye when the harrow follows
the sower, and no derelict islands of exposed seed are left to
tempt the birds of the air to descend in flocks and give
thanks for some prentice hand that cannot draw a straight
fine with a team of horses.
Spreading farmyaard manure, digging an allotment, or
hoeing turnips, may appear to the novice to be unskilled
labour. But there is skUl and artistry displayed even in
filling a tumbril, and dumping down the manure so that the
field looks like a chessboard covered with black pawns, so
regularly placed are the httle pyramids of manure. The
unskilled aesthete would not know that this effect was pro-
duced by spacing out these little heaps of manure six yards
apart ; nor would he know by the texture of the dung if it
be " long " or "short," or how to spread it so that it does
not lie in wasteful lumps. The imaginative field-dresser,
INTRODUCTION. 3
as he uses his skill, is able to visualise where the fuU-growia
grass will ripple with wavelets when caressed by the wind in
June. He knows, too, where it will be so meagre that it will
scarcely conceal a hare.
But it is in judging the actual time for mowing, by noting
on his leggings the dust of the pollen from the bents, and the
colour of the bronzing clover that he wiU show his cunning
as a hay-maker ; and yet when he comes to build the stack
then it is that he displays his supreme craft as a rural archi-
tect . With conscious pride casting his eyes over the meadow,
mentally envisaging the probable weight of hay, he will
mark out his foundation or steading without having passed
the ordeal of the Mathematical Tripos. And as the hay is
unloaded from the wagon, he, with the cuiming of his eye
and hand, wiU build his fragrant edifice so that it stands
flawlessly symmetrical. As designer and executant and as
one who works without the aid of pencil or paper he should
as a craftsman satisfy the most fastidious of Guilds.
Finally, as a thatcher, when he crowns his edifice with
a roof of golden straw, he will, if he takes pride in his work,
fashion a cock out of wisps of twisted straw, and place it on
the apex of the roof as an outward and visible sign of the
joy he took in his work.
He will have to be deft with the adze in splitting thatching
rods ; and that brings us to review the artistry and the skUl
of the labourer who is woodman as well as farm worker.
It is surprising, considering how our woods have been left
to the mercies of the head gamekeeper, rather than to the
forester, that we have any skilled woodmen left in our coun-
tryside. In nearly every county are to be found men
who can not only shave hoops, make hurdles and wattles,
and sheepcribs during the winter months, but also work
as skilled agricultural labourers on the farm in the summer.
The swinger of the scythe nowadays is indubitably a
rare workman. He is m-ore than that : he is an artist. In
the peculiar bend of the sneath or handle, and in the curve
of the reaping blade, one can see that it is the craftsman
whose brain and muscle have been working together in
perfect harmony that has eventually shaped this implement
4 INTRODUCTION.
to draw as easily through the luscious dew-sprent grass as
the fiddle bow has been fashioned to draw music from the
strings of the violin.. Think, too, of the delicate touch of
this toiler of the fields as he sharpens the blade and lightly
rubs it with that finishing silky touch on the ringing curve
of steel.
Ever since the 'man with the hoe was immortalised by
Millet he has been the symbol of ill-paid, unskilled labour.
But hoeing is not unskilled labour. The man who knows
how to use his hoe is careful not to deprive his tender nurs-
lings of root pasturage and leave them to wilt in the sun. A
field of roots can be ruined by unskilled laboiu", or given a
new lease of life by the deft hand of the " ordinary " agricul-
tural labourer.
He who is so gUbly dubbed an ordinary agricultural
labourer, understands as a rule the skilled work which, if
sub-divided, would require a gardener to do one part and a
navvy to do the other. This is the work of hedging and
ditching. The technique of la5dng a hedge is not learnt in a
day. The curve, the weight and the balance of the bill-
hook, the slasher, and the fag hook have been conceived
and fashioned by the artist-hands that have used them for
generations. Think of the deliberate stroke that goes to
the splitting of a branch so that it is not sundered and lives
to break into leaf and fill a gap in the hedge. To be able to
lay a live hedge which wiU break into blossom and leaf is to
be able to thread a pattern the artistry of which delights
the eye of any live-stock keeper.
As I look out of the window my glance falls upon a cot-
tage roof which shelters a farm worker who, to my know-
ledge, has not only ploughed, sowed and reaped corn for
his employer, thatched the farm ricks, painted the wagons,
and broken in the colts, but he has killed his neighbours'
pigs for them, doctored their sick cows, clipped their horses^
cleaned out and repaired their weUs, mowed their orchard
grass with a scythe, planted fruit trees and driven bees
into empty skeps. He has a knowledge of wild life which
would make many a sportsman envious ; and with his
strong, deft hand he has led to the market many an un-
INTRODUCTION. 5
tamed heifer which had never been haltered. I have
watched him fell with an axe a tree as thick as a stout
farmer and split it into roughly hewn posts. He has even
repaired the roof of the cottage he rents, as I am afraid
many a labourer has had to do if he wishes to sleep in a dry
bed.
Many an English flock-master and breeder of shorthorns
owes his international fame to the skill of his head shepherd
or stockman, who, perhaps, has given a life-long service in
improving a breed of sheep or cattle on a wage of less than
£1 a week.
To-day a new craftsman is taking his place on our large
arable farms ; and that is the tractor ploughman, who is
engineer and husbandman combined. It is to the plough-
man, perhaps, above all others, that the nation looks as the
supreme creative artist who will redeem it from misfortune.
The ploughshare drawn by the team of horses guided by the
clear eye of the ploughman, clarified by the illimitable spaces
that surround him, is to us more than the ram of a destroyer.
Guided by hands gnarled and toil-smitten, he draws a strong
line across the seared stubble. It is the impelling vivid line
sought for so eagerly by every artist as he stands before the
canvas at the inception of his creation. The ploughman
iharks out his broad line of perspective with that simple
implement which has been the agricultural craftsman's chief
tool for so many centuries^ and with it he draws line after
line until the field of mottled green and pale yellow is trans-
formed into rich shining brown earth. Wlien he has graven
these fructifying lines of furrow, he holds in the hollow of his
hand the destiny of nations. With the seed-lip slung over
his shoulder, with a measured tread over the kind, crumbly
earth, and with a superb sv/eep of the arm and easeful swing
of the body, he distributes his largesse. There is precision
and beauty in the sweep of his arm and his measured stride
as he casts the seed, and his eye and brain work in perfect
harmony. He stands before us to-day as the figure of Destiny.
In his rhythmic stride and noble sweep of the arm Hes the
hope of Britain.
■p ^ T* ■!■ •^*
6 INTRODUCTION.
It is a reflection upon English literature that the history
of this class of workers, possessing the greatest English tradi-
tions, which has never failed to play its part in every national
pageantry of peace and war, with an ancestry as old as the
manorial system, should have been left to a foreigner to
write. Dr. Hasbach was the first man to write a history of
the English agricultural labourer. His work has been accom-
plished with painstaking industry, but it contains one grave
omission — a record of the revolt of the labourers of 1830,
and for an account of this students should turn to the pas-
sionate pages of J. L. and Barbara Hammond's book The
Village Labourer, 1760-1830. He also failed to describe the
great lock-out of 1874.
Dr. Hasbach's history takes us only to 1894. There are
certainly half a dozen pages which go beyond that year, but
there are no more, and these do not profess to be more
than a glance at the few succeeding years.
Very much has happened in the life of the agricultural
labourer since 1894, the story of which I shall attempt to
tell in these pages. I begin my history at 1870 because 1872
was an epocli-making year in the industrial life of the agricul-
tural labourer. It was the year when Joseph Arch appeared
as a force in the industrial and political life of the country.
There are two men who stand out as historical figures,
from the ranks of the agricultural labouring comm.unity in
the nineteenth century — WOliam Cobbett and Joseph Arch.
To understand the character of the English peasant ; to
understand Joseph Arch and his movement, it is necessary
to realise the character of his great forerunner, WiUiam
Cobbett, for what Cobbett sowed with his Political Register
and Rustic Harangues in the twenties and thirties, Arch reaped
in the seventies. There was much in common between the
two men. Both were skilled farm workers. Cobbett,
like Arch, was bred at the ploiigh-taU. Cobbett's father
when a boy went out to plough for twopence a day, and
probably Arch's father performed the same skilled work at
much the same wage. Cobbett, like Arch when he came
home from "scaring crows as a boy had to sup off bread and be
content with the smell of the cheese, as his granny would tell
INTRODUCTION. 7
him. Cobbett was certainly the greater man of genius. He
was greater as a man as well as a publicist, but he, like Arch,
was essentially an English peasant. Both had the peasant's
religious convictions. Both possessed strong domestic
virtues. Neither was in any sense a revolutionist, a dreamer ;
neither had any interest in economic theories ; but both were
born fighters and hated oppression. Both became Members
of Parliament.
Cobbett possessed all the prejudices, the pugnacity of
John Bxill. Stout of limb, girt in his dust-coloured coat
and drab breeches, with round and ruddy face, combative,
he stands before us a live man, a figure breathing English
manhood from his bull neck to his strong argumentative
chin, his firm upper lip and finely shaped mouth, his pugna-
cious nose, to his clear eye fired by a passion for justice and
lightened by a rapier glance of irony.
He possessed the characteristics that made for popularity
at that time. He had served in the Army, and had speedily
risen to the rank of sergeant-major. He hated the French
with their "bloody revolution." He hated Jews, stock-
jobbers, and placemen. He defended bull-baiting ; he pro-
moted boxing ; he encouraged matches at single-stick ;
and he hunted. Heine regarded him as a Philistine, which
undoubtedly Cobbett was.
He was a Tory ; which meant that he held by tradition
certain ideals of England and English government. A man
of shining honesty, he imagined that a government of men
who had been given every opportunity of culture must be in-
corruptible. Lik& most young soldiers he had hardly begun
to think politically. His disillusionment began when he
landed in England and tried to bring to light before a Court-
Martial the corrupt practices of certain oificersin the com-
missariat department who plundered the poor private
soldier.
On his first return from America after his romantic mar-
riage he was entertained at dinner by Pitt and other Ministers
of State and offered the control of a Government organ. But
though Cobbett was then a Tory, he would not be bound to
any party ; and rich as the Government then was in secret
8 INTRODUCTION.
service funds, no Government was ever rich enough to buy
this doughty champion of the labouring classes.
Though pugnacious in print, and in a public assembly,
surely no husband or father was more gentle than Cobbett.
There is no more tender picture of married life than that of
Cobbett in Philadelphia stealing out barefooted and stopping
out all night long in order to drive away the dogs with stones,
who barked incessantly near the house in which his young
wife lay iU and sleepless.
At one time this peasant very nearly became the uncrowned
king of England. He even wrote letters for the Queen of
England to her royal husband. He faced two State trials for
sedition. He suffered two years' imprisonment and a fine of
;£i,ooo as a penalty for pouring out a volume of vitriolic
irony on the heads of the Government for inflicting five
hundred lashes on the bare backs of English soldiers whilst
a German legion stood on guard. By imposing the savage
fine of £i,ooo and keeping him between prison walls for two
years the Government thought they had completely broken
the spirit of this Free-Lance. They ruined him financially,
it is true, but they never broke the power of that lance which
sharpened its point upon prison waUs. It struck deeper than
ever into the vitals of oppression and corruption ; and when
twenty years afterwards he was again indicted by the Govern-
ment for sedition — ^this man whom Brougham as Minister
appealed to, not without success, to subdue by the power
of his pen the Luddite riots — Cobbett left the Court
triumphant and became the First Man in the reign of the
First Gentleman of Europe.
Cobbett, it should be remembered, had no organisation
at his back as Arch had, and yet so great a leader was he of
the rural democracy, that it was to him the Governm^ent
had to turn to stay desperate hungry men from burning
ricks and breaking up machinery.
At the end of his defence he threw out this defiant chal-
lenge : " My last breath shall be employed in praying to
God to bless my country and to curse the Whigs to everlast-
ing, and revenge — I bequeath that to my children and the
labourers of England," But great as was his hatred of
INTRODUCTION.
9
a corrupt Government, and a brutal magistracy, of a
pusillanimous clergy, his love for the suffering poor was
greater. And Cobbett's splendid championship of a vote-
less class akin to that of serfs prevented him from ever
becoming a national hero.
During his long life in and out of Parliament Cobbett never
ceased from his championship of the agricultural labourer,
and it should be remembered that he was to a large
extent an employer of labour, both on his Botley estate
•and in his publishing office. "I will aUow nothing to be"
good with regard to the labouring classes," he once wrote,
" unless it makes an addition to the victuals, drink, or cloth-
ing. As to their minds, that is much too sublime a matter
for me to think about." To that simple statement Cob-
bett remained true all his life ; and in tilting at the dragon of
abuse in rural England, Cobbett had to drive his lance at a
monster fed by the capacious hands of landowners, farmers,
and politicians.
This John Bull had forged a weapon in the heat of
a common fire in a noisy guard-room in Novia Scotia, sur-
rounded by quarrelsome, half-drunken comrades, which
made him the most powerful fighter in the England of his
day, for it was there, amid the storm and stress of barrack
life during his eight years' service, that Cobbett made him-
self a master of English grammar.
Cobbett's style was a living thing hammered out of his
character. Therein lay its success. He was sincere, simple,
colloquial and personal — outrageously personal. In the
use of invective lay his strength. He had the common-
sense of the Englishman who knows that if he is to be lis-
tened to by the people it v/as no use writing like Adam
Smith, Ricardo or Godwin. Though Cobbett wielded his
pen like a bludgeon there was no confusion about his strokes,
no riot of pummelling which might become an incoherent
storm of words. Though it sometimes fell on the wrong
head, every blow was distinct and well-timed.
His messages to the labourers of England in his Political
Register were eagerly read by all capable of reading in his
illiterate age. Listen to this diatribe taken from Rural
10 INTRODUCTION.
Rides, which has become a classic of English literature.
After showing that honest labourers were far- worse off than
felons, he breaks out with :
" Oh, you wish to keep up the price of corn for the good of the
poor devils of labourers who have hardly a rag to cover them !
Admirable feeling, tender-hearted souls ! Did not — oh, oh !
care even about the farmers ! It was only for the sake of the
poor naked devils of labourers. . . . This was the only reason
for their wanting corn to sell at a high price .' . . ."
And Cobbett had lived through days when wheat was i20S.
a quarter, and wages driven down to 6s. a week !
It was when he was mounted, riding across the Enghsh
counties, that Cobbett did his finest work, and not inside
Parliament.
" The ruffians," he wrote, " owing, and solely owing to my
having lost my voice at Coventry, have kept me out of the House ;
but they have not kept me out of hearing. I have since last
autumn been in seventeen counties making Rustic Harangues,
which have produced far more effect than any speeches in
Parliament."
It was at one of these meetings, a stormy one, where it was
resolved that Cobbett should be ejected from the room.
" I rose," he wrote with that touch of sublime egotism
of his, " that they might see the man they had to put out."
He was sixty years of age then, and yet he dominated the
whole room. It was as the author of Rural Rides that
Cobbett entered into his kingdom and became the St. George
of the English labourer.
When elected to the House of Commons in 1832 at the
advanced age of seventy, he was stUl the irrepressible and
almost the oiily champion of the agricultural labourer.
John O'ConneU declared that in the House " he was
quite as dogmatical and downright as in his written diatribe,
and he had quite as much sarcastic audacity of self-possession
as though he were a wealthy patrician member of that tuft-
hunting House." With the pertinacity of a Kerr Hardiehe
moved a very drastic amendment to the Address in answer
to the Speech from the Throne. He moved that all the words
after " Most Gracious Majesty " be omitted ! The House
INTRODUCTION. ii
tried to shout him down, but the lust of battle was in the
very marrow of his bones. Opposition only stimulated him.
" The people, I say, expected that some measure should be
proposed by Ministers for their relief ; instead of which they
asked for the power of throwing the people into dungeons.
{Great confusion.) If I be not heard I shall move an adjournment !
I will not spare you one word. You shall hear every word that
' I have to say ... I have a very sacred duty to perform, and if
the House be determined not to hear me to-night I will certainly
bring it forward to-morrow ; and if the House will not hear me
to-morrow, I will then bring it forward the day after. The
statement that I have to make I am determined to make."
And he did. The House was forced to listen to Cobbett
talking on a subject of which few members knew anj^thing.
The subject was the condition of the poor.
" Your rehgion seems to be altogether political," said
a parson to Cobbett, who promptly retorted : " Very much
so, indeed ; and well it may^ — since I have been furnished v/ith
a creed which makes part of an Act of Parliament."
Behind Cobbett 's bracing egotism always loomed the
spectre of the dispossessed.
It seems strange that Cobbett managed to escape the
pedantry of the self-educated man who sets up as school-
master to every living being. He seems to have plucked the
bones and sinews out of syntax and made from them a living
masterpiece when he sat down to write. He wrote like
one talking to a friend in a gale of wind. He spoke and
wrote as no one ever spoke and wrote before. We know that
with his intensely English nature Cobbett repudiated all
claims to genius, which he seems to have regarded as some-
thing lower than industry. But was there not after aU a
streak of genius in Cobbett ? Who but one v/ho had the eye
of a literary genius could visualise wretched girls working
in fields as " ragged as colts and as pale as ashes." Who but
a genius with a colossal ignorance of philosophical writings
could have written in a book on grammar : " It is the mind
that lives ; and the length of life ought to be measured by the
numbers and importance of our ideas and not by the number
of our days."
Cobbett's ambition v/as to write a history of England.
12 INTRODUCTION,
" We do not want to consume your time," he wrote, " over a
dozen pages about Edward III dancing at a ball and picking up
a lady's garter and making that garter the foundation of an order
of knighthood, bearing the motto of Honi soit qui mal y pense.
It is not stuff like this ; but we want to know what was the
state of the people ; what were a labourer's wages ; what were
the prices of food ; and how the labourers were dressed in the
reign of that great king."
But Cobbett did something better than write history.
He made history. It was his turbulent vital force surging
through England in his day that swept away the worst
degradations of our Poor Law administration in rufal dis-
tricts, and that gave the English labourer the status of a
man in place of a cypher in an endless line of dependents
waiting upon public charity for the right to live. No man
has pictured rural England as vividly as Cobbett has done,
and no one has fought more valiantly for its redemption from
a soulless feudalism which neither acknowledged the ties and
duties of kinship nor the right to freedom of thought and action .
He lived through the terrible year of the Labourers'
Revolt of 1830, and the influence of Cobbett during that year
which had so tragic an issue for the English labourer was so
great that " Cobbett, who spent his superb strength in a
magnificent onslaught on the governing class, might have
made of the race whose wrongs he pitied as his own, an
army no less resolute and disciplined than the army O'Con-
nell made of the broken peasants of the West." ^
Cobbett 's supreme effort was made in his seventieth
year. Within seven days of the scandalous trial and brutal
sentence of seven years' transportation of the six Dorset
farm labourers, whose sole crime was that they had
sworn loyalty to a trade union, Cobbett presented at the
Bar of the House of Commons a petition signed by 12,000
persons. His hand lighted a beacon which blazed over the
whole of Britain.
The next year — 1835 — Cobbett died. In that year, a
Warwickshire lad but nine years old was scaring crows for
twelve hours a day for a wage of 4d. a day. His name was
Joseph Arch.
' The Village Labourer, J. L. and Barbara Hammond,
PART ONE
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT
CONDITIONS PRIOR TO 1872.
Those of us who are not old enough to have any vivid
recollection of rustic life in the 'sixties and 'seventies are
dependent upon the imaginative writers for our impressions
of that period. When we were young the impression
these writers left upon our minds was that the EngUsh far-
mer was either a stern and just person, or a genial, hospit-
able man, fond of his bottle ; and the labourer, a submissive,
uneducated creature, with an inordinate respect for " the
gentry," and a giant consumer of beer and bacon.
Though the farmer appears in many of the novels of the
period as a full-length portrait, an outline only of the
labourer is sketched. More often than not he appears as
one of a vUlage chorus, for even in the novels of Thomas
Hardy and George Eliot, the villagers portrayed were
carriers, or " tranters," wheelwrights, publicans, small shop-
keepers, and dair57men or blacksmiths. The toiler of the fields
by reason of his isolation and unceasing hours of labour was
often deprived of entering into much of the social life of
the vOage.
Perhaps the fullest picture we have of rural life in the
Midlands is to be found in the leisurely pages of Middle-
march, and of an earlier date in Adam Bede, with its
incomparable Mrs. Poyser. Middlemarch was published in
1872, and yet in it we get no intimate study of the men and
women who form by far the largest part of the agriciiltural
community ; no indication of an unrest leading up to the
climax of the "revolt of the field " of that year.
Amongst the lords of the soil who shone like stars in
13
14 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Meredith's firmament there was little room for the cottager.
We get a glimpse of a senile rustic like Master Gammon,
or an Andrew Hedger, who " could eat a hog a solid hower."
As characters the labourers are clowns, though Meredith
knew full weU the part they played in English rural life
was something greater, for into the mouth of Matey Wey-
burn he puts these words :
" Here in England, and particularly on a fortnight's run in the
Lowlands of Scotland once, I have, like you, my lady, come now
and then across people we call common, men and women, old
wayside men especially ; slow-minded, but hard in their grasp
of facts, and ready to learn, and logical, large in their ideas,
though going a roundabout way to express them. They were
at the bottom of wisdom, for they had in their heads a delicate
sense of justice, upon which wisdom is founded. That is what
their rulers lack. Unless we have the sense of justice abroad
like a common air there's no peace, and no steady advance.
But these humble people had it. They reasoned from it, and
came to sound conclusions. I felt them to be my superiors.
On the other hand I have not felt the same, with ' our senators,
rulers, and lawgivers.' They are for the most part deficient in
the liberal mind." ^
Even Thomas Hardy, who by birth and early training
had perhaps more opportunities of studying the hired farm
servant than either George Eliot or George Meredith,
rarely took the trouble to make him the protagonist in his
novels. Gabriel Oak, the shepherd in Far from the Madding
Crowd, was an exception, it is true, but Hardy was always
too interested in the labourer's daughter to give her father
a prominent place in the social setting. Nevertheless in
The Woodlanders and Under the Greenwood Tree he presents
us with wonderful backgrounds to peasant life in Dorset,
and Hardy's perspective ranges from the 'forties to the
'eighties of Jude the Obscure.
If we place by the side of these novels such books as The
Revolt of the Field, by Arthur Clayden ; Mr. W. H. Hudson's
A Shepherd's Life ; English Farming Past and Present, by
R. E. Prothero ; Joseph Arch's Autobiography ; The
Agricultural Lockout, 1874, by Frederick Clifford, The Times
1 Lord Ormont and, His Aminta, By George Meredith.
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 15
Commissioner ; The English Peasant, by Richard Heath ;
The English Peasantry, by Francis George Heath ; Arcady,
by Dr. Jessopp, or the works of Richard JefiEeries, not
to prolong the list, we find that the characters por-
trayed by our novelists, though true perhaps individually,
become a little out of perspective when placed cheek by
jowl with the entire race of farm workers.
There were stern and just farmers, no doubt ; there were
generous and hospitable farmers ; there were stupid and
ignorant labourers ; there were labourers who consumed a
good deal of bacon and ale or cider ; and there is no doubt
that the hired men who boarded with farmers lived well.
One or two of the declining race of old labourers who stiU
wear the sinockfrock have told me of their experiences of
living in the farmhouse in the 'sixties and 'seventies.
" "There is nuthin' like a bit 0' fat pork," remarked one
of these, an Old- Age Pensioner, to me one day, " but it must
be in brine twelve months, mind you. Nowadays a boo-
tiful piece of pork is left in brine for a month, and out it
come, ruined ! Ah, I minds the day when I were a boy at
Cutluck Farm and the missus usen to gie me a fat lump 0'
pork to souse in the bread and mUk, and a pint o' ale to
drink. No washy tea, mind yer. We never touched
butter in those days ; and we had pork agen inside the
apple dumplin' for dinner. Ah, them was the days o' good
feedin' for the Ukes o' we. They made good hard cheeses
at the farm then. I mind once we pegged the clasp o' a
field gate with a stick o' cheese as hard as a bar of iron."
Thus I, too, have met the Andrew Hedgers. But very
few Andrew Hedgers who were married men living in cot-
tages would have the opportunity of eating " hog for a
solid hower " if it had to be purchased out of wages ranging
from 9s. to I2s. a week. There was something lacking in
the novelist's pictures of perennial harvest homes ; of farm
kitchens groaning under the weight of gargantuan dump-
lings and pitchers of beer ; of patriarchal friendly relation-
ships between master and man seated at the same board
together. To get the right perspective we should have to
open the cupboard of the farm labourer's wife and figure
i6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
•
out, as did Mr. Wilson Fox and Mr. Rowntree in later and
more prosperous periods, how they fared on the contents
of that cupboard.
The rural labourer, deprived of the opportunity to exer-
cise peasant thrift through the Enclosures Acts, which from
1760 to 1867 put a fence round 7,000,000 acres over which
the peasant's cow, his donkey, his geese, fowls, or swine
used to graze, and from which he derived fuel for his house-
hold, fodder for his beasts, and even corn for his daily bread,
had now little else to sell but his labour, and the labour
of his family. It is difficult to see what course was open
to him as a voteless, voiceless man, if the farmers refused
to meet him, but to strike.
In spite of the fact that Land Commissioners had instruc-
tions to reserve sufficient Common land for the needs of
the rural poor, even in as late a period as from 1845 to 1867
out of the 614,800 acres enclosed, the Enclosure Commis-
sioners had only assigned 2,223 to the poor.i This fact alone
must have been within the living memory of most of Arch's
men, and no doubt it rankled in their minds, as it did in
the minds of the rural poor in the days of Arthur Young,
tliat so many acres had been enclosed, not to grow corn,
but to make parks and shooting preserves for a new class
of landed plutocracy.
Save where hamlets lay remote from towns on the slopes
of the northern hills, or amid the mountains of Wales, the
self-contained village was vanishing as fast as the stage coach.
No longer were labourers' wives baking their own bread,
brewing their own beer, curing their own bacon, gathering
fuel from the copse or common for their open grates or
bread-ovens, or making their own wine or cider. With the
abolition of the turnpikes the little village shop began
to be driven out of existence by the smart provision mer-
chants who, now that the barrier of a toll had been removed,
invaded the villages.
The Reports of the Royal Commission of 1867 " give us
^ Report of the Inclosures of Commons, 1869.
" The Royal Commission of 1867 was appointed first to inquire into
the employment of children, young persons and women in agriculture.
The inquiry was extended to men workers.
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 17
at any rate an official view of the conditions of the agri-
cultural labourer in England and Wales five years before
Arch's movement.
We find the Northumberland hind then as to-day was
the aristocrat of agricultural labourers, and with him might
be placed the dalesmen of Cumberland and Westmoreland,
the men of Durham and North Lancashire. These men,
hired yearly, receiving continuous wages in fair or foul wea-
ther, boarding and even sometimes sleeping with their
employers, retained some of the benefits of an old-world
feudalism which the southern labourer had entirely lost,
receiving nothing in its place.
He was much better fed than the southern labourer,
and when married and living in his own cottage, his wife,
instead of going out to work in the fields, stayed at home.
The daughter, though, worked out of doors at every kind of
farm work, from loading dung carts to driving horses and
working in the barns.
Illegitimacy was rife, and this was largely due to the
fact that cottages were scarce, bad, and overcrowded, and
the hired unmarried man who wished to marry, very often
the maidservant in the house, had to wait many years
before he could get a cottage of his own.
There was a certain disadvantage in being paid in kind,
which was a common practice in these northern counties,
in that when the harvest was bad the labourer was paid in
bad corn and bad potatoes.
It can be readily understood that where " living in "
was the custom, allotments were not popular. The married
men preferred the use of a field where they could keep
a cow. The income of a Northumbrian family was reckoned
at £60 9s. 6d. The children seem to have had an abun-
dance of milk and the girls who worked in the fields devel-
oped into a more muscular race than their sisters of the
south who were driven to resort to indoor industries for
a living.
In Yorkshire, cash wages, as in the more northern counties,
were on an average 2s. 6d. a day for the man, is. for his
wife, and lod. to is. for a child, apart from harvest earnings,
VOL. II. C
i8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Sometimes grass land was granted for a cow in place of allot-
ments. The old custom of hiring farm servants by the year
was still fairly general, and as in the other northern counties
the farm workers were more particular about keeping their
children at school and there was little evidence of the
prevalence of the gang system.
In Derbyshire a labourer earned on the average 15s. a
week. Hired servants received £14 to £18 a year. The
Dorset labourer engaged himself, like the Northumbrian
labourer, for a year, receiving part of his income in kind ;
but unlike the Northumbrian hind he was driven to sell
the labour of his family, as well as his own, at a very low
price. In Dorset wages were 8s. with, and 9s. without a
cottage. Married men had besides certain privileges, or
perquisites. Sometimes these privileges consisted simply
of cider or beer, sometimes of a potato patch ploughed and
manured, or of fuel or a certain amount of wheat at or under
the market price. But no farmer gave all these privileges
together, and the goods when supplied were often so bad
that even when allowed on a market price they were paid
for at their full value. Deductions made for payments in
kind were so great that the labourer often had not a shilling
left after his week's work. Besides this, the employers seem
to have exercised a cruel mastery over labour, in claiming
the labour of sometimes the entke family at a very low
wage, and if the older boys left their employers in disgust,
their fathers would be given notice on the ground that the
family was not large enough to do the work. In spite of
the labourer being hired by the year he was paid nothing
in times of illness. A man's wages, including additions
from all sources, and if he was fortunate enough never to be
iU, would be from los. to iis. ; his grown-up sons received
a few shillings less, and the women who worked on the land
received either 6d. or 8d. a day ; but if the larger sum was
munificently awarded, then the man would have to take
less in allowances. Children were often forced to work with
their fathers at six years old, or even younger. Without
the patch of potato ground or the allotment the Commis-
isoner failed to see how the family could earn sufficient to
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 19
support life, and the granting of allotments was not an act
of grace on any one's part. It had to be paid for, often at
the rent of £4 an acre in the county from which six men
were transported for joining a union in 1834. The con-
ditions of Devonshire I describe farther on, but I may
say here that the Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Portman,
found Canon Girdlestone's account substantially correct.
The men of Hampshire enjoyed a wage of los. or iis.
and the women 8d. a day. In this county, as in Dorset,
women were employed weeding in the cornfields, spreading
manure or picking stones.
In Kent women and children were extensively employed,
especially at the hop-picking season, when every child that
could walk was wanted, and it was estimated that every
one over twelve years of age could earn on the average from
IS. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a week for a pejriod of three weeks.
Cockneys made their yearly economic pilgrimage into the
country for the hop-harvest. Otherwise the conditions in
Kent were similar to those of Essex and Sussex, except that
Sussex seems to have been free from the gang system which
still operated in the counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk,
Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. In most of these coun-
ties children from seven to ten years of age were seen work-
ing in the fields. In south Cambridgeshire labourers re-
ceived los. to us., and in the northern parts 12s. to 13s.,
whilst the women's wage was only lod. a.nd a child's from
4d. to 6d. a day. The evils of the gang system, both pri-
vate and public, were very much in evidence in this county,
where children of even six years of age were employed.
In too many cases the Commissioner who made the Report
said there was a silent understanding between farmer and
labourer by which the latter was employed aU the year
round, and in return the labour of the wife and children was
put at the employer's disposal. It is difficult to make any
kind of marked distinction between this kind of " free
labour " and serfdom.
In Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire conditions seem
to have been slightly better, especially in regard to the em-
ployment of children of tender years,.the average earnings of
20 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
a labourer being 13s. 6d. to 14s. 6d. per week. In Northamp-
tonshire boys were employed as early as eight years of age,
the man getting from iis. to 13s., and the woman from 8d.
to IS. a day. Lincoln and Nottingham presented a con-
trast. There were men employed at yearly contracts of from
£40 to £45 and a lower stratum of men, almost paupers,
irregularly employed, moving about on the gang system,
under which were also found children of the tenderest years.
In one half of Nottinghamshire gangs of children went
stone-picking practically all the summer, and even through
part of the winter, and at eight years of age were con-
sidered old enough to lead plough horseis !
In Leiceffetershire the standard of hfe was very low.
Wages ranged from iis. to 13s., and boys of nine to twelve
years of age were regularly employed for ploughing, whilst
those even younger were put into the fields to scare birds.
In Oxfordshire and Berkshire wages were said to
range from 12s. 6d. to 14s. 6d., though this statement has
been qualified by another that young men of eighteen or
twenty received from 8s. to iis. per week.^ lads of fifteen
and upwards, 5s. to los., whilst boys of ten or twelve
received 3s. to 4s.
As glove-making and the slop clothing trade were in com-
petition with agriculture in these counties it seems strange
tha,t women could be found to work for 8d. per day, which
was the usual rate ; but possibly, as elsewhere, pressure
was brought to bear upon the husbands.
Shropshire presented a picture of serfdom similar to that
which flourished in Dorset. Wages or allowances seemed
to be a matter which depended upon the goodwill of the
farmer. No contract seems to have been entered into
between master and man. Hours were unlimited, and the
payment for overtime took the form of a meal given or not
at the pleasure of the employer. So bad were the cottages
that married labourers were often boarded in the farmhouses.
In Surrey wages varied as much as from 12s. in western
Surrey, to 15s. in the neighbourhood of London ; in War-
1 It was the custom in some districts in the Midlands to pay a married
man a little more than a single man.
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 21
wickshire from iis. in the south to 13s. in the northern
manufacturing districts. In Wiltshire and Herefordshire
they were as low as from 9s. to iis. and in Worcestershire
from 9s. to I2S. Shepherds and carters, here as elsewhere,
received about 2S. a week more than the ordinary labourer.
Cheshire 'was then almost entirely under permanent
pasture. Small dairy farmers were numerous and they
lodged their regular labourers in their own farmhouses ;
the wives being employed to milk the cows. Maidservants
appear to have received high wages and were apparently
so scarce that they could have the key of the house one night
a week. Cash wages, however, were low, only from us. to
I2s.,and though allotments were rare, many labourers pos-
sessed pasture for a cow. These cow pastures were com-
mon also in Shropshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Rutland,
Derbyshire and Wales.
Another pastoral county, Somersetshire, paid much
lower wages ; 8s. a week was quite common, though near
Bristol I2S. a week had to be paid.
In Wales, the social standard of farmers and labourers
was almost the same. Labourers were generally boarded
in the farmhouse. Many small farms employed no labour
at all, every member of the family working, often without
wages, and the employer became himself a kind of head
shepherd. Yet wages near the great coal mines were nat-
urally higher than in other parts of Wales. In Montgomery-
. shire, for instance, wages ranged from 15s. to 18s. in summer,
whilst in Anglesea they were only us. to 12s. A large
number of imported children were employed and it was
not uncommon for boys of ten years of age to work as
servants on a farm for eight months of the year, receiving
6d. and their board.
The foregoing is a summary of the Reports of the Com-
mission of 1867. Now we will turn to Canon Girdlestone's .
account of conditions in Devonshire, which historically is
important, for no doubt it was Girdlestone's successful
attempt to migrate labourers from the low paying to the
higher paid counties which induced Arch to organise a
system of migration and emigration on a national scale.
22 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
We get more than a glimpse into the labourer's life in
the south-west counties of England six years previous to
Arch's movement in the story of Canon Girdlestone's
incumbency. Canon Girdlestone became the Vicar of
Halberton, near Tiverton, in the county of Devon, in 1866,
He found there labourers who were forced to live on 7s. or
8s. a week with additional allowances, such as cider for
ordinary labourers, and either a cottage or an extra shil-
ling for the carters and shepherds whose hours were longer.
The price for extra work in harvest time was their supper,
for seldom any additional wages were paid except in cases
where the harvest work was done as piece work. Fuel was
only given to the labourer when he " grubbed up " a hedge.
In very many cases the peasant of North Devon was for-
bidden -by the farmer to keep a pig, or even poultry, for fear
he might steal the food for fattening them. Potato ground
could only be rented by the labourer from the farmer at a
rack rent — very frequently four and five times the rent
paid by the farmer to his landlord.
The food of the North Devon agricultural labourer con-
sisted of " tea-kettle broth " for breakfast. This appetising
dish was made by putting into a basin several slices of dry
bread which were then soaked by having hot water poured
upon them seasoned with a sprinkling of salt, with the addi-
tion sometimes of an onion or half a teaspoon of milk.
But milk, it appeared, was rarely obtainable, for this pre-
cious food was too valuable to waste on the labourer, and
almost invariably, when there was a surplus, was given to
the pig. Lunch consisted of bread and hard dry pieces
of skim-milk cheese. Dinner consisted of the same fare.
Supper, which was eaten at the conclusion of the day's
work, consisted, as a rule, of potatoes and cabbage flavoured,
when the labourer was allowed to keep a pig, by a tiny piece
of bacon. Butcher's meat was enjoyed on Sundays only.
Women were compelled to work for 74. or 8d. a day.
They did not wish to do so because the wear and tear of
clothes very nearly outbalanced this economic advantage,
but the agreement made between their husbands and the
farmer generally bound them to this form of serfdom.
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 23
The drinking water was supplied by the village brook
and exposed wells, into which oozed the filth from open
sewers. The labourer at that time had one privilege as a
citizen ; he could vote at a vestry meeting, which was then
the body to elect guardians, wa5rwardens, and overseers.
But Canon Girdlestone states that he never saw a labourer
at a vestry or any other meeting.
When Girdlestone began his campaign the farmers of
Halberton did not appear to be overflowing with the mUk
of htiman kindness. The Canon relates an incident of a
carter who v/as crushed by a restive horse in his master's
stable through no fault of the man.
" Through his injury he was laid up and his wages were
immediately stopped by his master, who refused to give him any
sort of assistance. This was not all. The man occupied a
cottage belonging to his master, and being a carter he held his
cottage rent free as part of the wages. During the whole of the
time he was disabled he was not merely refused a single penny
of his wages, but the rent of the cottage was charged to him, and
the amount was deducted each week from the wages of his son,
who worked for the same farmer." ^
Other cases of callousness on the employer's part are
related by the Canon, but I will cite only one of them.
A wagoner had his ribs broken by courageously rushing
at a horse's head when the animal had taken fright. For
two months he was confined to his bed. His employer,
the farmer, refused to give him one sixpence of wages.
But apparently farmers in those days were not supposed
to pay their men when they were injured, even when they
were injured in doing dangerous and skilful work for their
employer. One comes across such a case in W. H. Hud-
son's A Shepherd's Life. Caleb, the shepherd, in relating
the incident to Mr. Hudson — and it must have taken place
at about this period^ — did not feel at aU resentful that the
farmer paid him not a penny piece during the six weeks he
was laid up after having his system poisoned by dipping
sheep. His resentment was only against another, who was
secretary of a benefit village club which Caleb had sub-
1 British Rural Life and Labour, by F. G. Heath.
24 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
scribed to for thirty years, and who, because he had a spite
against the shepherd, refused to pay him the allowance of
6s. a week due to him by the rules of the club, until forced
to do so by a court of law.
However, though the villagers of Halberton had bad
masters they had a good parson.
" How is it possible," he asked himself, " on such wretched
wages for a man to house, to feed and clothe not only himself
but his wife and children ; and to pay, in addition, the doctor and
the midwife when their services were required ; to provide
shoes, fuel, light, such incidental expenses as school fees, and, in
fact, many other items which cannot be enumerated, but which
entered nevertheless into the cost of living." ^
He tried speaking to the farmers privately, but as this
proved fruitless he preached a sermon which raised a ter-
rible storm in the parish. At the time a cattle plague was
raging, and he took for his text. Behold the hand of the Lord
is upon thy cattle. He asked the farmers " if they did not
think that God had sent the plague as a judgment upon
them for the manner in which they treated their labourers,
to whom they had been accustomed to give less considera-
tion than to their cattle."
The farmers now became offensive. When the annual
tithe dinner took place it was pre-arranged that when the
Vicar's health was proposed, the glasses instead of being fiUed
should be reversed empty. After this, the Canon wrote a
letter to The Times giving a clear statement of the wages,
and of the condition of the agricultural labourer in the north
of Devon.
This started the migration movement. Letters came
from all parts of England and Ireland ; some from employ-
ers offering better wages and homes ; other containing
money put at the Canon's disposal for the cost of migrat-
ing families. Then open war was declared against the
Canon in his own district, not only by the farmers but also
by the squires and clergy.
At the Easter Vestry in 1867 one indignant farmer told
the Canon in language which cannot be printed that he
» British Rural Life and Labour, by F. G. Heath.
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 25
" was not fit to carry offal to a bear." Two or three days
afterwards this extraordinary scene was the subject of a
cartoon in Punch. The ladies of the Girdlestone family
had to suffer insults ; but this did not deter the brave
parson from carrying on his admirable work for six years,
and in that period between four and five hundred men were
sent away to Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Kent, Sus-
sex, and other counties. The migratory movement spread
from Devonshire into Wiltshire and Somersetshire and gen-
erally with a northward tendency. Canon Girdlestone
left Devonshire in June 1872 for Gloucestershire ; and there
is no doubt that the publicity given to the conditions of
life in Devon, in the Press, paved the way for Arch's
movement.
The labourer's life in the Midlands, fortunately for him,
was better than in Devon. Herefordshire in 1871 had
formed a Union in the village of Leintwardine where it was
backed up by the Rector — a most unusual occurrence in those
days. It spread over six counties and boasted of 30,000
members-. " Emigration, Migration, but not Strikes," was
its motto, and probably it was instrumental in raising wages
in some of the Midland counties from gs. or los. to iis.
or I2S. a week. This Union carried on Canon Girdlestone's
work of migration by sending labourers into Yorkshire,
Lancashire, and Staffordshire, where wages were a few
shillings a week higher.
In Herefordshire the farm labourer in addition to his
los. to I2s. a week would get two rows of potatoes in one
of the fields, a supply of skim milk and an occasional rabbit.
Meat was of course a luxury seldom indulged in. Bacon
took its place. The most common dish was one called
" flummery " made from oatmeal with the water drained
off. The pot would be put on the centre of the table and
folk would help themselves. They would dip their spoons
into the jelly-like mixture and then plunge the spoon into
a bowl of milk before carrying it to the mouth. I am told
by one who has often eaten it that the niixture had a sour
taste.
There were no stated hours of work ; frequently men
26 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
would be up feeding the horses from 3.30 or 4 o'clock a.m.,
and working in the fields until six o'clock or dusk. The only
hoUdays known were the hiring fairs, or the horse and cattle
fairs ; the only recreations were the club, or the chapel
and church festivals. The very devout thought nothing
of walking miles to a prayer meeting, even over the hills in
bad weather.
" My father," a friend teUs me, " once walked thirty
mUes — fifteen miles each way — ^to a prayer meeting. My
mother would hide his boots in the attempt to prevent him
from going. He read nothing but his Bible, and could
recite long passages from memory. Newspapers he never
read ; not even for the prices beasts and wool were fetching.
He got his knowledge from the ordinary market-day
gossip."
Education, when obtainable, consisted of reading, writing,
the catechism and elementary arithmetic.
It was usual for one man on each large farm to act as
barber, cutting the hair of all the men, and even that of the
farmer's family. New clothes were an event, and lasted
many years. The tailor would come to a farm and stay
several days. The parlour fire would be Ut by the housewife
and he would sit there aU day by himself perched cross-
legged on the table making clothes.
In the thrifty farmer's house the stockings and socks
would be knitted at home from the wool obtained from
his own sheep. Very little coal was burned. Fuel was
obtained from the hedges and woods and those v/ho still
possessed brick ovens for baking bread cut gorse from the
hills.
Courting, in Herefordshire and Rutland in those
strenuous days, my friend tells me, was mostly done
during the night. The lover wotdd set out for the
home of his sweetheart about nine or ten o'clock. If
unexpected, he would inform her of his arrival by a shower
of gravel thrown against her bedroom window. She would
dress and come down, replenish the kitchen fire and make
him a meal. They would spend the night thus ; the man
returning home in the early hours of the morning. If he
SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 2^
arrived at his sweetheart's house before the family had
retired, the parents would go to bed and leave the couple
in possession without question or chaperone !
But these idylls of casements with diamond panes were
surely more often played at farmhouses than at cottages,
where fev/ daughters could boast a bedroom to themselves.
As for bed-linen, a friend of mine, Reuben Streeter by
name, of Ewood, tells me he can remember sleeping under
sheets " as coarse as a wagon cloth." As a boy of eleven
he was made to attend to the stabling of six cart horses
and help with the ploughing for a wage of is. a week and
his food. That was in the 'sixties. By 1872 his mind and
aching body were ripe for the teachings of Joseph Arch.
PART TWO
THE UPSTANDING CROP
1872
The Revolt of the Field as the agricultural labourers' move-
ment of 1872 has been called, was one which sprang from the
agricultural labourers' cottage home with its empty larder,
and from no other source. At its birth it was an economic,
not a poltical revolt. It was a cry for bread, and not for
votes.
" The agricultural labourer of 1873," wrote Mr. Herbert
Paul, " coals- and blankets notwithstanding, was worse lodged
and worse fed than the cattle. . . . The wages earned did not
suffice for the decent maintenance of more than a single indivi-
dual. If he had a family he was dependent either upon aid
from outside or at least from his own children." ^
Indeed, it might be said that the histoiy of the agricul-
tural labourer from 1870 to 1914 is a story of the keen heroic
edge of life endured on cash wages rising and falling between
2s. and 3s. a day.
It is true that later on its leader, Joseph Arch, despite
his own early convictions, converted the movement into
a political one ; but there is no doubt that at the beginning
of the revolt Arch himself presented a cold shoulder both
to the professional politician and to the professional trade
union organiser. Had he listened less to the blandishments
of the politician and more to the advice of the trade union
organiser, he would probably have saved his union from
the wreckage of later days.
No trade union organiser came out from the towng to
agitate amongst the agricultural labourers in country places
1 History of Modern England, by Herbert Paul.
28
THE UPSTANDING CROP 29
where chimneys were far apart and organisation not only
difficult but expensive. No politician troubled about
Hodge, who had no vote to give. The politician visited
the vicar, the squire and the farmer, but left the labourer
severely alone.
The newly enfranchised (1867) town workman and the
trade unionist (1871) of the growing industrial areas who
had wrung concessions of legal protection from an unwilling
Liberal Ministry had, it appeared, taken little notice of
farm workers until they, driven by want and long hours of
toil, began to take concerted action in a fbrm the townsmen
understood.
The first note of the new movement was sounded in Feb-
ruary, 1872, by a few labourers of West erton-under- Weather-
ley, a village near Leamington, who stated their miserable
condition in a letter written to a local newspaper. This
letter was read by other labourers in Charlecote, near Willes-
bourne, and they decided to form a club. Then this club of
eleven labourers sent a deputation to Barford to wait upon
Joseph Arch, a well-known hedge-cutter, who had trained
himself to speak with considerable force as a Primitive
Methodist preacher.
Now Arch was forty-six years of age, and had apparently
no political or trade tmion designs of any national signifi-
cance, until this group of his fellow-labourers asked him
to come and help them to deliver themselves out of their
conditions of chronic poverty. He, hke them, knew nothing
about trade union organisation. They wanted to be able
to buy more food for themselves and their families, and they
wanted to shorten their long hours of labour. They were
voteless and uneducated. They had only one weapon to
use ; that weapon was the right to say, " We shall not work,
we will starve outright rather than submit to our present
condition of semi-starvation." But it was useless for one or
two to say this. It must be one mighty shout coming from
the lungs of a long-suffering race. The one weapon forged
in the fire of their breasts was the Strike.
Mr. George Edwards, who was a member of Arch's
Union, tells us that Arch hesitated, as he was not sure of his
30 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
class, and knew that it would be a great upheaval. Mr.
Edwards says it was Mrs. Arch who persuaded her husband
to respond to the call. His hesitation was natural, for he
tells us that as he walked the muddy lanes towards Welles-
bourne he recalled the transportation of the six men who
formed a labourers' union in Dorsetshire. Perhaps he
also imaged the brutal hangings of 1831 on manufactured
evidence, and the end of many a village Hampden who had
left his bones on the shores of Botany Bay. But just as
starving men were willing to risk hanging for sheep-stealing,
so half-starving men, as Arch described them, were willing
to risk the boycott, the lock-out, and even imprisonment to
raise themselves above the line of abject poverty. No
one knew the trials of the farm worker better than Arch.
He had lived on barley bread in the year that Cobbett died,
because his father had refused to sign a petition against the
abolition of the Corn Laws, and but for his mother's earnings
he might have starved outright. He said he had often
thought about the conditions of labourers whilst thrashing
a hedge with a hook, or tramping many a mile in search of
work, though, as for himself, he had left gs. a week behind
him for many a year, since he was famed for his skill as a
hedge-cutter.
During the golden years dating from 1852, wliich accord-
ing to some authorities ran on until 1874, the British fai-mers
" prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good seasons." ^
It was the period of which Gladstone said the prosperity of
the country was advancing by " leaps and bounds."
During the 'fifties and 'sixties, not only did good harvests
succeed each other with clockwork regularity, but farmers
had the benefit of their fields being drained by pipes, which
Peel was responsible for in 1846 in his measure of Govern-
ment Drainage Loan to landlords at 6 J per cent. ; and land-
lords were not behindhand in raising their rents, which they
increased by 20 per cent.^
The farmers, too, began to reap the benefit of discoveries
in fertilisers such as ground bones, guano, superphosphates
* A Short History English Agriculture, by W. H. R. Curtler.
' English Farming, by R. E. Prothero.
THE UPSTANDING CROP 31
of lime, and nitrate of soda. Reapers had come into use ;
roads had been improved ; and railways gave the farmers the
advantage of dealing quickly with the rapidly growing urban
centres of population. The ghost the farmers feared — Free
Trade — had been laid for a time by high corn prices which
during a period of twenty years, from 1853-72 were sustained
at an average of 54s. 3d. per quarter. What moral excuse
the farmers had for paying low wages during this period
it is difficult to imagine. Perhaps they considered no
excuse was necessary, for unfortunately the suppliants
for work outnumbered the jobs and the taskmasters could
dictate their own terms.
Many of the large f aimers in a good agricultural county
like Lincolnshire, lived in considerable comfort and even
luxury, as became men who'had invested large sums in their
farms. Some farmers had invested as much as ;£20,ooo in
their business, and kept carriages, hunters, and servants. '
Landowners were growing rich, too, and many a palatial
country house was built during this period. The rich, as
represented by the landlords and farmers, became richer.
On the other hand, the poor, as represented by the labourer,
still remained, during these golden years, in the depths of
poverty. The gulf between farmer and labourei, at one
time barely perceptible, widened. The labourers were ill-
fed, ill-housed, scantUy clothed, uneducated, and voteless.
Since the brutal repressions of 1830 and 1834, crushed in
body and spirit, they had endured all in silence. That silence
was now about to be broken ; and Arch knew that a silence
so long maintained was a dangerous silence. Would the
released pent-up feeling be expressed by blazing ricks and
broken machines ? The spectre of the gibbet^ — or of the
cross — must have haunted the road which led Arch to
Wellesbourne.
Wages touched as low a figure as 7s. in some of the south-
western cormties, and even in the industrial north they did
not appear to be higher than 15s. Prices, it is true, for
many commodities had fallen 30 per cent. , but rents of cot-
tages had increased 100 per cent, and meat 70 per cent.
» A Short History of English Agriculture, by W. H. R. Curtler.
32 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Meat, though, was haidly seen on the labourer's table save
on Sundays. Tea was 6s. to 7s. a pound, sugar 8d., and
bread 7 Jd. a loaf. " Labourers stole turnips for food and
every other man was a poacher." ^ Family earnings were
reduced by the fact that children were beginning to be sent
to school. The usual food of the labourer was potatoes,
dry bread, greens, herbs, kettle-broth, weak tea, and bacon
sometimes. This kettle broth seemed to have been the
common food in the southern counties, so we find by the
evidence collected by Mr. Austin.
And indeed the labourer was httle if any better off than
eighty years before. It was a mystery, says Mr. Curtler,
even to farmers, how they lived in many parts of the country.
But it seems to me that it was a mystery that farmers them-
selves could easily have solved. Small wonder was it that
little children began to learn Joseph Arch's grace : —
O Heavenly Father bless us
And keep us all alive ;
There are ten of us to dinner
And food for only five.
Everywhere Aixh and his men could see farmhouses being
enlarged, and country mansions being erected, and the
labourer compelled to hve in cottages which can only be
described as hovels. Not only were they hovels, but the
effects of the old Settlement Law were still felt in the
country parishes, making landowners loth to build cottages
for fear of their ill-paid labourers becoming chargeable to
the parish. Not only were men kept poor, but they and
their families were subjected to degrading circumstances.
Cobden tells us that " at Stourpaine, in Dorset, one
bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by eleven
people of all ages and both sexes with no curtain or partition
whatever ; and that at Milton Abbas on the average of the
last census there were thirty-six persons in each house, and
so crowded were they that cottagers with a desire for de-
cency would combine and place all the males in one cottage
and aU the females in another." Thus it was their collective
will in this instance protected them from moral degradation.
' A Short History of English Agriculture, by W. H. R. Curtler.
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 33
Apparently, those who ruled cared naught for how the
labourer was housed or fed.
The labourer was smarting in his spirit as well as suffering
from low wages and bad housing. He was being policed
in a manner he had never been poHced before. The Poaching
Prevention Act of 1862 made every man liable to the indig-
nity of being assailed and searched by a policeman, without a
warrant. The rural poor felt this more keenly than the
physical hardships of their lives. At that time it v?as a
very common practice for men who had been wood-felling
or cutting underwood to carry home with them baskets of
chips and dead wood, which were their perquisites. Women,
too, who had been working in the fields cleaning turnips
commonly carried home a few turnips in their aprons. This
was an understood thing at a time when farmers paid them
the miserable wages amounting to about a penny an hom-.
After the Act came into operation every village man and
woman returning home from work carrying a bundle was
an object of suspicion, and the police again and again way-
laid honest men and women and charged them with stealing
turnips, or wood, if they failed to find them in possession
of game. Angry labourers would resent the indignity of a
search, and a scufHe would sometimes take place, resulting
in a charge of assault.
The villager has his own ethical code about poaching.
There were poaching gangs, but they lived, morally, a set
apart from the ordinary villager, who, whilst he regarded the
regular poacher as having forfeited his claims to respecta--
bility, considered it peifectly legitimate to snare or knock
over a rabbit occasionally, in order to feed his half-starving
family. Arch, who said that he never poached, nevertheless
admitted that
" an honest labourer would think nothing of knocking over a
rabbit in the day-time if he saw it and it came in his way ; and
neither should I. I don't see any harm in it because in my
opinion ground game is wild. The plain truth is we labourers
do not believe hares and rabbits belong to any individual, not
any more than thrushes and blackbirds." ^
# * Mf *
• Evidence, 1873, Select Committee on the Game Laws.
VOL. II. D
34 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Arch held his first meeting mider the old chestnut tree
at Wellesbourne on February 7, 1872. He said he ex-
pected to find thirty or forty men there, instead of which
he found the place " as lively as a swarm of bees in June,
and an audience of nearly a thousand." It was a swarm
which had collected without the aid of a single circular or hand-
bill. Farm labourers carried the glad tidings in an hour
or two. Word was passed from cottage to cottage and farm
to farm. The spirit of the hive was soon made manifest.
All Wellesbourne village collected there, and men had
walked from Moreton, from Loxley, from Charlecot, from
Hampden Lucy and from Barford. The night was dark,
but the men had got together some bean poles and hung
lanterns on them. Arch was mounted on an old pig-stool,
and to quote his own words : —
" In the flickering light of the lanterns I saw the earnest
upturned faces of these poor brothers of mine — faces gaunt with
hunger and pinched with want — all looking towards me and ready
to listen to the words that would fall from my lips. These white
slaves of England with the darkness all about them, like the
children of Israel waiting for some one to lead them out of the
land of Egypt."
It must be remembered that Arch was a Methodist lay
preacher and the Book that he was in the habit of quoting
from was the one book his hearers knew. Dressed in a
pair of cord trousers, cord vest and an old flannel jacket
the hedge cutter was listened to in breathless silence for an
hour. A resolution was passed that a union should be
formed then and there, and between two and three hundred
names were taken down.
" That night, I knew," he says, " that a fire had been kindled
that would catch on and spread, and run abroad like sparks in
stubble : and I felt certain that this night we had set light to a
beacon which would prove a rallying point for the agricultural
labourers throughout the country."
It was fortunate for the newly born union that it received
a full sympathetic report in the Leamington Chronicle.
The editor of this journal, Mr. J. E. Matthew Vincent (the
virtual founder of the National Agricultural Labourers'
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 3^
Union), afterwards conducted the Labourers' Union Chroni-
cle, which, gave the vidon a wide publicity and acknowledged
in its columns every donation sent to its treasurer.
Though this historic meeting took place in the heart of
Shakespeare's England, it is doubtful if many of the men
and women who raised their voices or gave in their names,
had ever heard of their national poet. Certainly, we know
that Mr. Richard Heath on making a visit to Wellesbourne in
the same year questioned a baker's boy at Shottery within a
stone's throw of Anne Hathaway 's cottage if he had ever
heard of Shakespeare, and the boy said he had not.
Mr. Richard Heath ^ gives uS' a glimpse into the cottage
homes out of which streamed these men and women of
Shakespeare's England. In a cottage he visited stood a
great old grandfather's clock which nearly touched the ceil-
ing. On a rack stood a number of plates of the willow pat-
tern. The walls were decorated with religious pictures.
The woman had worked continuously in the fields couching
and weeding, ha5anaking and harvesting, picking up potatoes
and cleaning turnips, for lod. a day in summer and a
IS. a day in winter, working from eight in the morning
until five in the afternoon. The little children were often
left at home to mind themselves, and every now and then a
baby was burnt or scalded to death. " I have known
at least eight cases in which children left' at home have been
burnt or scalded to death," reported a Medical Officer of the
Union of Warwick. " I have occasionally known an opiate
in the shape of Godfrey's Cordial, or Daffy's Elixir given by
the mother to the children to keep them quiet." A boy
would have completed his education at the age of eight years,
and be sent out to work in the fields scaring crows or minding
sheep from six to six, getting up sometimes at half -past four
in the morning. At twelve years of age he would be driving
a dung cart.
Mr. Heath measured four old cottages standing in a row
together. He said they could not have been more than
eight feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Each contained two
rooms. " In one I found a woman with four children and
1 Golden Hours, 1872.
36 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
she was on the eve of adding to the number ; they aU slept,
six of them, in one small room." This was in the charming
hamlet of Shottery, which to-day is one of our show villages.
In the midst of this Shakespeare's England, on the 21st
February, 1872, a second meeting took place under the
chestnut tree at Wellesbourne. There was a larger crowd
and Arch declared that " nearly every policeman in the
county was there as well." More men joined the Union
and a committee and a secretary were appointed. Then
the following letter was drafted and served upon farmers
in the Wellesbourne district :
" Sir,—
" We jointly and severally request your attention to the
following requirements — ^namely 2s. 8d. per day for our labour ;
hours from six to five ; and to close at three on Saturday ; and
4d. an hour overtime. Hoping you will give this your fair
and honest consideration."
It will be seen from this letter how old is the persistent
cry for a few hours' leisure on one week-day.
The farmers treated the letter with contempt, and on March
nth about two hundred men came out on strike. It is
interesting to note that the shepherds and wagoners,who were
engaged by the month and who had a shilling a week more
than the ordinary labourer — a shilling a week more for a
seven-days week of interminable hours — did not come out.
Most of the men who struck were ordinary labourers earning
J2S., though there were others who were getting only gs.
or los. a week.
These men must have been in desperate straits before
they struck, for Arch declared that there was not a pound's
worth of silver amongst the lot, and nearly every man was
in debt to the shopkeeper. This indeed was not uncommon
in these times, for in one village Arch asked all men to hold
up their hands who were in debt to the shopkeeper : and
every hand was held up 1 The farmers expected a seven-
days strike, but they were soon disillusioned. The Press
took up the labourers' cause and wide pubhcity was given
to the grievances of the agricultural workers by Mr. J. E.
Matthew Vincent, the editor of the Leamington Chronicle,
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 37
and by the Daily News, which promptly sent Mr. Archibald
Forbes, its war correspondent, to Warwickshire. Mr.
Forbes' articles aroused so much public sympathy that
money began flowing in from the public-spirited men of the
towns. Urban trade unions, and the London Trades Council
in particular, took up the agricultural labourers' cause.
On the other hand the half-starved labourers found an
almost indescribable feeling of bitterness against them on
the part of the squirearchy, the clergy, and the farming class.
This rural trinity received the cordial support of the magis-
tracy, and most of the two hundred labourers who were the
first to strike had to find jobs in Liverpool, or Birmingham,
or Gateshead, or emigrate to Canada.
Sir Charles Mordaunt, landowner of Wellesbourne, issued
notices to quit to aU his tenants who joined the Union. A
placard in which the Wellesbourne farmers declared their
resolution to employ no union men and to eject them from
their cottages was issued and posted up about the county.
There were some notable exceptions amongst the landlord
class. Lord Leigh, for instance, granted in advance the
15s., whilst others offered 14s. The spirit of the clergy
is difficult to understand, especially that of Dr. EUicott,
the Bishop of Gloucester, who is reported to have said, with
reference to Arch : " There is an old sajdng, ' Don't nail
their ears to the pump and don't duck them in the horse-
pond.' " To which Arch wittily retorted, " The Bishop ap-
pears to beheve in adult baptism, which is contrary to the
doctrine of the Church of England."
When Arch visited Blandford in Dorset, an elderly
Baptist minister informs me, the Churchwardens ordered
the church bells to be rung to drown the sound of his
voice !
There were of course exceptions in Cardinal Manning,
Canon Girdlestone, the Hon. and Rev. J. W. Leigh, the
Dean of Hereford, Canon TuckweU and Bishop Fraser, all
of whom championed the labourers.
On Good Friday, 1872, a large demonstration was held at
Leamington. On this day, when the martyrdom of Man
was commemorated, that fashionable, residential town was
38 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
filled with a crowd arrayed in smock frocks and fustian
jackets, and in shabby gowns covering the half-starved,
haggard wives.
There and then it was resolved that the union should
be called the Waiwickshire Agriculttiral Labourers' Union.
The minimum wage determined upon was i6s., ten hours
only to be worked a day, with a four o'clock stop on Satur-
days, and that aU overtime should be paid at the rate of 4d.
an hour, Sunday work being regarded as overtime.
So great was the throng that an overflow meeting was
held in the street, at which Archibald Forbes took the chair.
Inside the haU Sir Baldwin Leighton, the Hon. Auberon
Herbert, Mr. E. Jenkin, M.P., Dr. Langford, of Birmingham,
and Mr. Jesse CoUings spoke. Here it was announced that a
friend at Birmingham had sent the Union a donation of £100
through Mr. Dixon, M.P. Other cheques, var37ing from £50
to £100, began to flow in.
The farmers retorted with a lockout. When the lockout
commenced, the Union had only 5s. in hand, which consisted
of pennies and halfpennies contributed by the labourers.
The lockout lasted for about three months, when the
resistance of the farmers was broken down. Wages imme-
diately rose to 14s., 15s. and i6s. a week. By May the Union
numbered 50,000 members, and it was in May that it was
decided to link together the local unions formed in several
counties into a National Union. Lincolnshire had, for
instance, between 3,000 and 4,000 in a union ; Cambridge
had over 2,000, and Huntingdon the same.
This meeting of the various agricultural labourers'
unions, held on May 29, was a very remarkable one.
Eighty men, all bona-fide farm labourers, sat, represent-
ing twenty-six counties. Mr. G. Dixon, M.P. for Birm-
ingham, presided. The National Agricultural Labourers'
Union became an acomplished fact, with Joseph Arch as its
chairman and Henry Taylor its secretary. Mr. J. E. M.
Vincent was elected treasurer and Messrs. Jesse CoUings,
E. Jenkins, A. Arnold, and W. G. Ward were appointed
trustees. The entrance fee was fixed at 6d, and the contribu-
tion at 2d. a week.
THE UPSTANDING CROP 39
The following statement signed by the Chairman was
circularised with the rules : —
" Let courtesy, fairness and firmness characterise all our
demands. Act cautiously and advisedly that no act may have
to be repented or repudiated. Do not strike unless all other
means fail you. Try all other means ; try them with firmness
and patience. Try them in the enforcement of only just claims,
and if they all fail, then strike."
The immediate aim was i6s. a week for a 9^ hours working
day.
The Congress was marked by a strong religious note.
Indeed, an outsider coming to it might have imagined that he
was taking part in some strange Methodist revival. In the
first place, it passed a resolution that " the Committee be-
lieves in the justice and righteousness of their cause, and have
the firmest faith that the Divine blessing will rest upon it."
As though confessing their sins these untutored men told
of their privations and their hopes. Again and again there
were cries of " Amen " and " Praise Him."
" The gentlemen on the platform were variously referred to as
' Honnered surs,' ' These yer worthy gents,' ' These raal genel-
men,' etc. The audience were alternately moved to laughter
and tears. One delegate said : ' Sir, this be a blessed day ;
this ere Union be the Moses to lead us poor men up out o' Egypt ' ;
and another delegate commenced his speech with this explanation,
given in a confidential tone : ' Genelmen and b'luv'd Crissen
friends, I's a man, I is, Ts goes about wi' a oss.' Another
informed the assembly that ' King Daavid sed as ow the 'usban-
man as labourers must be the fust partaker o' the fruit,' adding,
'and now he's mo'astly th' last, and loike ehuff gets none at
all.' Yet another, descanting on. the ways of Providence,
remarked that ' little things was often chus to du graat ones, and
when 'e sa' the poor labrin' man comin' furrud in this 'ere move-
ment, and a bringin' o' the faarmers to terms, he were remoinded
0' many things in th' Scripters, more perticler o' the rams' horns
that blew down the walls o' Jericho, and frightened Pharaoh
King of Egypt.' " ^
When Spurgeon heard of the movement he said " it was
the best news he had heard next to the Gospel."" But
' Village Trade Unions, by Ernest Selley.
' Labourers' Union Chronicle, August 23, 1873.
40 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
it was not warmly welcomed by other distinguished men.
The Duke of Marlborough, addressing his tenant farmers,
told them that the discontent amongst the labourers was
" brought about by agitators and declaimers, who had,
unhappily, too easily succeeded in disturbing the friendly
feeUng which used to unite the labourer and his employer
in mutual feelings of generosity and confidence." One
wonders if the Duke had ever heard of the Labourers' Revolt
of 1830 ? And Sir Charles Adderley, M.P., expressed sur-
prise that " ignorant demagogues told agricultural labourers
to demand from their masters a market price for their
labour." ^
Early in December a meeting was held in London at Exeter
Hall. Mr. Samuel Morley, who had contributed £500 to-
wards the Warwickshire Union, took the chair, and amongst
those present on the platform were Sir Charles Dilke, M.P.,
Sir C. Trevelyan, Sir John Bennett, Mr. MundeUa, M.P.,
Cardinal Manning, Mr. Tom Hughes, M.P., and Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh.
An incident happened during harvest time of this year
which bore a sinister aspect to many working men. When
the labourers in August struck for an increase of wages the
officers in Oxfordshire and Berkshire placed the soldiers at
the disposal of the farmers for the purpose of getting in the
harvest and defeating the Union. The London Trades
Council the next year successfully exerted itself to stop
troops being " lent " to farmers and procured a fresh regula-
tion explicitly prohibiting for the future such a system " in
cases where strikes or disputes between farmers and their
labourers exist."
It is really amazing that during the coiu-se of a year
as many as 71,835 labourers should have joined the Union,
when one considers not only their poverty, their chronic
indebtedness to the village grocer, but also their position,
which was akin to a subject race under employers and land-
lords who still exercised enormous powers as magistrates, as
Poor Law guardians and as dispensers of charities. The
hand of oppression became heavy when landlords and
1 Standard, September 19,, 1873.
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 41
farmers agreed that cottages which had hitherto been
" free " shovild be let as part of a farm, and that the labourers
should be subject to a week's notice. Landowners and
farmers acting in their capacity as magistrates frequently
disallowed open air meetings, on the ground of obstruction
of the highways.
A test case was fought over a meeting held by Arch and
Mr. J. C. Cox in 1873. Fortunately, the Labourers' Union
briefed Fitzjames Stephen to defend them. The Chairman
told Arch : "We have decided not to convict you this time,
but you win be bound down to hold no more meetings in
Berkshire."
" I shall not accept that decision," responded Arch. " I
am going to hold a meeting to-night about three miles away."
And the meeting was held without let or hindrance.
Arch mentions that outside the court there were about
four hundred labourers armed with sticks which they were
prepared to use had they seen their leader brought out in
handcuffs.
The worst case was that at Chipping Norton, in Oxford-
shire, when two parson-magistrates sentenced sixteen women
to imprisonment ; seven were given ten days' hard labour, and
nine seven days' hard labour, and some of these women had
children at the breast ! Their crime consisted of daring two
imported men to take away their husbands' work while
they were locked-out. The only weapon they used was
the tongue. This occurred at the little village of Ascot-
under-Wychwood, about six miles from Chipping Norton.
Chivalry was a quality not often shown in those days by
gentlemen to labourers' wives, and the sentence imposed by
these two clergymen was given in spite of the fact that in
their evidence the two strong-looking labourers said that
they had been invited by the women to come back to the
village and have a drink ! This they refused, and these
brave fellows went to work on the farm under the protection
of the police constable. The sentence of imprisonment
with hard labour to respectable working women aroused so
much indignation that a riot broke out in the town and extra
police had to be telegraphed for. The authorities, fearing
43 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
further trouble, had the women driven to Oxford in a brake
and the Amazons were safely incarcerated in Oxford Gaol
at an early hour in the morning.
The sentence aroused the latent though often unexpressed
chivalry of the EngUsh labourer, and a subscription was imme-
diately raised amounting to .;£8o for the sixteen women,
which was presented to them on their release from gaol.
This was done in a magnificent manner. Two four-in-hands
were driven in style to meet the women as they came out
of Oxford Gaol, and they were taken right into Ascot, their
return being heralded by music. The presentation of £5
to each woman was made in front of the house of the ring-
leader of the prosecuting farmers. One of these women
is stiU hving, and she was proud of the fact that she could
read and write whilst her husband never could. She states
that when she went to prison it was the first time she ever had
enough to eat in her life !
An Oxfordshire small holder who was then canvassing
for signatures to a petition to be sent to the House of Com-
mons for the Franchise, and who was an eye-witness of the
home-coming of these women, informs me that each of
them was presented with a silk dress in the Union colours.
He also states that one of the hotels in Chipping Norton
refused to stable the horses !
Petty acts of oppression were exercised by country
vicars ; such as that of turning two young women out of the
choir of a Buckingham church, because they spoke at a
labourers' meeting. ^ One old Suffolk woman was threatened
by the parson with the loss of her allotment if she allowed
her barn to be used for a meeting.* In Clopton, Suffolk,
the churchwarden gave notice that " the Society calling
itself the National Agricultural Union having ordered strikes
in a portion of the county of Suffolk, all members of the
same in this parish have notice to give up their allotments,
and wUl be struck off the list of parochial and bread
charities."^
When the farmers found it was not possible to obtain
' Labourers' Union Chronicle, July 19, 1873.
' Ibid., July 5, 1873. ' Ibid., August 2, 1873.
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 43
soldiers to take in their harvest they imported Irish labourers,
luring them to Dorset by false reports as to wages, and as
soon as the harvest was over in 1872 many Dorsetshire
farmers lowered the wages of their men, in some cases by
as much as 5s. a week.^
Is it any wonder that a feeling had grown up in the hearts
of the agricultural labourers that there was one law for
the employer and another for the employed ? Had they
ever read Adam Smith they would have approved of his
statement : " We have no Acts of Parliament against
combining to lower the price of work but many against
combining to raise it." But the teaching of Adam Smith
had hardly come in the way of a class whom in the eyes
of many prominent persons it was dangerous to educate.
" An extension of education," declared the President of
a Royal Society, " would teach them to despise their
lot in Hfe instead of making them good servants in
agriculture and other laborious emplo37ment to which their
rank in society had destined them."
The kind of justice meted out to the unfortunate labourer
of this date by a Bench consisting of landowners who
were employers of labour and preservers of game is illus-
trated by an old Sussex J. P., who wrote his reminiscences
under the title of Eastbourne Recollections, Magisterial and
Personal.
When he was appointed to his office, the author, Mr.
Graham, teUs us, that Major Leonard, a magistrate, ad-
dressed him thus :
" You have now become one of our body. Always bear
in mind that we belong to a Penal Bench — ours is a Penal
Bench." He went on to enlarge upon the ill effects of
leniency upon society at large, and that the only way of
putting down offences was to administer the law with the
utmost severity. " It is my plan," he continued, "always to
give the whole dose. I'U be bound to say that they won't
forget it in a hurry. When any one is brought before
you always give him the fuU dose and nothing but the
dose ! "
I Times, September 30" 1872,
44 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
He seemed to take a rapturous delight in the phrase
" utmost rigour." When a man was convicted he would
turn round to the other justices and say : " Utmost rigour, I
suppose ? " " Oh, yes, utmost rigour," would come the
answer, and having pronounced this sentence, and removed
the culprit, one of them would inquire of the clerk, " By
the way, what is the utmost rigour ? "
It is not surprising that Arch began a political campaign
against the mal-administration of justice by ignorant and
piejudiced country gentlemen and their " squarson " asso-
ciates who inflicted " the utmost rigour of the law " on a
man convicted of some trivial offence who happened to
be a member of the Labourers' Union ; nor is it surprising
that he attacked in season and out of season the Established
Church, for whilst the Methodist and CongregationaUsts in
particular helped the Union, the clergy assailed it on
nearly every side.
By conducting a poUtical campaign against the Church,
though. Arch injured his cause, driving men like Canon
Girdlestone out of the movement and estranging others.
A few of the landed aristocracy carried on the traditions
of English history by sympathising with the labourer.
But it was from the towns where, as Meredith says, " the
battle urges " that the labourers drew their chief financial
support. Behind this gaunt army of landless men who had
been patient so long stood the better paid workers and
the trading classes of the towns. The inclination to strike
in sectional groups became a source of weakness rather
than strength to the Union. The fact is Arch did not really
understand trade union work, and he resented the inter-
ference of what he called " professional trade union men,"
though he had to accept the help of Mr. Henry Taylor, a
Leamington carpenter, who was a professional trade
union man, and he became, according to Mr. George Ed-
wards, Arch's most valuable lieutenant. As wiU be seen
later on, Arch, though an excellent " agitator," was not a
good organiser, and despite the fact that he saw the danger
of political intrigue he was too much incHned to listen to
well-to-do politicians who influenced him to keep outside
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 45
the trade union movement of the towns, which was then
becoming a force. He mentioned with approval in his
autobiography that
" Some of these gentlemen who had the good of the cause at
heart warned me against having anything to do with professional
agitators ; Mr. Bromley Davenport, M.P., was one of those who
cautioned us, and there were others who said, ' Arch, don't let
this movement be complicated by trade union interference.' I
had made up my mind to keep clear of them all."
It was curious that he did not seem to reahse that he
himself had become a professional agitator.
Farmers locked-out union men in many counties, but
being unorganised they failed to defeat the men in
1872. Migration and emigration went on apace. Emigra-
tion officers scoured the countryside, and so active did
they become that Joseph Arch in 1873 was invited to
Canada to satisfy himself as to the better conditions of
hfe in that freer country and to arrange for the settlement
of thousands of labourers.
Arch tells us that he opposed emigration in the first
instance ; but it was only human to give way, seeing that his
fellow-workers had a chance to breathe a freer atmosphere
in a new country where they were able to till their own land.
When he gave evidence before the Royal Commission on
Agriculture in 1881 he estimated the number of persons,
men, women, and children, who had so far emigrated at
the instance of the unions at 700,000. There is no doubt
that the action of the British public, combined with that
of the Colonial Governments, broke down the stubborn oppo-
sition of farmers, and the unions succeeded in raising wages
by IS. 6d. or 2s. a week and in some cases 3s. or 4s.
Although the agricultural unions won in 1872 they were
to suffer a defeat in 1874 from which they really never
recovered. Migration and emigration was an expensive
business, depleting the funds of the National Union alone
in the financial year of 1874-5 of ^£5,997.
The rule appears to have been to give every emigrant
£1 and every migrant los. Canada, New Zealand, and
Australia gained at the expense of English agriculture.
46 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" It was not the idlest and wastrels who sailed, but the
strongest, the healthiest, and the most industrious men in
the prime of life and in the full vigour of their strength." i
In spite of the secret if not openly expressed hostility
of farmer, landowner and parson ;2 in spite of frequent
instances of miscarriage of justice and victimisation, the
Union enjoyed a triumphant success for two years. Church-
wardens might meanly withdraw allotments and charities ;
parsons might proscribe with book and bell young women
for speaking at meetings, or threaten to turn an old woman
out of her allotment if she allowed her barn to be used for
a meeting of the labourers ; but meetings continued to be
held. They were held under the stars, if there was no
friendly roof to shelter the men when they were gathered
together ; they were held on roadside wastes, in sheep-
fo]ds, in pounds or on windswept commons vmder the pale
moon.
" The mayor has denied us the Corn Exchange," said
Arch, when speaking in the open air at Newbury, " but
our Heavenly Father sent us a beautiful nice fine evening,
and let us have this spacious building." Nothing could
deter this " ranter," who had an abounding faith in the
righteousness of his cause and who believed that his
mission was divinely ordained.
At a meeting at Redburn, Bedfordshire, on April 24,
1873, all the agricultural labourers of the district!
appeared to be assembled with their sons and wives. For
three hours in a bitterly cold wind they stood on the grass
of the common, and all, especially the women, Ustened
intently as the delegates spoke. ^
At a monster meeting held at Yeovil in June of the same
year most of the men wore cards in their hats, upon which
the following was printed : —
1 History of Modern England, by Herbert Paul, Vol. III.
2 " Wby did not the Church of England years ago appear manifestly
before the country, telling what it knew about the housing conditions,
and the conditions of wages of the agricultural labourers ? Why, when
Mr. Arch was in the field forty years ago, did not the Church stand out
. and say : ' This is the merest claim of justice ' ? " — Dr. Gore, Bishop of
Oxford, 1913.
» The Revolt of the Field, by A. Clayden.
THE UPSTANDING CROP. 47
The Franchise for Agricultural Labourers.
15s. a week all the year round and no surrender.
Bands were playing, flags were flying, and arches of ever-
greens and flowers were erected. There were gingerbread
stalls and tents where refreshments, were served. Aunt
Sally and other games were provided, whilst dancing and
kiss-in-the-ring were thoroughly enjoyed. ^
The Union had a splendid asset in the Labourers' Union
Chtonicle, which, though not officially the property of the
Union, being owned by Mr. Vincent, championed the labour-
ers' cause without reservation. But for its existence few
of the cases of tjTranny would ever have been recorded in
print. It is astonishing that it should have had a circula-
tion of 50,000 weekly at a time when it was estimated that
at least 80 per cent, of the labourers could neither read nor
write. The listeners to its message, for the paper was read
aloud by those who could read, in chapel, cottage, and pub-
lic house, must have exceeded this number many times.
It should not be imagined, however, that the whole of
rural England in 1872 was given over to " agitation." The
pastoral calm of Wales, and of the extreme northern coun-
ties of England were little disturbed by Arch's movement.
These were the days of opulent farming, when farmers
lived by farming pure and simple, and did not have re-
course to pupils or boarders for the summer, or to letting
their fields abutting on to the railway line as advertising
sites for Somebody's PiUs or Baked Beans. Harvest Homes
were still the order of the day, at which were sung,
" The Vly among the Turmuts," " God bless the Puir
Sheep," " A Gossipin' Wife goes Gaddin' About."
In Oxfordshire it was stiU possible to see the Morris Dancers
at Whitsuntide going the round of the villages. These were
usually eight in number, attired in white shirt and white
trousers with tall black hats with plenty of gay ribbons at
all points and many little beUs which jangled with the
movements of the dance. These dancers were generally
accompanied by a fiddler and by a " Squire," or " Fool,"
who was the jester.
' The Labourers' Union Chronicle, June 28, 1873,
48 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" He carried a stick with a calf's tail at one end and an inflated
bladder at the other, with which he kept a clear space for the
dancers, bestowing hearty thwacks upon the backs and sides of
any among the crowd who encroached too much. He also
collected the bystanders' contributions in a tin box. Among the
dances performed was one with sticks, each man striking the
stick of the opposite dancer, keeping time to the music, something
after the manner of a melodramatic backsword combat, whilst
there were other dances in which handkerchiefs were prominent
features." ^
There were more ploughing matcTies and " Fairs " than
to-day, though very often the district Fair was the one
annual holiday allowed to the agricultural labourer. He
had other holidays, of course, such as those when he stood
off for wet days, but these gave him no joy and his wife less.
In spite of the prosperity of farming, the Union had now
to face its biggest battle in the struggle to win a shilling or
two more wages, which resulted in the Great Agricultural
Lock-out of 1874.
1 Fifty Years of a Showman's Life, by Thomas Plowman.
PART THREE
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE
THE GREAT LOCK-OUT OF 1874.
It is difficult to reconcile the statements made by farmers
and landowners at this time with those of investigators
who travelled the country collecting facts. The statement
made by Mr. C. S. Read, M.P., that the men's Union would
prove as " tyrannical, as secret and as tormenting as the
Star Chamber of old " reads like an echo of the Dorset
Assizes of 1834. Such a statement though casts a flood of
Ught on the attitude of mind adopted by the employing
class and their advocates on the attempt of a landless, half-
starved EngUsh peasantry trying to obtain a shilling or two
more wages.
The Strike of 1872, wrote Mr. Francis George Heath,
was " one of the most justifiable, yet one of the mildest
on record in the history of labour disputes — a gentle
revolt that enlisted the whole-hearted sympathy of the
British pubUc."i
Mr. Frederick Clifford, The Times correspondent, during
the great agricultural lock-out of 1874, stated that " on
the whole the conduct of the labourers throughout the
lock-out was exemplary. There were isolated attempts
at intimidation, and a few cases of personal violence ; but
considering that the lock-out extended over a great portion
of the county of Suffolk, and included parts of Cambridge-
shire, the men were orderly and well-behaved." ^
On the other hand the farmers' statements as to " fire-
brand methods " of the National Union received support
1 British Rural Life and Labour.
' The Agricultural Loch-out, 1874.
VOL. II. 49 E
50 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
from Mr. Simmons, the secretary of a rival agricultural
labourers' organisation in Kent and East Sussex. Speak-
ing of the tactics of the National Union before the Royal
Commission on Agriculture in 1881 he said that " the pohcy
which they have adopted has been a firebrand policy of
strikes and disruption." Mr. Sirrmions' statement, though,
must be taken with a good deal of caution. In reading the
evidence of this Royal Commission given by Arch and
Simmons, one cannot help being struck by the blimt, fear-
less, outspoken statements of Arch and the self-complacent
tone adopted by Simmons.
The Kent and Sussex Agricultural and General Labour-
ers' Union started in 1872, but it never affiliated with the
National Union. Mr. Simmons edited a newspaper at
Maidstone which he converted into an organ for the union.
His union afterwards became the London and Southern
Counties Labour League, and though I have questioned
old labourers who belonged to the union in 1872 and later,
I cannot discover what became of Mr. Simmons. He seems
to have disappeared from England, and with his disappear-
ance during the agricultural depression the union seems
to have melted away. It has been said that he was inter-
ested in an emigration scheme promoted by some peer
and went to a distant colony.
If one examines the circular signed by Joseph Arch,
sent to aU his branch secretaries, and the wording of the
letters sent to farmers by the branch secretaries .or the
committees, one is bound to come to the conclusion that the
language used by the men, or their representatives, was not
only conciliatory, but certainly more humble than trade
union organisers would use at the present day. It is
difficult then to understand the feeling of resentment on
the part of the farmers when they received " notices,"
unless we bear in mind that the two classes had socially
been drawing farther and farther apart, and the leinguage
used, not in the strike circulars, but by the trade union
speakers at meetings, was undoubtedly provocative La-
bourers' sons and farmers' sons who had gone to the same
Dame's school together, who talked in the same dialect in
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 51
the 'forties and shared probably the same meals together
in the farm kitchen, had now become widely separated.
During the golden era of the 'fifties and 'sixties, whilst the
farmer waxed fat and his son was sent to a good school,
rode to hounds, and became more or less of a country gen-
tleman, the labourer's son grew up iU-nourished, unedu-
cated, and unenfranchised. His dependence upon the
large farmer for his daily bread, the roof over his head, for
fuel and for cast-off garments, became almost as marked
since his divorce from the soil in the eighteenth century,
as his forefather's dependence upon the lords of the manor
in the age of feudaUsm.
The gathering storm which led directly to the great
lock-out of 1874 centred around the little village of Exning,
in Suffolk. It was a letter signed by seventeen labourers,
dated September 26, 1872, served upon the farmers in
Exning, which determined the farmers in the eastern coun-
ties to form an association for self-protection. This letter
was couched in the following terms : —
" Sir,-- ■
" We, the undersigned, do hereby jointly and severally
agree to call your attention to the following requirements for
our labour — ^namely, 14s. for a week's work, and no longer to
conform with the system of breakfasting before going to work
during the winter quarter.
" Hoping you will give this your consideration and meet our
moderate requirements amicably,
" Your humble servants— — •"
This coiurteous notice, which did not even ask for the
demand put forward by the executive of the National Union
for a minimum of i6s. for 9^ hours a day, roused the farmers
to action. They formed an association at Newmarket on
October 15, of which one of the rules enacted " that no
member shaU make any general alteration in the rate of
wages he is at any time paying to his labourers nor any
other general alteration in the terms upon which he engages
his labourers, without previously giving the committee
due notice thereof, and acting in concert with them."
The humble request for 14s. for a week's work came from
52 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
labourers at Exning Uving in cottages many of which had
only one bedroom, and a sitting-room 9 feet square, with
a ceiling so low that an average sized man could not stand
upright. The bedroom had a shelving roof and was dimly
lighted by a small window, and in this one room, or rather
loft, father and mother and children slept together. The
boards of one cottage were so rotten that they swarmed
with vermin — " enough to run away with the children,"
the mother said.i
The cottages were destitute of allotments and there
was no opportunity to keep pigs. Furthermore there was
no school. These wretched men were asking for 14s. a
week and the prosperous farmers became alarmed.
There was a striking contrast in these days between the
cottages on the Crown lands, which were quite good, and
the privately owned cottages.
" Many cottages have but one bedroom," said The Times
correspondent. " I visited one such cottage in which father,
mother, and six children were compelled to herd together — one
a grown-up daughter. To be sure, the loft which formed the
one bedroom was twice as long as the usual run of such places.
The man said he had asked his landlord to put up a partition
and make another window, but in vain. In another cottage, the
woman said they had put the children upstairs, and she and her
husband had slept in a bed on the brick floor until the bottom
board of the bed had fallen to pieces from damp, and then they
had to go among the children again."
Six weeks later a notice was issued to the Essex farmers.
It ran thus : —
" November 6, 1872.
" Dear Sir, —
" The agricultural labourers of this branch of the National
Agricultural Union in your employ beg respectfully to inform
you that on and after Friday they will require a rise in their
wages from 2od. to 26d. per day, and a general conformity to
their rules, a copy of which we enclose.
" Being desirous of retaining good relations between employer
and employed, and to assure you that no unbecoming feelings
prompt us to such a course, we invite you (if our terms are not
in accordance with your views) to appoint cin early time to meet
^ The Agricultural Lock-out, 1874, by Frederick Clifford.
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 53
us, so that we may fairly consider the matter and arrange our
affairs amicably.
" Your obedient servants,
" The Committee,
" North Essex Branch."
The phrasing of the letter seems to have been the common
one used by the branches of the National Agricultural
Union. With the rules enclosed was a preface addressed
to the members in which we find Joseph' Arch signing his
name to the words I have already quoted, " Let courtesy,
fairness, and firmness characterise aU our demands. Act
cautiously and advisedly that no act may have to be
repented or repudiated. Do not strike unless aU other
means fail you. Try all other means."
One cannot stigmatise such letters as these as " fire-
brand tactics." The farmers of Essex and Suffolk, however,
resolved " that the members of the Association shall not
in any way acknowledge the Labourers' Union by entering
into any contract with such Union, or employ a unionist on
strike without the consent of the acting committee."
It wiU be clear to any impartial person that the farmers
at this period of prosperity could easily have paid i6s. for
a 54 hours week, the full demands of the National Union.
But the labourers in Essex and Suffolk were only asking
for 14s. and 15s. a week. Not receiving any reply the men
of Exning again wrote to the farmers on March r, 1873,
the following letter : —
" I March, 1873.
" Dear Sir, —
" The agricultural labourers of this branch of the National
Agricultural Union in your employ beg respectfully to inform
you that, on and after March 7, they will require a rise in their
wages of 3s. a week — a week's work to consist of — hours.
Being desirous of retaining good relations between employers and
employed, and to assure you that no unbecoming feelings prompt
us to such a course, we invite you (if our terms are not in accord-
ance with your views) to appoint an early time to meet us, so
that we may fairly consider the matter and arrange our affairs
amicably.
" Your obedient servants,
" The Committee,
" Exning Branch."
54 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
It will be noticed that the number of hours is left blank.
Their wages were still I2s. a week, the same as they were
six months previously. They appear to have taken no strike
action after their first notice. Apparently they had waited
patiently for some softening of the farmer's heart. This
circular was put before the committee of the Newmarket
Agricultural Association by the employers who had received
it. As it bore no signature they made that the excuse for
ignoring it. A resolution, however, was passed at a full
meeting of the Association to raise wages to 13s. on March
I5» 1873. The Exning men accepted this increase and
went on working as usual, and in spite of the farmers'
repudiation of the Union, attributed the shilling rise to the
action of their Union.
But the farmers of the Essex and Suffolk Association
on April 17, 1873, at Sudbury, openly declared war upon the
Union. They passed the following resolutions : —
" That the members of the Association pledge themselves not
to pay more than 2S. a day of twelve hours, including breakfast
and dinner for day work. That in the opinion of this meeting
the members 'of the Association should resist the interference of
the National Labourers' Union by discharging the men in their
employ belonging to the said Union, after giving them a week's
notice of withdrawal."
The farmers appealed to the great landowners to help
them to stop in its infancy a movement which would " lead
to confiscation of property, tearing down all rights except
the might of the masses." And they immediately insti-
tuted a lock-out which threw a thousand men out of work.
The farmers won their first battle against organised agri-
cultural labour. The farmers and their famihes worked
harder than they had ever worked in their lives before,
and it was not difficult in those days to get the casual unem-
ployed labour of the towns into the country districts,
especially when they were fetched, housed and fed.
The funds of the Union in its infancy were severely
strained. Many of the labourers migrated or emigrated
and suffered much hardship. It is remarkable that so many
who had been kept in such a low state of vitality should
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 35
have remained loyal to their Union. Relief pay was only
continued for four or five weeks.
After the Essex and Suffolk farmers won their victory
they resolved, March 19, 1874, to rescind the resolution
passed the year before pledging the members of the Associ-
ation not to exceed 12s. a week of day work ; and it was
understood that each member should be "at Hberty to
pay such wages as were general in the parish in which he
occupied any land." The Exning men, however, were
adhering to their original demand, and they sent out a
notice on February 28, 1874, asking for a shilling rise
in their weekly wages. They struck after the usual week's
notice, when they found their demand had been ignored or
rejected.
Now the Newmarket farmers on March 10 declared
war, and resolved to lock out all Union men after giving
one week's notice. The men were locked out on March
21, and thus began the great fight between labourers
and farmers which resulted in undermining the strength
of the Union.
At first it aroused little attention, but soon great person-
ages mingled in the fray. The Bishop of Manchester
wrote to The Times a letter in which he asked :
" Are the farmers of England going mad ? Can they suppose
that this suicidal lock-out which has already thrown 4,000
labourers on the funds of the Agricultural Union will stave off
for an appreciable time the solution of the inevitable question :
What is the equitable wage to j)ay the men ? The most frightful
thing that could happen for English society would be a peasants'
war. Yet that is what we are driving to if insane counsels of
mutual exasperation prevail."
The lock-out extended from the Newmarket district
to Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire,
Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Warwickshire and Glouces-
tershire and it has been estimated that 10,000 labourers
were thrown out of work. The two principal unions in-
volved were the National Agriciiltural Labourers' Union
and the Federal Union of Agricultural and General Labour-
ers. In Lincolnshire, where there was a separate union
56 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
called the Lincolnshire Labourers' Union, a compromise
was arrived at, though it shotild be remembered that Lin-
colnshire enjoyed higher wages. The struggle lasted until
the end of July when the unfortunate labourers were beaten.
It could not have been carried on as long as eighteen weeks
but for public sympathy, and especially the subscrip-
tions from industrial unions, one of which, the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers, voted £i,ooo to the lock-out fund.
The cost and extent of the lock-out may be judged from
the " authentic " list of grants made to various districts
by the Central Executive at Leamington between the
months of March and August, 1874.^
But not all this money came from outside sources ; ^£5,595
was raised by the Agricultural Unions by special levies,
which, considering the low wages the men were receiving,
was a very creditable performance.
One interesting feature of the lock-out was the Pilgrims'
March of agricultural labourers through the heart of England.
Some hundreds of locked-out labourers met at The Sev-
erals, at Newmarket, on June 30, 1874. There they were
addressed by Henry Taylor, the General Secretary of the
National Labourers' Union, who undertook to lead the men
from the eastern counties by easy stages to the large towns
• Newmarket (Exning) District .... 14,984 10 7
Wisbech ........ 1,550 o o
Bedford ........ 980 o o
Halstead, Essex ...... 1,460 o o
Sawston, Cambs. ...... 1,931 o o
Market Rasen, Lincoln ..... 858 o o
Luton ........ 162 o o
Aylesbury ....... 205 o o
Old Buckenham, Norfolk ..... 585 o o
Norwich ........ 135 o o
East Dereham ....... 205 o o
Wolverton ....... 256 o o
Banbury ....... 283 o o
Spalding ........ 59 o o
Dorset ........ 400 o o
Market Harborough ...... 164 o o
Andover ........ 90 o o
Farringdon . . . . . . . 85 o o
Alton ........ 40 o o
^£24,432 10 7
The Agricultural Loch-out, 1874 by F. Clifiord.
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 57
in the manufacturing districts to elicit renewed support from
the trade unionists and the general public. Though Taylor
warned them of the difficulties of a long tramp, quite a
number of elderly, worn-looking men volunteered and were
chosen to take part in the pilgrimage. Amid great cheer-
ing from the men left behind and some weeping from the
women, sixty or seventy English peasants in velveteens
and smocks with the Union's blue ribbons prominently
displayed and with banners flying began their pilgrimage.
A light wagon bore the flags when they were not needed for
display, and carried what scanty baggage the labourers
brought with them.
Cambridge was the first town to receive this quaint pil-
grimage. Eye-witnesses have declared that they looked in
need of a substantial meal, and this is not to be wondered
at, considering the poor food they had been living upon,
and that many of them had walked seven or eight miles
from their respective villages before they tramped the
fifteen miles to Cambridge. After a meal they processed
to the Common, where Taylor was again the chief spokes-
man. Twenty-five pounds were collected, £12 of which
consisted of pence and halfpence. After Cambridge they
visited Bedford, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wolverhampton,
Birmingham and Coventry, though it must be admitted
that many of these towns were reached by rail. They cleared
£700 by this pilgrimage, after paying expenses.
The public received them with great enthusiasm as they
marched through the manufacturing towns singing songs
written by their friends.
When harvest began in the third week of July in some
parts of the eastern counties, it was a bitter pill for the
labourers to swallow, to see the corn they had sown reaped
and harvested by strangers. A greater use was -made of
the reaping machines, and the steam plough was brought
into play to break up the stubble. By the beginning of
August union men began to go back to their jobs on their
masters' assumption that they had thrown up their union
ticket.
Yet Mr. Clifford teUs us that he found in Suffolk no feeling
58 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of yet crushing defeat amongst the men. The farmers had not
succeeded in stamping out the union as they had hoped to
do. " The weak-kneed among them gave up their tickets,
but by far the larger number held on, and including Nationals
and Federals, six or even seven thousand union labourers
were left in Suffolk when the lock-out was ended." »
There is no doubt that the farmers by locking out 10,000
men in 1874 delivered a blow against English agriculture
from which it has really never recovered. The land
was denuded by migration and emigration of thousands
of its most virile workers. Arch returned from Canada in
November, 1873, where he had made excellent arrange-
ments for the emigration of thousands of labourers each of
whom would have a log hut, with five acres of cleared land
and seed for the sowing, from the Canadian Government.
Arch admitted himself that EngHsh agriculture suffered
a decline as a result of his own emigration schemes, and that
by emigrating young men he was striking a blow at his own
organisation.
The farmers did not play a noble part in this struggle.
They tried to make the lock-out universal by carrying the
industrial war into Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and
Norfolk and by getting the County Association of Farmers
to declare a general lock-out ; but these Associations
would not be Itired by the blandishments of the Essex,
Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire farmers. The landowners
behaved on the whole better than the clergy, who, as a
class, sided with the farmers. Probably their partisanship
was due to their social and political timidity, for neither
on economic nor on humanitarian grounds had the farmers
a sound case. They were making money whilst the labour-
ers were faring badly. There was no indication of an agri-
cultural depression and they were securing the economic
advantage of improved machinery and an increased number
of fertilisers.
It was the gospel of fear which knit together landlord,
farmer, and parson ; the fear which was reflected in the
mind of Dickens' Sir Leicester Dedlock. The "flood
' * The Agricultural Lock-out, 1874, by F. ClifEord.
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 59
gates " would be opened if labourers began to combine and
demand higher wages. They saw in Arch's mild proposals
for allotments, communal appropriation of the land and
possibly a repetition of the French Revolution.
It is not surprising that the farmers defeated the labourers.
Threatened with eviction from their farm-tied cottages ;
threatened with the loss of both public and private charities
by the class which governed them ; voteless, isolated ;
for the most part unable to read or write, and with the air
fun of rumours of appropriation of union funds sedulously
circulated by their enemies, the miracle would have been if
the men had won.
It was continually being dinned into the men's ears by
their employers and the clergy that the organisers were
living in the lap of luxury on the subscriptions collected
in the towns. When one realises that the majority of
men could not sign their names, and that money used to
arrive at a locked-out village in a bag from which relief
was dispensed to men who could only put a cross for their
names, the marvel would have been if there had been no
discrepancies in cash accounts. Ball said at Newmarket
he believed that 90 per cent, of the men were in debt and that
80 per cent. coiAd not write their names.
Though the men did lose their battle, the financial result
of the struggle was that the labourers in all the eastern and
southern and midland counties came through the fiery
ordeal with a higher weekly wage to take every Saturday
night. That is to say, the low level of 12s. had been raised
to 13s. or 14s., and in Norfolk to 15s., as far as the eastern
counties were concerned, and in aU. the other counties a
rise was perceptible in 1874-5.
Mr. Thomas F. Plowman, a farmers' advocate, writes in
his Fi/ty Years of a Showman's Life :
" Although wages had from 1850 onwards gradually advanced,
it must be admitted that they had not kept pace with the rising
prices, and herein must be found some justification for the effort
made to redress the balance. But there was less justification
for the methods employed to this end. No distinction was
drawn between the good and the bad master, and the most
violent and incendiary language was used of all alike. . . . The
6o ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
labourers, headed by self-constituted leaders, walked about in
procession through the country towns, wearing the blue ribbon
which was the badge of the Union, and was to the farmer as the
red rag to the bull, and singing about the land, honestly believing
that they were coming into possession of it.
" I remember my main difficulty with the farmers was in per-
suading them that the most politic course was to allow the other
side to have a monopoly of the strong language ; they did so want
to pour out their souls in response. . . . The Union struck at the
old relationship, in which there was give and take on both sides,
between masters and men, and a great deal of bad feeling was
engendered. The fuller effects of this were manifest when, a
little later on, the great depression in agriculture set in, and
both sides felt the pinch of bad times."
The labourfers felt that on their side was all the giving,
and on the farmers' all the taking.
As a method of undermining loyalty to the Union, farmers
in the Bury St. Edmunds district began to raise the wages
of all non-unionists from 13s. to 14s.
In certain districts there was a cry amongst the labourers
for " a stone of flour a day," or its equivalent, that is
2S. 6d. or 2s. gd., but this does not seem to have been an
official union demand. " To base wages upon a sliding
scale, rising and falling according to the current price of
corn, is old-fashioned nonsense," said a Sussex farmer.
And he was right. I mention this because I find the pro-
position that wages should be paid according to the current
price of corn constantly cropping up in after years, especially
in the eastern counties.
The opposition of the farmers was not based on any
economic reasons. Their opposition was to the labourers'
right to combine, or, as the farmers chose to put it, to
" being dictated to by foreigners," that is to say by an execu-
tive sitting at Leamington, Lincoln, or London. This was
distinctly shown by the replies to Mr. S. Morley, M.P.,
and Mr. Dixon, M.P., who tried to bring about a conciliation.
The Duke of Rutland, who owned between 9,000 and
10,000 acres in the parishes of Wood-Ditton and Chevley,
wrote a circular letter to the labourers on the estate with
a view to conciliating them. He addressed them as " My
Friends," but his letter contained the following statement :
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 6i
" It is true that when I heard that my tenants had decided
to lock-out the Union men I thought it right to support
them ; and I did so, as I thought this was the best course,
not in the interest of my tenants only, but in that of the
labourers also." It is not surprising that the labourers
were unconvinced, but felt that even the best of the land-
owners had joined in a conspiracy with the farmers and
the clergy against their right to combine.
One interesting feature of the lock-out was that many
non-union men and village tradesmen subscribed to the
Union lock-out fund.
The lock-out pay seems to have been is. 6d. a day for
the members of the National Union, and for the members
of the Lincolnshire Labourers' Union in Suffolk los. a
week, with is. extra for a man with a wife and something
extra for children.
Mr. Ball, who had been an agricultural labourer and a
local Methodist preacher, made some pointed remarks at
the Severals, on the Duke of Rutland's letter.
" According to the Duke of Rutland's letter," said Mr. Ball,
" the labourers were raised to a better position through the
kindness and humanity of employers. You might as well expect
the labourers to understand Egyptian hieroglyphics as to under-
stand this. What was expected from men in the village was a
deal of bowing and scraping. If they took off their hats to the
village clergyman he would perhaps reward them by sa57ing
' How do you do.' It was funny of one paid servant to expect
<!his homage from another. He did not, however, want to teach
respect to others, but respect to themselves."
Some farmers were heard to express their admiration of
the true British stubbornness and pluck shown by the men
and their wives, in adhering to, under conditions of semi-
starvation, and persistent persecution, their " sacred right "
to combine.
There were one or two instances illustrating the curious
personal relationship between master and man, and of good
humour prevailing, even when unionists and farmers met
together. For instance, at a meeting of the Hoxne Branch
of the National Union, which was preceded by a dinner, a
farmer presided and helped to carve the joints, and Sir
62 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
Edward Kerrison, a landowner, delivered a speech. After
the speech one of the delegates proposed a hearty vote of
thanks to Sir Edward and Lady Carohne Kerrison, which
was carried with acclamation.
During the lock-out poaching increased and many a
gamekeeper paid 6d. for a pheasant's egg without inquiring
where it was obtained, even though he had a shrewd stis-
picion that it came from his einployer's estate. Violence,
though, was seldom resorted to in conflicts with keepers.
Instead of beating or shooting keepers they feed a lawyer
by subscription, and paid the fines [imposed by the same
co-operative method.^
Among the landowners hostile to the Union was the
Marquis of Bristol, who was very angry at Arch's state-
ment that the aristocracy had stolen 7,000,000 of acres
from the people within a certain period. " These en-
closures," said the Marquis, with righteous indignation,
" had been based upon Acts of Parliament. The title to
such land was as sacred as though it had been bought in
the market."
Although the Norfolk farmers did not show the same
hostiUty as the Suffolk farmers, and were paying a cash
wage of 15s. instead of the 13s. of Suffolk, they formed an
association on June 20, 1874, at Norwich, " to defend the
interests of the occupiers of the soil against the oppres-
sion of the Agricultural Labourers' Union." About
500 farmers were present, with Lord Walsingham in
the chair. Lord Walsingham fortunately advised the
farmers not to talk about stamping out the Union or
instituting a lock-out.
" Now, as reasonable men," he said, " the farmers could
not deny this right of combination ; and if a proper tone
on this point had in the first instance been taken by the
farmers in the eastern counties it was not improbable that
aU disagreement might have been prevented."
There is no doubt that the newly introduced mowing
machine at haysel— the feeding off by stock in many a
meadow intended for hay, broke the back of the Union at
^ The Great Lock-out, 1874.
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 63
haymaking, time as the reaper and the elevator now being
bought in larger numbers by the farmers, broke it at harvest
time.
I have questioned a number of men who can remember
these early years of Arch's Union, and their rephes throw
much light upon the difficulties which beset any kind of
labour organisation in those days. Mr. James Reynolds,
J.P., of Lambourn, Berks, writes : —
" In 1874, when I was seventeen, I did some booking for a
branch of the N.A.L.U.at Wherwell, Hants. J. Arch, R. Ball
and others visited the villages and the men responded readily
to their call, and joined the Union. But they were met with
opposition from every quarter. The Squire, the land agent, the
farmer, and often the parson, showed hostility from the first.
A great difficulty presented itself in obtaining rooms tomeet in,
as all schools were in the hands of the Church. So meetings were
chiefly held and the contributions paid in little Methodist chapels.
It was not possible to maintain oversight and remedy grievances
which soon cropped up between master and man, and the clerical
staff of the N.A.L.U. became quite unable to cope with the work.
Men's wages then were los. per week ; women's 8d. or gd. per
day. I worked on two farms when a big lad for 3s. and 3s. 6d.
per week. Mowing machines and self-binders had not then
appeared, and on farms where now three men and a boy are
employed^ there would be seven or eight men and two or three
boys. I have watched the depopulation of villages and the
migration of all who wanted to make headway for the last forty
years."
A Dorset labourer from the village of Beaminster, writing
of this time, teUs me that his grandfather, who had to live
on 7s. a week with his wife and five children, could neither
read nor write : —
" But I've heard father say he would get a newspaper and go
to the village pub and pretend to be reading, but was actually
reciting all sorts of nonsense from his own head, and some one
W(Juld say : ' You've got the up end down,' when he would make
answer : ' A good scholar can read anyhow.'
" My father could not remember his mother. She died when
he was young, being the yoimgest of the five. He remembers
waking up one morning and finding his dad dead by his side when
he was eight years of age. Then he had to start work as dairy
boy or go into the worMiouse, and he worked from daylight to
dark, and after that he married at the age of eighteen, when he
64 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
became a carter at los. a week. There were nine of us to live
on that besides father and mother. Poor dad had to tramp four
miles every day to work, seven days a week, besides being on the
tramp all day with the horses, without half enough to eat and
sometimes wet through before he got to work. They must
have been made of cast-iron in those days. He did this for
fourteen years and reared us all up, and only once in those
fourteen years did he ask for parish relief when he was home
with a quinsey for a fortnight. He got a little allowed to him
from the parish, but after he started work again the Chairman of
the Board of Guardians, who was a gentleman, rode to hounds,
etc., rode up to the farm and asked if dad could not pay back the
money at so much a week because his wages had risen to lis. a
week at that time, with not one of us earning a penny. When
the farmer heard what he had come for, he followed him off the
farm cursing him all the time, asking him if that was what he
paid Poor Rates for, for him to keep hunters to ride about. . . .
I've had some of It. It makes my blood boil as I write this."
Mr. Pink, of Bore Green, Kent, teUs me that he remembers
the Kent and Sussex Labourers' Union, which according
to Simmons' evidence before the Royal Commission of j88i
had a membership of 14,000. ^ He states that when the
Union was started the wages in Sussex and Kent were los.
to I2S., which low wages the Union raised to 15s. The
Union had the advantage of a paper called The Kent Mes-
senger, which Simmons edited. The farmers in the Isle of
Sheppy answered the Union demand with a lock-out.
Mr. Pink writes : —
" I told the farmers at a meeting we had with them that if
they did not pay the 15s. I was instructed to take away one
hundred of their best men on Monday morning. The farmers
shouted ' Rot ! ' and ' Go to hell with your humbug.' I told
them I would take single tickets but not to that isolated place
they spoke of, but to respectable and different railways, where
the men would earn i8s. to 20s. per week, and I would soon
remove their furniture so that the farmers could have the empty
houses, and that this would not be an empty boast.
" On Monday morning I took tickets for 105 for the places
where the men were wanted, and their furniture soon followed,
and many a family have often thanked me for the move I gave
them.
1 He needlessly apologises for what he calls his " scribble and bad
spelling ; for I am self-taught on the Downs whilst scaring crows and
minding sheep."
THE FARMER SWINGS HIS SCYTHE. 65
" When I was nine years old I started work on the Wrotham
Downs scaring crows and minding sheep for the noble sum of
threepence per day. Those were hard times. Simmons' Union,
as it was known by, done a lot of good, and it would have done
more had Sinmions not had so many irons in the fire, and had
not slipped off in the dark, and never was seen in the county
again."
Mr. Pink writes of the large exodus from Kent by emigra-
tion to the Colonies in those days, which, whUe it helped
the Union for the time being by making labour more scarce
and relieving the funds of the Union of lock-out pay, drained
the countryside of its best young blood, which ultimately
was not only bad for England nationally, but also destroyed
the vitality of the Union.
I was interested to compare Mr. Pink's letter, which I
received in November, 1919, with some evidence given by
Simmons before the Royal Commission in 1881, which shows
that farmers at that time did not stand on ceremony in
giving laboiurers notice of a lock-out.
Simmons stated that his Union never originated a strike ;
that, he contended, was the great difference between his
union and Arch's.
" May I ask what was the cause of the lock-out in Kent ? "
asked one Commissioner.
" You wUl in the first place remember," answered Simmons,
" that it was at the close of the harvest season of 1878, when
agriculture was becoming somewhat depressed, and there were
a number of meetings held by farmers and they decided by
resolution to reduce the wages, and many farmers carr5dng out
that resolution adopted a very arbitrary course. They simply
gave their labourers notice on Saturday that next Monday they
would start lower wages, and the Union required in all cases
where men were weekly servants the full week's notice of reduc-
tion, and some farmers complied, and others declined and said :
' No, next Monday you start" at 3d. or 4d. a day less than you
have had.' A considerable number of labourers refused to do
that, and the farmers told them 'Then you can go from the
farms.' " ^
The spirit of the women during the lock-out was exempli-
fied by the statement overheard as a farmer drove by down
> Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-1883.
VOL. II. F
66 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
the village street, " the labourers would ride in the gigs and
the farmers in the tumbrils," a prophecy which has not yet
been realised ! There is no doubt that union speakers
generated many an illusion. There was a pathetic hope
amongst these locked-out labourers that an Act of Old
Age Pensions would soon be passed and that the land
would shortly be theirs. They had to wait thirty-four
years before they were given an old age pension, or the
opportunity to enter upon a statutory Small Holding.
PART FOUR
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES
THE 'EIGHTIES.
All those who gained their living from the land will remem-
ber 1879 as the " Black Year. " To the pessimistic it came as
an evil omen of the era of agricultural depression which was
to follow. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons,
and the winter of 1 880-1 was one of the severest ever known.
The land, saturated and chilled, produced coarse herbage,
since the finer grasses languished and were destroyed. Fod-
der and grain were imperfectly matured, mould and ergot
were prevalent amongst plants, and fluke produced liver-rot
amongst live-stock. In 1879 3,000,000 sheep died or were
sacrificed from rot in England and Wales. ^ By 1881
5,000,000 sheep had perished, at an estimated loss of
£10,000,000.
Besides this great calamity this year was distinguished
by one of the worst harvests of the century ; by outbreaks
of foot and mouth disease and of pleuro-pneumonia.^
The steam whistle of factory and train sounded the
death-kneU to many a village industry. In many a parish
the village tailor crossed his legs for the last time. The
smithy stood black and silent, and children no longer loitered
by the anvil from which no music was hammered. Wind-
mills beat their arms in vain on hill or plain. No grist was
brought to their moveless stones. No dusty miller lingered
by the mUl-pond, which poured its wealth of shining liquid
power past an unresponsive wheel. The click of hand-
looms worked by village maidens was no longer heard at
1 R.A.S.E. Journal, 1881.
2 A Short History of English Agriculture, by W. H. R. Curtler.
67
68 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
open cottage windows. The village shoemaker who made
boots which could stand the rough wear of the furrows
ceased to be a creative artist. He becarne a cobbler. The
rh3i;hmic swing of the sower's arm was a rarer sight than the
drill, and the silken song of the scythe was drowned in the
rattle of the mowing machine with its ugly chattering teeth.
" Cheeseloft " became a legend over the door of many a
farm building, for the dair57maid disappeared as the old
stone cheese-press that she raised and lowered so often
became her tombstone.
Public sympathy, at any rate as expressed by those who
governed, began to swing round to the farmer. Land-
lords had steadily increased their rents during the 'fifties,
'sixties, and 'seventies, and farmers had undoubtedly felt
the pressure of the growing strength of the trade unions.
Not that they could not afford to pay the wages demanded,
but through their stubborn opposition to the labourers'
demands by lock-outs, and by letting down the fertility
of their land, there must have been a considerable amount
of economic waste. A Royal Commission on Agriculture
was set up, imder the chairmanship of the Duke of Rich-
mond. From this Commission, of the three classes who
Uved by the land — ^the farmer, the landlord, and the
labourer — ^it was the farming class which perhaps received
the most attention. At any rate, it was immediately fol-
lowed by rebates on rents, the Ground Game Act, and later
by an Agricultural Holdings Act. The labourer was stiU
voteless and there was little sympathy for a class wallowing
in the luxury of a cash wage of 13s. or 14s. a week whilst
rent rolls were declining and farming profits in many
instances vanishing. Royal Commissions in these days
considered representation of labour as an act of super-
erogation.
On the labourer's side improvements in Allotments and
Housing Acts followed their course with painfully slow
Parliamentary procedure. Industrial organisation amongst
the agricultural labourers steadily went downhill from this
time, for the " Black Year," not only produced the
worst harvest ever known, and was ill-famed for the destruc-
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 69
tion of livestock by disease, but it also marked the turn of
the tide from comparatively high prices for corn to a period
of declining prices which steadily ebbed with shght fluctua-
tions during twenty years.
The agricultural unions, in the face of the falling prices
and bad harvests, had not the courage to ask for higher
wages or shorter hours. On the other hand, they submitted
to a reduction in wages, which, however, it should be remem-
bered, never fell to the level of the " golden era " of the 'fifties
and 'sixties.
The National Union fell rapidly into decline. It could
not stand up against the economic pressure from without,
and the fierce dissensions from within. Disunion started
in 1875, following the defeat in Suffolk and the surround-
ing counties. Members, disheartened by the failure to
win higher wages, now sought to gain a footing on the land.
Mr. Matthew Vincent threw himself into this new move-
ment in 1875, by giving it the support of his paper. ^ In
Arch's absence in Surrey, the executive of the " National "
went so far as to pass resolutions to purchase a farm. They
extricated themselves from this doubtful legal proceeding
with some difficulty. Many members fell away from the
Union to follow the will-o'-the-wisp of a Co-operative Land
Company which, though it did materiahse in solid acres,
vanished almost as quickly as a dream.
The Union split up into " Federals," or self-governing
county areas, which managed entirely their own affairs,
controlling their own funds. But the death-blow inflicted
upon the Union came from the unsound sick benefit societies
which the Union in its folly took under its wing. Any old
man who was a member of some unsound village sick benefit
society was admitted on an entrance fee of is. 6d., and
naturally the younger men, seeing financial ruin facing the
Union, severed their connection with it.
Arch, in spite of his qualities as an agitator, was by no
means the right man to settle differences. He was too
' The attack made upon Vincent by Taylor for appropriating the
profits on his paper was unwaireintable. Vincent was an idealist, and he
made the mistake of imagining Eldorado can be provided by private sub-
scription. Eventually he left England for Australia, a broken journalist.
70 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
autocratic, and not the man to pour oil upon troubled
waters. From a membership of over 80,000 in 1874
the National Union sank to a membership of 15,000
in 1881, and to 4,254 in 1889. Suspicion was rife as to the
mal-administration of funds ; and disheartened by the
calumnies heaped upon his name it was not unnatural that
Joseph Arch should seek consolation in the ranks of a
political party which welcomed him and used him to the
utmost. Amongst those who paraded Joseph Arch in the
early 'eighties was the late Joseph Chamberlain, and Glad-
stone found the labourers' champion an asset to his party
in passing the Franchise Act of 1884, which at last granted
the agricultural labourer the right to vote. Henceforth
the labourer became the shuttlecock of the contending
battledores of Liberal and Conservative pohticians in all
rural districts.
It is amazing when we reahse the illiteracy of the
farm worker at that date, that the Union achieved any
success at all as an organisation. So rapid was the enrol-
ment of members in its first two years that they soon out-
paced the staffing capacities of the Union. The knowledge
of how difficult it was forty years after to get farm workers
with sufficient education or courage to act as branch secre-
taries makes one wonder how the Union managed to induce
men to act as secretaries only two years after the Education
Act of 1870.
It should be remembered that at this time the prevalent
feeling towards education in rural districts was stiU very much
like that expressed by Doyle in 1843, when he said : " The
word education must in most cases be taken to mean really
little more than a certain amount of physical deteriora-
tion, incurred by wasting time in crowded and unwholesome
rooms. "^
A child above the age of ten who had reached the Fourth
Standard prescribed by the code of 1876, could be freed
by a certificate from the Government inspector from
further attendance. Moreover, children who could satisfy
' Report of the Special Assistant Commissioners to the Commission on the
Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture of 1843, Vol. XII.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 71
the local authorities that they were properly employed
in labour and who held certificates intimating that they
had reached the Third Standard had only to put in 150
annual attendances from the age of ten to that of thirteen.
Reliable authorities have asserted that wherever these
by-laws were in force 99 per cent, of the boys could free
themselves from school attendance at the age of eleven. •
In Scotland it was otherwise. Evidence was forthcoming
even as far back as the Commission of 1870 that the boys
and girls of Scottish hinds were kept at school until they
were twelve or thirteen years of age.
Labourers, no doubt, felt the lack of the earnings of their
children, and it is to their credit that they, much more
than their employers, were the educational enthusiasts.
It would be sentimental to say that the labourer loved educa-
tion for education's sake. Probably, the sentiment of the
ordinary parent was expressed by a woman to a Com-
missioner in 1867 when she said : " If I could only get
him to be a scholar he should never be a farm labourer."
In Sussex in the early 'eighties shepherds, as a rule, could
neither read nor write, and yet they had their own way of
counting sheep. The strange formula ran thus : One-erum,
Two-erum, Cock-erum, Shoo-erum, Shitherum, Shatherum,
Wineberry, Wagtail, Tarrididdle, Ten.
Much of the evidence given by Joseph Arch before the
Royal Commission in 1881 is interesting, not only from the
light it throws upon the labourer's position at that time,
but also on the character of Arch himself. He told the
Commission that wages in 1871 were almost at starvation
point.
" What do you consider," asked the Duke of Richmond
and Gordon, the President, " to be what you call starvation
pofnt ? I do not quite understand how you gauge that."^
" When a man's wages for the whole of the week do not
leave him more than a penny per meal per head, men,
women and children, I think that is next to starvation."
When asked what he considered a labourer ought to be
• Annals of the British Peasantry, by Russell M. Garnier.
' Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-82.
72 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
paid, he again and again stoutly refused to be drawn. " I
am not here to express an opinion upon that," he answered ;
" as a labourer I should myself want to get the best wages
I could."
Again he was questioned ; again he answered : " No,
I am not come here to say what he ought to get. I am not
come here to draw the line of the labourers' wages."
He complained of the farmers foolishly starving the land
of laSour ; he said that 700,000 souls amongst the agricul-
tural labouring classes had been emigrated since 1872 ; and
that from 1872 to 1875 wages had increased in most counties
2S. and 3s. a week, and in some counties, 4s. Since 1877
wages had been lowered is., and in some counties 2s. and
even 3s. He gave the Warwickshire wages in 1872 as
averaging los. to iis. per week, the Dorsetshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire and Hants wages as 7s. to 8s., and the Somerset-
shire wages as 6s. to 7s. exclusive of all hay and harvest
money. He spoke of the high rents that labourers had
to pay for their allotments, and considered that every
cottage should have a quarter of an acre attached to it.
When he was recalled, he gave evidence that the weekly
subscription for trade purposes was 2;fd. per week. Ques-
tioned again as to the minimum wage of a labourer, he
answered : "I should think they ought to have as much
money to support them outside the union workhouse as it
costs them inside. I say that a man who has a wife and
family to maintain and has to pay rent and all other expenses
upon a home deserves as much per head for each of his family
as it costs us to keep them as paupers in the workhouse.
. . . For a man and wife and six children costs in a work-
house the amount of 30s. a week."
He took care, however, to qualify this statement by say-
ing that he did not advocate an employer paying a man
with a large family £2, or a man with none at all los. a week.
He contended for what he called " cottage right " by the
same legislative means as farmers demanded tenant right.
" The tied cottage," he said, " binds a man hand and foot.
If I rented a cottage from his Grace, and I paid him £4 or £5 a
year rent for that cottage, I ought to have the fullest liberty to
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 73
take my labour to the best market ; but when a cottage is let
with the farm, the man is compelled to labour on that farm from
January to December ; he is not allowed to remove an5nvhere
else, however good the wages may be in the neighbourhood. I
know a case which occurred in 1872, seven miles from my house,
in which when the East and West Junction Railways passed
through the district the railway companies were offering
3s. 6d. and 3s. lod. per day ; and the young men who were at
work on the land for lis. per week left it, and they were told
that unless they came back for 12s. per week they should leave
their cottages."
" In the case which you mention," said his questioner, " a
cottager is not obliged to go and take that particular cottage
under the farmer."
" No," answered Arch, " but then you must remember that
taking our rural population these last twenty years a very large
number of cottages have gone to decay. I know villages where
seven and eight and ten cottages in my remembrance have gone
to decay. The inhabitants of those cottages have been driven
to the towns. Those who remained behind, of course, were glad
to take them for the sake of shelter. If a man is forced into these
things, it is almost superfluous to ask him why he does them.
In my own village within the last seven weeks there have been
six cottages pulled down. Where are those people to go ?
There are two or three cottages built on a farm, and a man is
told : ' You can go and live in one of those if you like.' The
necessity of the case drives him to go and live in one of those
cottages."
Mr. George Edwards remembers a farm labourer at Nar-
burgh, in Norfolk, being dismissed and evicted from his
cottage for taking an active part in the Union. The man's
goods and chattels were thrown out on to the roadside, and
there they remained for over a week, for either no cottage
was available in that neighbourhood or no one dared to
house the furniture. *
But this was not aU the persecution he had to endure.
With a Gilbertian travesty of justice the map was prosecuted
and fined for obstructing the King's highway !
Some years later a Sussex ploughman at whose cottage
' Mr. George Edwards states that landlords in collusion with farmers
during the 'seventies " tied " many cottages which were " free " in order
to sap the independence of the men ; but Mr. Ankers Simmons, than
whom there is no land agent of greater experience in England, assures
me that cottages were let with farms as frequently before Arch's time as
afterwards. It is probable the custom of letting cottages with farms
was increased during the depression.
74 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
I was sleeping, informed me that he knew a man who was
dismissed and evicted for having the audacity to ask for is.
a week more wages. His furniture was thrown out on
the roadside, and there it remained in all weathers for a
fortnight ; and but for the kindly help of a neighbour, who
lent him a wagon cloth, the furniture would have been
badly damaged. It was many weeks before he could find
fresh employment, and then like an honest beggar driven
to desperation he was forced to take even lower wages.
Arch had experience in his trade union work of the diffi-
culty of organising a " close " village, in contradistinction
to an " open " one. A close village was one in which aU the
cottages were practically owned by one man ; though it
is only fair to add that if these belonged to a landlord like
the Duke of Bedford, or Lord Tollemache, or Earl Spencer,
the cottages were generally very much better than those
in open villages, where cottages were owned by avaricious
small men.
He gave evidence, though, of the Duke of Bedford prohibit-
ing his cottagers keeping a pig, or a dog, or fowls.
" Do any of you attach any importance," he was asked, " to
the argument which is used against labourers keeping pigs on
account of its giving them encouragement in pilfering? "
" The labourer is as honest as any other class," flashed out
Arch.
" I am not saying that it is not so," answered Lord Vernon,
" but do you attach any importance to that argument ? "
" Not at all ; it is an indefensible slur upon the honesty of my
class," replied the sturdy champion of the labourer.
When asked whether landlords, as a body, had opposed
the labourers, he answered : " Taking the majority, they
have bitterly opposed us." Then he admitted that Sir
Edward Kerrison had not, and that the Duke of Grafton
had remained neutral, but that Lord and Lady Stradbroke
were " formidable enemies."
When he stated that the labourers, even with a slight
decline in wages were paid two or three shillings more
than they were paid before 1872, he was asked if labourers
had not suffered less than the landlords and tenants since
the depression set in.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 75
"No," answered Arch.
" Are not the labourers at the present moment better clothed,
and better fed, and better housed than they ever have been ? "
Arch's reply was : " Yes, that may be. But at the same time,
when you say that the landlords and the farmers have suffered
more than the labourers, it is a moral certainty that with los. or
I2S., or even 14s., a man who has a wife and three or four children
cannot keep so good a home nor feed his family as well as the
farmer and the landlord can his."
" That is a different proposition altogether," said Mr. Hunter
Rodwell, the Commissioner. " Putting the thing relatively,
and supposing that of the three men one has had £3,000 a year
to spend, and another £500 a year, and another £50 a year, the
man who has £50 a year to spend has lost less in proportion than
either of the other two classes, has he not ? "
" Yes," answered Arch, " if you talk about the losses in pro-
portion to the income, of course the landlords have lost more
than the labourers, and so have the farmers in the aggregate ;
but if you come to the question of the suffering arising from the
losses, the labourers have suffered far more than the farmers and
landlords have. Take £1,000 a year, if you please, from his
Grace, and take 2S. a week off my Wages, and I suffer far more
than his Grace would by the loss of £1,000 a year. Then if the
farmer's profits be £200 a year, and let him lose £150 and only
clear £50, and take 2S. a week off my wages, and I suffer greater
loss than he does." ^
Perhaps Mr. A. Simmons, the secretary of the Kent and
Sussex Labourers' Union, made a better answer when the
same question was put to him : —
" I should say," said Mr. Simmons, " that the landlord suffers
least. I should say that the farmer suffers most, but that he
feels his suffering less than the labourer. To the labourer it is
a question really of less food ; to the farmer it is not absolutely
a question of bread ; it is comforts or no comforts." ^
Though the labourer was able to buy many things cheaper
than he was ten years before, it should be borne in mind that
beef, butter, and potatoes showed a distinct rise in prices,
whilst wheat and cheese remained the same as during the
previous decade. Towards the end of this decade, for the
first time in their lives, thousands of labourers who had
hardly ever tasted any other meat than that obtained from
the pig which they kept in their sties, or the rabbit which
1 Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-82.
« IbiA.
76 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
they snared in the field, began to taste mutton and beef sent
frozen to England from thQ ends of the world.
It is an ironical reflection on civilisation that the English
labourer who fed the buUock in the yard which he over-
looked from his cottage ; and folded the sheep on the roots
under his eye, had to wait until frozen meat came to him
from the Antipodes or the ranches of America before
butcher's meat became part of his diet, even once a week.
This is no exaggeration, for men to-day have told me that
the frozen meat which arrived in this country in the late 'eigh-
ties was the first time they had tasted mutton in their hves.
In spite of the reductions in wages, made in many areas,
especially in the southern counties, the labourer received
higher cash wages at this period than he did before the birth
of Arch's Union, Yet he suffered more than either of the
other two classes who experienced greater financial losses, for
the reduction of a shilling or two in wages, when these are
not at a figure sufficient to maintain physical efficiency,
means suffering in a very real sense.
More and more it became the custom for farmers to reduce
the labourers' p/erquisites and to be more ruthless in turning
men off on wet days. The official figures then must be used
with some caution.^
s. d. s. d.
* Surrey 15 o Worcester 13 6
Kent 16 6 Warwick 14 o
Sussex 13 6 Leicester (ordinarily) . . ii 6
Southampton .... 12 o „ (near the iron
Berks 12 o mines) ... 14 6
Bucks 14 o Rutland —
Hertford 13 6 Lincoln 14- 3
Oxon 13 3 Middlesex 15 6
Northampton .... — Nottingham (ordinarily) . 14 o
Huntingdon 12 o „ (near the mines) 19 o
Bedford 12 6 Derby 16 6
Cambridge 12 6 Chester —
Essex 12 6 Lancashire 17 6
Suffolk 12 6 Yorkshire, E 15 o
Norfolk 12 6 „ W 16 6
WUts 12 o „ N 16 6
Dorset no Durham 17 9
Devon 13 o Northumberland . . . i5 6
Cornwall 14 6 Cumberland 18 o
Somerset 13 o Westmoreland . . . . 18 o
Gloucester 13 6 Monmouth 12 o
Hereford 13 o Wales —
Salop 13 o
Stafford 13 6 Average .... 14 ij
— From Dr. Hasbach's and the Assistant Commissioner's figures.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 'jy
Farmers knew, too, that the threat of a labour-saving ma-
chine could still strike fear to the heart of the labourer. ' ' The
farmers have used machinery as a sort of weapon over the
backs of the labourers," said Joseph Arch before the Royal
Commission. " I heard of a certain farmer who boasted
for years at a market ordinary that he bought a reaping
machine, but he never used it, and he said that it paid him
a good percentage, keeping it in the coachhouse to frighten
the labourers with."
The pinch of poverty was increased, too, by the falling off
in family earnings. It was chiefly through the action of the
trade unions that the degrading gang system of emplo3dng
married women, young girls and boys on field work under
a ganger who exploited their labour and had no regard for
their morals, had largely disappeared. The Education Act
of 1870 had also cut inroads into the earning capacities of
families. Married women were seen less in the fields, and
the new schools absorbed the children. It was common
practice however for boys to work in gangs, and they did not
appear to have a very happy life of it. A man who was a
member of Arch's Union, and is now living at Maylands,
Essex, teUs me of the experience he had when he was nine
years of age at Chelmondiston on the Orwell, which fortun-
ately had its humorous side. Working one day with nine
other boys under the charge of a foreman aged sixteen, at
singling mangolds, this juvenile gang was made aware of
the farmer watching them at work from behind a hedge by
hearing him roar out to the ganger :
" Get me two ash sticks about a yard long. I shall be
back in a minute."
The bigger boys at once held a council of war and decided
to put up a fight. But the farmer brought along with him
heavy artillery in the form of a large retriever dog.
Surrender to the inevitable was imminent, but not until
the biggest boy had got a piece of the root of a tree placed
inside the seat of his trousers. He was the first boy to
receive the thrashing, and whilst the ash stick descended
upon the root the others burst out laughing. The laughter
incensed the farmer so much that he thrashed every one of
the boys in turn
78 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" Some years after this occurred," remarked my informant
caustically, " I met this same farmer in a lonely spot. I
laid hold of him and invited him to have another go at me,
but he decUned with thanks."
Simmons contended that cash wages in Kent had dropped
from 15s. to I2s. during the last five years, and he gave some
interesting figures as to the losses from wet and frosty wea-
ther. Six labourers kept an account of the days lost in
twelve months. These showed an average loss of eighty-five
days in wet and wintry weather. Had it not been for emi-
gration agents, and the lowering in the price of many com-
modities purchased in the shops, the shrinkage in family
earnings would probably have brought about serious trouble
in rural districts. The custom of baking bread in their own
ovens was being dropped in labourers' families, because
ovens were not provided in the newer type of cottage and the
older ones were faUing into decay. Increased machinery
had shortened the harvest earnings. Simmons made the
statement that the Kentish labourer spent on the average
only 6d. a week on beer, " and his Grace is aware," he added,
" that the labouring people in many places look upon beer
as food."i
1 We get a glimpse at an agricultural labourer's budget with an average
family in 1880 from the Parliamentary Report Commissions, 1881, XVI.
310.
s.
d.
s. d.
Wages . . .
. . . 15
Rent
• • I 7i
Garden . . .
I
6
Bread . . . . ,
. . 6
Extras
I
Bacon . . . . ,
Tea and Sugar . .
..26
■•13
17
6
Cheese ....
Butter , , . ,
Fuel
Candles and soap .
Clothes ....
Schooling ...
Sundries
..16
..16
■•13
..06
. . I 6
..03
,.06
18 4i
It wiU be noticed that there is no allowance made for church or chapel
collection, a newspaper, a postage stamp, a journey in a carrier's cart, or
a railway, a glass of beer, or even a doctor's fees.
Presumably the deficit between the revenue and the expenditure had
to be met by the cold hand of charity, for I imagine the extras included
harvest money.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 79
An official attempt has been made to prove that the
poverty was not so great at this^thne by giving the figures of
the reduction of outdoor paupers, but this is counterbalanced
by the increase of the number of indoor paupers occasioned
by the rigour of the new Poor Law. ^ Altogether the general
report on Labour issued by the Commission must be dis-
counted by the extraordinary omission of the evidence
of the labourers' representatives.
In trjTing to compose a picture of the labourer's Ufe in the
early 'eighties we must remember that he was still outside
the pale of citizenship, and that nearly everything that the
English peasant held dear, such as the opportunity of staking
out a cow, of being able to keep a pony or donkey or fowls
on a bit of common land, of cutting furze to heat the bread
oven, or fern as bedding for pigs, or cutting turves for firing
had been taken from him by successive Enclosure Acts, and
that instead of being able to produce much of his food or
acqmre fuel close to his cottage door he had to buy nearly
ever5d:hing, and more and more he was being reduced to the
position of the seller who has only one article to sell — his
labour, and the price of this he knew was being driven down.
Arch had long harped on the need of three or four acres
for every cottager. He said he could get a living from five
acres, and we can trace in Arch's statement the genesis of the
agitation which was afterwards known as the " Three Acres
and a Cow," cry of Mr. Jesse CoUings. There were the
Charity Lands left expressly for the poor which had been
mal-administered. These Charity Lands were the crumbs
left to the labourer after the landowners had fed themselves
to repletion under successive Enclosures Acts. But even
these Charity Lands were not being used by the labourers.
Allotments, it is true, had been in existence for some time ;
but that was largelythroughthe enterprise of a private society
known as the Labourer's Friend Society founded in 1834,
for the old Act of 1819 had become a dead letter. Charity
Commissioners were unsympathetic, if not hostile to labourers
using charity land ; and the country clergy even, when
they wished to let their Glebe land were often prevented
1 Vide Dr. Hasbach p. 293.
8o ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
from doing so, though Canon Tuckwell in a famous con-
troversial battle foughti down the opposition of his Bishop
successfully.
In spite of the Bishop's inhibitions he did cut up his glebe
farm of about 200 acres into allotments, and after two years
he could write : " Already throughout the village I found
corn bags ranged along the walls, potatoes under the beds,
hams hanging from the ceiHngs wrapped up in old Reynolds'
weekly newspapers ; the housewives for the first time in
their hves facing winter unemploy without alarm. ^
Canon TuckweU however by no means regarded allotments
as a solution of the problem of rural poverty. Far from it ;
for he became a convinced land nationaUser. A farm at
Assington, near Sudbury, Suffolk, was sold to some labourers
by the Liberal member for Mid Norfolk. It had a struggle
during the depression, but has managed to siorvive to this
day (1920) and I am informed by a member of it that a share
sold in 1899 changed hands in jgio for £130.
The discovery that the Act of WilUam IV. applied to
all charity lands Hes to the credit of Mr. J. Theodore Dodd,
the son of an Oxfordshire clerg3mian. An agitation arose in
the House of Commons, powerfully backed by Mr. Jesse
Colhns and Sir Charles DUke, to bring in an Allotment Act
in 1882, which instituted the principle of compulsion, and
made the County Cotirt and not the Charity Commi^ion
the final arbiter. Mr. Howard Evans, who devoted a tre-
mendous amount of energy in getting up facts, was the real
author of the Act. This was successfully passed through
the Lower House in 1882, but unfortunately, the House of
Lords destroyed the vaUdity of it by making the Charity
Commissioners the supreme judges as to whether land should
or should not be let. The land which could be used as allot-
ments under this Extension of the Allotments Act, 1882,
was by no means inconsiderable, and it was calculated that
excluding land allocated to Church, or educational purposes,
the value for purely allotment purposes would be ;£i,ooo,ooo.''
Amongst labourers there was a strong feeling of injustice
* Reminiscences of a Radical Parson, by the Rev. W. Tuckwell.
' Report on Charitable Trusts Acts, 18S4.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 8i
over the rents charged, which were often an5rthing from 25
per cent, to 500 per cent, above the rents charged to fanners.
Vexatious rules were often imposed which made the grant-
ing of an allotment dependent upon the labourer's good be-
haviour in attending church, or on condition that it should
not be worked on Sunday mornings, not even before break-
fast. It is not surprising that under such conditions allot-
ments in one county — Kent — ^had fallen from 2360 in number
to 300 in i88i.
John Stuart Mill welcomed the rise of the Agricultural
Labourers' Union as a political force as weU as an industrial
one. Though he died in 1873 he saw in it a lever for
obtaining the franchise, better houses, and better education.
He also appeared to be in favour of the peasant proprietor-
ship aims of its leaders, though he seemed to regard
allotments academically as a " contrivance to compensate
the labourer for the insufficiency of his wages."
The fact that allotments had been more popular in low
paying counties like Oxfordshire and Norfolk, lends an
argument in support of Mill. On the other hand, we find
that, as wages rose, allotments became more popular in
these counties, and in the north • where wages were much
higher the men who boarded with the farmer naturallyshowed
little desire to cultivate allotments, and the married men who
lived in their own cottage had httle spare time, for their cus-
tomary hours were much longer in the summer than those of
the southern labourer. Though better fed than the
southern labourer, in some respects the young unmarried
stockman's life was hardly distinguishable from domestic
servitude, being at the beck and call of the farmer or the
farmer's wife at all hours. Then in a county hke Cum-
berland men had far better opportunities of acquiring a
small farm in that county of small holdings than in the
south. 1
Much evidence was brought forward that labourers in
certain villages did not want allotments and did not trouble
to cultivate those which were in existence. But labourers
* In 1917 there were 3,831 holdings under 50 acres in Cumberland and
only 150 over 300 acres, Cmd. 25.
VOL. II. G
82 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
were working very long hours, even the ordinary labourers ;
and in the case of horsemen, cowmen, and shepherds, there is
httle time or energy left for cultivating an allotment, which
unfortunately in the days of no compulsory powers were
often on poor land and at some distance from the village
street. A very tired man who has had lumps of earth
sticking to his boots aU day is not Hkely to shov/ much enthu-
siasm at turning out after his tea or supper to toil on the
land again.
On the other hand the cultivation of an allotment was a
pleasurable recreation to the man immured in a factory
all day, and it was round the outskirts of towns that the
growth of allotments was and stiU is more in evidence.
The most useful allotment a man could have, as Arch with
his practical mind pointed out, was behind the back door of
the cottage, that is, a garden of half an acre or so, and the
larger allotment he had in view was not so much the self-
contained small holding, but one which was useful to the
odd- jobber, the piece worker, the man who kept a pony, a
donkey, or a cow, and was able to choose his master when he
had to earn cash wages.
Nothing is more discreditable, pohtically, to the landed
aristocracy of this country in both Houses of Parliament
than their opposition to any attempt made by land reformers
to give the labourer easy access to an allotment. Though
Allotment Acts were passed in 1882 and 1887, and a Small
Holdings Ad; in 1892, it was not until the Local Government
Act of 1894 was passed which instituted Parish Councils,
that the labourer could secure without many obstacles put
in his path an acre of land, and even then he had to pay
dearly for it as a rule.
The Allotment Act of 1887, was more satisfactory than the
preceding one, in that it gave six parliamentary electors the
power to request the sanitary authority to provide allotments
for the inhabitants of the district. But whilst this was of
some benefit to urban workers who could display more inde-
pendence of spirit, it required some courage for agricultural
labourers to send in a request to a Board of Guardians com-
posed chiefly of farmers hostile to the granting of allotments.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 83
Thus the activity of the men's leaders in the early years
of the 'eighties was more poUtical than industrial. In
1884, the Enghsh agricultural labourer who had fought all
England's battles for her and produced her food, was gener-
ously allowed to become an English citizen with power
to vote as to how he should be taxed, policed, and governed
generally. Arch became a candidate for ParUament and in
doing so allied himself definitely with the Liberal Party.
Here he made a mistake ; but a very natural one in those
days when the political party keenest to give the agricultural
labourer his vote was the Liberal Party. Unfortunately,
Arch carried his Union with him in demanding such reforms
as the Disestablishment of the Church, which alienated the
sympathies of the many Churchmen who had hitherto sup-
ported the Union, and thus the whole of the agricultural
trade union movement came to be considered politically as
a Radical, anti-Church, Dissenting agitation, rather than as
an industrial one.
It was no wonder, though, that Arch felt that the Con-
servatives were his implacable foes. Sir Stafford Northcote
writing on December 3rd, 1883, said :
" I regard with anxiety the attempts which are being made to
introduce principles the full bearing of which is not at once
obvious, but which are pregnant with the greatest mischief.
If the country be brought to agree to an identical franchise based
on household suffrage we shall give Mr. Chamberlain all he wants
and shall repent our folly, as the trees in the fable repented of
having given the woodman a handle for his axe."
Arch was elected to Parliament in November 1885-
His election throws some hght upon a rural ParMamentary
contest in the mid-eighties. The well-to-do Liberals wanted
Sir W. Brampton-Gurdon to represent the constituency. The
labourers wanted Arch ; and when it was put to the vote
of the members of the political association. Arch received
twice the number of votes that Sir Brampton-Gurdon did.
Lord Henry Bentinck was the Conservative opponent, and
the Conservatives had held the seat for sixty or seventy
years.
" They sent a troop of men down," says Arch, " to one of my
84 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
meetings to cripple me. They gave them 5s. and a gallon of
beer each ; but it so happened that a new line was being cut to
South Lynn and all the navvies knew me — ^the majority of them
had come off the land on to the line. One day the ganger went
to Ljmn to draw the money to pay the men, and on his way he
called in at a public house, and overheard the men who had been
sent down by the Tories discussing the best way to pay me out.
That night he told the navvies what he had heard, and they all
attended my meeting armed with sticks. When the Tory crowd
commenced to set about me, the navvies went for them and
thrashed them most unmercifully, and the Tory, roughs with
the navvies' mark on them were regularly cowed and slunk off
out of the way. I remember I rode through Lynn to the Town
Hall in a donkey cart ; and after the poll had been declared,
when I rose to thank the electors for the honour they had con-
ferred upon me, I said that while my opponents with carriages,
horses, servants, and all their aristocratic paraphernalia had
failed to accomplish their object, Joseph and his brethren had
accomplished their object with a donkey cart. That humble
donkey had drawn me on to triumph and a majority of 600." ^
Arch was very proud of the fact that Sandringham was
in his constituency. " I said to myself," he wrote, " Joseph
Arch, M.P., you see to it that neither the prince nor the
labourers have cause to be ashamed of you."
He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons
in January, 1886, when he opposed Chaplin's Allotment Bill.
His speech was characteristic of him :
" Honourable gentlemen have said that about a quarter of an
acre is suf&cient for a working man in a village. There may be
some working men such as shepherds and carters who perhaps
would be contented with a rood of ground ; but I venture to say
that a very large number of the labourers in Norfolk — and I am
speaking now from my own experience in that county — ^would
only be too glad if they could rent an acre or two at a fair market
price. On the other hand, I do not find any human or Divine
law which would confine me as a skilled labourer to one rood of
God's earth. If I have energy, tact, and skill by which I could
cultivate my acre or two, and buy my cow into the bargain, I
do not see any just reason why my energies should be crippled
and my forces held back, and why I should be content as an
agricultural labourer with a rood of ground and my nose to the
grindstone all the days of my life." *
* Joseph Arch 1 The Story of his Life told by Himself.
« Ibid.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 85
In July, 1886, he lost his seat by twenty votes when the
Liberal Party split over Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. He
regained his seat in 1892.
It is interesting to learn for what wages a man hke Arch
worked as principal official of the Union. In the days
when the Union flourished he had £3 a week, but from 1879
to the time the Union collapsed his wages were only £2 los.
a week. His election expenses were paid for by wealthy
Liberals, and the Union allowed him certain parhamentary
expenses, presumably for travelling.
Dr. Jessopp, a friend of George Meredith, and vicar of a
country parish in Norfolk, in his interesting book Arcady,
contended that the agricultural labourer had no pohtical
opinions whatever, and that he was intensely local in his
sentiments and prejudices. " You can never persuade a
Norfolk man that it does not matter where he was born and
where he is buried. He belongs to this or that parish. He
is a part of its soil. He has nothing whatever to do with the
persons living on the other side of the brook." This intense
parochialism was characteristic of many country parishes,
yet Dr. Jessopp's picture surely was an exaggerated one,
even of 1886. Arch's Union had helped men to leap across
parish boundaries and brooks, giving the hand of fellow-
ship to the man on the other side of the boundary. Moreover,
the election of 1885 was a convincing proof that Hodge was
becoming political, for it was his vote that returned Glad-
stone to power ; and yet those who took an active part
in this election seemed doubtful as to whether the agricul-
tural laboiurer even knew the name of Gladstone !
The Rev. W. TuckweU, Rector of Stockton, Warwickshire,
said when addressing about 800 labourers in a village in
the Rugby division.
" I was not a little curious as to the political capacity of a
purely rustic audience. It was probably the first occasion in
English history on which any candidate had visited them ;
certainly the first effort made to explain to them the issues of the
coming contest and the effect which their votes might exercise
on their own well-being. Talking with a friendly farmer I had
said : ' I doubt if these men ever heard of Gladstone.' ' Try
them,' he answered ; and early in my speech I sent up the name
86 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
as a kite. It met with rapturous response here and everywhere.
All over England the rustic belief in him was pathetic ; he was in
the words of Virgil's Nisus, the god of their desires ; they
believed that he would come like Elias to restore all things ;
holding in his hands free education, parish councils, three acres
and a cow. His name, and his name alone, won the rural con-
stituencies, and created the parliamentary majority. . . .
" The rapidity of their political growth was astonishing.
Ten months before scarcely a single agricultural labourer realised
what the franchise meant ; he did not know the value of his
vote ; did not believe that it could be secret, or that he could give
it against the wish of his employer and landlord."^
Both of these country parsons wrote after the General
Election of 1885, and both evidently wrote with some exag-
geration. That ten months before the election scarcely
an agricultural labourer knew what the franchise meant
was stirely over-estimating his ignorance, for Arch and his
colleagues had been agitating for the vote for some years.
That the labourer did not believe the baUot could be secret
was however generally true, as unfortunately it is true even
to-day in some riu-al districts. Canon TuckweU teUs of the
pressure brought to bear upon men who were voting for the
first time by making them sign a pledge that they would
vote for the Tory candidate. So stern was this fighting
parson over this act of political intimidation that he pat-
rolled the village street on election day and threatened
with confinement in Warwick jail any employer who dared
to intimidate his labourer. His public statement circulated
in all the leading papers that if men were asked to make a
promise which was illegally obtained, they should without
hesitation break their promise at the polling station, aroused
a tremendous controversy of moral philosophy which set
aU the tongues of the impeccable wagging and the pens of
the casuists scratching.
That the political education of the agricultural labourer
was not complete, as far as the knowledge on which side
well-known statesmen stood, may be taken for granted, and
that in some counties even Gladstone could not be clearly
identified, is illustrated by a story told me by a Sussex school-
* Reminiscences of a Radical Parson.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 87
master. In the course of a General Election Sir Walter
Barttelot was standing as a Tory of the old school for the
Horsham Division. A Liberal was opposing him. The school-
master asked a Petworth labourer for whom he had voted.
" Why, Barttelot ; he's the man for the likes of we. I knows
he." " But," said the schoolmaster, who was a Liberal,
" don't you know what party he belongs to ? " " Aye ; he's
for Gladstone, he be." And this happened as late as 1892.
It was natural that in the clamour of political tongues
the secession of " Joey Chamberlain," who was their friend
in things that mattered to them, from Gladstone, who had
shown himself cold to Land Reform in England, the
agricultural labourer should feel himself betrayed and should
transfer his vote to the other party. Home Rule was to
the Enghsh agricultural labourer a poUtical abstraction which
evoked no enthusiasm ; he wanted bread and he was told he
should get justice for Ireland first.
There was another writer who could get at the minds of
the agricultural labourers more easily than any parson. He
was not handicapped by the clerical uniform, and he could sit
in the kitchen of a country beerhouse, when he chose, as one
of themselves, and speak their own dialect. Tliis was
Richard Jefieries, who made a tour of a dozen different coun-
ties with the express purpose of finding out the pohtical mind
of the labourer. What seemed to impress him more than
an3^hing else was that when the labourer was speaking with
perfect freedom he took a delight in looking forward to the
day when he would be able to plough the squire's " bloody
park,"^ which was certainly one manner of bringing grass
land back to cultivation !
In a sense the Enghsh labourer never has been pohtical ;
that is as a House of Commons man understand pohtics.
But he is pohtical in the sense of the Russian peasant,
though the Russian peasant may be more wedded to phrases
than the son of English soil.
The parting of the ways came in 1886 when Hodge felt
that cottages and gardens were slipping away from his grasp
1 The Rural Exodus, by P. Anderson Graham.
88 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
for what appeared to him political unrealities, and his enthu-
siasm for Gladstonian candidates distinctly cooled.
Had Arch stuck to his " last," as in the early days of the
Union he declared he was determined to do, when poUticians
tried to lure him to follow will-o'-the-wisp reforms, he would
not have suffered defeat a second time, and his Union, in my
opinion, would have had a longer run of prosperity.
" No, thank you," he said to the political reformers in 1872.
" I'm for reform as much as anybody, but it's got to be the
labourer first, and reform all round after. . . . It's a poor shoe-
maker that can't stick to his last. Well, to raise the wages,
shorten the hours, and make a free man out of a slave is my last,
and to that last I'll stick as tight as beeswax for the present.
Raise a man's material condition to the level of self-respecting
decency, and the inoral will rise, too." ^
Thus spoke the shrewd EngUsh peasant before his head
was slightly turned by the great politicians at Westminster ;
and in speaking thus he spoke almost the same words as his
great predecessor, Cobbett, who said : " I wiU allow nothing
to be good with regard to the labouring classes unless it
makes an addition to the victuals, drink, or clothing. As
to their minds, that is much too subhme a matter for me to
think about."
Dr. Jessopp attributed rural depopulation to the shameful
housing conditions. No less than 92,250 labourers in
Great Britain had left the land between 1871 and 1881.^
" Men do not run away in shoals," he pertinently remarked,
" from homes where their childhood was happy. . . . They do
run away from the odious thought of living and dying in a
squalid hovel with a clay floor and two dark cabins under the
rafters reached by a ricketty ladder, in the one of which sleep
father and mother as best they can, while in the foetid air of the
other their offspring of both sexes huddle, sometimes eight or
nine of them, among them young men and young women out
of whom you are stamping all sense of shame. Yes, people do
run away from a life like this ; leaving it behind them as a
dreadful past which they remember only with indignation or
rebelling against the prospect of it as a future too hideous to be
entertained except with scorn. I, for one, do not blame them." ^
* Joseph Arch : The Story of his Life Told by Himself.
• Census of England and Wales. General Report, 1883.
' A cady, by Augustus Jessopp.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 89
Emigration, though, had gone out of fashion, at any rate
amongst the men of Norfolk. It began to be considered
derogatory to be an exile. The strong yoimg men went
navvjdng, or into the Police Force, or on to the railway lines,
or into the mines. The grown up young men and daughters
left the countryside — the youths for the towns and the girls
for domestic service. Few cottages seem to have had more
than two bedrooms : the exodus was inevitable for those
intending marriage.
" I could point," says Dr. Jessopp, " to three disgraceful
tenements immediately contiguous to one another, in each of
which, by a strange coincidence, there were lately a father, a
mother, and seven children all sleeping in a single bedroom.
In one case the mother produced an eighth child in the night, her
only helper being her daughter, a girl of fourteen, who did her
best while the father ran to fetch the midwife.
" The plain, ugly fact is patent to all who do not resolutely
keep their eyes shut, that the agricultural labourer's life has had
all the joy taken out of it, and has become as dull and sodden a
life as a man's can well be made." '•
" The poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex like swine."
Then, as now, it was quite common for labourers to
walk two or three miles to their daily work.
" Think of the waste," wrote Dr. Jessopp, " of energy, of
muscular tissue, of nerve force, of actual time taken out of what
the employer bargains for, or the employed has to give. \Think
of the weary shambling through the mud, and rain, and blinding
sleet and snow, of the wet clothes and the soaked dinner in the
basket and the dreary pounding back at night in the dark, to
find the baby sick and the doctor having to be fetched, and the
roof overhead letting in the steady drip, drip, drip, when the
poor sleeper lays himself down at last." ^
He considered that the tramp who sought his bed in a
barn on a bundle of straw had the selection of a better
bedroom as a rule than the overcrowded labourers !
Arcady was not all hke this. It had its Mayfair and Bel-
gravia as well as its Bermondsey and its Whitechapel, and
the best cottages were generally those found on the estates
1 Arcadv, by Augustus Jessopp. ' Ibid
90 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of large and wealthy owners. The worst cottage owners,
then as now, were often those who kept the village shop or
the pubUc house and Uved much before the world in church
or chapel " They walked with a stick," as they said in Arcady.
In Warwickshire the returns of the Medical Officer of
Health pubUshed at this period showed that 20 per cent,
of all the cottages in the county possessed only one bedroom
each ; whilst 50 per cent, had only two bedrooms each
Farther north, in Yorkshire and the more northern counties,
many cottages consisted of only two rooms, and it would
have been difhcult for the visitor to discriminate between
the kitchen and the sitting-room. Both were fitted with a
couple of wooden box beds, which took up nearly half the
available space. The mattress was stuffed with chaff from
the barn. If the family was a large one, two or three,
sometimes of different sexes, would be obliged to sleep in
the same bed. Under these beds would be stored the
year's potatoes, while ia two chests would be kept
the flour and oatmeal. Below the table might be a pig
in pickle. The one jealously guarded box, when the young
men and young women began to court, would be that
which contained their Sunday clothes !
The bothy system was much in vogue in the north and
of this a pleasing description is given by Mr. Anderson
Graham, though one may doubt whether it was typical.
It is certainly picturesque, and I should like to quote it in
fuU:—
" A description of one will give those who do not know it some
idea of a plan carried out here and there chiefly on very large
farms. It had five inmates, aU young, unmarried men ranging
in age, to judge by appearance, from eighteen to five or six-and-
twenty. The building was old and looked like a disused saddle
room with a loft to it. When I went the family were just about
to have tea. No cloth was on the table, but it and the floor were
scrubbed as clean as a ship's deck. They told me that the house-
work was taken in rotation for a week at a time, he on whom it
devolved being for that period the ' Bessie ' of the household.
He had made the tea, cut and buttered the bread, and was
boiling the eggs as I entered. The most diligent housewife
might have envied the tidy hearth, the shining fender and
fire-irons, the weU-brushed pot and kettle. Nor did the sturdy
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 91
labourers show themselves blind to the aesthetic element, though
a professed ' sesthetician,' as the American journalists call Mr.
Oscar Wilde, might possibly have laughed at their decorative
effects, and yet even he would have admitted the beauty of a
great bunch of red and white roses placed on the table. The wall
pictures formed a dream of fair women, and apparently had been
cut from calendars, cheap newspapers, and advertisement sheets.
As these ploughmen Benedicts took their tea, their eyes were
feasted on the features of Miss Fortesque, and Miss Mary Ander-
son, Miss Maud Millet and the Alhambra ballet girls, in addition
to highly idealised Juliets, Beatrices and other stock subjects
for the illustration ' given away with this number'.
" The beds were up in what had once been a loft, and were
the strong iron variety standing on clean-swept, uncovered deal,
and looking clean to say the least of it. Until they came together
at the preceding term, they had all been strangers to one another,
the men said. They liked the life ' fine,' and did not feel at all
dull. On winter nights they amused themselves with draughts,
and one of their number played the concertina. Occasionally
they moved the table out of their living room and managed to
get up a dance. ' With the house servants as partners ? ' I
suggested, and a general smile seemed to show that they were
not without fem^ale visitors occasionally. Youths placed as
they were are almost certain to indulge in more or less wild
' larks,' which, when the prevailing influence happened to be bad,
easily degenerated into absolute vice. But with all its drawbacks
the bothy system is an improvement on that which it superseded.
Not so very long ago each of these men would have been boarded
in a strange family where the chances were distinctly in favour
of there being a crowded cottage with grown-up women who
would have had to sleep, it might be in the same room, but
certainly in close proximity to them. It was even worse when
a young woman field-worker came into a strange family with
full-grown sons. But the more scandalous outrages on decency
have now become so rare and are so surely disappearing that it
is unnecessary to do more than give them a passing reference." ^
Dr. Jessopp, too, did not dwell entirely on the seamy side
of Arcady. He found great satisfaction in the labourer
earning as much as us. a week v/ith additional sums at
haysel, harvest and turnip hoeing, and a strange exhilaration
in the spectacle of four of them driving home from work
each in his own donkey cart. He said he felt proud that he
was an Englishman when he saw such a sight as that in
' The Rural Exodus, by P. Anderson Graham.
92 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
1887, a sight which he contended marked the English peas-
ant as enjoying a " condition of prosperity " greater than
in any other country on the face of the earth ! ^
Farmers wholivedhard andadapted themselves to changing
conditions seem to have prospered through the depression ;
whilst the class of tenant farmers who rushed into farming
in the golden era of the 'fifties, 'sixties, and early 'seventies,
who occupied substantial farmhouses and hunted, those
whose sons and daughters despised the day of little things
— ^the dairy, the henhouse and the orchard, went rapidly
down hill. They worked less than formerly, kept as many
servants, and dressed more extravagantly on their diminish-
ing returns. So much was the dairy neglected that we learn
of the difficulty of labourers' wives being able to buy rmlk in
the villages, with the result that the children were improperly
nourished, as their fathers were robbed of the opportunity
of depasturing a cow on a bit of Common land.
The greatest social change noticed by Dr. Jessopp was
in the note of sadness which had settled like a bUght on
every village, a sadness he attributed to the decay of music
and sports. Colour and music had gone out of village life
with the disappearance of the parish choir with its sackbut,
psaltery, dulcimer, clarionet, flute, bass viol and trombone.
In place of these they had the wheezy harmonium and the
well-groomed choir boys.
" How has the deplorable effacement of our rural music been
brought about," he asks. " There is only one answer. " It has
been brought about by the general deluge of smug and paralysing
respectability which has overrun our country villages. And for
this I am bound to say the clergy and their families are in a
great measure answerable."
Cotmtry clothing had lost its colour, and craft its individ-
uality. Black became the symbol of respectability. Village
wakes and fairs, dancing round the ma5rpole, club dinners
and wrestling matches were denounced from a thousand
pulpits.
" We have become so disgustingly orderly, enlightened, and
decently respectable that a farm labourer is a heavy, sancti-
» Arcady, by Augustus Jessopp.
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 93
monious, and thoroughly cowed creature who always puts on a
smooth face and pretends to be a very good boy indeed." ^
As we have seen before the close of the 'eighties,
the life of Under the Greenwood Tiee had entirely disap-
peared from rural England. The social Hfe which had
been evolved out of communal rights had been completely
swept away. In its place the labourer had won the
right to combine and the right to vote ; but so denuded
had been the countryside of its most ardent spirits that
another generation had to be born before advantage was
taken of the one or the other.
Many a county in rural England, indeed, began to bear
signs of neglect as though a blight had settled on the coun-
tryside. Docks ripening into armouries of seed stained
the ill-cultivated fields, and argosies of thistledown sailed
tmchecked over water-logged land. Grass, unfortunately,
with much couch amongst it, crept steadily over the fields
of stubble. In ten years one miUion acres were lost to
the plough.
The decay of rural population did not affect one class
alone — ^the labourer — but all classes of rural workers. The
village blacksmith had fewer horses to shoe ; agricultural
implements were bought at the ghttering ironmonger's in
the nearest town, to which the railway swiftly carried the
farmer. The smithy closed down or dispensed with an
apprentice, or the smith worked two village forges. He
was no longer asked to make scythes, billhooks, or mattocks.
His sole business became that of shoeing horses, sharpening
the plough coulter, or fitting a new finger to the mowing
machine which was now displacing the sc5rthe.
The village carpenter's son did not wait to step into
his father's shoes, which were already down at heel in this
iron age. His bicycle took him to the town, and he turned
up in the village on Sunday with a fashionable billycock,
a walking stick and a Waterbury, which played havoc
amongst the beribboned lasses who in their turn were begin-
ning to cultivate what is called a " taste." His presence
in the village acted with greater and more magical effect
* Arcady, by Augustus Jessopp.
94 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
than the emigration agent. Other young fellows borrowed
or purchased the high bicycle ; and this big wheel was not
only the symbol, but the actual wheel of fortune which
revolutionised the social hfe of the countryside.
The social customs deriving their enduring quahties
h^om stationary conditions of Mfe were dying out. No
longer did parties of men and girls contrive a raid upon a
widow in need, cheering her with a feast and leaving much
food behind them for the widow's cupboard. Sometimes
a fiddler or a player of the concertina would be found and
every man would bring his mug or cup and saucer besides
food for the feast, and if it was a moonlight night a dance
would spring up hke magic. This custom was dsdng out,
and so was the dance in the barn following the village wed-
ding, with a fiddler on an up-turned tub and a jug of beer
by his side and tallow candles guttering down the stout
oaken pillars which supported the roof.
Wayside pubhc houses which throve on the carters who
puUed up their heavy loads of corn, or straw, or hay, or
cake, were left high and dry by the railroad on the one side
and the uncultivated fields on the other. The pubhcan
reduced his staff and became more or less a small holder
or dealer, to keep himself alive.
The wheelwright's trade languished with that of the
carpenter's and blacksmith's ; and how many picturesque
wheelwrights' yards shaded by trees with an amplitude of
roadside waste there used to be in the 'sixties and 'seventies.
The rake-maker began to disappear and with him the besom-
maker and the hurdle-maker would take up their tools and
seek work in the towns as rakes, brooms, hoops, hurdles and
gates commenced to be turned out by machinery in the town
timber-yards. The gossipy pedlar, the cottage woman's
newsvendor, was driven into the workhouse by the smart
traveller who drove out from the towns for orders.
The migration of the " tradesman " class left village
hfe much poorer socially. It took the colour out of rural
Hfe. Cricket and football clubs declined in spite of the
herculean efforts of athletic curates, and the inspiring exam-
ple of Charles Kingsley. Dreary England had taken the
THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 95
place of Merrie England ; the only emotional excitement
seeming to lie in the direction of religious revivals. I
remember asking in a village what had become of
the sexton. The reply was he had gone to Pulborough in
Sussex, which was " altogether a livelier place because he
had had two funerals in a fortnight."
There were no holidays except enforced ones on wet days
and such as a huing fair or mop fair. The half-hohday,
in spite of Arch's efforts, had not yet been won by the organ-
ised workers. Plough Monday in Lincolnshire, when the
labourers carried round a coulter decorated with ribbons
and collected money for a supper was still in vogue, it is
true, and in corners of Lancashire country folk could still
be found merry enough to perform a mutilated Easter
Play, as a prelude for asking for the Pace or Paschal eggs
that once upon a time were sought all over the county.
But these isolated gatherings appeared more hke ghosts
at a feast over a decaying rural England which in days gone
by, we are told, was merry. At any rate, we know that
once upon a time, as Walter de Henley says in his Dite dc
Hosebonderie, " you know that there were in the year fifty-
two weeks. Now take away eight weeks for holidays and
other hindrances then are there forty-four working weeks
left," which points to the fact that in the feudal days the
English labourer had more holidays than when he became
a " free " man.
It was not only the disappearance of the labourer
and the village tradesman which depleted rural life. The
ruined small yeoman farmer's homestead was vacated ;
his little farm as well as that of many a tenant farm was
engrossed. The bailiff began to occupy the better farm-
house whilst the inferior ones of the bankrupt farmer
were occupied by the teamster, shepherd, or cowman and
his family.
No greater condemnation of the dullness of village Hfe
could be made than that of a writer in 1891 : " The rustic
goes to town in part to revive his dying capacity for laugh-
ter."i
1 The Rural Exodus, by P.. Anderson Graham
PART FIVE
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT
THE 'NINETIES.
The " revolt of the field " of 1872 was a spontaneous act
on the part of the agricultural labourer. It started, as we
have seen, by a group of labourers asking Joseph Arch, one
of themselves, to be their leader, and although the towns-
man element was imported into the movement, its history
shows that it was purely an agrarian uprising. Its rank
and file sprang from the hedgerow, and its leader was the
champion hedge-cutter of England. Not only were its
members, but its organisation was distinctly rustic in char-
acter. Branches sprang up suddenly in out-of-the-way
villages Uke mushrooms in the night ; strikes were decjared
by little village communities who rarely saw an organiser
or consulted a leader. Though it received large sums of
money from sympathetic townsmen, no one could say that
Arch's movement was organised from the towns.
The new trade union movement in the early 'nineties,
however, is a different story. In 1889 the great Dock
Strike occurred, followed by the gasworkers' strike, and the
town leaders of the Dockers' Union and of the Gasworkers'
Union discovered to their cost the danger to the unskilled
town laboiurer of leaving unorganised the ill-paid agricul-
tural labourers, who were continually deserting the country-
side to fight for a crust of bread at the dock gates, or at the
fiery jaws of great gas retorts. The dockers' delegates
brought up the question of organising the farm labourer
at the Trade Union Congress, with the result that during
1890 their Union and the Navvies' Union sent organisers into
Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, and the Home counties, whilst
96
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 97
the Gasworkers' Union, skirmished round about country
towns.
Yet it was not from town trade unions that the most
constant evangelists issued, preaching a new economic
doctrine year after year, and who did most to revive the
spirit of organisation amongst agricultural labourers. These
new missionaries entered remote villages in the eastern,
southern, and midland counties, not by trains, or on bicy-
cles, but in gipsy vans, some painted red and others painted
yellow ; the difference in the two colours being that the
" reds " wished to restore the land to the people by means
of the Single Tax, whilst the " yellows " wished to accom-
plish this by means of nationalisation. For landowners it
was a choice between a Red or Yellow Peril.
The Land Nationahsation Society took the initiative in
1889 with open-air meetings in the Wisbech and Swaffham
districts. In 1890 Mr. Hyder made a journey with the
Land and Labour Lecture Cart through Norfolk, Suffolk,
Essex, and thence to Leicestershire, and back through
Northamptonshire and Cambridge to Dereham in Norfolk.
It was in 1891 that the first Red Van appeared in Suffolk,
sent out by the English Land Restoration League with the
object of obtaining reports on the conditions of rural life and
at the same time of assisting the newly formed Eastern Coun-
ties Labour Federation to organise farm workers ; and in
the same year the first Yellow Van surprised the rustics
of Middlesex, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somerset-
shire ; and keeping up the gipsy tradition toured through
Wales and thence across the north Midlands to Sutton in
Lincolnshire.
In the following years, and indeed right up to the out-
break of the great war, the Land Nationalisation Society
sent out its Yellow Vans not only through the Midlands
and the north of England, but even as far north as
Edinburgh.
The Land Nationalisation Society did not attempt to
organise the laboxurers, but only asked them to show their
acceptance of the principles of land nationahsation by
holding up their hands. The lecturers, however, soon
VOL. 11. B
98 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
found that labourers, standing under the eyes of their em-
ployers and others, evinced a dislike to a manifestation
of their opinions, and adopted a plan of inviting those
who were against the resolution to put their hands up,
and those who were in favour of it to keep their hands down.
The Red Vans travelled whilst funds lasted, and that was
from 1891 to 1897. The English Land Restoration League
started organising labourers from the very beginning.
Indeed they entered Suffolk at the express invitation of the
newly formed (1890) Eastern Counties Labour Federation,
which enrolled 3,000 members in one year (eventually the
membership reached 17,000), though it is probable that
some of these members were men who worked in the towns,
such as Ipswich.
Friendly gipsies fraternising with the Red Vanners, and
assuming that they had something to sell, would tell them
that Suffolk, where wages were low, was a poor county for
trade ; and that better business was to be done in the
Fenlands !
At the beginning of the 'nineties the most important
union was the Eastern Counties Federation, the strength
of which lay in Suffolk. In Northumberland, Cumberland,
and Lancashire trade unions were unknown. Arch's Union
had sunk to 2,254 members ; whilst an offshoot breaking
away from the parent society was formed in Norfolk in
1889. This was called the Norfolk and Norwich Agricul-
tural Labourers' Union, and Mr. George Edwards became
its secretary.
But with the advent of the Red Van into country dis-
tricts, unions soon began to crop up in Warwickshire,
Wiltshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, and Herefordshire,
detached from one another and without any central
organisation.
Mr. Verinder, the secretary of the Land Restoration
League, considered that the weakness of Arch's Union lay
in its centralisation, and that farm labourers became rest-
less and suspicious of an organisation which had its offices
and executive at some distant town which rendered control
ineffective and kept members out of touch with their leaders.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 95
Under the impetus of the new union movement the old
Kent and Sussex Labourers' Union ^ sprang into Ufe again,
and the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, though
now confined largely to Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, imder
stimulus of the Red and Yellow Vans increased its
membership from 2,454 in 1889 to 14,000 in 1890.
In spite of the rise of the Eastern Counties Federation,
farmers were lowering wages by is. a week in Suffolk and
Norfolk in the autumn of 1892 and the spring of 1893,
and strikes took place on several large farms.
Although strikes have their tragical side they rarely
take place without some display of that EngUsh humour
which has made our working class the most' tolerant and
orderly working class in the world, even when provoked to
disorder by the presence of mounted police armed with
batons.
An incident that occurred at St. Faith's — a village four
miles out of Norwich, which became a storm centre of
recurring agitation — illustrates that kind of EngHsh horse-
play, half serious and half fun, characteristic of our race.
This incident, however, had a dramatic ending.
A strike took place about 1889. The agricultural labour-
ers involved were then members of John Ward's Navvies'
Union, and about a dozen men were imported from Yarmouth
as strike-breakers and housed in shepherds' huts. Natur-
ally, these men were not received with any cordiality by
the villagers, who saw their bread and butter going into other
mouths. St. Faith's is a village which has always been
noted for its band, and the bandsmen plajdng a merry time,
followed by the rest of the villagers, marched up one night
to the shepherds' huts, and without much ceremony made
captive the men. Mr. G. E. Hewitt (now a respected mem-
ber of the Agricultural Wages Board and the Norfolk
County Council) who was then eighteen years of age (I have
no doubt he was one of the ringleaders), tells me that they
marched the unfortunate blacklegs down to the village
* An old banner of this Union was discovered at the Moon and Stars,
Preston, Kent, in 1919, by Mr. Baker, the county organiser of the K.A.L.U.,
and Mr, Baker has it in his possession.
100 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
green where a fish hawker named Furness assumed the
leadership.
Furness, who was a dissenter of a pronounced type, said
to the crowd : " Now look here. Let's have a touch of
the Salvation Army about this," and taking the big drum
and placing it on the ground he threw a shilling on to it.
" Let us collect enough money to send these men back to
their homes in Yarmouth," he said. Sufficient money for
this purpose was subscribed and it was decided to march
the men into Norwich railway station next morning, and
during the night the men were locked up in a cottage and a
guard stationed round it.
Early the next morning, at the call of the bugle and the
beat of the drum, with cheers from the villagers, the men
were marched into Norwich, and from that station they
were returned to the bosoms of their famihes and never
reappeared.
But the farmers had their revenge on the fish hawker.
They displayed no animus against the farm labourers, for
probably the incident was talked over at many a bar par-
lour with a gust of grim laughter in admiration of the auda-
city of the labourers. But the fish hawker was not a farm
labourer. "What business was it of his ? Besides, he was
a ranter, and a ranter was disliked almost as much in those
days as a trade union agitator ; so he was summoned and
put out of harm's way for four months at the expense of
the taxpayers of the country.
A subscription was immediately raised in Norwich, and
when the fish hawker had served his four months (becoming
no doubt in that period a more convinced rebel than ever,)
his exit from the prison gates was made with musical hon-
ours and a presentation of a purse of £80. His return to
St. Faith's was triumphal.
In the Annual Report of the Eastern Counties Federation
for 1892 occurs the following passage : —
" The present distressed condition of many farmers is brought
about by their own conduct towards their agricultural labourers,
and the sooner they alter their course of action and treat their
working-men as human beings, and as Christians, instead of
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. loi
making slaves of them and treating them worse than cattle, as
they have done in the past, the better it will be ; we may then
get on the highway to agricultural prosperity. . . .
" The farmers of Suffolk are just now forcing the labourers
into rebellion. We have offered peaceful arbitration, and some
of the farmers have returned our kindly offer in insulting lan-
guage. Still, they are members of Christian Churches : no
wonder at our churches being unpopular."
Though it managed to achieve a membership of 17,000
this Union must have had an uphill fight against declining
corn prices and the repeated attempts of farmers to lower
wages. Its financial basis of id. a week was too weak to
fight foes supported by their bastions of farm-tied cottages.
The farmers now formed in Norfolk a union for
their " mutual protection and benefit," one of the objects
being to assist its members in the event of a strike.
Possibly farmers were somewhat scared by the programme of
the Eastern Counties Federation, which contained items be-
traying its urban genesis. * Possibly" the Union ship was
carrs^ng too much sail, could not ride the Atlantic breakers,
and so foundered in 1895.
But this stimulus projected from the town proved to be
artificial and short-lived. By 1896 one might say that the
English agricultural labourer was left destitute of any kind
* The programme was as follows : —
Parish Councils wanted in the villages.
Paid Members of Parliament.
Boards of Guardians : abolish them. Why not ?
Old Age Pensions for men and women over 60 years.
Farming Companies and Co-operative Societies.
Tax uncultivated land to its fuU value.
More scientiiic farming wanted.
Compulsory cultivation of land.
Co-operative farming and federation trading.
Labour representatives on all public authorities.
A proportion of working men as magistrates.
Religious equality.
Tax mansions and deer forests to their full value.
Land-law reforms ; State to own the land.
Better wages for agricultural labourers.
Better homes for the workers ; excessive rents reduced.
Arbitration in trade disputes in place of strikes.
Arbitration in place of wars.
Steam tramways constructed by County Councils.
Municipal workshops and work for the unemployed.
County Council farms.
Regular employment for all working men.
102 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of trade union organisation. The old " National " dis-
appeared along with the meteoric newer unions, which de-
pended largely for their existence on the oratory of Single
Taxers, or Land Nationalisers. This is not to be wondered
at when one realises that in 1894 wheat had reached the
lowest price in the whole history of English agriculture.
Land was steadily going out of cultivation, and farmers
had either not the heart, or were too conservative to adapt
themselves readily to the production of nulk, which became
the most profitable kind of farming. Besides, landowners
in many instances could not or would not make the neces-
sary alterations in buildings. Labourers had not the cour-
age to ask for a rise of wages on a rapidly dechning market ;
though had they consistently done so and obtained higher
wages these might have become the best fertiliser our
dereUct fields could have received. Scotland, which main-
tained a higher standard rate of wages, did not feel the
depression to anj^hing like the same extent as England.
In fact, Scottish farmers, attracted by the low rents, came
south to seek their fortunes. They may not have succeeded
in making fortunes ; but they made a living where the less
efficient and more conservative English farmer failed to
carry on.
It is said that high rents in Scotland make the farmers
cultivate their land thoroughly well. Possibly higher wages
would have made Enghsh farmers try newer methods —
turn from corn to milk and stock raising with greater rapid-
ity. Denmark had to face the same avalanche of cheap
imported corn, and met it with resilient fortitude. Not
that I wish to imply that the blame of low wages and
bad conditions rests upon the shoulders of unprogressive
farmers. We had unprogressive landlords with tiresome
covenants on the land, whose one idea of easing the situa-
tion was that of reducing the rent. This no doubt was a
wise step, but in some districts it would have been better
if they had reduced the game as well.
Whilst the changing world conditions in cereal farming
made the Dane alter his land system, educate its farmers
and farmers' sons in every phase of agricultural economy
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT.
103
and use co-operative methods of production, collection and
transport, our agricultural community lived under the same
old land laws, the same old game laws, exacting railway
rates, and an almost entire lack of agricultural schools and
colleges, or demonstration farms.
Facts concerning the wages of the farm labourer in 1890
are to be found in the writings of several unofficial investi-
gators. Canon Tuckwell speaks of wages in his own neigh-
bourhood being as high as 15s. a week, owing to the presence
of some cement works ; but, he adds, in the south of Eng-
land wages had fallen as low as 9s. a week. He made the
discovery in 1885, as Mr. Rowntree made nearly thirty years
later, that it was not possible for a labourer to live in phy-
sical efficiency under £1 is. a week. To quote his own
words : —
" A house to house enquiry produced the following budget,
calculated for a family of husband, wife, and four children,
according to the prices and circumstances current at the time : — ■
Rent of cottage with small garden and pigstye, per week
Sick club
Bread, eight loaves at 4d. to 4id.
Flour .
Meat, 6 lb. at 8d.
Potatoes
Cheese, i lb. at 8d.
Sugar, 2 lb. at 3d.
Tea. j lb. at 2s.
Butter, I lb. at is.
Milk
Treacle .
Salt and pepper
Candles and paraffin
Fuel
Clothes — ^washing material, repairs, etc.
Tools, furniture, sundries
£1 I o
" This estimate includes bare necessities only ; it makes no
allowance for beer or tobacco ; it tallies very nearly with the
formula in use among cottagers, who will tell you that sixpence
a day per head is the lowest income on which a family can live
without anxiety and suffering ; and thus, even in my own dis-
trict, where wages were much higher than in other parts of
Warwickshire, a maximum receipt of fifteen shillings had to
meet a desirable expenditure of twenty-one. How could the
£
s.
d.
2
6
2
10
9
4
10
8
6
I
I
I
3
2
6
I
6
2
8
10
104 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
deficiency be filled ? How could the income be raised ? I had
long seen two things clearly ; first, that at the door of every
poverty-stricken village lay an unworked silver mine in the
village land ; secondly that to yield its ore this mine must be
worked under certain definite conditions." ^
Thus the Radical parson. It is clear thit if 21 does
not go in to 15, how much less does it go into 9 or 10 ?
But were these the wages paid at this time ? Let us now turn
to the pages of Mr. T. E. Kebbel, a trusted exponent of
the aristocratic view of the land question. , In his English
Country Life, published in 1891, he says : —
" It appears on the whole, that the total yearly income of an
ordinary English day labourer, including both wages and per-
quisites of every kind, ranges from about £50 a year in Northum-
berland to a little over £30 in Wiltshire, and other south-western
coimties. This gives an average of £40 a year. But it is only
the exceptionally low wages paid in a few counties which pulls
down the average even so low as this. In the eastern midlaijd,
northern, and south-eastern counties it is commoner to find the
sum total rising to £43, and £44, than sinking to £37 or fyS.
Shepherds, wagoners, and stockmen are paid at a higher rate,
and their wages average about £50 a year." '
Even if this statement were correct the Wiltshii'e or
south-western county labourer would get but a grim satis-
faction out of a national average of £/[0 a year or more paid
in other counties when he had to sustain life on £30 a year.
Against this evidence we have that of Mr. MiUin.*
" In Essex," he says, " so far as I have seen it, I don't think it
would be far wrong to put down the income of an able-bodied
labourer at from £5 to ;fio in harvest, and for the rest of the
year los. or us. a week when in work."
Mr. MiUin was a special commissioner for the Daily News,
and Mr. Anderson Graham writing at the same time, in con-
trasting the statement made by a Tory and a Radical
jovurnalist, attributes the divergence between the wages
stated by each to the sources of information. He says
that the Radical journalist gets his information from the
labourer, who is tempted to put his wages at a low figure,
• Reminiscences of a Radical Parson, by the Rev. W. Tuckwell
' Lifi in our Villages, also published in 1891.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 105
and that the Tory commissioner goes " to the farmer, squire
and the parson, and aU three of them are inclined to take
an exaggerated view of Hodge's income," — especially in
valuing the payments in kind.
The latter criticism is damaging to the official figures
issued from time to time by the Board of Trade, ^ for they
are made from statements given to the investigators by
farmers, though doubtless these have been to a certain
extent checked by questions put to labourers. Mr. Graham
assumes that the agricultural labourer is inchned to make
himself out to be a poorer man than he really is. My own
experience is in the very opposite direction. I am cautious
about accepting any statement made to me by a farm
worker as to his wages, because I find he is inclined, like
any other man in any other class of society, to state his
income higher than it really is. He is indeed, as a rule,
nshamed of his poverty, and if his cash wages are very
low, this feehng prompts him to represent that he has
certain " privileges," otherwise he would not stay on at
his job. On further investigation, I generally find these
"privileges " do not amount to much.
Being on friendly terms with almost all my neighbours
who work on the land, I have the same diffidence in asking
a labourer the extent of his income as I have in asking a
member of the professional classes, and the information
has to come to me unsolicited, or, through the medium of
the wives. Information is much more likely to be obtained
by questioning one labourer about another labourer's earn-
ings, though, of course, when one visits new neighbourhoods
one is less shy of questioning, and as a rule, the farm worker
is more incUned to be frank to a sympathetic stranger than
to any one living in his own parish.
Though the author of The Rural Exodus questions the
accuracy of Mr. Millin, who he thinks might have been
biassed by his " Radical " views, he admits himself that he
found farm labourers in Gloucestershire
1 0£ficialinformation was gleaned from three sources: (i) Chairmen of
Poor Law Unions, (2) "Agriculturists," (3) Farmers; but probably (i)
and (2) were indistinguishable from (3).
io6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" who have not more than los. a week in money and per-
quisites that certainly do not come to 2S. more, wherewith
themselves and a young family have to be fed and dressed and
lodged. How they manage to thrive in health as they do, is a
mystery."
" Again," he adds, " in the neighbouring county of Wilts
there is equal hardship. There are many neatly-thatched
picturesque dwellings cosily hidden in nooks of the Downs, in
dales through which the running water has fretted a channel,
where the income is not so large. On the east coast there are
even worse cases. Norfolk and Suffolk give me the impression
of being at the present moment the most wretched of agricultural
counties, so far as the labourers are concerned. It was only in
East Anglia that I found actual cases of able-bodied men keeping
their families on a wage of eighteen-pence a day, Sundays not
included. Game preservers complain of the amount of poaching
that goes on, but one can hardly wonder at it. A man who has
not meat to his dinner more than once out of seven times, is
under strong temptation to fill his pot with the first wild thing
he can lay hands on. Yet I could give the addresses of agricul-
tural labourers in Essex, Hertfordshire, and even Berkshire,
where the family income is not much in excess of what I have
mentioned. The extraordinary contrasts presented by the
various shires tend to produce a feeling of scepticism in regard
to averages. Sufficient statistics to make them trustworthy have
not yet been collected, and it would be a difficult task to do so." ^
The aristocrat amongst farm workers south of the Trent,
was the man who had charge of horses, sheep, or cattle
all the year round without incurring any loss for wet days
and enjoying harvest money and cottage accommodation.
Such, for instance, was the ploughman in Essex as described
by Mr. James Macdonald, whose revised edition of The
Book of the Farm appeared in 1891.
£ s-
d.
Fifty-two weeks at 14s. per week .
. 36 8
Extra for haymaking ....
I 10
Do. in harvesting
3 10
Cottage
• 5
Firewood, beer money, etc., say
I 2
Total . . ;£47 1° °
" This is the rate for the best men," says Mr. Macdonald.
" Ordinary men get about is. a week less." If, however,
1 The Rural Exodus, by P. Anderson Graham,
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 107
one were to put down the number of hours worked by men
in charge of live stock one would probably find that the rate
worked out at less per hour than the wages earned by the
ordinary labourer. " In the neighbourhood of London,"
he adds, " the rate of wages is higher by two or three
shillings a week. On the other hand, in the counties
away from London the rate is lower, los., lis., 12s. per
week, with similar perquisites being paid in several English
counties."
The official summary of the situation was that " the lab-
ourer was better fed, his education and language improved,
his amusements less gross, his cottage generally improved,
though generally on small estates there were very bad
ones still left."i
Weekly wages ranged from 10 s. in Wilts and Dorset to
18s. in Lancashire, and averaged 13s. 6d. for the whole
country,^ and Mr. W. C. Little, the Senior Assistant Commis-
sioner in 1893, put the hours worked at 10 and 10^ a day
for ordinary labourers, and at 12 J hours a day in summer
and iif in winter for horsemen and cowmen.
In contrasting the conditions of the northern and eastern
counties Mr. WUson Fox^ sumnied up the position thus : —
" The wages paid in the eastern counties are nominally much
lower than those in the three northern counties I visited, but
the actual wages received by an eastern counties' labourer,
greatly depend on whether he is in the service of a farmer who
employs him in wet weather, and gives him work to do by the
piece. If he is so fortunate, his nominal cash wages of iis. or
i2s. a week are frequently converted into 15s., i6s., and 17s. a
week, harvest of course being included. He may also be living
on a large estate, where he gets a good cottage and garden for
£2 los. or £3. Thus, under favourable circumstances, a Norfolk
or Suffolk labourer is in receipt of a wage which reaches that of a
married man in Cumberland, but, owing to the uncertainty and
irregularity of the payments, the possibility of earning such a
wage is seldom recognised by the men or credited by the public.
" On the other hand, a man in the service of a farmer who
sends him back in wet weather, employs him irregularly in the
* Royal Commission on Labour, 1893-4, XXXV., Index 5, et seq.
" Parliamentary Reports, 1897, XV., 31
' Royal Corfimission on Labgur, C. 689/}, III,
io8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
winter time, and finds no piece-work for him, is in an infinitely
poorer position, for under these circumstances he may lose is.
to 2s. a week, from his weekly wages of lis. or 12s., but even then
his wages would be higher than the nominal one when harvest
money, amounting to ^'j los. and £9 for a month's work, is taken
into consideration."
It is probable that aU these authorities were right ; that
is to say each of them found instances of men being paid
the wages stated, however divergent one writer may be
from another, for if there is one thing that is true,
it is that the wages of farm workers have had very little
relation to price? of farm products and to the current prices
of unskilled labour in other trades. Wages of agricultural
labourers have indeed been a matter of custom, varjdng not
only in one county from another but also from one parish
to another, and even from one employer to another. And
as we have seen wages were lower in the " golden era " of
the 'fifties and 'sixties than in the depression of the 'eighties
and 'nineties.
Custom has largely been fostered by the patriarchal
system lingering longer in agriculture than in any other
industry, of a considerable portion of the weekly wage
being paid in kind, such as cottage accommodation, or board
and lodging, or litter for pigs, or potato ground or milk and
other allowances ; each generation of labourers showing a
pathetic dependence upon the generosity of the farmer.
Arch's Union was said to have destroyed good feeling
between master and man. But Arch stoutly denied before
the Commission of 1881 that this good feeling existed at
any time. Whether this be true or not the gulf between
labourer and farmer was widening, firstly by the enrichment
of farmers in the 'sixties and then again during the depres-
sion when three or four farms in very many districts were
thrown into one and the small holder was squeezed out.
There can be little doubt that wages at the beginning
of the 'nineties were scandalously low. The Daily News
Commissioner's investigations which extended beyond
Essex into Suffolk, Norfolk, Oxford, Berkshire and Bucks,
were challenged on the attitude of parsons towards
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 109
unions (which was improving since Arch's time), but
were not challenged as to the accuracy of the rate of wages
stated, in spite of the publicity given in the columns of a
daily paper. Close on his heels too came the lecturers of
the English Land Restoration League, whose business it
was to find out rates of wages and other conditions, and as
we shall see their report confirmed that of Mr. MiUin.
It was no wonder that labourers who were accustomed to
horses left the land to become grooms ; that is to say, left
IIS. a week to earn 25s. or 30s. in a more agreeable manner;
and in this the young labourer was encouraged by his sweet-
heart, for we must bear in mind that it was she {cherchez
la femme) who was more responsible for the depopulation
of the countryside than any Government; One who had
been a labourer put the case very pertinently when he wrote
to the Daily News : —
" My sweetheart is too nice a girl to keep in a hovel on
los. a week, so I must seek a warmer clime, for English
charity is too cold for me to thrive on." And the labour-
er's sweetheart would know from the experiences of h?r
own father that there was no prospect for her husband of
higher wages, however skilled he might become, and that
nearly every farm lane led eventually - to the distant
workhouse.
Mr. Anderson Graham said that " in the autumn of 1891
you could drive fifteen miles through Norfolk without passing
a tenanted farm ; and Mr. MiUin describes the deserted
villages which lay between Wickford to Althorne and South-
minster — a. district that became familiar to me a few years
later — as " A more dreary and depressing stretch of badly
farmed crops and land out of cultivation, dilapidated cot-
tages and deserted fields, it would be difiicult to find."
And it was not only from parishes where the farms were
badly cultivated, cottages dilapidated, and the squire and
parson indifferent to social conditions that the young men
were streaming into the towns or the colonies. In a model
village, as that of St, Stisted in the same county, where the
squire took a pride in designing cottages and the rector was
a large-hearted and liberal-minded friend of the people,
no ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
the tramp, tramp, tramp of the young labourer was noted
with alarm. Yet even in Stisted men were only getting
IIS. in summer and los. in winter !
Apart from low wages and the absence of any pros-
pects in life, the school, the penny newspaper, the postage
stamp, and the bicycle were active agents in luring the
young from the villages.
In Suffolk Mr. MiUin found that, in the village of Barnham,
wages were slightly better than in any other neighbourhood
he visited. Labourers were " getting i2s. a week — a. frac-
tion over ajd. an hour it comes to — and £7 10 s. for the har-
vest." As he says, " one cannot but suspect in moving about
these rural districts that the wages received by the people
really have Uttle or no relation either to what they earn
or to what the master can afford to pay."
The Duke of Grafton was the owner of Barnham. He paid
his labourers better than most of the landowners in the
neighbourhood and his cottages were good and cheap.
The fly in his ointment was a Uttle Primitive Methodist
Chapel, which being forbidden a footing, was eventually
erected on wheels by a sturdy peasant who paid the penalty
for his daring by lack of emplo3anent and an exUe from his
village lasting some years !
In another village governed by a benevolent despot—
this time the vicar's wife — every cottage woman had
a blanket loaned to her for the winter," which was taken
out of a caUco bag sewn up with string and sealed with
black wax. In March every blanket was put back into
its calico bag for the summer. The owner of this pro-
perty was Lord de Saumarez. In this district los. a week
was the reigning rate of pay, and one young man of
twenty was receiving only 8s.
On the Duke of Marlborough's estate at Woodstock
the rate of pay for summer was 12s. a week, and in
the same county of Oxfordshire los. was being paid as the
normal summer rate, which sank in winter to 9s. It should
be remembered that this winter pay was subject to deduc-
tions upon wet days by certain farmers in some districts.
Nowhere did he find any survival of the old-fashioned-
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. in
Harvest Home, nor of the Sheep-shearing Supper, nor the
Hay Harvest Supper.
" The Union killed that," the farmers would tell him ;
but the Union also killed 7s. a week for a man and his
family, half of it paid in unsaleable corn dealt out at a good
stiff profit. He found evidences in Oxfordshire, in spite
of the suspicion against agitators and the break-up of the
old " National Union," of a general desire for a new union,
and "that a young man from the Dockers' Union was
listened to eagerly."
In Berkshire he visited the estate of Lord Wantage, who
owned about 22,000 acres of land, embracing the villages of
Lockinge and Ardington. Lord Wantage was perhaps the
finest type of the benevolent landlord to be found in Eng-
land. The cottages were good and charmingly designed.
Allotments were abundant. The villages not only had
their reading rooms, but also their co-operative stores
and bakery, and their own pubUc houses, where the sale
of drink was not pushed and where soup in winter, and tea
and coffee were always to be had.
Yet here wages were only los. a week and the profits
yielded by the farms only brought a bonus of 2s. a week
to the labourers. Everything on the estate was clean and
orderly, even the pig was considered an undesirable occupant
of a Wantage cottage-garden and was forbidden unless
kept on the allotment. Apparently, every one moved about
Lockinge and Ardington a model of respectability, but
with just the air of persons who had asked permission
to inhabit the earth. Politics were rigidly excluded from
the beautifully kept public house. " They durnt blow
their noses at Ard'n'ton without the bailiff's leave," re-
marked a labourer in the neighbourhood.
Examples of benevolent despotism are given in the Red
Van Report of 1893. In Bulford, Wilts, an agreement
was enforced between the owner of the estate and the
cottagers which stipulated that
" the landlord reserves the right for himself or his agent of
entering upon the said premises at any time between the hours
of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to view the condition thereof, and, if found
112 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
necessary, to leave notice of all defects and repairs necessary to
be done. The landlord reserves to himself the right to stipulate
what portion, if any, of the garden shall be used for the cultiva-
tion of flowers, and the tenant hereby agrees to use such portion
for that purpose only."
The difficulty of working the forthcoming Local Govern-
ment Act of 1894 on democratic lines was foreseen by the
Van lecturers when it came to " close " parishes.
" The village and parish of Stanton St. Bernard, in JEast
Wilts, is the property of the Rt. Hon. George Robert Charles
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery and Baron Herbert
of Cardiff, J.P. ; High Steward of Wilton; of Carlton House
Terrace, London ; Wilton House, Salisbury, and Mount Merion,
Co. Dublin ; and of the Carlton, Eton and Harrow, St. James','
Marlborough and Travellers' Clubs. His lordship is lord of the
manor, sole (absentee) land "owner," patron of the living,
receiver of rent and tithe. Of the nearly 2,000 acres of land in
the parish about 40 are glebe. The noble owner lets the rest,
together with all the cottages, to two farmers. The two farmers,
besides controlling the cultivation of all the land in the parish,
and the tenancy of practically all the cottages, are the church-
wardens, and overseers of the poor and the school managers.
One of them has charge of the rate book. Nothing could well be
simpler than this system of parish government. The labourer
who wants to work in the parish must obtain employment on
the Earl of Pembroke's land under one of the Earl of Pem-
broke's two farmers, who will house him in one of the Earl's
cottages, deducting the rent from his weekly wages. He sends
his children to the ' national ' school (managed by the Earl of
Pembroke's farmers), and ' goes on Sunday to the Church '
where, imder the eyes of the two churchwardens (Lord Pem-
broke's farmers again), he ' sits under ' a clergyman appointed to
the parish (by the Earl of Pembroke). When he gets too old to
work, or is reduced to hopeless poverty by misfortune, he must
apply for Poor Law relief to the same two farmers. If, in spite of
all these arrangements for his comfort he is still discontented
with his lot, there is no building — ^not even a schoolroom which
is largely subsidised out of the taxes — in which he can meet to
take counsel with his fellows, unless he first obtains the permission
of the Earl of Pembroke's farmers. If the parish of Stanton
St. Bernard were a slave estate, owned by the Earl of Pembroke
and managed by two overseers on the Earl's behalf, the condition
of the inhabitants could hardly be more completely one of
slavery than it is to-day." ^
' Among the Agricultttral Labourers with the Red Vans, 1893.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 113
When the van visited Stoke Gifford, owned by the Duke
of Beaufort, not a single inhabitant dared to avow himself
a sympathiser of the Red Van, and it appears that not even
a Tory, if he made himself unpopular with the Duke, was
permitted to take office in any public capacity.
" At a vestry meeting in 1894 the parishioners of Stoke Gifford
elected as their churchwarden Admiral Close, a local Tory. The
Duke, who objected to the Admiral, apparently on the ground
of some difference of opinion as to the restoration of the parish
church, thereupon gave notice to all his tenants to quit and yield
up all their holdings. In reply to an appeal for mercy from his
tenants his Grace wrote on May 11, 1894 : ' Now, on one
condition only will I withdraw the notices which each of you
have received, and it is this — that Admiral Close resigns his
churchwardenship, or if he cannot legally do so, that he appoints
one of you to be his deputy or sidesman, and that he gives me in
writing his undertaking not to interfere with the repairs, etc., of
the parish church, and not to attend any parish meetings called
in reference to anything to do with the church. If this is not
done we shall postpone the repairs until his term of office expires,
and the notices to quit your farms will stand good. I hope such
will not have to be the case. {Signed, Beaufort).'
" Rather than let the helpless tenants suffer. Admiral Close,
protesting against the ' unconstitutional coercion ' accepted
these conditions, and appointed George Parker (farmer) as his
sidesman." ^
Yet the Duke of Beaufort was a good landlord, who
paid I2S. a week to his labourers, with half pay when they
were sick, and pensioned off all his old servants at from
5s. to 8s. a week.
Not even so good a landlord as the Duke of Bedford was
free from the weaknesses which come from overlordship.
He made it one of the conditions of letting allotments to
labourers that " no occupier who is at work for any Employer
will be allowed to work upon his Land after Six in the
Morning, or before Six in the Evening, without permission
from his master," to which was added, " AU occupiers wUl
be expected to conduct themselves with propriety at all
times, and to bring up their families in a decent and orderly
manner."
1 Bristol Mercury, sth July 1894.
VOL. 11. I
114 ENGLISH ACRICtJLTtJRAL LABOURER.
Near Di^cot men of a certain village were working for
gs. a week, and in the adjoining village for los. a week.
Near Wycombe in Bucks was found a man with a young
family of six, whose wages did not average 8s. a week.
In Bedfordshire wages appeared to be 12s. a week with
2s. or 3s. more for cowmen and horsemen with Sunday
Work to do. In the correspondence columns of the Daily
News a Leicestershire farmer stated his wagoner was paid
19s. per week, his cowman i8s. and his labourers i6s. to 17s.
all the year round.
Though Millin made his tour in these counties during
harvest time, when drink was more abundant than at any
other period of the year, he found little evidence of drunken-
ness amongst labourers, despite the fact that he mixed
freely with them at all hours in the taprooms of public houses.
He said they drank too much, but even when closing time
came men as a rule moved with ordinary precision out of
the taproom into the open street.
When in the same year of 1891 the lecturers of the English
Land Restoration League went into Suffolk with the Red
Van they found that wages were from los. to 12s. a week
with harvest money averaging from £7 to £g. In a short
time the newly formed Union, the Eastern Counties
Federation, raised wages is. a week. Cottages were let at
fiom £3 to £6 a year.
The reason why the League decided to send out its lec-
turers in vans was because of the difficulty in those
days of obtaining the use of village halls. The labourers
read newspapers but rarely at this time, and the only way
to reach them was by means of meetings. Most of the
meetings were attended by from 100 to 300 labourers, and
many of the farmers, especially those who employed the
most labour and paid the best wages, were, on the whole,
friendly. Difficulty in finding a pitch for the van was
experienced where the village was owned by one man,
which led in 1892 to an exhibition of despotic ruling by a
landowner. Lord Bateman.
" The organising secretary of the League obtained permission
from the landlord of the Bateman Arms, Shobdon, Herefordshire,
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 115
to hold a meeting in the large room of the inn, for the purpose of
forming a branch of the Herefordshire Agricultural and General
Workers' Union. On arriving at the inn on the night of the
meeting he was informed that his lordship's secretary had called
and pointed out a clause in the lease which forbade any meeting
being held without his lordship's special permission. A similar
visit had been paid to every tenant holding a field or orchard
under Lord Bateman, who owns the whole village. An attempt
to hold a meeting on the waste land was prevented by the super-
intendent of the County Police, who was accompanied by a
constable, on the ground that Lord Bateman, as lord of the
manor, claimed the control of all the waste land ; and the police
— apparently acting under the instructions of his lordship as
Lord Lieutenant of the County — similarly prevented the holding
of a meeting in the public highway." ^
This year the League sent out five vans on the road,
which went to work in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Berkshire,
Wiltshire, Somersetshire and Herefordshire, and the lec-
turers formed unions in all these counties. Mr. Verinder,
the secretary of the League, thought that it was not wise to
attempt to revive Arch's National Union owing to the
suspicions still rife, — suspicions that had been sedulously
fostered by squire, parson and farmer, — ^that Arch and his
paid agitators had robbed the men, and Mr. Verinder
believed that, owing to the neglect of sufficient supervision
by a centrahsed organisation, success would be more easily
achieved by autonomously governed federations of unions.
Nevertheless these county unions which sprang up like
mushrooms suffered a rapid decline on the financial
basis of a penny a week subscription.
However, they had their day, and they kept the idea of
organisation alive in the breast of the agricultural labourer,
and sowed the seed which began to be harvested some
twenty years later.
In the Church Reformer, August, 1891, it is stated that
in some of the Suffolk villages a flourishing branch of Arch's
National Union was still to be found. Parsons, it appeared,
stUl held aloof from meetings such as these. " Only on
one occasion did the parson think it well to hear for him-
self what the agitators from London were telling his flock."
* Among the Agricultural Labourers with the Red Vans, 1892.
ii6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
The women seem to have possessed more spirit than the
men. " Ah, sir," they often said, " if the men had only
stuck to the Union as Mr. Arch wanted them to — ^but the
men are such cowards. I tell my man that he won't do
any good to himself or to anybody else until he joins the
Union." i
The public house was the People's Parliament, and the
most independent place in the village. Very little drunken-
ness was witnessed. The English Land Restoration
League did not encourage strikes, but attempted to educate
the labourers to get what they wanted by means of the vote.
Parish Councils were in the air, and much was hoped from
the Act which became law in 1894.
Through the generosity of a subscriber, the Red Vans
were able to continue their work until 1897, and their
Reports are exceedingly interesting documents of hfe in
the eastern and southern counties as viewed from the
standpoint of the labourer's advocate. In the Report
issued in 1893 we find the following statement on rates of
wages : —
" The ordinary wages of a day labourer in East and South
Wilts are generally about los. a week (is. 8d. a day), but 9s., and
even 8s. only, are paid by some employers. Over the greatest
part of Hertfordshire lis. and 12s. are paid to the daymen, or,
where a cottage is provided, a shilling a week less. The wages
in the parts of Norfolk visited this year are about the same as in
Hertfordshire. 2 The formation of the Labourers' Union in
Berkshire had the effect, during last winter and summer, of
preventing a reduction below the figures quoted in last year's
report. Weekly wages of 13s., 14s., and 15s. are common in
Warwickshire ; often the pay is lower, and sometimes higher ;
but cottages are considerably dearer than in the other counties."
The wages above quoted were summer wages, subject in
most instances to a reduction of 2d. a day in winter, when
the total weekly earnings were stiU further reduced by the
greater irregularity of employment, the labourers being
usually paid only for the days they are actually at work.
* Church Reformer, July, 1891.
^ This is confirmed by a statement made by Alderman Geo. Edward
in 1893. Mr. Wilson Fox put them at I2S. or 13s. a week.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 117
Wages in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Somersetshire, and
Herefordshire averaged from lis. to 12s. a week, with in
some cases a cottage free. There were special instances of
the men in Herefordshire getting i6s. to 17s. In Somerset-
shire, in certain districts, wages were as low as gs. a week,
and in one district as high as i6s. a week. In Berkshire,
at the village of Upton, the wage was only 8s. a week, while
at Wokingham the maximum was i6s. a week. In East
Berks wages varied from gs. to iis. and from 12s. to 14s.
a week. Although the labourer's ordinary wages in Wilt-
shire were los. a week, we learn ^ that head shepherds re-
ceived I2S. a week, and provided they reared, on the average,
go lambs every year from each 100 ewes, they received
40S. per annum extra. This entailed a good deal of over-
time. Under-shepherds had iis. a week, and smaller
bonuses. Forty-two branches of the Wiltshire Agricultural
and General Labourers' Union with a membership of 1,400
were formed in i8g2 and i8g3.
In Wilts a very objectionable form of agreement between
master and servant was in vogue (vide Church Reformer,
July, i8g3). A question was asked in the House of ParUa-
ment with regard to this agreement and the iUegaUty of the
fines and deductions. The Home Secretary's reply was to
the effect that the fines were not illegal, but the deductions
were.
Men in charge of horses and cattle were usually paid
IS. a week over and above daymen's wages, with sometimes
a free cottage, but their hours of work were much longer,
and included Sunday attendance on the stock. Harvest
pay varied greatly. ^
Women who worked in the fields were paid, for somewhat
shorter hours than the men, from 8d. or gd. to is. 2d. a
day.
Some labourers' budgets were collected in the counties
mentioned above which show that a labourer with five
children spent los. ii|-d. — wages, lis. ; in Herts, with two
* Church Reformer, June, 1893.
2 Mr. W. C. Little, one of the Commissioners, stated that horsemen and
cowmen worked 12 J hours a day in summer and ii| hours in winter.
ii8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
children,^ 13s. — ^wages, 13s. and cottage ; in East Wilts,
with six children, 13s. 8|d. — ^wages, 13s. 6d. Another in
East Wilts with seven children, lis. 5|d. — ^wages, los. In
Warwickshire, \yith eight children, 15s. — ^wages 15s. In
Norfolk, with two children, 12s. 3d. — ^wages, 12s. 6d.
It is significant that out of four of these six budgets
no itena appears for ntieat, and in three no item appears for
milk, though there were families of six, seven, and eight
children. No item appears in any of the budgets for cloth-
ing or boots, and when asked how these were bought, the
reply was they " had to do with something less to eat " when
purchased. When questioned how they reconciled an
expenditure of lis. 5|d. with an income of los., or 13s. 8|d.
with an income of 13s. 6d., the ready reply came that " they
had to run into debt until the children commenced to work
and started to pay oft the debt."
Of the two " independent men " in most parishes, the
parson and the publican, it appears that of the two the
publican showed himself the friendlier, though in one or
two villages he dared not allow the Van lecturer to hold
a meeting on his premises for fear of being turned out by
his landlord. Mr. George Edwards gave evidence at a
meeting held in London in 1893 that pubHcans had told
him that they had received notice from their landlords to
prohibit Union meetings held in public houses. It was
natural, then, that the labourers were looking forward to
the use of schoolrooms, which they understood would be
granted under the promised Parish Councils Act.
During the wet months of November and December many
of the meetings of the League had to be held in chapels,
barns, cartsheds, blacksmiths' shops, inns, or cottages.
The parson was generally regarded as one possessing the
same political prejudices as the landowner and farmer.
It was as politician rather than priest that he was regarded
with hostility. In the words of one report : — ^
" There is very little hostility to the parson as clergyman ;
but the parson as the nominee of the squire, the friend of the
landlord class, the supporter of ' law and order ' on the magis-
• Among the Suffolk Labourers,
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 119
terial bench, and the autocratic manager of the school and other
local institutions, is denounced among the labourers with an
invective which is almost Elizabethan in its freedom and inten-
sity. . . . Where one man owns the land and is at the same
time the patron of the living, the whole government of the
village, civil and ecclesiastical, is in his hands."
The Reverend Arnold D. Taylor, rector of a parish in
South Devonshire, discussed in an outspoken article on
"Hodge and his Parson" in the Nineteenth Century for
March, 1892, the relationship between the labourer and
the clergyman. He tells us that wages in Devon were
less than los. per week. He denies that the way to the
labourer's heart is through his stomach. " The way to his
heart," he says, " is through his sense of justice." Also
that there is a great feeling of dislike to the parson in some
country places, and he tells us why.
" In a great number, I should say in the vast majority, of
country parishes', the squire, the parson, and the large farmers
form a ' ring,' which controls all parochial affairs, so that no
outsider has a chance even of knowing what goes on, much less
of exerting any real influence on the management of those affairs.
This ' ring ' practically is the vestry. Whoever heard of lab-
ourers coming to the vestry meeting, and expressing their view
of affairs f If they did come what would be the good ? Who
would listen to them ? And the parson is ex-officio chairman
of the vestry. He is the leader in Hodge's eye of this exclusive
' ring,' and perhaps Hodge thinks he is mainly responsible for
its existence. Hodge may be unjust in this. But who can
wonder at his suspicion when he never sees the parson insisting
on having the labourers' side heard, or arranging the vestry
meeting so that they can attend. . . . Then again, does not
Hodge remember the use made in school and Confirmation class
of the Church Catechism ? Is not that generally used to enforce
on him that it is his duty to remain in the position in which he
was born, and to look up to and obey the parson and the squire
and everyone in the place who is better off than himself ? Yes,
he remembers well enough. I believe that that teaching is a
gross perversion of the words of the Catechism. The men who
drew up the Catechism meant ' shall ' and not ' has,' when they
wrote ' that state of life into which it shaU please God to call
me ; ' they meant ' betters ' when they wrote ' betters,' and not
' those who are better off than myself.' "
120 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Evidently the vestry had not altered since Canon Girdle-
stone's time.
An illiterate letter, which throws an extraordinary light
on the resentment evoked by parsons who preach content-
ment, was written in pencil and wrapped round a stone for
safety and found on the platform of the Wiltshire Red Van
at Durnford. On the outside of the envelope were the
words : " Please look inside." This was the letter : —
" Our parson preached yesterday of We Labourers Being
Dissatisfied and Discontented With our Wages, murmuring of it
he said We Labouring men ought to Be Satisfied With What we
got. Be satisfied. We Wish You to Publish it Plese." ^
They got los. a week at Durnford !
* Church Reformer, August 1893.
II— A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.
1894.
The Local Government Act of 1894 has often been styled
the Rural Magna Charta. In support of it Gladstone made
his last speech in the House of Commons. It was hoped
by many that by the creation of Parish and Rural District
CouncUs, the agricultural labourer, so long left out in the
cold from the management of his own parochial affairs,
would be able to secure allotments easily, would admin-
ister non-ecclesiastical charities, acquire vOlage greens and
institutes, and above all a roof over his head which he
could call his, own by a less cumbrous adoption of the
Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890.
So far, the only cottages buUt under this Act by the rural
sanitary authorities were eight cottages built at Ixworth
in Suffolk. This was done in 1893. It was the result of
labourers forming themselves into the Ixworth Agricultural
Labourers' Association, with the help of the Mberal-minded
vicar, the Revd. F. D. Perrott, who instituted a Housing
Enquiry. There is no doubt about the need of new cot-
tages, for Ixworth was a rural slum, and a rural slum is
generally worse than a town slum, if this be possible.
In a row of houses with forty-four inhabitants there were
only three closets. Water came into both bedrooms in some
of the cottages, and a bed quilt was seen covered with holes
made by the rats. In one cottage, when it rained heavily
the water ran through the back kitchen into the sitting-
room and formed a pool in the centre. Dr. Thresh, of the
Chelmsford and Maiden Unions, who was called in as an
expert, condemned the condition of the cottages. The
Enquiry was held in 1890. Overwhelming evidence was
adduced and the Council were ready to issue their certificate,
121
123 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
when the Guardians took fright at having to spread the
rate over the whole of their district instead of hmiting the
rate to the place immediately benefited. So the building
of the cottages was delayed for another three years, when
Ixworth, in spite of the powers given to Rural District
Councillors, with the parishes of Penshurst, Bradwell,
Bratoon, Linton, Malpas, were the- only parishes for many
years which succeeded in putting into operation the Housing
of the Working Classes Act for rural districts.
The creation of County Councils in 1888 brought little
grist to the labourer's mill. It is very doubtful if a single
labourer had ever sat on a County Council ; but it was
thought that when Parish Councils were created a large
number of these Councils would be dominated by labourers.
There would be no loss of labour-time, as meetings would
be held in the evening, and so it would be possible for almost
any man to attend. County Councils had for long been
considered the preserve of the landed aristocracy and large
farmers. The lesser fry, the farmer with a moderate sized
holding, the shopkeeper and the builder might become
Rural District Councillors, but surely the Parish Council
would be captured by the labourer ? Now would be their
opportunity to get land for allotments. They had long
resented having to pay a rent for their allotments double
the price that the large farmer paid for his land on the
other side of the hedge. No longer would they put up with
inferior land at some distance from their own homes. Now
they had an Act of Parliament which would entitle each
man to at least an acre ; and if they could not secure
the land they wanted voluntarily, they could insist upon
the County Council obtaining it by compulsion.
So many thought ; but this is not what actually hap-
pened. What actually happened was when farmers, vicars,
and others resented the labourers sitting upon Parish Coun-
cils, labourers were soon made aware of the undesirability
of managing their own affairs.
Farmers were in no mood in 1894, when wheat dropped
to the lowest price in the history of English agriculture,
to tolerate social as well as economic extinction. By 1894
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 123
the Labourers' Unions had almost ceased to exist, and the
labourer had nothing at his back and nobody to stand by
him, if farmers chose to serve him with a notice to quit his
cottage or to leave his employment.
In the first year, in the full flush of testing the value
of the new power put into their hands, many farm workers
did seek to capture the Parish Councils and some of them
succeeded. We learn from the Daily Chronicle, March 9,
1895, that in the village of Alderminster, Warwickshire,
" a Union labourer has received notice to quit his cottage in
March. No reason is given for noticing the labourer to leave,
and the only reason that can be imagined is that the labourer is
secretary of the branch of the Union, and that he not only stood
as a candidate for the Parish Council, but being defeated by the
show of hands insisted, in spite of the squire, who is sole land-
owner, and the vicar, in demanding a poll . . . the labourer has
been a householder under the squire for upwards of twenty years
and in a month's time, in the ordinary course, he will be driven
like an outlaw from his native parish, apparently for no other
reason than exercising the rights of citizenship."
It is interesting to note that in another Warwickshire
village, Barford, where Joseph Arch lived, though he appar-
ently now took no active part in the life of the place, the
secretary of the Warwickshire Labourers' Union succeeded
in being elected as a member of the Parish Council.
It is very difficult to coUect much evidence of the Parish
Councils where labourers were successful in capturing seats.
In Warwickshire, however, where the Warwickshire Agri-
cultural Labourers' Union was still in existence the labourers
managed to give a good account of themselves. One
Parish Council, that of Tysoe, took the Glebe Farm in
1895, and let it as small holdings.
In the twenty-four parishes with branches of the Union
where Parish Councils had been established, 91 labourers
were returned out of a total o'f 140 councillors elected.
Of the 91 labourers' candidates elected, 54 were farm
workers, the rest being artisans or tradesmen adopted and
run by the local branches of the Union.
In three parishes in South Warwickshire, Whichford,
Ilmington, and Stretton-on-Fosse, where there were branches
124 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of the Union, the labourers secured every seat on the
Parish Councils. Only two purely agricultural labourers
succeeded in getting on to Rural District Councils in War-
wickshire. These were both active members of the Union,
and their names were John Mansfield, of Moreton MoreU,
and Jarvis, of Warmington. Mr. George Edwards,
Secretary of the Norfolk and Norwich Amalgamated Labour
Union, and who became the most prominent leader of farm
workers since Arch's ecUpse was elected with his wife to
the Erpingham Rural District Council in Norfolk.
The 1894 Election at Horsford, St. Faith's Union, Norfolk,
(which became a storm centre of the revived National
Agricultural Labourers' Union) was fought with a good deal
of feeling and resulted in the return of three farm labourers.
This Council managed to do some good work. It hired 8'
acres of land for allotments ; obtained a County Council
Enquiry into the condition of cottages and got some of
the worst evils remedied. Its most striking success was
that of preventing 200 acres of heathland being monopolised
by the squire and the neighbouring landowners.
Democratic successes such as that at St. Faith's were
won only, as a rule, in open villages, especially where the
breath of freedom blew unchecked across heathland ; and
where squatters and small holders had some foothold upon
theearth. Where branches of trade unions still existed in 1894
or where parishes lay close to mining or industrial areas,
the man who worked with his hands stood a chance of being
elected to Parish Councils. But in most villages the labour-
er soon found that it did not pay— at any rate the labourer
with a wife and family to support ! Here and there, in
" model " villages, there was a show of democracy. The
landowner and the vicar, and the landowner's coachman,
the landowner's gamekeeper, his head-gardener, and his
butler would sit, though of separate classes, as one happy
family party, along with the blacksmith who shod the
landowner's carriage horses, and the saddler who supplied
the harness. But reforms, as might be imagined under these
circumstances, had to be warily suggested by any one but
the chairman.
THE WIJ^TER OF DISCONTENT. 125
I have heard Earl Selborne say that he, as a Conserva-
tive, found it very difi&cult to get reforms passed by parish
councillors, who might be Radical in poHtics, but as owners
of small cottage property were distinctly unprogressive.
This is probably true, and there is very little to choose
between the Conservative and the Radical, who are both
owners of property, however small that property might be,
when it comes to an extra penny upon the rates.
To do the landowners justice, although I have given
instances of autocratic ruhng by the heads of historic families
who have been trained from childhood to consider that
they have a kind of divine right to rule over the territory
which is theirs by inheritance, when the Parish Council
Act was passed it was not the squire who acted the part of
village tyrant, so much as the farmer, and his class. As
the squire and big landowner receded from the field of
parochial government and became but economic factors
in the background of rural life, the farming class, who
lacked the occasional large-handed benevolence and refine-
ment of those who had dominated the vestry meetings,
became the dictators.
The Rural Magna Charta of 1894, though it had made a
breach in the wall of privilege, had not driven the captains
of industry from their fort. On the contrary, political
emancipation having gone ahead of economic emancipation,
the farmers and the petty bourgeoisie took possession of
the Parish and the Rural District Councils with £dl the eclat
of a democratic flourish of trumpets. Government by a
class, instead of being abolished became firmly entrenched,
and the petty tyranny exercised was perhaps more intense
than under the old regime. The historical parallel might be
sought in the villages of France after the Revolution.
Labourers welcomed the Parish Councils, because these
inspired them with the hope that a lever had been put into
their hands which would be able to raise for immediate
solution not only the question of cottages and allotments,
but also of the parish award of Charity Lands and the
administration of non-ecclesiastical charities.
For many years they had been suspicious as to the extent
126 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
and right use of these Charity Lands and of the income
derived therefrom. One of the privileges of a Parish Council
was that of inspecting the Parish Chest which was kept by
the incumbent. This was done, for instance, at Barford,
on the instigation of the labourer, William Ivens, with
excellent results. But at Angmering, a large Sussex village
dose to Worthing, an act of vandahsm was performed, not
by " the people," but by the middle and upper classes who
monopolised the Parish Council. Fearing, apparently, that
the contents of the Parish Chest would disclose unpleasant
facts concerning the distribution of land dating from the
last Enclosure, the most influential member of the Parish
Council proposed that the contents of the Parish Chest
should be burned ! A subservient chairman supported
the proposition, and the contents of the solid oak chest,
with its three massive locks and the ancient records, quaint
documents of priceless value to the parish, were ruthlessly
destroyed.
There were Parish Councils, however, which managed to
recover some of the " lost " land through examining the
Enclosure Awards, Tithe Awards, and Mst of charities. A
useful quarry at Askern (West Riding of Yorkshire), which
had been awarded to the parish years ago and quietly
usurped by a landowner, is an instance of recovered property.
A Derbyshire Parish Council at Shirland compelled a land-
owner to give up a strip of land by the highroad which he
had annexed. In Berkshire, the Hurley Parish Council
discovered the lord of the manor had been allowing people
to enclose bits of common land on condition they paid
him a small quit rent. This was stopped. At Long Preston
(West Riding of Yorkshire) the lord of the manor trans-
ferred the village greens to the Parish Council free of charge,
and at Thundersley, Essex, the same was done with regard
to a large common.
The Parish Council of St. Bride's Major (Glamorgan)
successfully fought the Earl of Dunraver, who had tried
to make a big encroachment.
Parishes with a population of less than 300 which had
to be content with an annual Parish Meeting instead of a
TH£ WINTER OP DISCONTENT. 127
Parish Council, unfortunately did nothing at aU until the
passing of the Small Holdings and Allotment Act of 1907,
and there are over 5,000 of these parishes in England and
Wales. This fact points conclusively to small rural com-
munities being overawed by those who possessed or occupied
the land, and probably in such parishes the majority of the
labourers live in farm-tied cottages.
The Parish Councils Act undoubtedly reduced the author-
ity of the squire and the parson in parochial affairs. The
farmer class, however, almost everjrwhere captured and
controlled the Rural District Council, which is the real
executive body in rural districts. The Rural District
Councils are largely the Guardians of the Poor. They decide
whether cottages are to be built or not ; they control the high-
ways ; they are the sanitary authority, and they are the
executive body with regard to rights of way, wayside wastes,
commons, and water supply. The Parish Council may not
spend beyond the amount of a threepenny rate, without the
consent of the Parish Meeting, but with its consent the limit
is extended to the princely rate of 6d. in the pound.
The County Council in 1894, and for a great number of
years to follow, was almost as out of reach of the agricultural
labourer as the House of Lords. Ever since the County
Council was instituted it was regarded as the preserve of
the land-owning class with a sprinkling of large farmers, land
agents, and successful business men. Many County Coun-
cillors are still returned unopposed ; a selection of suitable
candidates being arranged at the principal club or hotel of
the county capital.
I once assisted a carpenter to contest a County Council
seat in Suffolk ; but that was not until a year or two before
the Great War, and even then the good people of Suffolk
were so amazed that one of their own class should attack a
county seat that nothing would convince them that a
County Councillor did not receive a salary of £200 a
year !
It was almost as difficult for a labourer to sit on a Rural
District Council, for it meant losing a day's work at least
once a month, and either a very long walk, or else the cost
128 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of a conveyance ; and the loss of a day's work would in
many cases mean the loss of regular employment.
The most reactionary administrative body was, and is
still, the Rural District Council, and unfortunately, it is the
body which was, and still is, largely responsible for the
building of cottages, the reform most needed in rural Eng-
land. Unfortunately too, for the nation and for the labour-
ing classes in particular, gentlemen sit on this body who are
either interested in cottage property as builders, or as the
landlords of farm-tied cottages, and a Rural District Council
could nearly always be depended upon to veto a Parish
Council resolution that the Housing of the Working Classes
Act of 1890 should be put into force.
I remember taking part in an election as a candidate
for a Parish Council in 1897. No labourer had sat on
this Parish Council since its establishment in 1894,
and though not an agricultural labourer myself, I was
asked by labourers to fight their battles for them,
especially with a view to winning for the parish some
very much-needed cottages. One ruhng family of farmers,
who owned most of the farms as well as the tied cottages,
many of which were defective in sanitation and in
water supply, had hitherto controlled the Parish Council.
So effective was the control of this family over the parish
that not only did it possess the power to say who should or
should not work in the parish as far as agricultural land
was concerned, but who should Uve on that land. As it
also controlled the small waterworks, the miU, the butcher's
shop, and the bakehouse, it amounted to most of the parish-
ioners having to depend upon the goodwill of this ruling
family for work, cottages, water, meat and bread!
After a fierce contest I managed to get elected with
a progressive doctor who had acted as chairman. The
patriarch who supplied the brains for this family of farmers
was vice-chairman of the Rural District Council, and at
the first meeting of the Parish Council the sons and nephews
who were elected proposed that the patriarch should be
chairman in place of the doctor. Thereupon the doctor
left the Council, never to return to it ; and I was left facing
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 129
my foes alone. The exit of the doctor brought about an
embarrassing silence. After a pause some one proposed
that the son of the patriarch should be sent round for his
father to ask him to take the chair. Again we sat in silence,
until the son returned with the announcement that " Dad
says he has taken off his boots." Another embarrassing
silence, broken, I am afraid, by a chuckle from me. " Go
back and tell him it's very purtickler," said one of the
bolder members of the ruUng family. Again the son
departed, and eventually brought back the patriarch who
took the chair with the refreshing statement that " he had
never read the Parish Councils Act, and never meant to."
At the second meeting I proposed that we should request
the Rural District Council to put into operation the Hous-
ing of the Working Classes Act. No one argued against it,
and it was passed, though I noticed a significant sly twinkle
in the patriarch's eye. When my resolution was read
before the Rural District Council the patriarch coolly pro-
posed that it should lie on the table. And it has been
l5dng there, or in the archives of that Rural District Council,
ever since that day !
In spite of the publicity given to the deplorable condition
of cottage property in nearly every county visited by the
Red Vans, little was done to build new cottages save by
the best of the landowners. These Red Van Reports
give us lurid glimpses into the kind of homes occupied by
labourers and their families.
A labourer graphically describes the cottage he hved
in in a Suffolk village, by the remark, " You may shut the
doors and windows close enough, but you can't keep the
cat out." The rich sporting landowner, who cared as Uttle
for cottage rents as he did for farm rents, was a bad example
of the English landowner. ^
" We met a labourer," writes a lecturer of the Red Van, " pull-
ing down a cottage in which he formerly lived for years. Accord-
ing to his account he had been evicted and the ground cleared
for the better preservation of game ■on the adjoining land, and he
had also been sacked by the farmer for joining the Union and
• Amongst the Agricultural Labourers, 1891.
VOL. II. K
130 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
urging the men to demand a rise of wages. Having no work, he
applied to the landlord's agent, who set him to work to pull
down his own cottage and two others adjoining." ^
" As long as there are squires," writes Mr. P. Anderson Graham,
in his Rural Exodus, " it is desirable that they should be encour-
aged to shoot. The keenest sporting landlord, when out with
his gun does far more than make a bag. It is his surest way of
acquiring an accurate and detailed knowledge of his property.
On the stubble or among the roots in the partridge season, it
becomes second nature to him to note the result of the tillage of
his various tenants. Let him be bogged in pursuit of snipe or
stranded in some miry field, and he will not easily forget where
the drains should be."
This is a curious manner of picking up one's education
as a landowner. In the instance quoted above the keen
sporting landlord, in acquiring a detailed knowledge of
his property when out with his gun, must have considered
that there were a superfluous number of cottages upon his
estate.
" In North Herefordshire," we learn, " some landlords take a
special interest in having their cottages kept in good order and
the sanitary inspector's influence is occasionally apparent.
Still many dwellings are described as ' not fit for a pig to live
in ' and one labourer complained that he had to keep a bucket
on his bed during wet nights to catch the rain coming through
the roof. During the existence of the N.A.L.U., Government
pressure was brought to compel several large landlords to make
very substantial improvements in their cottage property. But
it appears that immediately the active organisers of that Union
had left the district the repairs in hand were discontinued and
have never been touched again to this day." *
" As a general rule, the cottages of Berkshire were found to be
shockingly bad, and frequently the health of the inmates is
endangered by the proximity of open drains and stagnant
sewage.'
" It is in Wiltshire and Norfolk that the evil of tied cottages
is most severely felt : in the former county returns have been
obtained from forty-five parishes, showing i,66o tied cottages
out of a total of 2,958 ; and in some of the villages every cottage
is under the control of the farmer or farmers for whom the men
' Amongst the Agncultural Labowers, i8gi.
» Ihii., 1893. » IJM.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 13!
work. . . . Unfortunately it cannot be said that things are
often much better when the landlord retains the cottages under
his control. If the landlord is neglectful the cottages fall into
decay, and, no new ones being built, the labourers and their
families dwell in ruins, fit only for bats and owls, till their collapse
drives their tenants out of the village." ^
One of the worst reports comes from Wiltshire.
" The cottages in this village (Edington, near Westbury),"
reports the lecturer, " are in the most awful state of dilapidation
that it is possible to conceive. They are to be seen in every
stage of ruin — from the cottage that is barely tenable to the
heap of rubbish that marks the spot where a cottage formerly
stood. One I inspected consisted of four rooms, two up and two
down, with what had been formerly a small brewhouse and
wash-house attached. It adjoined another which was long
past being tenable, and was already a dangerous ruin. To
describe the occupied house is almost impossible. The front
room downstairs, which was the best, measured 15 ft. 8 in. by
8 ft. 2^ in., the height being 5 ft. 10 in. It was lighted by a
window which the occupier had put in at her own expense ; the
old window had fallen out through decay, and the landlord
refused to replace it. It was the only room where cooking
could be done or meals taken, but it had no cupboard. A crazy
staircase, that threatened to give way at every step, led to the
room above. This was the same in length and breadth, but it
had an average height of 5 ft. 8 in. only. The roof was in holes,
and the ceiling, which was cracked and blistered to an almost
inconceivable extent, had been falling bit by bit for years. No
repairs had been done to this or any other room by the landlord
for years. The window is 18 in. square, but the walls are so
built that only a small ray of light can enter. The back bedroom
beggars description. Half one side of the room has literally
fallen out into the garden, and has been in this condition for
years. Old skirts and rags are hung over great holes to keep
out wind and rain. But in spite of every precaution, the place
ia bad weather and in winter is a swamp. The ceiling which is
falling day by day slopes in such a way that there is only a small
space in which a man of average height can stand upright. The
' room ' below this is no better than a yard, and is open to the
weather on two sides. Of the brewhouse only the walls remain ;
the door and the roof have rotted away. The whole building
will probably be blown down by the first rough wind.
" Another house which the lecturer visited consisted of three
rooms. Its walls were bxilging out, and had great fissures
1 Amongst the Agricultural Labourers, 1892.
132 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
threatening total collapse. The ground-floor room had been
partitioned into two, with the result that both halves were in a
state of semi-darkness, even when the sun was shining brightly
and the cottage door wide open. The front room was a stifling
box in which you might touch both walls with extended arms.
At the time of his visit the occupier (a woman) and 'a neighbour
were themselves whitewashing the place. The bedrooms were
miniature lofts, unpapered, in a crumbling condition, separated
by a warped and cracked door, which for years had ceased to
answer its original purpose. One window had lost all its panes
and was boarded up. The ground-floor window was a curiosity.
As the panes had fallen out the occupier had put in glass from
one or two picture frames, but the last collapse having exhausted
the available glass, a family Bible had been pushed against the
sash to keep the wind out. The woman who lives in this hovel
with her boy of nine years (who helps to support the ' home ')
gave me a heartrending account of her miseries during her first
confinement in one of these wretched bedrooms. It was in the
depth of winter and — ^ladies of England, in your sheltered homes,
think of it ! — the snow lay upon the quilt on her bed, under
which shivered mother and new-born babe. The melted snow
produced a flood upon the floor, and found its way through the
rotten floor and ceiling. Scarcely a ray of light came into the
room, and at night the place was in utter darkness, for the wind
blew through great holes in the roof in such a way that a candle
or lamp was out of the question. On a rough night the cottage
shakes so much that the occupant is obUged sometimes to leave
the house for fear of its falling. Is it surprising that the woman
since the experiences of that awful lying-in, has spent much of
her time in the hospital, and is now quite unable to do any but
very light work ? She receives 2s. 6d. from the parish and her
son earns 5s. a week, and out of this the owner of the hovel takes
IS. a week for rent. The cottage of a small holder is nearly as
bad. The whole of the top windows have been blown out, and
their place is taken by sacks.
" The owner of all these cottages is Simon Watson-Taylor,
Esquire, D.L., J. P., lord of the manor, lay impropriator, and
principal landowner of this and neighbouring villages. At
Earlstoke he has a noble mansion, commanding from its elevated
position, beautiful views, surrounded by a well-timberedparkin
which deer roam by lake and cascade." ^
" Warwick (Ratley). In several instances it is impossible, on
a wet night, to sleep in some of the bedrooms, and in the case of
one cottage, by standing on a mound close to the house, you may
look through the roof into the bedrooms. The landlord of some
* Amongst the Agricultural Labourers, 1894.
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 133
of these cottages is, however, very solicitous about the morals, if
not about the health, of the inmates. If any tenant's daughter
' gets into trouble,' the parents must immediately drive the
unfortunate girl from home, otherwise the whole family is
evicted." ^
" The cottages . . . and the water supply of their inhabitants
are in many of the villages deplorably bad, and in spite of the
depopulation which has been going on sometimes the former are
quite inadequate to the needs of the labourers. At Navestock,
in Ongar union (Essex), the lecturer found ten small cottages in a
row, inhabited on the average by ten persons each. Some
cottages at Maplestead and Pebmarsh he describes as hovels.
. . . The borough of Saffron Walden deserves reference ; in that
sanctuary of the Society of Friends, where a publican is regarded
as almost an outcast, the labourers' cottages are all in one quar-
ter — a horrible kind of labourers' ghetto, of which Castle Street
is the centre. The houses are small, inconvenient, without
proper air space, and in insanitary condition. Some few have
a few square yards of drying ground." ^
The economic grounds on which Rural District Councils
based their arguments against building cottages were that
it would entail a charge upon the rates. They showed with
some reason that you could not compete with cottages let
at the uneconomic rent of is. 6d. or 2s. a week. That was
perfectly true of a great many districts, though it never
seemed to have occurred to the farmers who sat on District
Councils that if they paid their labourers a shilling or two
more per week the men would be able to pay the economic
rent which in some parishes amounted to only 3s. 6d. per
week.
Cottages at this time were built for about £200 each,
and were let at Bradwell and Bratton for 3s. 6d. per week,
at Penshurst for 4s. gd. per week. The Parish Council
could appeal to the County Council in the event of the
Rural District Council refusing to build, and this was done
at Penshurst at the instigation of Miss Jane Escombe.
But there is no doubt that low wages, besides the uneconomic
farm-tied cottages, were the deterrent factors, and it seemed
to many reformers that cottages would never be built in rural
districts until agricultural labourers received a living
minimum wage.
' Amongst the Agricultural Labourers, 1894. ^ Ibid.
134 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Yet many cottages could have been built in semi-
suburban districts and in rural areas adjoining industrial
communities where wages were higher than in the depths of
the country, and the tenants would readily have paid the
economic rent of 4s. or 5s. a week. But they were not
built, save in extremely smaU numbers, and the succeeding
Housing Act of 1909, instead of creating a great many more
cottages in the country, had the effect of closing down far
more cottages than it built.
I do not wish to convey the idea that Parish Councils
did no useful work in improving the conditions of village hfe
for the labourer. That they did many things I shall show ;
but there is no doubt that labourers were disillusioned over
the executive powers of Parish Councils, and through the pro-
cess of continual victimisation lost any enthusiasm they
had in 1894, andlet those who had been in the habit of govern-
ing them continue to do so. I know a village in Sussex
where at this time six farm labourers managed to get
elected, and every one of these six labourers had eventudly
to seek his Hving outside the parish.
To briefly record some of -the work done by Parish Coun-
cils between 1894 and 1907 besides getting the cottages
built in the villages I have mentioned, and recovering parish
land. Parish Halls or Rooms were built at Charing (Kent),
Boarhunt (Hants), Compton (Hants), Hessle (Yorks),
Dysarth (Flintshire), Ha wkehurst (Kent), Trefriew (Carnar-
vonshire), Underskiddaw (Cumberland), Bovey Tracey
(Devonshire), South Stoke (Oxfordshire), Gunthorpe (Not-
tinghamshire), Cheddar (Somersetshire).
Bathing places were estabUshed at Betchworth (Surrey),
Alveston (Warwick), Snitterfield (Warwick), Ibstock (Leices-
ter), Snodland (Kent), Blaby (Leicestershire), Campden
(Gloucestershire) .
Libraries and Reading Rooms were opened in several
parishes, the best known of which is at Middle Claydon,
which was established by the late Sir Edmund Verney, and
where I learn from Sir Harry Verney, fiction seems to be the
only kind of literature for which there is a constant demand.
Curious political prejudices were discovered to rule in
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 135
some of these parishes. In one Parish Reading Room in
Surrey no Liberal newspaper was allowed, and in a
Sussex parish the clergyman gave his copy of The Times
but refused to let the Daily News be presented on the ground
that it was a " party organ."
Many foot-bridges over streams have been erected by
Parish Councils, thus incontestably estabUshing for ever the
right of way. A number of Recreation Grounds have
been secured such as at Titchfield (Hants), Nacton (Suffolk),
Aldenham (Herts), Westbury (Wilts), Mayfield (Staffs),
Roade (Northants), Calverton (Notts), Bramcote (Notts),
Harrow Weald (Middlesex), Twyford (Berks), Aston Tirrold
(Berks), Wymondham (Norfolk), Clifton (Lanes), Naseby
(Northants), Barrowden (Rutland), Norton-under-Hamdon
(Somerset),, Barford (Warwickshire), Northolt (Middlesex),
Aberffraw (Anglesey), Wittington (Worcestershire), Chigwell
(Essex), Pelsall (Staffs), Chulmleigh (Devon), Horndon-on-
the-Hill (Essex), Forest Row (East Sussex), Horsepath
(Oxfordshire), Wattisfield (West Suffolk), Ropley (Hants),
Burwell (Cambridgeshire), WilUngham (Cambridgeshire),
Cuddesdon (Oxfordshire), Winterslow (Wilts), Cater ham
(Surrey), Potton (Bedfordshire), Tiverton (Somerset), Will-
ingham (Cambridgeshire), South Normanton (Derbyshire),
Combe Martin (Devon), Aldenham (Herts), Frensham
(Surrey).
Villagers who had strongly resented the closing of ancient
rights of way by landowners, and who had hitherto taken
the law into their own hands at the risk of heavy fines and
imprisonment, now found in the Parish Council a legal
weapon forged for their using. Obstructions which had
long eaten hke sores into village life were either removed
by the writing of a poHte letter, or were beaten down by
villagers who felt that at last they had the law on their
side. Sometimes the bolder spirits were made to suffer
for their zeal, for a stubborn landowner could stUl put up
a good fight and obtain damages, both moral and material,
in spite of the fact that obstruction had been proved.
A friend of mine wrote an article at this time headed
" Thou shalt not Steal " directed against a landowner who
136 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
had closed a public footpath. An action was brought
by the landowner against the journalist, and although it
was admitted that a pubhc footpath had been wrongfully
clo^d, the Judge declared that the landowner's character
had suffered by the publication of this article, which cost
my friend the sum of ^£500 !
Parish Councils had often but little assistance from Rural
District Councils in re-opening rights of way, and a consider-
able amount of work was given to that excellent body,
the Commons Preservation Society, in the early years of
the working of the Parish Councils Act. Boldness, however,
sometimes had its own reward. When Sir Weetman Pearson
(now Viscount Cowdray) purchased the Cowdray estate one
of his first acts was to padlock the iron gates which opened
on to the ancient right of way across the grounds of Cowdray
Castle. Thereupon the Chairman of the Midhurst Parish
Council took the village blacksmith with him, filed through
the chain, and in full view of the pubhc walked down the
ancient right of way, thus reclaiming the right of way for-
ever.
Common pasture and grazing grounds were provided at
Soulbury (Bucks), and at Hasland (Derbyshire). In York-
shire pasture for the poor man's cow, and the cottager's
goose or donkey were provided at Ashton-cum-Aughton,
which rented 8 acres ; at KUham, which rented 21 acres,
and at Beeford, which rented 48 acres.
It was, though, in the acquisition of allotments that
Parish Councils achieved the greatest success. From 1894
up to 1907 (when the new Small Holding and Allotment
Act was passed) 40,000 working men were holding land
directly from their Parish Councils. Under the 1894 Act
if land was hired compulsorily one tenant could not hold
more than 4 acres of pasture, or i acre of arable and 3 acres
of pasture. By voluntary arrangement with acquiescent
landowners, however, there was no hmit to the acreage
a Parish Council might lease.
Compulsory powers had often to be put into force, as
they were at the following places : — ^Asfordby (Leicester-
shire), Ashby (Lincolnshire), Beaghall (Yorkshire), Dunsford
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 137
(Devon), East Rusten (Norfolk), Fosdyke (Lincolnshire),
Gamlingay (Cambs), Garthorpe (Lincolnshire), Goxhill
(Lincolnshire), Holt (Dorset), Kexby (Lincolnshire), Llandy-
fricg (Cardiganshire), Potter Heigham (Norfolk), Preston
(Dorset), Tarvin (Cheshire), Tydd St. Mary (Lincolnshire),
West Shutford (Oxfordshire). 1
The most interesting allotment settlements have been
those carried out by the Parish Councils at Belbroughton
(Worcestershire) and Moulton (Lincolnshire). Close to
Belbroughton is CatshUl, and it was at Catshill where some
attempt was made, and certainly with a modicum of success,
to carry out the provisions of the Small Holdings Act of
1892, which proved to be an abortive attempt to establish
peasant proprietorship in England as a permanent feature
of land settlement. The Worcester County Council
was the first to apply the powers provided by this Act,
and in 1892 it agreed to buy at Catshill the farm of
147 acres at ;^33 an acre.
In the usual unthinking, official way 2,oco notices were
issued in a hole and corner manner, and these received but
one application in answer. Afterwards, when a meeting
was held at Catshill and the Act was explained to those
present, the Council satisfied itself that a number of people
desiring small holdings were unable to find the necessary
deposit of 20 per cent., and so agreed to accept a certain
number of men as tenants besides those willing to purchase.
A great number of the villagers in this district were
nail-makers, who were out of work through the intro-
duction of machinery in the manufacture of hobnails. It
did not seem to occur to well-meaning bureaucrats that
there was some irony in offering to sell land to penniless
men. At Belbroughton, where dire poverty drove many to
poach, and where the poor rates went up by leaps and
bounds, the penniless men seized the opportunity through
their Parish Council to apply their muscles to the labour-
starved acres that surrounded them. In 1895 the Parish
Council took a field of 18 acres and accommodated thirty
nailers. The next year 16 acres were added ; the j^ear
1 Vide Parish Councils and Village Life, The Fabian Society.
138 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
after 109 acres ; and in 1903 a further 34 acres. These
177 acres enabled 112 men to obtain a livelihood as market
gardeners. No less than twenty-six horses were employed
in ploughing, carting, and carrying the produce to Birming-
ham and bringing back manure for the land. All this was
done in spite of the continued opposition of the chief land-
owner, and to-day (1919), I beheve the Parish Council of
Belbroughton controls no less than 500 acres.
The working men of Belbroughton did certainly " grow
their own poor rate " in a manner which would have amazed
John Stuart Mill, had he lived to see how they lifted them-
selves from pauperism to comparative independence.
Judging by the statistics of pauperism in the county of
Oxfordshire, which was one of the lowest paid counties
in England, and one of the highest in the return for allot-
ments. Mill's contention might have seemed to hold good ;
but allotments were equally as popular in Norfolk, and
though wages were low in that county they were not
lower than some other eastern and southern counties and
one cannot say that the men of Norfolk have ever been
backward in the fight for higher wages or shown a spirit
of subservience. Nor was meekness characteristic of the
fenland districts where wages were a httle higher and
allotments as numerous as in any other district in England.
To point to the absence of what is technically known as
allotments in the northern counties where wages were
highest, is no argument in support of MiU's theory; for
in the north cow-pasturage for the hind or a potato patch in
the ploughed field was quite a common allowance as a
supplement to wages. Moreover town workmen who enjoy
much higher wages than agricultural workers, have always
shown a greater desire for allotments than the agricultural
labourer, who finds no recreation in repeating after tea
what he has been doing all day long.
Where men are regularly employed it is the bent back of
the woman who has to bear the burden of allotment tillage,
especially at planting and harvesting, when the man's
services are required in his master's fields. Socially, rather
than economically, there is much to be said against allot-
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 139
merits for agrictiltural labourers, though there is no doubt
that the allotment is a standby in a time of stress such as
lock-outs or strikes, as the miners found in the strike of
1893.
If a man turns himself into a drudge by too diligent an
application to the land that is not the fault of the allotment,
but is due to the man making a wrongful use of his leisure,
losing a sense of proportion, and taking up too much time
on the allotment where others may take up too much time
in pubHc houses. No allotment, however, ever makes up
for the lack of a cottage garden of equal size. It is to the
casually employed labourer, the piece-worker, such as a
hedger and thatcher, and the man who means to make his
allotment a stepping stone to a small holding, to whom it is
most valuable.
No Allotment Act, not even the Parish Councils Act, which
had a stormy passage through the House of Lords, was
designed to free labourers from their economic servitude to
farmers. Only one or two counties had put into operation
the Small Holdings Act of 1892, and the few farms purchased
were quite small. In the same year of the passing of this
first Small Holdings Act an Allotment Association was
formed at Spalding under the energetic leadership of Mr.
Richard Winfrey. A field of 33 acres owned by Lord Car-
rington was let to the members, and at Ladyday, 1895,
a farm on good land (Willow Tree Farm) of 217 acres in
extent becoming vacant was leased by a syndicate formed
by Mr. Winfrey, from Lord Carrington. This syndicate,
or association, became known as the Lincolnshire and Norfolk
Small Holdings Association, with Mr. (now Sir) Richard Win-
frey as its chairman. Its history might be briefly told here.
After extending its area round WiUow Tree Farm, thus
making a total of 650 acres in this district, it purchased
three farms at Swaffliam and Whissonsett in Norfolk, on
land far inferior to the Spalding land. It leased 1,000 acres
at Wingland from the Crown, and eventually became con-
troller of 2,266 acres worked by 290 tenants with a rent
roll of ^^4,890. It is significant that this body of small
holders, who were almost all agricultural labourers,
140 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
risked their livelihood at a time when wheat was 25s. a
quarter. The last return showed that com crops occupied
nearly half the acreage, and the loss from rents had been
less than 10 s. per £100.
Another development af the SmaU Holding movement
in South Lincolnshire which takes us to a later date might
be suitably mentioned here. At Moulton 1,000 acres
sparsely grazed and badly cultivated were leased to the
Moulton Parish Council by the Crown. This Parish Council
consisted almost entirely of working men and the Crown
Land Commissioners very wisely spent no less than ;f8,ooo
on the equipment of these holdings in the form of cottages
and farm buildings. These holdings ranged from allot-
ments of one rood to smaU farms of 79 acres, though roughly
speaking the small holders might be divided into two cksses,
those with 4 or 5 acres working for employers, and those
with 20 acres to 50 acres working entirely for themselves.
It is interesting to note here that whilst the rural exodus
continued through this decade and the next the population
of the rural area of Spalding increased from 10,751 in 1901
to 23,497 ^^ 1911.
In this chapter I have dealt largely with the rising hopes
of the rural workers to get a footing on the land and a roof
over their heads by means of the Parish CouncUs Act.
Two years afterwards, by 1896, farm workers seem to have
been reduced to the lowest depth of despondency during
the whole period of agricultural depression. Nearly every
vestige of a trade union had died out,i and as these died
• A letter addressed to me from the Registrar (Sept. 25, 1919) con-
tains the following information : —
" In the case of the Eastern Counties Federation Register No. 639, there
appears to have been a Union registered in 1890 under the name of the East-
em Counties Labour Federation, and a statement accompanied the Return
for that year to the effect that since the end of 1895 the Eastern Counties
Labour Federation ' now stands Nil (as regards membership) and the
funds, after paying all dues and demands, are completely exhausted.' "
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in their History of Trade Unionism (190 1)
give the number enrolled as 17,000, which, if intended as an index of
membership in that year, was apparently inaccurate.
I am also informed by the Registrar that returns ceased to be furnished
after 1894 by the London and Counties Labour League (the old Kent and
Sussex Labourers' Union) and the National Agricultural Labourers'
Union, the trustees of which were then given as Messrs. Arch, Baker, and
Lush,
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 141
there was little or no organised attempt to capture the
Parish Councils. Wheat was down to 26s. a quarter, and
there seemed no prospect of getting a rise in wages. If
they could not get land and so work out their own salvation
there seemed little hope for them. The workhouse loomed
larger than ever in their eyes. There was no Old Age
Pension, and' those beaten in the struggle for existence
received the parochial dole of a shilling or two a week with
half a stone of flour.
It is a great effort for an agrictiltural labourer to pen a
letter to a local paper, especially to exhibit his poverty,
but one Daniel Hull, of Tolleshunt-Knights told his story
in 1897 in a letter sent to the Essex County Council. He
was eighty-five years of age, of which number of years he
had put in eighty at work, and had now to " fall back on
one loaf and 2s. a week."
Immediately the picture rises to one's eyes of Richard
Jefferies' labourer, John Brown. " If in front of him could
be piled up all the work he has done in his life what a huge
pyramid it would make ; and then if beside him could be
placed the product and award to himself, he could hold it
in his clenched hand hke a nut, so that nobody could
see it." 1
Rural trade unionism wasnowat its lowest ebb since 1872.
The National Agricultiiral Labourers' Union had practic-
ally ceased to exist in every one of its ramifications. But
a new union entered the field, and as its history has become
a most remarkable one it is interesting to record its early
days, however insignificant its doings might have appeared
to the nation at that time.
I have said that in the beginning years of the 'nineties
the stimulus of trade union organisation amongst agricul-
tural labourers was artificial. It derived from the towns,
and the rapidly formed country unions had but a meteoric
career.
Now in May 1898 a new urban union came into being
1 Lord Rothschild's Committee (1898) reported that two-thirds of the
people over sixty-five needed " aid." The aged poor, numbering about three-
quarters of a million, who needed aid to keep alive, had to wait for another
ten years before the Old Age Pensions Act was passed.
142 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
called the Workers' Union. It was formed to organise aU
those workers who did not foUow any particular craft or
had not been catered for by existing unions. Its ambition
was to organise the whole of the unorganised into one big
union. Mr. Tom Mann was its president, and Mr. Charles
Duncan its secretary — on £2 a week. Though it had its
birth amongst bricks and mortar and the grime of soot,
its formation fortunately had reached the ears of a skilled
agricultural worker living in a midland village called Ellerdine
Heath, and he was determined at the outset to organise
the farm workers. This was Mr. John Beard. He managed
to get eight men to join in his own village and then held a
pubUc meeting at Iron Bridge, Salop, which he invited Mr.
Charles Duncan to address. Mr. Duncan had been instructed
to ride a bicycle because the Union was too poor to afford
travelling expenses. The meeting was held, but nobody
joined the Union I
Then another effort was made some months later at the
same village. This time excitement had been worked up
by a born advertising agent, who was then working as a
farm labourer. This was Mr. John Simpson, who afterwards
became the creator and the secretary of the Planet Friendly
Assurance Society. Mr. Simpson cleverly created curiosity
through a newspaper controversy in which he was audacious
enough to use his own name and address.
The farmers looked upon this act as a piece of sheer im-
pudence, while labourers were aghast at his daring. He not
only attacked the conditions of the labourers but also held
up to ridicule the private ownership of land. The three
men, Mr. John Beard, Mr. Charles Duncan, and Mr. John
Simpson, spoke. Farm workers walked to the meeting
from irules around. It was a great success, and at the end
of it a number of labourers joined the Union.
The next meeting was held at Frees, Salop, and here
again the men came in from the farms and hamlets around
and made a big village meeting.
The next night the three men went to Market Drayton,
Shropshire, which was near Mr. Simpson's home, and one
may be assured the ground had been well prepared. Here
THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 143
a man turned up in a cart who might have been a successor
to Arch. He was a bearded vociferous Primitive Methodist,
a tower of strength to any imion composed of agricultural
labourers. He was a Parish Councillor and a Guardian of
the Poor, and before a meeting was held at his own village,
delightfully called Loggerheads, he would insist on going
round the neighbourhood singing at the top of his voice
at the doors of the cottages. To give himself free expansion
of his chest he took off his coat in addition to roUing up his
sleeves. His name was Enoch — at least that was his Chris-
tian name, and who would want to know him by any other ?
During the course of the year the Union had enrolled
about 2,000 agricultural labourers in the Midlands, and Mr.
John Beard having proved himself so capable, was appointed
an organiser at the princely salary (irregularly paid) of 12s.
a week — ^the wage of his feUow farm workers. Eventually,
Mr. Beard became the President of the Union and a member
of the Agricultural Wages Board, for which his knowledge
and his tactful negotiating quaUties well fitted him.
In those days neither publicans nor parsons gave a very
warm welcome to Trade Union organisers. The publicans
were often small farmers and as licencees feared the frown
of a magisterial bench of landowners. When the parson
was sympathetic he had to face the opposition of hostile
churchwardens. Mr. Beard tells an amusing incident of a
vicar who autocratically gave him permission to hold a
meeting in a village schoolroom, in spite of the veto of
the other managers, who were farmers. The vicar, in
explaining the situation, said although lamps could not be
provided by the school, Mr. Beard would be able to get
them from the church !
The meeting was held and a branch was started, but the
churchwardens prevented the further use of the school by
imposing a high rent. The village grocer then came to the
rescue of the Union by placing his hayloft at its disposal, and
branch meetings were then held under the light of a horn
lantern whilst the men sat round on bundles of hay.
Permission to allow the Union the use of a chapel proved
to be more embarrassing than the vicar's permission
144 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
to use a schoolroom without lamps. The trustees of a cer-
tain chapel after much heart-searching decided to let the
Union have the use of the chapel, on condition that the meet-
ing followed the lines of areligious service. This Mr. Beard
assures us was more than a Httle difficult for him, " but quite
easy for John Simpson, who had been a lay preacher. ' ' When
the time came, however, the trustees being apprehensive
of the devotional capacities of trade union officials dele-
gated one of their own members to take charge of the service.
Mr. Simpson preached the sermon on a text based on one
of the hymns selected, " Who is our neighbour ? " Al-
though it was agreed that the sermon was a good one
the audience was evidently puzzled and not a member
was enrolled. 1
" A post card lying on my desk," writes Mr. Beard, " posted
to me so long ago as igoo, reminds me of a refusal. This time it
was from an Oddfellows' Committee which was our last hope in
that village. The first was the National School, next the Wes-
leyan Chapel, and then the two public houses. The reason was
not far to seek. The squire was a National School manager ; the
leader of the Methodists was head carpenter on the estate ; the
first public house belonged to the Hall, and the Annual Rent
dinners were held there ; the second one had as a landlord a man
who was a farmer as well ; the secretary of the Oddfellows'
Committee was a farmer and builder, and the Committee were
the squire's gardeners and estate workmen and village tradesmen.
This kind of a ring was frequently met with and against it there
was little hope."
This ray of hope generated by the Workers' Union which
penetrated the Midlands at the end of the nineteenth
century, flickered and sank to a mere spark, until the great
whirlwind of war which swept over the world fanned it into
life again.
1 The Workers' Union Record, August, 1919.
PART SIX
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE
1900.
In 1 90 1, Sir Rider Haggard, the Arthur Young of the twen-
tieth century, made his famous tour^ through the whole
of England south of Yorkshire. The picture presented
to us is a gloomy one : land going back to grass with the
labourer leaving the land is the recurring note in county
after county. Arch in 1897 declared that " nothing but
boys and old men were left." This is an exaggerated state-
ment, though of the young men who remained the majority
were not the brightest specimens of their class. It may
largely account for the decline and almost total extinction
of trade union organisation in rural England from 1896
to 1906. Corn prices remained low, and although farmers
were gradually adapting themselves to the newer conditions,
turning their attention to dairying rather than to corn pro-
duction, the upward tendency in their industry did not
begin until about the year 1906.
In the meantime, silently but persistently, the inarticulate
agric\4tural labourer who had no one to speak for him, left
the open fields for the crowded cities. It is estimated
that the conversion of arable land into grass between 1881
and 1901 threw from 60 ,000 to 80 ,000 farm labourers out of
work, and this was accentuated later by the increasing use
of labour-saving machinery.
" This is certain," wrote Sir Rider Haggard, " for I have noted
it several times, some parts of England are becoming almost as
lonesome as the Veld of Africa. There ' the highways lie waste,
1 Rurid England, by Rider Haggard.
VOL. II. 145 L
146 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
the wayfaring man ceaseth.' The farm labourer is looked down
upon, especially by young women of his own class, and conse-
quently he looks down upon himself. He is at the very bottom
of the social scale."
Few more poignant stories are told of our empty country-
side than that of Mr. W. H. Hudson, in the opening chapter
of his book A Shepherd's Life. Whilst cychng along the
valley of the Ebble, a farm boy standing alone in the middle
of a big field raced across the field to the gate which gave on
to the road. On being questioned as to what he wanted,
the boy replied, " Nothing ; it was just to see you pass."
And this was eight years later !
Chiefly, Sir Rider Haggard contended, it was a matter
of wages. " But," he adds, " it was not solely a question of
wages ; he (Hodge) and his wife seek the change in the excite-
ment of the streets. Nature has Httle meaning for most of
them and no charm ; but they love a gas lamp. Nature,
in my experience, only appeals to the truly educated."
That it was largely a question of higher wages, to which
I would add, more abundant leisure, is indubitable ; but it is
not true in my opinion that Nature makes no apped to those
who work under the open sky.
Though often unexpressed— for poets are as rare
amongst farm labourers as they are am^ongst the educated
classes — there is a strong, indefinable feeUng for Nature in
the hearts of those who earn their daily bread in the fields
and in the woods.
" Ah," sighingly said a man of my acquaintance who
had been brought up at the plough-tail, drearning out of a
dingy city wndow, " the seagulls will now be following the
plough ! " The cuckoo's first haunting note signalhng the
eternal youth of the world, invariably evokes from the
uneducated a thrill of pleasure as if it were the opening
bar of some well-known melody.
The beauty of the blackthorn throwing its bridal wreath
across the hedge when March leans upon April has been often
pointed out to me by some toil-smitten labourer, and the
glory of the wild cherry, in snowy blossom has, I have
noticed, stricken him mute with admiration. The song of the
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 147
nightingale under a still starlit night excites in the swain a
feeling as intense as the pipings of Pan did in ancient Greece.
The hiU which has brooded over his village since infancy,
pulls at the heart-strings of manyashepherd who has watched
the trifoUum lace the hillside with crimson and the charlock
weave a cloth of gold at its feet.
To the lonely woodman the singing brook becomes a hving
companion. The rainbow in the sky which Unks earth to
heaven rarely appears without an ejaculation from the man
with the hoe. Changes in the sky, the reddening of the west,
and the sinister rising of a grey cloud no larger than a man's
hand, and the race of the wind is more to the agricultural
labourer than the doings of ParUament, or the pronounce-
ments of the Church. Trudging along the lampless lanes
he watches with interest the sickle moon harvesting its light.
He has worked in too many wet shirts and under too many
burning suns to remain indifferent to Nature.
Those who have lived in any intimacy with the labourer
know that there were two compelling forces which kept
men on the land who might have earned with ease the
higher wages and greater freedom of the towns. One was
the shackle of debt which kept them in bondage, especially
at the time when the children were young and unable to
contribute to the family funds ; the other was this love of
Nature, not perhaps as understood in the schools, but in
the peasant's way, in which was mingled a quiet but strong
affection for live creatures both wild and domesticated.
Probably the love of his horse is greater in some farm
worker than the love of his wife !
In the early years of the twentieth century I was con-
stantly working with a labourer who was one of the most
skilled craftsmen of the fields I have ever known. He was
very strong as well as skilful. His great fault was his over-
powering thirst, and one would have imagined that with his
fondness for the bottle he would live where drink was
most easily procured ; that is in the crowded street where the
tap-room door invited entrance at every hundred yards.
He chose, however, to live in a shed in a field by a copse where
the nightingales sang in April, situated about two miles
148 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
from the nearest public house, which, owing to his violence
when " in liquor," he was prohibited from entering.
Rough, uneducated, and drunken in his habits though
he was, yet he had a love for Nature akin to the love of a poet.
He would tell me that the sunset reminded him of the colours
in a brooch he once saw gracing a farmer's wife. With
hands torn by bramble, he would, with the Ught of pleasure
in his eyes, bring from the woods in which he trespassed
without hesitation " purty leetle " roots of periwinkle which
he called when variegated " barnicated winkle," besides
cowslips and primroses, which he loved for their pale beauty
and knew that my wife loved too. He once asked her to
give him a few crocus bulbs because they were " like leetle
bits o' sun," to plant round his battered old shed.
Another man, brought up as a ploughboy, possessed a
love of the country which was as indestructible, for he
chose to remain in a part of Sussex where he once hoed
in a field alone for four months without seeing a soul
from morning to night ; and one of these fields in which
he was the sole worker was 650 paces wide. In spite of the
fact that his employer was a hard man, — for on one occasion,
on a very wet day, finding that my old friend was taking
shelter under a hedge he ordered Mm out to hoe in a field
where he had to wade knee-deep in mangold leaves — ^in
spite of such experiences he remained true to his love of the
soil and to-day is cultivating a small holding of his own.
Being a handy man not only with the hoe and the biUhook,
but also with the hammer and chisel, he could have found a
more profitable job in the towns, but he stayed where he could
hear the hum of the bees, which he handled with the tender-
ness of a woman for a chUd, and where he could watch the
sheep like a string of pearls encircling the shoulder of the
Downs.
Lieut-Col. Pedder, in an article^ vividly descriptive of
rural life at this time, mentions this deep love of the labourer
for the land.
" ' Farm-service ' is still subjugation. It yokes and goads and
brutalises. Men are still dismissed if their acquaintances do not
• Contemporary Review, February, 1903.
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 149
please their masters. Their wives, though under no legal obliga-
tion to do so, must still go out to field labour or ' give offence.'
Opposition in politics may involve ' a march,' as they have
learnt to call a compulsory flitting. The Parish Council gives
the master abundant tests of submission. ' I didn't know as he
was agin' her,' said a labourer of fifty- five, telling how he unad-
visedly ' held up his hand ' for a lady who was a candidate for a
seat in the village parliament. ' But didn't he just give it to I
aterwards ! ' ' Still as a slave before his lord ' represents the
attitude of the farm hand in the presence of his employer. No
sheep before her shearers was ever more dumb than the milkers
and carters and ploughmen at the village meetings to which
their masters may choose to summon them. They are cowed.
It is to this that the race have come, whom Froissart described
as ' le plus perilleux peuple qui soit au monde, et plus outrageux
et orgueilleux.' Pride is dead in their souls.
" Is there no germ of independence within them that may
still be fostered and vivified ? Parish Councils were intended
for this very purpose and Parish Councils have signally failed.
As long as the Land is in the hands of a small class straightly
banded together for the maintenance of their position and their
authority, the condition of the labourers must remain practically
one of serfdom. The monopoly of great farmers must be broken
up before the dawn of hope can rise upon the English peasant.
And great farmers are upheld by the whole Conservative party
in England. They play the part of the ' Undertakers ' at the
election of James I's second Parliament. As a class they
' undertake ' that the vote of the villages shall be Conservative.
Their power of paralysing anything like freedom of electoral
choice in their dependents is a weapon in the hands of a political
party. But even if Hope were again to shine upon the peasant,
is there anything left within him to which Hope could appeal ?
" Yes, deep in the heart of the country labourer there glimmers
still a tiny spark from which we may yet rekindle the sacred fire
of independence and self-reverence. That it exists at all is a
miracle. It has gone on living through the generations of
hopeless drudgery in which every high aspiration was squeezed
by famine out of the soul of the farmer's serf, a survival from the
days when an able-bodied Englishman bred on and to the Land,
might cherish the hope of one day calling a corner of it his own,
at least as the tenant of a landlord without personal interest in
the degradation of his dependents. It is the Love of the Land.
I know nothing more touching than the rare expression of this
feeling by men to whom one would naturally expect ' the Land '
to be much the same as ' the shirt,' to a Jew-sweated seamstress
in the East End. ' A beautiful bit of land ! ' says an old labourer
admiringly, as he watches the plough-share turn the rich furrow.
50 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
He is on his way to the workhouse where his father died before
him and where his son will follow him. That is what ' the
Land ' has done for him. And he has never planted so much as
a potato in a bit of ground from which he could not be ejected by
a month's warning before Michaelmas."
He !|: « . 4: *
In 1901a deputation of Suffolk farmers visited Denmark,
and this deputation pointed out to their English fraternity
that the " expense of farming in Denmark appeared to be,
with the exception of State Aid, quite as high as, or higher
than in Suffolk. The taxes and rent charge were about the
same as in East Anglia, but labour, implements, etc., were
dearer ; but against this must be set the fact that the Danish
farmer appeared to be satisfied with a much simpler and more
frugal mode of life than is common here."
Though the English farmer was becoming more and more
of a dairy farmer, the proverb was no longer a household word
that, " If the cows be not milked by the time the herdsman
blows his horn (sunrise) the dairymaid's wedding is spoiled."
It was difl&cult for the EngUsh farmers or their families
to realise that they were not living as their fathers in the
Golden Age of farming. They complained of the cost of
labour, and yet labour was the one item of expenditure
over whifch it was fatal for them to economise. Without a
word of protest the unshackled labourer silently left the
farms for the police force, the railway, the contractor's yard,
the factory and the mine.
A sympathetic Government had passed in 1896 the Agricul-
tural Ratings Act, which relieved the farmers of half their
rates on their land, though not on their buildings. And this
Act was continued in 1902. Critics have scornfully dubbed
this Act " The Landlord's Relief Act," because, though
tenants had immediate relief, eventually this sum found its way
into the landlord's pocket in the form of higher rents. Whilst
the depression lasted and landlords were seeking good
tenants this was not possible ; but at the turn of the tide no
doubt landlord s, by raisirig rents, reaped the benefit of the Act
instead of the farmers.
Of more permanent value to farmers was the creation of the
Board of Agriculture in 1889, and the subsequent grants made
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 151
for agricultural education, especiallyfor technical instruction
in dair3dng. It was a lucky chance which diverted money
intended for publicans into the channels of technical educa-
tion ; and in 1889, on through the 'nineties, agricultural
instruction was inaugurated at various institutions.^
Though farmers' sons were receiving a better technical
education during this period, none of these grants benefited
the labourer's son, save when in some miraculous way a
labourer's son managed to win a scholarship. Whilst far-
mers had some extra educational advantages for their sons,
those in the southern and midland counties resented as much
as ever an Education Rate and the education of labourers.
Our statesmen were discovering that education was kept
down to the lowest level by members of country School
Boards and managers of Church schools. Some slight im-
provement, however, was effected by the Education Act of
igo2, when all elementary schools were placed under the local
authority and the management of non-provided schools,
such as Church schools, had some shadow of public control
such as one representative from the Parish Council, one
appointed by the County Council, besides the four appointed
under the Trust Deed of the school.
No radical change, however, took place in the personnel
of many school management committees, for the one repre-
sentative from the Parish Council usually turned out to be
the old cheese-paring educationist under a new name ;
and the same criticism might be applied to the managers
appointed by the County Education Committee.
The opposition of farmers to the labourer's son being
educated is understandable, as they saw the most intelligent
lads, equipped with a higher wage-earning capacity acquired
1 University College of North Wales, Bangor ; University of Leeds ;
Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne ; University College of Wales',
Aberystwyth ; Cambridge University ; University College, Reading ;
South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye; Midland Agricultural and
Dairy College ; Harper Adams Agricultural College ; College of Agri-
culture and Horticulture, Holmes Chapel ; Agricultural and Horticul-
tural College, Uckfield ; Essex County Technical Laboratories ; Harris
Institute, Preston ; British Dairy Institute, Reading ; Eastern Counties
Dairy Institute, Ipswich ; Royal Veterinary College ; National Fruit
and Cider Institute ; Cumberland and Westmoreland Farm School ■
Hampshire Farm School ; Agricultural Institute, Ridgmount.
152 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
through education, running away to the towns. Through
books, too, boys had made the discovery of a different world
outside the parish boundary.
This antagonism to education was never a marked feature
of the northern or Scotch farmer who paid higher wages.
It did not occur to the naidland and southern farmers to
try the experiment of offering higher wages and so attempt
to retain the services of the brighter lads, whose quickened
iiiteUigence might prove of some material advantage to their
employers. Farmers might retort that this was taking too
great a risk,for the education giveninrural schools, especially
in Church schools, fitted no boy for a Ufe on the land. This
to a large extent was, and is stiU true, though if the boy had
the priceless advantage of a good teacher who trained the
young to think instead of stuffing them with facts which
they could not mentally digest, the farmers would have had
the advantage of trained intelligences which took an abiding
interest in hfe and were fiUed with a noble curiosity.
Chemistry was more and more coming to the aid of the
farmer ; and agricultural labour-saving machinery was being
improved. Financially, t];ie turn of the tide in markets
and prices, though slow in movement, began to be
appreciable about 1906. The dairy farm, the cattle rear-
ing-farm, the fruit farm and the market garden began to
change the aspect of many a district hitherto given over
to cereals and hops.
The very interesting Report by Mr. Wilson Fox published
in 19051 on the Wages, Earnings, and Conditions of Employ-
ment of Agricultural Labourers in the United Kingdom,
shows the average earnings per week, including the value of
aU allowances in kind, in England, to have been i6s. gd. in
1898 and 17s. 5d. in 1902. The rates of wages in 1903 to
1905 remained at the same level as at 1902. Mr. Fox
attributed the slightly upward movement from 1895 to
1902 to the scarcity of labour which had left the,: land
for the mines and other industries. The mines of '"Dur-
ham and Glamorganshire, where wages were respectively
» Cd. 2376,
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 153
22s. 2d. and 21s. 3d., kept the average higher in England
and Wales.
The lowest average weekly earnings in England were in
Oxfordshire (14s. 6d.). The average rate of weekly cash
wages in this county, according to Returns from farmers,
was I2S. and the lowest rate usually paid in any rural dis-
trict was IIS. The counties where the earnings were next
lowest were Norfolk (15s. 3d), Gloucestershire (15s. 5d.),and
Sufolk and Dorsetshire (15s. 6d.) each. The average rates
of weekly cash wages in Norfolk were 12s. 4d., in Gloucester-
shire I2S. iid., in Suffolk 12s. gd., and in Dorsetshire
IIS. iid. In Dorsetshire the rate of weekly cash wages
was IDS. in some districts.
In Wales the county where the average weekly earnings
were lowest was Cardiganshire (15s. 8d.) ; the average rate
of weekly cash wages being 14s. 6d.
It should be borne in mind, however, that these official
figures were made up from the result of Returns filled in
chiefly by employers who no doubt were accurate enough with
regard to cash wages, but estimated the value of allowances,
which brings a margin for error into the calculation. The
Returns did not include casual labourers. The inclusion of
the men in charge of animals increased the general averages
by only lod. a week.
The weekly average value of food consumed by a farm
labourer, his wife and four children was found by Mr. Fox
to be 13s. 6|d. in England, and 15s. 2jd. in Scotland.
The first independent investigator to present us with a
carefully drawn picture of village Hfe in the early years of
the twentieth century was Dr. H. H. Mann, in his Life in an
Agricultural Village in England.^ There was at this time a
growing re-orientation of economics in a sociological direc-
tion. Charles Booth broke new ground in his painstaking
Life and Labour of the People, which was an extensive enquiry
into the economic conditions of the life of those who inhabited
the wilderness of bricks and mortar. Mr. Seebohm Rowntree
continued this method in his study of York. Then Dr,
Mann developed the plan in his study of village hfe, and
I Sociological Papers, Vol. I.
134 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
he was followed by Miss Davies in 1905 by her Life in an
English Village ; and later on Mr. Rowntree in his How the
Labourer Lives applied the same method to rural hfe which
he had to town life.^
Ridgmount, lying twelve miles from the county town of
Bedford, is in the centre of one of the largest purely agricul-
tural districts in England. The village is bounded on one
side by the Woburn Park of the Duke of Bedford, who is
the greatest landowner, house-owner, and employer of labour
in the district. A considerable amount of freehold land had
existed in the village, but by the process of absorption, the
whole parish became almost entirely the ^property of the
Duke.
Ridgmount is t3rpically EngHsh, for not only has it its
Duke, owning and controlling nearly everything, but, besides
its church it has its Baptist chapel which is said to have
been founded by John Bunyan. The whole population
was directly or indirectly engaged in agricultural pursuits.
The sole exceptions of any importance consisted in the
residence of two railway signalmen in the village and of
one man and three lads who worked in the printing, works
at Aspley Guise, two and a half miles distant.
The best cottages were those owned by the duke and let
at IS. 6d. per week, and this sum might be taken as the
standard rent.
To get at a minimum standard consistent with physical
efficiency Dr. Mann accepted Mr, Rowntree's basis, which
was that the necessary minimum cost for food for a man was
3s. per week, for a woman 3s., and for a chUd 2S. 3d.
On enquiry Dr. Mann found that Mr. Rowntree's standard
of 6d. per week for a man or woman, and 5d. per week for a
girl or boy under sixteen years of age for clothes, was regarded
by the people as an absolute minimum and these figures
were therefore retained. A shilling a week was allowed for
fuel after taking into consideration the amount of wood
which could be picked up. Beyond this, 2d. per head per
week was allowed for other siindries such as soap, light, furni-
ture, crockery and similar articles. A man, wife and three
» Poverty : A Study of Town Life, by B. Seebohm Rowntree.
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 155
children would therefore have a minimum necessary expen-
diture per week of 135. gd. in food, of is. 6d. in rent, of 4s. id.
in household sundries, making a total of i8s. 4d. to keep them
in physical efficiency.
Any family dropping below the minimum standard for
food as stated is considered in a state of primary poverty,
and the conclusion to which Dr. Mann came
" after every allowance had been made for subsidiary sources
of income is that no less than 34*3 per cent, of the population of
the t3^ical agricultural village in Bedfordshire do not contain
the necessary amount of money to enable them to remain in
physical health. This percentage rises to no less than 4i"o
when the working class alone is considered."
Dr. Mann discovered that
"if foremen be excluded, the average wages paid in the
village amount to 13s. 7jd. per head per week for pure agri-
cultural labourers, 65 in number, who are working at full rates.
The Duke of Bedford's standard is about 15s. per week ; the
standard of the other farmers 12s. to 14s. ; though, as has been
said, the latter usually carry more extras than the former. This
gives an average weekly wage of 14s. 4d. per head."
Now Mr. Wilson Fox in his Board of Trade investigation
gave the average earnings in Bedfordshire as i6s. 2d., which
is nearly 2s. higher than that of Dr. Mann's figures.
" After very careful examination of Mr. Fox's figures," wrote
Dr. Mann, " I cannot help thinking that in working out his
averages he has not allowed enough for the enormously greater
number of the lower grade of labourers over higher grades ; and
I think if this were taken into account his figures would not be
very different to mine. But by taking the actual figures obtained,
it appears clear that a man earning the average rate of wages and
the head of a household, must descend below the primary poverty
line so soon as he has two children, unless he is able to supplement
his income by an allotment, by fattening and breeding pigs, or
by other means. It is also clear that he will remain below the
poverty line imless the eldest child leaves school and begins to
earn money, and that, even if he has no more than two children,
his only chance to save will be in his later life when the chUdren
are grown up and are earning money or have left home ... in
any case during life it is a weary and continual round of poverty.
During childhood poverty conditions are almost inevitable. As
156 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
a boy grows up, there are a few years intermission till, as a young
man, he has two children ; then poverty again, till the children
grow up, and, finally, at best, a penurious old age barely lifted
above the poverty line."
The' subsidiary sources of income for which Dr. Mann gave
due allowance included allotments, and pig and poultry
keeping. He found at this time that the profits to be
obtained from allotments were not great because
" most of the allotments lie too close to the Duke of Bedford's
park, where game is strictly preserved ; and the result is that
havoc is usually wrought amongst the crops sown ; and that
neither the keeping of pigs nor cows was encouraged by the
Duke of Bedford."
The Duke of Bedford has the reputation of being one of
the best of English landowners, and when further pubUcity
was given to the above statements in my book The Tyranny
of the Countryside, published 1913, the Duke's lawyers
controverted them by pointing out that in, 1912 out of the 21
acres in allotments eight were cultivated with corn, which
carries with it the impUcation that game was not so abun-
dant as in 1903 ; and that the keeping of pigs or poultry
was not discouraged, but that " leave has to be obtained."
As to wages, the Duke of Bedford's lawyers stated that one
of the Duke's men received 28s. a week in 1913, whilst eight of
them received 15s. with extras that amounted to an average
of ^5 los. a man. It is not quite clear if these extras were
subject to a deduction of four weeks' wages during harvest
time, which would then leave only £2 lOs. net. However,
rents and rates would swallow up the harvest money, thus
leaving only 15s. a week for the maintenance of a family.
Dr. Mann ends his interesting paper with the following
significant passage : —
"As at present existing, the standard of life on the land is
lower than in the cities ; the chances of success are less and of
poverty are greater ; life is less interesting ; and the likelihood
of the workhouse as the place of residence in old age, the greater.
It is evident that the outcry against the depopulation of the
country and the concentration of population in the towns must
remain little more than a parrot-cry until something is done to
raise the standard of life, ajnd hence the standard of wages in our
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 157
purely agricultural districts — to increase the chances of success
in life, to make life more interesting, and to bring about a more
attractive old age than at present, when under existing condi-
tions the workhouse is apt to loom too large on the horizon of the
agricultural labourer."
Miss Maude Davies, following in Dr. Mann's footsteps,
investigated a Wiltshire village in 1905.1 Corsley was
different to Ridgmount in that it had no ducal park at its
gates. It breathed a freer atmosphere as it had a class of
small holders and a sprinkling of artisans such as wagon-
makers, masons, etc., within its parish. Like Ridgmount
it once had its home-industries of lace-making and
strawplaiting, and Corsley also once had its handlooms and
spinning wheels.
There were 220 households in Corsley and Miss Davies
seemed to have managed to enter into aU of them and find out,
not from the employing class only, as the Board of Trade's
investigators did, but from the wives and from the men
themselves, what wages were earned and how they were
spent.
She even gives a detailed account of the topics of conversa-
tion and the games played at the various public houses on
one December night !
In 1841 the population of Corsley was 1621. In 1901 it
was 824. During the depression farms, instead of being en-
grossed, were broken up and leased as small holdings, which
became dairy farms or market gardens, and thirty families
were living on their holdings of less than 20 acres each in
1905. As land reverted to grass, women ceased to be
employed in agriculture. No longer did women gather
stones off the plough land, plant beans, tie corn, and hoe
roots (for a wage of 10 d. a day), since the machine and the
invading sea of grass drove them from the fields as effectually
as the steam power of the town factory drove them from the
land-loom and the spinning-wheel. Thus the girls left to
don the cap and apron of domestic service, whilst the lads
sighed and struck out townwards under the magnetic spell
of the eternal feminine.
1 Life in an English Village.
158 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
The average earnings of the carters were i6s. gd. per v/eek ;
of the cowman, 15s, ^d ; and of the ordinary agricultural
labourer 15s. 3|d., which sums included aU allowance such as
harvest money, milk, beer, house and garden.
Having ascertained the earnings of all householders Miss
Davies next set to work to find out how the money was
spent. She found twenty-eight families comprising 144
persons, mostly of the purely labouring class, who were living
in a state of primary poverty. In order to define primary
poverty she followed the formula set by Mr. Rowntree ^ and
Dr. H. H. Mann. An estimate was made of the minimum cost
at which food, fuel, dress, household sundries, and house room
sufficient for efficiency could be obtained in the parish, and
it was then seen how many families were below this standard,
or in primary poverty. The standard adopted by Mr. Rown-
tree in York was less generous than that of the Local Govern-
ment Board Dietaries for Workhouses. As has been shown
Mr. Rowntree's standard works out at 3s. for a man
or woman, and 2S. 3d. for a child, as the minimum
necessary cost of food. Against the dearer prices of pro-
visions in a vUlage the author offsets the advantage of
cheaper vegetable's and fruit. No charge was made for
rent in her table of figures as she considered the garden
produce covered that ; firing was put at is. ; sundries
at 2d. ; and clothing at 6d per adult and 3d. per child. This
meant that even a carter with his iSs.gd., if he had as many
as three children, would be in primary poverty. All the
ordinary labourers, with the exception of one, were in
primary poverty.
And whilst there were twenty-five families in this condi-
tion, no less than thirty-seven families were living in what
Miss Davies calls secondary poverty, under which terms are
classified those who had a surplus of only is. a head per week
above the line of primary poverty — a line which unemploy-
ment or sickness may cast them over at any time, plunging,
them into the abysmal depths of extreme poverty.
And yet Corsley was what the author calls a " prosperous
village," the prosperity of which was due to the distribution
• Poverty : a Study of Town Life.
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 159
of land in the parish, the good gardens attached to each
cottage, the abundance of allotment land and the number
of small holdings contained in the parish.
The most interesting discovery made by the author was
that the children of the small holders, who cultivated hold-
ings of different sizes, from about J acre to 10 acres, were
infinitely more healthy than the children of the agricultural
labourers, in spite of the fact that the market gardeners'
families averaged 67, whilst those of the labourers averaged
4 '6. There were therefore 2"i per cent, less children
born on the average in the family of the labourer than
in that of the market gardener ; and in these small families
the death rate was just ten times as great. As in the inves-
tigations of later writers Miss Davies found that poverty
in the Ufe of the labourer was greatest when the children were
young and unable to contribute a penny to the family income.
In 1906 England turned her attention from the ends of
the earth and glanced at her own wasted acres. A gleam
of hope entered the benumbed mind of the rural worker.
The sweeping victory of the Liberal Party, with the election
of a group of Labour Members independent of the old
political Party, stirred that slow moving mind with hopes
of better days to come. The Liberal Party had put forward
a definite programme of small holdings, and of non-
contributory Old Age Pensions.
The Labour Party, which was formed in 1900, committed
the great Trade Unions of the country to a pohtical policy
untrammelled by the fetters which had bound men like
Arch, Burt, Broadhurst, Fenwick, and John Burns. It had
taken the field with an army of 1,000,000 workers and had
won its first victory over the outposts of Privilege.
Once more Ihe difficult task of organising agricultural
labourers was essayed ; not so much from the point of view,
apparently, of gaining a great rise in wages, but to make the
farm- workers class-conscious, and teach them to realise that
they must win their own salvation by industrial and politi-
cal action. The cry " Back to the Land " became insistent,
and if it were not possible to raise wages to any appreciable
i6o ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
extent, an attempt should be made to get land for the
labourers so that they could £is cultivators of the soil win
for themselves the fuU fruits of their labour.
A new Union came into being. It was called " The
Eastern Coimties Agricultural Labourers' and Small Hold-
ers' Union." Mr. George Nicholls, who had been an agri-
cultural labourer, and was then a small holder, had been
elected as M.P. for Northants and he was chosen as Presi-
dent. But the leading spirit was Mr. George Edwards
who, like Arch, hesitated and, like Arch, was persuaded by
his wife to respond to the appeals made to him by the
labourers. He frankly confesses that he had lost faith in
the ability of labourers to organise, but his wife strenuously
directed him to where the battle urged.
" This I would like to say," commented Mr. Edwards
many years afterwards, " it shows the noble spirit of the
woman. She knew it meant a Hfe of loneliness for her, by
taking me from my home, she being in most delicate health."
Not knowing where the expenses were to come from, he
called a conference on July 12, 1906, at the Angel Hotel,
North Walsham. He invited help from Sir Richard Win-
frey, M.P., Mr. Herbert Day, and Lord Kimberley. He
received a few pounds, and was able to pay for the rent and
printing. Mr. W. B. Harris, of Sleafbrd, Lincolnshire,
attended, as well as representatives from Suffolk, Cam-
bridgeshire, and Norfolk. It was decided to give the new
Union a three months' trial, and a committee was appointed,
pro tern., of which Mr. H. A. Day, Mr. W. G. Codling,
and Mr. J. Sage were members.
" I left the Conference," remarked Mr. Edwards, " a
poorer man. Mr. Day had made himself responsible for
finding the 13s. per week which was the salary paid to this
agitator ; the pay of an agricultural labourer." It is in-
teresting to find that on the day the Union was formed
Mr. Edwards was elected as a County Councillor at a by-
election.
A niece of Mr. Edwards did the clerical work at home.
She had to be kept out of the 13s. a week, and for four
years the work of the Union was done in Mr. Edwards'
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. i6i
bedroom in his little cottage at Gresham, for the use of
which the Union was never charged a penny. By the end
of December, 1906, fifty branches were opened and 1,500
members enrolled ; and by the end of the first financial
year 3,000 members had joined and over one hundred
branches had been formed.
When the 13s. a week secretary had cycled over 4,000
miles, it was decided to appoint Mr. Thomas Thacker, of
East Dereham, as organiser, with Mr. W. G. Codling as an
occasional assistant, who was paid, I believe, the modest
sum of 2s. for every village meeting he attended.
The path of an organiser, never easy at any time,
was beset with great difficulties now. Mr. Codhng had
walked many a mile, willingly giving his time to
the cause of the farm workers, before he received his
stupendous fee of 2s. He had, however, to surmoimt many
a difficulty before he attained the position of a properly
paid organiser. As a Parish Councillor he was regarded as
fairly harmless, but when he became a member of a Rural
District Council — the particular preserve of farmers — on
returning home at night he received his dismissal from his
employer. A kind of boycott seems to have been instituted
against this active member of the Union, and work being
almost unobtainable, the Union, which was unable through
lack of funds to appoint him as an organiser, made a collec-
tion and presented him with a hawker's basket ; and thus he
tramped the countryside equipping himself with the know-
ledge which was so useful to the Union in after years. ^
The Small Holdings Act of 1907 seemed to give the
agricultural labourer a chance at last to get his footing on
the land, so that he might stand the equal of the peasant
proprietors of nearly every continental country.
Compulsory powers were now given to County Councils
to purchase land at the market rate, the Board of Agri-
culture being the final arbiter. Holdings up to 50 acres,
or of the value of £50 a year, could be acquired for approved
applicants. Moreover, Parish Councils had greater powers
1 In 1919 as Labour Candidate he defeated Lord Hastings for the
Norfolk County Council.
VOL II, M
i62 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
with regard to allotments. It became the duty of every
Parish Council to supply every applicant who desired it
with an allotment of i acre, with statutory powers to
acquire 5 acres for every applicant. Parish Councils were
also empowered to build a cottage on an allotment of not less
than one acre.^
Difficulties in compulsory acquisition and arbitration
— the blemishes of previous Acts — were to a large extent
removed.
The intending small holder was no longer obliged to
purchase the land, but could invest his savings in Uve-
stock and implements.^ Small holdings could be equipped
by County Councils with not only cottages but also farm
buildings.
County Councils were not compelled to buy land but
could obtain it on a lease of not less than fourteen years or
longer than thirty-five years (renewable for the same periods) ,
and landlords had, of cpurse, many protective clauses
which prevented a private park or farm being taken, of
woodland attached to a country house. Landlords could
resume ownership if it coiJd be shown to the satisfaction of
the Board that the land was afterwards required for build-
ing, mining, or other industrial purposes.
One striking section in the Small Holdings Act gave
County Councils the power to " promote the formation or
extension of, and may, subject to the provisions of this
section, assist, societies on a co-operative basis, having
for their object, or one of their objects, the provision or
the proper working of small holdings or allotments, whether
in relation to the purchase of requisites, the sale of produce,
credit banking, or insurance, or otherwise."
But this laudable provision, which would have been of
immense value to small holders who lacked capital, has
never been carried out by any County Council.
Here we beat up against the rock which barred the path-
way of the labourer to the Promised Land. Agricultural
1 It is rather a remarkable fact that no such cottage has ever been
built under this provision of the Act.
" Less than 2 per cent, of applicants desired purchase (Cd. 7851).
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 163
labourers who had been trying to make both ends meet on
a wage of 13s., 14s., or even i8s., a week, were not likely to
be small capitalists ; and when most County Councils made
it a rule not to approve of applicants who could not show
that they were in possession of capital to the extent of ;^io
an acre, many farm labourers fell out of the ranks of those
who had been looking with eagerness towards the land
which had been promised them.
Soon it was realised that it was not the labourer who was
to be provided with a small holding,- but the village publi-
can, the blacksmith, the baker, the carrier, or the wheel-
wright, who used it in several counties for a, " turn-out "
for a horse, or a pony.
In his simplicity, many a labourer having heard the
Small Holdings Act was passed, thought that he had only
to pick out a certain field and ask for it, and it would be
allotted to him. I knew of men who bought live-stock at
the passing of the Small Holdings Act believing that it was
only a matter of opening a gate into a field and turning the
beasts in, and possession would be theirs !
Indeed, one or two instances have come to my knowledge
of men keeping their cattle on the roadside expecting every
day to hear that small holdings had been allotted to them,
only to find at the end of the summer that they had to sell
their stock. These of course would be the more prosperous
of the men, generally piece-workers, who had already
probably an acre or two rented from some friendly landowner
or vicar, or men living adjacent to a common with grazing
rights.
But with the ordinary labourer lack of capital was not the
only obstacle. Very often he had to make his appearance
before an unsympathetic, or even hostile Committee of a
County Council, and be subject to a severe cross-examination
as to his means and qualifications.
It was a short-sighted policy in a County Council domin-
ated by landowners and large farmers, which objected to
facilitating the working of the SmaU Holdings Act, for as
has been proved in most districts the landowners obtain a
higher rent from small holders than they do from farmers ;
i64 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
and farmers have the advantage in small holding districts-
of getting skilled workers to help them at those seasons
when they are in need of hands.
Naturally, farmers, more than landowners, feared
the spirit of independence being created in a class
which had long been so patiently submissive : and some
landowners — ^not certainly the most enlightened — feared
the cutting up of estates where hunting or good shooting
were to be had. The effective but atrocious barbed wire
fence, so beloved by small holders, was an impediment or
a death-trap to those who followed the hounds ; and the
battue would be signally curtailed by the introduction of
small holders in game preserving districts.
Farmers, though, had a genuine grievance in that they
feared that the " eyes of the farm " would be taken away
by the acquisition of some essential field, cut out from the
farm and injuring its economy. This is the strongest econ-
omic objection to small holdings, as worked under the
Act. County Councils, however, should have followed the
practice, which matured twelve years later, of acquiring
whole estates rather than individual fields for smaU hold-
ings, making it easy to carry out the provisions for co-
operation in Section 49.
What really happened in a great many counties was,
instead of the eyes of a farm being cut out, smaU holders had
to be content with land at an inconvenient distance, and
very often the pobrest land of the parish; and the man
who simply imitated the methods of the ordinary farmer,
with less equipment and less facilities for marketing, and
paying in many instances -a higher rent, did not present a
cheerful picture of agricultural prosperity.
Nevertheless, it is extraordinary that, as reports showed
later on, the County Councils suffered so little in loss of
rents that in nearly every county it worked out at less than
I per cent.i
So slowly did the Act work, that an agitation arose to
incrccise the number of Commissioners specially appointed
' In eight counties the loss in rents is " nil." In only two counties
does the loss reach as much as i per cent. (Cd. 9203.)
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 165
to speed up the County Councils, and six more were ap-
pointed in addition to the two. This improved matters
slightly and a certain amount of headway was made by
counties such as Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Worcestershire,
Somersetshire, Devon, Lincoln (Holland). Other counties,
such as West Sussex, Westmoreland and Middlesex, did
practically nothing at this date.
Impetus to the Small Holding movement was given by
the publication of Miss Jebb's book. The Small Holdings of
England. The founding of several Land Clubs (which had
their origin in an obscure hamlet), together with the Central
Small Holdings Society of which Mr. Charles Roden Buxton
was the sponsor, expressed a wide-spread demand for small
holdings. These societies became merged into the
National Land and Home League, which was professedly
non-party and did most useful work in suggesting amend-
ments to Small Holding and Housing Acts. Its political
activity had in many instances the desired effect of speeding
up the administrative bodies in getting land for men who
had been kept waiting, and of instituting Housing Enquiries.
This League embraced a number of Land Clubs in various
parts of the country, and became perhaps the most expert
body interested in small holdings, allotments, and cottages.
Its chief workers were Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Pease, Mr. C. R.
Buxton, Mr. R. L. Reiss, who afterwards became chief organ-
iser of the Liberal Land Enquiry ; Lord Henry Bentinck,
M.P., Lord Saye and Sele, Mr. Lloyd Graeme, M.P., Mr.
G. H. Roberts, M.P., Mr. Montague Fordham, Sir Richard
Winfrey, M.P., and Mr. T. Hamilton Fox. Another im-
portant society was formed in the Midlands with its head-
quarters at Birmingham. This was the Small Holdings
and Allotments Association of England.
During the years which followed after the passing of
the Small Holdings Act, whilst making my notes in different
counties for my book. The Awakening of England, and whilst
giving lantern lectures to labourers in out-of-the-way
villages in Dorset, the Cotswolds and elsewhere, it was
borne in upon me as I explained Acts of Parliament to them,
how difficult it was to get anything done if there were no
i66 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
sympathetic clergyman in the village. The men in these
remote rural parts, and indeed in most counties outside
Norfolk and Suffolk, were destitute of any shred of organ-
isation. Hopelessly would I look round for any man left
in the village capable of forwarding an appUcation to the
Board of Agriculture in the event of failure to obtain land,
or to the Local Government Board wherever cottages
were badly needed.
In vain too was it to look for " six registered parliament
ary electors or ratepayers " under Section 23 of the Small
Holdings Act, when allotments were not forthcoming, to
send in a representation in writing ; or after the
passing of the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909,
almost in vain was it to find four independent householders
who would have the courage to sign an appeal to ask the
Local Government Board to hold an enquiry on a village
which contained insanitary cottages or needed the erection
of fresh ones.
Good as the Housing and Town Planning Act was on
paper it managed to close eleven cottages to every one it
caused to be built ; and the Small Holdings Act, though not
intended to be a housing Act, managed to get many more
cottages built than the famous Housing Act. Fear of
eviction kiUed the effectiveness of the Act.
Two instances will illustrate how fear dominated village
Hfe. In 1905 the Hemel Hempstead District Council
instructed the sanitary inspector to make a Report on the
housing conditions of this village. In the course of his
Report, referring to the labourers the inspector said : "If
they complain of the cottages they Kve in they either get
notice to quit, or if any improvement is made their rent is
increased."
In 1906 the HertfoMshire County Council held a public
Enquiry on the same subject, when the following evidence
was given :
Q. You said people seemed afraid of something. What were
they afraid of ?
A. They were afraid to give me evidence because they were
. STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 167
afraid they would get into trouble. (This witness was a J. P.
and a member of the County Council.)
Another witness, a retired solicitor, was asked : —
Q. Do you know that there is any difficulty in getting them
(the cottagers) to come and give evidence to-night ?
A. They are very much afraid ; I have again and again
talked to them, and they have said, " Don't say a word — don't
tell."
And Chipperfield — the village under investigation— is
an " open ' ' village and only about twenty miles from
London !
The Duke of Northumberland distinguished himself in
the House of Lords over the debate on the Housing and
Town Planning Act of 1909 by saying that " the provision
of cottages is not an urgent matter, and it is much more
important that owners should be safegHiarded in the pos-
session of their property." Verily a peerless ducal utter-
ance !
All this went to prove to the most observant students
of rural life, that it was no use passing Acts of Parhament
at Westminster, if the people living in country villages were
either left ignorant of their existence, or had not the
courage to get them carried out. Those who lived close
to the labourer and understood the fear that dominated
his life realised that without some kind of industrial or-
ganisation, Acts of Parliament to give him a better time
were futile pieces of parchment.
To begin with, the method of approaching a labourer,
of informing him of the law and of giving him the oppor-
tunity to conform to it, is altogether a too complicated
and chilling process. Since the Great War the public have
had a regular schooling in Forms ; but before the War a
Form to be filled up was something that was viewed with
suspicion by untutored minds. (Even landlords seemed
to find a difficulty in filling up Form IV.) The fear of a
trap haunted them, and wten unlettered men had to appear
before an unsympathetic land-agent, backed by a hostile
County Council, the labourer had a poor chance of communi-
cating his desires.
i68 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
A very learned man living in the county of Dorset set out
to test the weight of the obstructions placed in the path of
the labourer applying for a small holding. This was Dr.
Alfred Russell Wallace, who, in the course of an interview,
related to me the story of the amazing document he sent
in to the Dorsetshire County Council making an appUca-
tion for a small holding.
He really wanted a small holding for his son and suggested
to the County Council that if he cultivated some of the waste
heath land where only gorse and heather flourished it would
be doing a good thing for the nation. He was prepared to
pay los. an acre rent, though the only access was by way
of a cart track, and the tenant at that time was probably
merely paying a shooting rent for the land.
The manner in which he filled up his appUcation form
must have puzzled bucolic councillors. " Age : 89. Experi-
ence : 65 years' gardening and science ; " and he got the
village postman to attest to the uprightness of his
character !
He had to wait nine months before anything was done,
and then the County Council stated that the waste heath-
land might be let to him at £2 an acre — with the addition
of a possible compensation to the sitting tenant !
" Of course I rejected the offer," said Dr. Wallace, " but it
proved conclusively to me the failure of the Small Holdings Act
as administered by a Council like the Dorsetshire County Council.
This County Council's inquisition is worthy of the Russian
autocracy. It is preposterous to treat a countryman who is
naturally cautious and industrious with suspicion. The very
fact that a man applies for land on which to work shows that he
has character, without any further evidence. Besides, the
cultivation of land helps to build up character ; and these County
Councils overlook the fact, too, that if the applicant has a family,
he brings with him to the soil potential capital."
I glanced across the heather, which stretched for miles
down to Poole, where the harbour ghstened like an in-
land lake. The air was redolent with pine and bracken.
Surely it was foolish, I thought, to check the enterprise of
a wonderful old scientist of ninety years of age, willing to
use his knowledge on the uncultivated heath.
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 169
It was perhaps fitting that a county which is stained with
the history of the Tolpuddle deportations, and where the
pessimism of Thomas Hardy luxuriates, should plan a Small
Holding Scheme, which but for the indomitable industry
and pluck of the small holders themselves, was doomed to
fail. After repeated applications from countrjmien accus-
tomed to farm work, this Council took over an entire farm
of some 780 acres at Winterborne Zelston, on a thirty-seven
years' repairing lease. Approved applicants received the
following good news from the offices of the County Council :
" I am desired to remind you that the farm comprises good
arable and pasture land, and that the holdings will be let at from
30S. to 40s. per acre, and the sum payable on entrance for tillage,
etc., will be light."
Such were the words of the alluring legend written in
July, 1909 ; and it was with high hopes that many a poor
countryman read this statement in a letter sent to him. In
1912 I received a letter from a resident in the county beg-
ging me to come and look at the estate and exercise any
influence I possessed to improve matters for the wretched
tenants.
I motored past an estate enclosed by miles of wall, broken
only by gilded gates where massive lions seemed to defy
entrance to tillers of the soil. Then suddenly I came upon
a congerie of mud cottages, dilapidated thatched roofs,
and tumble-down outbuilding's, Is'ing in a hollow through
which runs a stream. This was not a congested district in
Ireland, but Winterborne Zelston, in the county of Dorset.
All cottage doors were thrown open to me. This I knew
was the outward sign that the -tenants were in the depths
of despair, for no class objects to strangers entering their
houses more than the peasant class.
Inside the first cottage I entered, a thistle seven ft. high
had sprung up from a floor rich in plant food, in the room
which was intended as a parlour. Though living amid
tragic circumstances the tenant had evidently a sense of
humour. He had tied it to the damp decapng wall with a
piece of bass, as though it were a precious hothouse plant.
170 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
He dared not open his front window for fear of the bricks
falling down. A fire could not be lighted in a grate.
Needless to say the room w£is never occupied. It was pre-
served as a small holding mausoleum fbr Mr. Runciman to
see, who was then President of the Board of Agriculture.
" They say £ioo has been spent on our place," said a
small holder's wife, pathetically, " and it is now supposed
to be repaired. We have to pay 6 per cent, on that ;£ioo,
and yet we don't know how the money has been spent.
Our rent for the 16 acres, instead of being from 30s. to
40s. an acre, has now risen to £40."
An elderly Dorsetshire man, gaitered and wearing the
look of a yeoman farmer, begged me to come and see how
the County Council had erected a cowshed for him. He
farmed only 6 acres, and his rent stood at ^^3 14s. an acre.
He had to buttress the doors and windows of his cottage,
and on the other side of his parlour wall his pony was
stabled. He asked the Council to erect a detached cow-
shed for about £25. It was built ; but it stood empty.
The tenant was afraid to house either a pony or a cow
there. It was made of thin weather-boarding, roofed with
corrugated iron sheets, which barely met and let in a good
deal of wet. The concreted floor had to be laid three times.
The bluff old Dorset farmer drove his fist against the
weather-boarding to show how easily he could have smashed
it. This building instead of costing £25 cost £57, on which
6 per cent, was charged.
The choicest dwelling, though, was that occupied by a
man with about 50 acres. It was so bad that the County
Council had been driven by the sanitary authorities to build
a brick cottage to take its place. On the occasion of my
visit the family was still living in this cottage, and it was in
such a shocking condition that when a storm arose the small
holders' wife told me, " We dusn't go to bed, it do wave
so."
Even under normal circumstances few of the family
dared to sleep upstairs, for all the bedrooms had to be
propped up to prevent the thatched roof from tumbling in
upon them ; and having propped up the bedrooms, it was
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 171
found necessary to support the ceilings of the downstairs
rooms !
" Do not stand there, sir," cried the housewife to me, as
I was walking round to one side of the bed, " you might fall
through. We always have to make the bed on this side."
Yet there was one piece of property, on this derelict
farm, which was of value, and easily saleable at any time,
and that was the iron fence put up to divide the holdings.
It cost, I believe, half a crown a yard. On a small holder
complaining of the heavy cost of this fencing, the cynical
reply he received was : " Well, if the estate should fail,
we shall have something solid to sell." " I see," answered
the shrewd Dorset peasant. " You mean- to charge us,
then, with the rope with which you are going to hang us ? "
I am glad to say my appeals to Mr. Runciman and the
Treasury, through members of the House of Commons, were
not in vain. Capital was expended on improving the
estate, and I understand that to-day Winterbome Zelston,
under war conditions of high prices, is flourishing.
But Winterborne Zelston must not be taken as a typical
small holding estate. It was, fortunately, quite the worst
I have seen.
Some County Councils, I am glad to say, showed a patri-
otic interest even before the War in acquiring desirable
sites for small holders. But in spite of these favourable
circumstances the lack of capital continually dogged the
footsteps of the skilled agricultural labourer. Only one in
three, or 32 per cent., of those who obtained small holdings,
were farm labourers. ^
What really did militate against the working of the
Small Holdings Act, as well as the Local Government Act
of 1894, and the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909,
was, as I have said, the absence of any organised rural
democracy. The County Councils were still the exclusive
preserve of the landed aristocracy, as the Rural District
Council was of the tenant-farmers. These two classes
were politically and economically one ; and though they
may not have had any organisation which differentiated
f- Cd, 7851,
172 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
them politically froin the labouring class, they had a very
good understanding, which £is far as local elections were
concerned, found expression over the " ordinary " at the
Blue Boar on market days.
Landlords, in many districts, wisely kept the political
allegiance of tenant-farmers during the years of depression
by lowering the rents ; and farmers invariably showed
their gratitude at the poll whenever an imperial or local
election took place.
Farmers in 1908 were meant to derive some benefits
from the new Agricultural Holdings Act, passed by the
Liberal Government ; but apparently the thistle of security
of tenure was never firmly grasped in the hand of the
statesmen of the day, with the result that tenant farmers
rarely obtained the full compensation which the Act should
have given them.^
Except for one small comer of England the farm workers
were destitute of aiiy political or industrial organisation.
Their friends who exercised any influence as speakers or
writers lived in towns. Save on paper rural England re-
mained as undemocratised as it was in the days of the Crim-
ean War. The one Act which had to some extent dispelled'the
haunting fear of the Workhouse at the end of a hfe's work
— the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 — ^was an Act which
local oligarchies could not prevent being enforced. The
pension of 5s. a week, though small, relieved the old labour-
er from the stigma of pauperism — that intensely hated
stigma — and at the same time made it more possible for
sons and daughters to look after their aged parents.
The folly of the Act lay in its penaMsing thrift, and its
encouragement of deceit. The State, instead of rewarding
an old labourer or his wife for performing the miracle
of saving a sum of money which could bring them in a few
shUHngs a week, disallowed any pension at all if the yearly
income exceeded ^£31 los., and the weekly pension was
reduced in proportion to the thrift of the pensioner. Indeed
» Sir T. H. Middleton considered that the Act was difficult to work in
different parts of the country, and that the tenant did not obtain full com-
pensation under it. — Evidence before the Royal Commission on Agriculture^
igig.
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 173
one might have imagined the Act to have been framed by
Samuel Butler or Mr. G. B.. Shaw impishly imposing a
penalty on the poor for their folly of saving.
Few village Hampdens dared to insist upon more cottages
and more land whilst cottages were scarce, since almost half
the labourers in England were liviiig in farm- tied cottages, »
and the raising of a voice for better conditions inevitably
meant exile from their village. Foiled right and left in any
attempt to improve their lot in life the younger generation
set its face steadily towards the town, some of them under
a vow to their parents never to become farm labourers.
It began to be foreshadowed that any improvement
in the conditions of village hfe must be made by some
central authority, with the appointment of a large number
of Commissioners, both for the acquisition of land and the
building of houses.
The House of Commons rather than the local council,
seemed to be the arena where the battle for the emancipation
of the labourer from chronic poverty would have to be
fought. The minimum wage began to be seriously dis-
cussed in the House. Mr. John Burns insisted that few
cottages could be built and let at an economic rent unless
labourers were paid a living wage. Mr. Lloyd George was
agitating the pockets of landowners by his famous Budget
of 1909. The land was to be re-valued ; there was to be
a new Domesday Book. He was at war with the House of
Lords. Soon, very soon, with his Budget of 1909 and his
National Insurance Scheme of 1911, he became the most
hated man in England, by those who had many possessions.
In 1909 one of the members of the new Union in Norfolk,
Mr. T. G. Higdon, paid a visit to the veteran Joseph Arch,
now eighty-three years of age and living in retirement in
his old cottage at Barford. The agricultural labourers'
movement owed a great deal to the fact that Arch possessed
a cottage of his own. Had he rented one, it is probable that
he would never have been allowed to do his work. He had
married again, this time the daughter of a Norfolk farmer,
> Vide, Ths Land Enquiry.
174 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
and was living on an annuity purchased by Lord Tweed-
mouth, Mr. Tom Ellis, and other influential Liberals.
Arch, with old-fashioned peasant hospitality, immediately
called to the kitchen for a bottle of beer and set his tobacco
jar upon the table, and I should hke to record here some of
the answers made by Arch to the questions put to him by
Mr. Higdon.
" Do you take any part in politics, locally, Mr. Arch ? "
" Me ? No ; I'm too old for that now. Besides, Parish
Councils cannot do much— neither good nor harm. I have done
a little for the village in my time. I can remember when the
people in this village had no idea of freedoin or liberty. I have
taught the vUlages something of freedom. But my work is all .
done now, sir. My work is all done," he repeated sadly.
It must have been with a gleam of triumph that the
veteran agitator compared the wages received by farm
workers in 1909 with the wages he managed to get for them
in the 'seventies.
" What is this new Labourers' Union they have there now ? "
he asked suddenly.
" You have heard about it, then ? "
" A little ; not much," he said rather sarcastically.
" I think its objects are similar to those of your own Union —
better conditions and wages. It also takes up the matter of smal
holdings.'
" What are the wages in Norfolk now ? " he next enquired.
" About I2s. or 13s. a week," was the reply.
" Is that all ? Why," he exclaimed, " I got them up to 15s.,
i6s., and 17s. a week. They got it in Norfolk, they got it all
down about here. They got it everjnvhere."
" The new Union has not done that yet," I said.
" Ah, we did then — in our Union," he said, with evident
satisfaction at the remembrance of the accomplishment.
" Could those wages have been kept up, Mr. Arch ?" I asked.
" Kept up ? Yes. Why weren't they kept up ? Because
the Union went down — and the wages went down with it. The
Union was wrecked. They broke up their Union and left me
without a penny." -
" You could do no more for them, then ? "
" No ; of course I could not. I stood by them to the last. I
could do no more. If they had kept up their Union they would
have been in a very different position to-day."
" You sympathise with the labourers still ? "
STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 175
" Sympathise with them ? Of course I do ! I shall always
sympathise with them. What do they get for their harvest
now ? "
" About £6 or £7," I replied.
" We got it up to £8 or £g," said he. " But," he added, " it
is a bad system of payment. It stands in the way of a better
weekly wage. I always said it was a bad system. . . . What
strike pay do they give ? " he asked.
"Ten shillings a week— lock-out pay. I don't think they
believe in striking," said I.
" Oh, we did then," he exclaimed.
" You ordered a strike sometimes, I suppose."
" I don't know about ordering a strike. The men would go
on strike themselves in various places — then they would come to
me and I always supported them."
" Would you advocate strikes now ? "
" Certainly. What else can you do to get the wages up ? "
Mr. Higdon, mentioning old friends by name, was answered
by Arch, with a touch of that dramatic fervour which used
to set the heather on fire in country districts : " My friends
are all dead."
When asked if he knew Gladstone, he replied : —
" Yes, dined with him lots of times. He was always very
kind and friendly towards me. He was a great man — an
eloquent man and a good man."
" From what I have heard about you from the labourers in
Norfolk, you must have possessed some kind of eloquence your-
self, Mr. Arch," I said with a laugh. " Was it that in you which
got hold of the labourers so ? "
" I don't know about eloquence," he said, laughing too. " I
used to talk to the farmers a bit, you know, as well as to the
labourers," he added with a fascinating twinkle in his eye — ■
which twinkle gave a glimpse of the old time power and
personality of Joseph Arch.^
After the death of this old champion of the agricultural
labourer, (which took place in January 1919,) I wrote to the
Rector of Barford, who used to visit Arch every week and
had known him for fifteen years, asking him to give me his
impressions of the old man.
" He was a man with considerable power of expression,"
replied the Rev. W. Ingham Brooke, " an orator who under-
1 Interview with Joseph Arch, by T. G. Higdon (pamphlet).
176 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
stood well how to speak to his own class, but he was no adminis-
trator, and failed in aU matters of management and detail.
Like all such men he was intensely egotistical, and when we first
came here, he compared his fame with that of Shakespeare !
" He was a man of very moderate opinions — very conservative
in all his views, and strongly opposed to socialism. He was
simply out to get justice for his fellow- workmen in the matter of
wages and allotments, and this purpose he pursued with sim-
phcity, honesty, and enthusiasm. He possessed no political
imagination : being simply a Liberal of moderate John Bright
views, taken more or less secondhand. And I do not think he
even understood the elements of Liberal politics. He was,
however, capable of considerable independence in matters within
his ken, and would on his own subject obstinately maintain his
opinion. The House of Commons was a great trial to him. He
could not stand the late hours.
" I found his opinion in all matters of farming well worth
listening to, and in my opinion far from ' making money out of
agitation ' I think he would have done better in his calling as a
hedge-cutter, at which he was very skilful.
" He was so ignorant that he actually started a Co-operative
Society on his own in this village with no connection with the
great co-operative movement. I gather he had never heard of
the Rochdale Pioneers.
" As far as this village was concerned he had no following, and
was defeated in a local election very easily. I don't think this
is much to go by, as there are many flunkeys and grooms here,
and his co-operative failure naturally did not help him. But
he was very bitter about the desertion of so many labourers from
his Union. The clergy, I think, backed the farmers, with a few
exceptions (such as Osbert Mordaunt of Hampton Lucy, and the
late Dean of Hereford), but Arch was very abusive and certainly
went for them."
In a Cotswold village there still lives an old farm labourer
who will relate how he once carried half a pound of candles on
his hat to light " Joseph Arch's fe-ace " whilst he was speak-
ing in the open. This same man will also tell you how he
was fined before a Bench for poaching and how he vowed
as he walked down the Court steps that he would snare a
rabbit for every step he descended !
In 1910 a faint wind of freedom arose and stirred the dry
bones of a shrunken rural democracy. Again it was the
men of Norfolk who began a revolt of the fields which though
temporarily a failure had a far-reaching effect.
PART SEVEN
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES
1910-14.
The years 1910-14 witnessed a new growth in British
agriculture. Farmers were doing better than they had
ever done since 1870. Managers of provincial Banks not-
iced a distinct improvement in farmers' accounts. ^ But
the labourers did not share in this slowly rising tide of agri-
cultural prosperity. Once more the Liberal Party was
returned to power, but since the last General Election the
cost of living had risen about 10 per cent.,^ whilst wages
had remained stationary. The labourers were still living
upon political promises. Their hopes began to centre
round the little man who had come from the Welsh moun-
tains to be their David. At the sound of his carter's whip,
thoroughbreds had taken fright and with ears Iciid back and
lips drawn they had scampered to their fat paddocks,
pawing the earth with irritation ; and many a man who
had been bold enough in rural districts to exhibit posters in
favour of Liberal candidates was served with notice to quit.^
These were the days before the Labour Party attempted
to win rural constituencies ; yet as we shall see, farm
' The statistics of bankruptcies amongst farmers are illuminating.
Years Annual Average Number
1893-1898 453
1899-1905 315
1906-1912 299
1913-1918 137
(Minority Report Royal Commission on Agriculture 1919 )
' Cd. 7733-
' Vide Lord Lucas' reply to Lord Willoughby de Broke's question,
" whether they can produce any instances of tenant-farmers or agricul-
tural labourers who have been evicted on account of their having voted
for Liberal candidates for Parliament," in the ^ouse of Lords, February
24, 1914.
VOL. 11. 177 N
178 EKGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
labourers began to turn their attention not only to trade
union organisation, but also to a political organisation
independent of the two historic parties. Writers who
were interested in agriculture began to tour the country
making notes. Articles appeared with greater frequency
on the social conditions in rural England followed by a
crop of books which in 1912-13 amounted to a rural
hterary Renaissance.
Whilst Sir Daniel Hall was busy with his Pilgrimage of
British Farming for The Times I was making my notes in
England and Ireland, which bore fruit as The Awakening of
England (i9i2)andrAe Tyranny of the Countryside (1913)."
In the year 19 12 Lord Ernie published a new edition of
his memorable book English Farming : Past and Present ;
J. L. and Barbara Hammond their Village Labourer, 1760-
1830 ; George Bourne his Change in our Village ; Chris-
topher Holdenby liis Folk of the Furrow ; the Fabian Society
The Rural Problem ; Seebohm Rowntree and May Kendall,
How tlie Labourer Lives ; Miss Dunlop, The Farm Labourer ;
and finally in 1913 The Land Enquiry which supplied the
ammunition for Mr. Lloyd George's great Land Campaign.
The crop was a big one, yet it was significant that every
investigator's hand found its way to the one upstanding
thistle which he grasped with unpleasant prickings, and that
was the lowness of the labourers' wage.
The right agricultural atmosphere had been created and
Mr. Lloyd George was too keen a poHtician not to take
advantage of its favouring breezes. But of this, later.
Labourers, who were existing on 13s. a week with rising
prices, could not hve on political promises, nor wait for
" Enquiries " to mature. Week by week, unceasingly, the
wolf was knocking at the door. In May, 1910, a strike
broke out at St. Faith's, Norfolk, which, -though limited
in area, attracted a great deal of public attention, and was
• I might be pardoned for mentioning these two books of my own, not
because of the publicity which they had in the Press — several of our dailies
praising or condemning them in leading articles — but because jmany men
who have been farm labourers and are now branch secretaries TO unions,
or organisers, have been kind enough to inform me whilst I was writing this
history of their indebtedness to these books.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 179
destined, in spite of its failure, to lay the foundation stone
of the now powerful organisation — " The NationaJ Agri-
cultural Labourers' and Rural Workers' Union."
The Union was then known as the Eastern Counties
Agricultural Labourers' and Small Holders' Union, with a
membership of only 4,000. A branch had been started at
St. Faith's in September, 1906, by Mr. George Edwards, the
General Secretary of the Union, who addressed a meeting
in the village. Twenty labourers joined, and amongst these
was Mr. G. E. Hewitt, who was elected branch secretary.
Three and a half years passed, and the Branch member-
ship rose to 131, but no rise in wages occurred. Men were
still getting their miserable wage of 13s. a week. On April
29th, 19 10, a member of the branch proposed that they
should make a determined effort to secure better wages
and shorter hours. Mr. Herbert Day, the vice-president of
the Union, Mr. Thacker, the organiser, and Mr. George
Edwards were summoned to a special meeting, and a reso-
lution was p2issed that the General Secretary should write to
all the employers in the parish requesting a rise of is. per
week, and that work should cease at i o'clock on Saturdays.
It is interesting to note that the lack of a half-holiday
continued to be the hay-seed in the shirt of the labourer.
The notice was sent out to every employer, but not a single
answer was vouchsafed. Thereupon it was resolved that
every man should give notice to his employer to cease work
on May 21 unless these moderate requests were granted.
To the surprise of the villagers, the dawn of that morning
broke with the sight of mounted police riding up and down
the quiet village street with their warlike trappings gUtter-
ing in the sim !
The Farmers' Federation had evidently impressed the
chief constable at Norwich with the idea that the agricul-
tural labourers were a dangerous class, or possibly this
extraordinary exhibition of force was merely a demonstra-
tion such as we carry out among the HiU Tribes of India.
The Farmers' Federation displayed very much the same
spirit as the last generation of farmers had displayed during
Arch's active time. They imported men from all parts of
i8o ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
England and from Ireland, boarding them at great expense
and paying them much higher wages than their own labour-
ers had demanded, as an inducement to act as strike-breakers.
Large huts were erected and poUce were drafted into the
village to guard these huts from a possible attack of the
dangerous Norfolk labourers. St. Faith's, indeed, might have
been a village in the west of Ireland.
Naturally the farm workers and their wives were very
indignant, but in spite of all provocation to break the law
the men behaved with exemplary self-control.
Nevertheless, the anger of the men was roused when
two or three of their fellow-workers were seen going back
to work. These backsliders from trade unionism were
entertained with some " rough music " drummed out of old
pans and kettles as they returned from work. This musical
performance having, as an eye-witness described it, "a
marvellous effect on deserters," the farmers and the police
made up their minds to stop it. Their ruse was successful.
An old lady was sent out to meet her husband, and when
the music began she shrieked with such dramatic force
that it was alleged she had been frightened into a shrieking
fit. No one had been spoken to, and no one had been
touched, but twelve summonses were served to twelve men,
some of whom were not there at all. In the next week
they had to appear before the Bench of Magistrates, who
promptly fined each man £5 with the option of two
months' imprisonment.
Mr. Herbert Day, the vice-president of the Union, with
great generosity came forward, as the men were about to be
locked up, and paid the £60 from his own pocket. His
generosity did not stop here. Whilst the strike lasted he
gave 6d. a week per child to their parents who were on
strike, and at Christmas he sent every wife a little present,
so that the children could enjoy a Christmas dinner. Prob-
ably the issue would have been different if the men had been
allowed to go to prison.
The strike draggted on till the end of the year, when it col-
lapsed, though not through any faint-heartedness on the part
of the men, who wanted to go on fighting if the members of
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. i8i
the Union outside St. Faith's would agree to impose a volun-
tary levy upon themselves. This they agreed to do. But
Mr. George NichoUs, M.P., the president, and Sir Richard
Winfrey, M.P., the treasurer, with other members of the
Executive, were convinced that the struggle was hopeless,
especially in view of the fact that it had already cost
the Union £1,300, and funds were getting extremely
low.
The strike was declared closed on January 9, 1911.
A sectional strike at the best of times is always highly
speculative, and St. Faith's was not only surrounded, but
permeated by non-unionists. The fanners had every-
thing in their favour. It was the dead time of the year, and
the supply of non-union labour seemed unlimited. It
was a bitter blow to the men to go back to the old wage of
13s. ; and, although promises had been made by farmers to
take back their own workmen, victimisation followed.
Mr. G. E. Hewitt, the local leader, was made to feel the
full force of the farmers' anger. Work was denied him,
and he was faced with the prospect of leaving the village in
which he and his father and grandfather before him had
been born. Fortunately he was successful in obtaining a
small holding, and after an uphill fight he managed to
make a living.
To follow the history of this village Hampden, it is
interesting to learn that he was eventually elected a
member of the Executive of his Union, a member of
the War Agricultural Committee of his county, a mem-
ber of the central Agricultural Wages Board, and that he
defeated with honours a local magnate at a County CouncU
Election in 1919. Mr. Hewitt is a splendid t3^e of the
Norfolk peasant who has with great courage and single-
mindedness fought without reward the battles of his fellow-
workers.
At a conference of the Union in 191 1 a vote of censure
was passed on the Executive by the members for closing
the strike, which led to the resignation of the President and
Treasurer. Councillor W. R. Smith, of Norwich, 1 who had
' Now M,P. for Wellingborough.
i82 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
taken an active interest in the battles of the agricultural
labourers, became its new President, and Mr. H. A. Day
was elected its new Treasurer.
Though the Union had suffered a reverse and its member-
ship had declined owing to the surrender at St. Faith's,
the publicity of the strike and the S3rmpathy evoked caused
its membership to revive in 1912. In that year a confer-
ence was held, when the rules and objects were revised and
the name was altered to the National Agricultural Labourers'
and Rural Workers' Union.^
The Union now took a new lease of Ufe. The National
Insurance Act of 1911, which came into force in 1912,
helped to bring grist to the Union mill, for labourers found
it to be more remunerative to take up an Insurance Card
with the Trade Union than with the Post Ofl&ce. The new
Uaiion was registered as an Approved Society and many
members of extinguished small benefit societies joined the
National Agricultural Labourers' Union.*
The National Agricultural Labourers' Union now became
affiliated to the Trade Union Congress, to which they were
entitied to send two representatives each year. The failure
at St. Faith's stimulated the organised workers of the town
to come to the help of the agricultural labourers, and we shall
» The rural workers embraced those persons " who are Allotment and
Small Holders, Agricultural Labourers, Gardeners, Navvies, Yardmen,
Carters, Roadmen, Female Workers, Carpenters and Skilled Artisans,
who from health, age, distance of nearest branch, or other sufScient reasons,
are unable to join the recognised Unions of their respective trades, and]any
other person agreed to by a Branch and not vetoed by the Generail Council
or the Executive Committee."
Its objects were declared to be : —
(a) To improve the social and moral conditions of its members.
(6) To establish central funds for the purpose of securing a better dis-
position of the land, by assisting to provide allotments, small holdings,
improved housing accommodation, and better conditions of living.
(c) To secure proper legal advice when necessary and to shield members
from injustice.
(d) To relieve members out of work through disputes, strikes, or lock-
outs, when sanctioned by the Executive Committee or the General Council
of the Union.
(e) To encourage intercommunication with Unions in other parts of
this country and other countries.
' Mr. R. B. Walker tells me he discovered a Benefit Society existing
near Fakenham which had an unbroken record of membership since the
halcyon days of Arch's Union, for though it had dropped its trade unionism
it had retained its Sick Benefit contributors.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 183
see how in 1913 a grant of ^500 was made by the Congress to
enable the National Agricultural Labourers' Union to employ
an extra organiser or two.
Another Union also took the field on behalf of the agricul-
tural labourer, a Union which was destined to play a most
important part in organising the farm worker. This was the
Workers' Union, which in 1898 could barely find the money
to pay its country organiser 12s. a week. It had grown into
a powerful urban union and turned its attention once more
to its first love — the agricultural labourer. Its organisers
argued that farm labourers wduld be in a stronger position
if they joined the agricultural section of an urban imion
blest with funds, and this appealed to many men who had
suffered from or heard of the instabihty of Arch's old
Union. They saw too that it was difficult to carry out a
successftil strike without money, and there was certainly
plenty of scope for an organiser who would take the trouble to
organise agricultural labourers. Few trade unions had
shown great eagerness to expend money in organising a scat-
tered and badly paid body of workers on a contribution of
twopence a week, and credit is certainly due to the Workers'
Union for cultivating a crop which had borne but little
fruit and was subject to be nipped in the bud by early frosts.
The desire of the Workers' Union to make the farm worker
a trade unionist, was no doubt prompted by the feeling
that the position of the unskilled workers of the towns was
jeopardised by the importation of non-union men from the
country when any industrial trouble arose. The gas-
workers, the dockers, the navvies, had all experienced this
cold draught blowing in from the open fields, eddying round
their gates. Thus their organisers. Alderman Morley of HaU-
fax, and Councillor Beard of Birmingham, began to send out
their emissaries into Yorkshire and the Midland counties.
Fresh interest in Trade Unionism amongst the agricul
tural workers was evinced in the spring of 1912 by the un-
veiling of a memorial to the Tolpuddle martyrs on May
27, 1912. On the top of the curved arch at the entrance
to the little Wesleyan Methodist chapel of the Dorsetshire
village are engraved the words "Tolpuddle Martyrs," and on
i84 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
each side of the arch is a marble slab with words inscribed
thus :
TOLPUDDLE MARTYRS.
Erected in honour " We have injured no man's
of the REPUTATION, CHARACTER, PER-
FAITHFUL and BRAVE MEN SON OF PROPERTY ; WE WERE
of this village uniting together to pre-
WHO IN 1834 so nobly serve OURSELVES, AND OUR
SUFFERED TRANSPORTATION WIVES AND OUR CHILDREN,
in the Cause of from utter degradation and
LIBERTY, JUSTICE, STARVATION."
and RIGHTEOUSNESS (George Loveless. Defence)
and as a stimulus
to our own
and future generations
George Loveless.
James Loveless
James Hammett.
Thomas Stanfield.
John Stanfield.
James Brine.
Unveiled by Arthur Henderson, M.P.,
May 2yth, 1912.^
* It will be remembered that these men asked for an increase in wages
from 8s. to gs. a week, instead of which wages were reduced to 7s. a week
and the men were threatened with a reduction to 6s. Only then,
when driven down to starvation point, did these men attempt to form a
union. Nothing has been finer in the history of pur courageous peasantry
than the bearing of these men during this cruel and vindictive trial. Be-
sides the words of George Loveless it would be interesting to record the
verses which James Loveless scribbled on a piece of paper and threw
among the crowd as he was being led away for deportation.
God is our guide I no swords we draw,
We kindle not war's battle fires ;
By reason, union, justice, law.
We claim the birthright of our sires.
We raise the watchword Liberty,
We will, we will, we will be free !
The little Wesleyan chapel is where these men used to worship, and
it is interesting to note that Miss Hamm»tt, a second cousin of James
Hammett, is a leader at the chapel at the present time ; and a son of
James Hammett still lives at Tolpuddle.
I learn that James Loveless and Hammett spoke at one of Arch's
meetings, and persecution again arose and labourers were evicted from
their homes. Hammett's cousin then bought a field and built twelve
cottages on it, so that the tenants could go to chapel and have a union if
they wished.
An old lady, Mrs. Bush, the widow of a shepherd, remembers the martyrs
and is willing to talk of them. Later on the National Agricultural
Labourers' Union started a branch at Tolpuddle,
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 185
In 1912 labourers were becoming restless, not only as to
wages, but also as to being secure of a home. They were
repeatedly told by Lord Lansdowne on behalf of the Conser-
vatives, and by Mr. Lloyd George on behalf of the Liberals,
that they should be secure of their cottage homes, but
instead, they found from bitter experience that their foot-
hold was as insecure as ever.
In the depths of the winter of 1912, in January of that
year, a most discreditable eviction took place at Foxham
in Wilts, where lies some of Lord Lansdowne's property,
though I do not mean to imply that he was to blame for what
happened. The incident is worth recounting in order to
show how the Town Planning Act worked, or rather how it
did not work, in rural districts.
The County Council acquired a farm on Lord Lansdowne's
property, and eight families received notices to quit their cot-
tages. Some of the other cottages were bought by farmers
who wanted them for their own employees, with the result
that cottage accommodation became extremely scarce.
The Parish Council, typical of those in Wiltshire, consist-
ing of seven farmers and two labourers, made no attempt to
get cottages built ; but two labourers, armed with Mr. John
Bums' Town Planning Act, sent a petition, signed also by
two other men, for the application of the Housing Act, to the
Rural District Council at Calne. Calne is the centre of the
pig ind'ustry, and its Rural District Councillors, it is recorded,
received the application with swinish laughter. With a
chuckle of sardonic merriment they referred the matter to
the Parish Council of Bremhill — the Parish Council on which
seven of their farmer friends sat. An application was also
sent to the County Council.
No response, save a curt acknowledgment, came from the
County Council to these poor labourers of Foxham in direful
distress. " The Cerberus of officialism had snarled them
back with all his three pairs of jaws," wrote Lieut.-Col.
D. C. Pedder, who lived in this neighbourhood. The appeal
then had to go to headquarters — that is, direct to the Presi-
dent of the Local Government Board. Through the good
offices of the National Land and Home League, sufficient
i86 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
prima facie evidence was adduced for Mr. John Bums to
order an immediate enquiry. Tliis time twenty men came
forward in the crowded little village schoolroom to bear wit-
ness as to the lack of cottages, and how, under notice
to quit, they had searched in vain for a house. The tragedy
of one man, with seven children down with whooping cough,
under notice to quit an overcrowded cottage, was startlingly
revealed, and the story of how youths and girls were driven
to the towns was unfolded.
But all that the Enquiry produced for these people was
a revengeful retaliation on the part of the recalcitrant
councillors.
What happened was an eviction as brutal as any in the
annals of Enghsh country life. The County Council, one of
the three jaws of the three-mouthed Cerberus, promptly took
its revenge. It snapped at the two ringleaders and threw
them bodily out upon the roadside. In a heap on the deep
snow under a leaden sky were piled the household goods of
Robert Grimshaw and Alfred Fortune. In a group collected
the villagers, standing silent and sullen under the fresh
indignity dealt out to them.
Some very extraordinary evidence was brought out at
the Enquiry. Lord LansdoSvne's agent actually said he had
never known that there was any demand for cottages at
Foxham. The Surveyor of the district " had never heard
of any demand for cottages." The Chairman of the Rural
District Council, which is held at the centre of the pig indus-
try, had " never heard of a want of housing accommodation
in that parish."
The men who took a leading part in the Enquiry were
driven out of the neighbourhood. No wonder the village
labourer felt that the odds were too much for him in a fight
for justice. In his hazard of hfe he had to play with those
who had loaded dice. Even when he won, the cost of victory
was too heavy for him to pay.
" I do not think there is much difference of opinion as to the
main facts," said Lord Lansdowne, in 1913, on the subject of
housing. " There is throughout a great part of this country a
very serious shortage of housing accommodation in our villages.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 187
What are the results ? In the first place, a number of houses
are allowed to survive which beyond all question ought to be
condemned as unfit for human habitation. The second result is
that many deserving men and women who want to find a home in
the village are wholly unable to find it. The third result is that
where you have barely enough cottages to go round, the man who
has got a cottage, particularly if the cottage is let with the farm,
has an uneasy feeling that he is too much at the mercy of his
employer, and if he loses his job he stands a very good chance of
losing his home into the bargain. That is not a desirable frame
of mind." ^
A different kind of Enquiry to the one at Foxham was held
in the adjoining county of Somerset a year later. Here the
laxity of the Rural District Council was being tried by the
County Council. The atmosphere was quite different from
that of Foxham, and the reason not far to seek. The four
who made the requisition to the County Council were not lab-
ourers this time, but four influential middle-class Quakers ;
and the Medical Officer of Health for the County, Dr. Savage,
was, fortunately, one who possessed a moral passion for
sanitation.
I happened to be present at the Enquiry ^ and was struck
by the independence of a workman, who needless, to say
was not an agricultural labourer. It was when the Chair-
man of the County Council (who conducted the Enquiry in
a most admirable manner) asked the workman if he would
like a cottage with three bedrooms, a Rural District
Councillor sneeringly interjected : " And a bathroom, too,
I suppose ? "
" Yes," retorted the workman sharply, " can't we be clean
as well as you ? "
The Enquiry was held both at Shipham and at Wins-
combe. The conditions of affairs at Shipham were illuminat-
ing. Many years ago lead mines were worked here by
squatters, who built their cottages on what appears to have
been No-man's land. It would be difficult to find a fairer
spot in England than this, where between the escarpments
* The Times, June 23, 1913.
' A Citizens' League had been formed at Winscombe after reading The
Awakening of England. I had been asked to lecture to it.
i88 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of the Mendip Hills can be seen the Bristol Channel glittering
in the sun, and, beyond, the shadowy form of the Welsh
hills, and it is here " small ownership " has been carried out
to an extent rare in the annals of rural England.
In 1841 the population w^ 707 ; in 191 1 it was 359.
Though the population had dwindled to one half , the cottages
were not only legally overcrowded, but according to the Med-
ical Officer of Health for the county " grossly and morally
overcrowded." Thirty-three of the sixty cottages inspected
that year were occupied by their owners. In one cottage
three boys and two girls slept in one room, while the mother
and three children slept in the other. In the bedroom of
another cottage slept two youths aged sixteen and nineteen,
and two girls aged fourteen and nineteen. And it should be
remembered that most of these bedrooms were so small that
the cubic space allowed for each person was often far less
than that permitted in a common lodging-house. In one
bedroom, with an area of not more than 700 cubic ft., slept
three persons of two sexes aged fifteen, twenty, and twenty-
one. In two very small bedrooms of a capacity of 660 and
480 cubic ft. respectively slept a mother and eight children.
The Clerk to this Council admitted that no systematic
inspection had been made of this grossly insanitary village
for at least seventeen years.
Now at this Enquiry, the ratepayers — that is to say
the small owners living in their miserable hovels — ^were
furious at the bare thought of new cottages being built with
a possibility of an increase in their rates. This hare was, of
course, soon started by the members of the Rural District
Council.
Where the local authority is lethargic and the parish
is owned by exceedingly poor people the administration
of Health Acts becomes a dead letter.
The Meidical Officer of Health stated that Shipham
contained the worst cottages to be found in Somerset.
One can hardly have two more striking instances of the
evils arising from leaving land in the hands of either large
or small owners than the parish of Shipham and the adjoining
parish of Rowberrow, which is entirely owned by its Squire.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 189
Here the population in 1831 was 392. It has now dwindled
to one-fourth of that nvunber.
The village lies in a beautiful gorge, and the wrecked
roofs and dismantled walls of the stone cottages give it the
appearance of some Alpine village which has suffered from an
avalanche. Nothing worthy of the name of farming is to
be seen on the land, all laid down to grass. Sport alone
seemed to absorb the energies of the governing classes. The
vicarage was an empty house and the church was served by
the Vicar of Shipham. The school had also been closed,
and on the death of the present generation of squatters every
bit of land reverts to the Squire, which means that in time
this beautiful little gorge will be emptied of life.
The curate of one of the villages, a fine type of the Church
mihtant, a major who had taken Holy Orders, said to me :
" I know far better than the inspectors how these rooms are
overcrowded, for I am called to these cottages at night, and
I rarely rise from the floor with dry knees. Dirt lies for ever
entombed between the stone flags. We do not allow this
scandalous kind of thing in India."
Not all sporting villages by any means were like Row-
berrow. Some were extremely tidy and well preserved.
Such a one was the village of Htiscombe in Surrey, noted
for its beautiful beeches, which I visited in 1912. Game
preserving seemed to be the most thriving pursuit, judging
by the iU-cultivated fields, the number of pheasants to be
seen, and the luxurious motors disgorging their " guns."
The entire parish was owned by one man. The wages of
the labourers, I found, were 13s. a week.
So dear were the necessities of Ufe here that any one above
the rank of a labourer who could command the services
of a horse and trap, drove to Guildford, eight miles away.
But the married labourer remained tied to his cottage,
manacled by low wages, and squeezed by high prices. His
mind, though, was well looked after. There is a beautiful
little church here, as there generally is in such villages ;
and the churchyard is kept Mke a gentleman's lawn, to which
the labourer contributes his bones. He is provided with a
model village institute and the Morning Post to enlighten
igo ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
him with social and political knowledge. In spite of these
intellectual advantage his wages were 13s. a week
In one of these cottages a labourer's wife heroically
brought up a family of nine children on 12s. a week, and
they all had to sleep in two bedrooms. At times the only
way the mother could satisfy the pangs of hunger in her
children was by giving them cooked nettles and bread and a
hard pudding made of flour and water. For many weeks
this would be their daily dinner.
A few miles distant I came to an estate made tragic by
the death of Whittaker Wright. This was Lea Park, now
owned by the great Liberal capitalist. Lord Pirrie. There
was no necessity here to display that excellent electioneering
placard of his Party, " Keep off the Earth," for five miles
of brick wall are more compelling than words. Inside these
walls the good agricultural land nourished deer and phea-
sants.^ Across the park and over the public highway
stretched a private motor track which took my lord when
he pleased to Haslemere. If a carter was fortunate enough to
obtain employment inside these walls he had to be prepared
to renounce all worldly pursuits, such as the keeping of fowls
or pigs, or even that of adding to his family shoiild he be
fortunate enough to inhabit one of the charming lodges.
In 1912 wages were still low, cottages scarce and land still
beyond the reach of most labourers.
Mr. Runciman in 1913 had to admit to the House of
Commons that of the 6,000 approved applicants still waiting
to get land " there were very few labourers amongst the
applicants because the low wages paid to agricultural labour-
ers did not enable them to lay by even the small amount
of capital required for a small holding." To facilitate
labourers stocking their holdings the Government of 1912
induced Joint Stock Banks to advance loans to credit socie-
ties. But this, as can well be imagined, met with little or
no success. ^
* " Lord Pirrie was fined £so at Guildford yesterday for failing to clean
and cultivate a farm after receiving three notices from the Surrey Agri-
cultural Committee. " — Daily Mail, 13 March, 1920
' I painted out at the time that the Government by shirking the straight
course of lending the money itself would bring about a dismal failure.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 191
The position of the labourer in 1912 was graphically
summed up by a Conservative, Mr. R. E. Prothero, who
has since been made President of the Board of Agriculture
and a Peer.
" All the employing classes have moved on and upwards in
wealth, in education, in tastes, in habits, in their standard of
living. Except in education, the employed alone have stood
comparatively stni. The sense of social inferiority which is thus
fostered has impressed the labourer with the feeling that he is not
regarded as a member of the community, but only as its helot.
It is from this point of view that he resents, in a half-humorous,
half-sullen fashion, the kindly efforts of well-meaning patrons to
do him good, the restrictions imposed on his occupation of his
cottage, as well as the paraphernalia of policemen, sanitary and
medical inspectors, school-attendance officers, who dragoon and
shepherd him into being sober, law-abiding, clean, healthy and
considerate of the future of his children. To his mind, it is all
part of the treatment meted out to a being who is regarded as
belonging to an inferior race." ^
•!• 'I' 1* *
Mr. Lloyd George kept on making speeches, but the open-
ing of Parliament, 1913, shattered the rising hopes of the farm
workers. The King's Speech produced not a ray of light
in the homes of those who follow the plough. They knew
the Liberal Land Enquiry had been on foot for some time, and
when Parliament opened they fully expected a pronounce-
ment as to wages. Mr. Lloyd George had roused the whole
countryside into two opposing camps. Was it only poHtical
window dressing after all. Was all this platform oratory
merely theatrical display, they began to ask one another.
" They irritate the sliunbering dominant Party without
strengthening the insurgent," wrote George Meredith in one
of his letters. These words might have been written of Mr.
Lloyd George. Indeed his pubHc performances at this
period resembled the part of Hairlequin in the great Land
Campaign Pantomime which was frequently put on for one
In 1914, sixteen Credit Societies obtained advances from Joint Stock Banks,
the total amount advanced being ;£i,75o ! The number of small holdings
provided by County Councils of which the holders were in actual posses-
sion on December 31, 1914, was only 13,085. The total quantity of land
acquired under the Act in England and Wales was less than 1 per cent, of
the whole cultivated area (Cd. 7851).
1 English Farming : Past and Present. By R. E. Prothero.
192 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
night only when the populace becanie restive, and taken
off again immediately the plaudits of the crowd rose to fever
height.
The Government pantomime had the longest run in the
great, Budget performance of 1909, when Harlequin dis-
played such antics in smacking landlords with his pliable
wand that he created quite a commotion in the stalls.
Thoroughly alarmed they rushed back to their country
houses and stirred up the countryside.
There was no doubt about it, the landlords reaUy were
scared.
But it was observed that whilst the Conservative land-
owners were alarmed, the more intelligent landowning Liber-
als went their way untroubled. They evidently knew what
would happen at the fall of the curtain.
The resounding thwacks of the Harlequin barely bruised
a single member of the possessing class. Agricultural land
was exempt from taxation, and land other than agricultural
had merely to bear the miserable tax of a half-penny in the
pound, which after all was really not worth the picking up.
The possessing class sent up a sigh of relief as the price of
agricultural land steadily rose 15 per cent, in value. When
the Budget Play was over and those who had toiled in the
fields went home to find their larders empty, hungry teeth
began to glisten in rural constituencies. It indicated that
the Earth Hunger was not satisfied, that those who worked
for masters still had to rear families on inadequate wages
and live in wretched cottages. Then it was that the Govern-
ment sent their popular comedian into the provinces to
" sever the shackles of feudalism " — with striking phrases.
It apeared that for the successful presentation of the
comedy, to equip it thoroughly with trap-doors and exits,
the services of a great number of scene-shifters had to be
engaged. This new play they called the Land Ehquiry.
The Government had suddenly developed a passion for
rural scenic effects. Most of those who listened to the fiery
speeches delivered by leading politicians during the Budget
and the House of Lords Campaign imagined that these
statesmen were fully equipped with knowledge of rural
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 193
life. But they were mistaken. In spite of the State De-
partments of the Local Government Board, the Board of
Trade, and the Board of Agriculture, not a member of that
essentidly urban Government appeared to know how the
rural poor lived. Indeed the statesmen seem to be no better
informed than Pitt, who in 1800 introduced a Bill to
ameUorate the conditions of the rural poor, but soon
dropped it because he was " inexperienced himself in
country affairs, and in the condition of the poor, and would
not press the Measure on the attention of the House." And
that was over one hundred years ago !
We were assured that the new play would, in scenic
effects, excel any picture ever presented of rural England.
But when is it goifig to begin ? " was asked, as people im-
patiently stamped their feet. "You wait," came the answer.
" It will be quite worth your while, for Harlequin is getting
new tights made, scintillating with spangles, and a new wand
— a perfect weapon that will tickle the bare backs of the occu-
pants of the stalls, and effectually bring down the gods."
Whilst clamouring for the new play to begin the people were
told that a popular spectacular play called The Tragedy of the
Near East, would have to be put on first ; and then when it
was found that this drama began to draw very poor houses
the directors and large shareholders of the State Repertory
Theatre deciddd that the Trailing of the Red Herring should
form an attractive feature of the New Pantomime display,
with the introduction of a new act called the Education Act.
(This, it was rumoured, was presented to give a chance to
the heavy tragedian who had taken the lead in military
dramas. It was said that he had objected to all Government
pantomime being especially written for Harlequin.)
But the people said they were tired of education plays.
These plays always sent them to their homes with a fierce
hunger for fo6d.
" Let's have Harlequin ! " they shouted. "He is the
man for us." So to appeeise the people the Government let
Harlequin appear again — for one night only — and though
Columbine had now turned her back on him, he performed at
the National Liberal Club on Friday, January 31. The
VOL. II. o
194 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
stalls were again thwacked, and the claque cheered at his
coruscations. It had its effect. " You see," wrote one of
the critics in the Stage Box who signed himself P.W.W., and
who kindly explained all Government plays to the readers of
the Daily News, " abundant evidence is already available
to justify the following forecast : —
" The statutory establishment of a minimum wage of at
least £i a week for agricultural labourers.
" Every labourer who requires a cottage shall have one
(with a plot of land) independent of farmer or landlord."
Then followed the usual epilogue. Five days later, in
reply to a question by Mr. Charles Bathurst, who asked if the
performance at the National Liberal Club represented the
poUcy of the Government, the Prime Minister answered with
some asperity that " Mr. Lloyd George did not formulate
any proposals and that any statements which have since
appeared in the Press professing to represent the pohcy of the
Government are pure efforts of imagination."
And the subtle Harlequin himself, when questioned, had
to admit with a smile that he had only been having a fling
on his own, and had propounded no act of statecraft. The
meaning of that smile has not been lost.
The " gods " were brought down but to be buried !
The curtain then went up on an entirely new play. The
Prologue had already been uttered, and that great army of the
dispossessed who toiled long for a mere pittance, housed in
hovels, and stiU denied access to the land, men who " Learned
his great language, caught his clear accents," turned
away heart-broken to their desolate homes. Their leader,
their one valiant David, who was to have broken the " shack-
les of feudalism," had deserted them. On March lo
their doom was seded. The King's Speech had been
uttered. There was nothing for them. Instead, out of their
labour, money was to be raised to develop cotton growing
amongst the Soudanese ; while for them, the Labourers of
England, there was nothing, not even better wages.
Country house parties began to assume a more cheerful
aspect. The densest of backwoodsmen began to realise that
strong words break no bones, nor do they injure incomes.
GROWTH Under stormy skies. i$5
The Chancellor even then might almost be regarded as an
asset to reaction. It may be very well after aU to have a
Harlequin who can tickle the palate of the people by refer-
ences to dukes, but who leaves ducal incomes undisturbed.
Mr. Lloyd George lost his chance of becoming the Cobbett
of the twentieth century. Indeed " the raging-tearing
campaign" (vide Tory papers) forcibly recalled a story told of
Abraham Lincoln, who when opposed in Court by a vocifer-
ous and turbulent counsel : " He reminds me," said Lincoln
to the judge, " of the farmer who was overtaken by a
thunderstorm and knelt down to pray. ' Oh Lord,' he cried,
' cannot we have a little less noise and a little more light.' "
«|C Sp Sfi !(C
Yet politicians and others who hve in the stately homes of
England were soon to have a rude shock. In May 1913 a
strike broke out in South West Lancashire, and where it was
raging mightily stood the country house of Lord Derby,
which the King of England was about to visit.
Whilst Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Lansdowne had been
making their politictd speeches, the cost of hving had been
steadily rising, and Lancashire was the first county to express
its feelings in no imcertain voice. Rents and retail prices
had risen in Lancashire and Cheshire to 13-3 above 1905.1
But it was not only a question of wages ; it was primarily a
matter of hours ; and the refusal of the farmers to negotiate
with the men's leaders led to the gravest agricultural strike
in this country since the days of Joseph Arch.
In the autumn of 1912 the farm workers in South- West
Lancashire were entirely unorganised, and as many of them,
especially the wagoners who took market garden produce
into the large towns, had to work exceedingly long hours
they appealed to the National Agriculturcd Labourers' Union
to help them to improve their conditions. Mr. George Ed-
wards seized the opportunity and the Union quickly grew
in strength, forming nearly thirty branches during the winter.
The district was aptly described by Country Life thus : —
" To many of our readers the district will at once " come home '
when we add that it is the country of the Grand National and
1 Cd. 7733. Vide Appendix.
196 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
the Waterloo Cup, and having said this there is surely little if
any need to say more as to its position and general appearance." ^
Perhaps nothing more need be said to sportsmen, except
to add that the land here is owned by a trinity of Earls :
the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Sefton, and the Earl of Lathom,
and those who are familiar with their Debrett will now feel
themselves geographically at home. To those not so familiar
with their Debrett, I might add that this neighbourhood
had to satisfy with market garden and farm produce the
insatiable markets of Liverpool, Warrington, St. Helens,
Wigan and Southport, entailing in many instances extremely
long hours for the carters ; and it is little wonder that in a
neighbourhood where football is popular the men resented
being deprived of a half-holiday, which is claimed by every
town artisan.
In May, 1913, the men formulated their demands, which
were : —
(i) Saturday half-holiday, work to cease at i p.m.
(2) Minimum wage of 24s. a week.
(3) 6d. an hour overtime, and
(4) Recognition of the Union.
The Preston Guardian 2 declared " the Union lived in
Dreamland." If so, it was a Dreamland where tired
wagoners' journeys were bounded by a horizon of distant
furnace fires.
The farmers, though, wasted no time in poetical fancies,
but promptly dismissed their hands, giving them notices
to quit their cottages. This action was started by one
farmer who, without consulting his neighbours, immedi-
ately dismissed his eight men. This arbitrary action
caused great indignation amongst the labourers, and a
demonstration was held one Sunday at Barton, close to the
residence of an employer who had locked out his men the
previous Sunday. The procession, headed by a brass band,
consisted of 4,000 persons. Mr. George Edwards said he
had never witnessed so much enthusiasm and determination
in the forty years he had been in public life.
1 Country Life, May 25, 1913. ' May 24, 1913.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 197
A resolution was passed unanimously condemning the
farmers' attempt to prevent the workmen combining. '
The farmers stubbornly refused to recognise the men's
Union. The Chairman of the Farmer's Union declared that,
" he felt sure that if there were only a united force they could
squash the Union and take the wind out of the sails of Mr.
Edwards, the secretary."*
The usual argument was advanced that the whole move-
ment was engineered by outside people who were agitators,
though judging from a statement made by the Graphic,
the agitators were not very well paid : —
" As Mr. Edwards (the secretary of the Union), an assistant
secretary and two organisers receive in all about £200 a year,
the enthusiasts at the head of the organisation are hardly leading
it for what they can get out of it."
Mr. Edwards exhausted every method of persuasion to
get the farmers to confer with him. Then with that pathetic
belief, which is characteristic of the English peasant in the
goodwill of the landed aristocracy, he appealed to Lord
Derby to act as mediator.
It was a wise step on Mr. Edwards' part, for the King
was to be the guest of Lord Derby, upon whose estates the
men had downed tools. At first Lord Derby definitely
refused, but later, no doubt feeling that a portion of his
domain in revolt would not be a pleasant picture to present
to the King, he consented to act as mediator between the
Fanners' Union and the Labourers' Union. Since the strike
had become not only an affair of farm workers but also of
the Industrial Unions who were showing their sympathy and
helping the farm workers with their organisers, Mr. James Sex-
ton, of the Dockers' Union, acted as one of the negotiators.
Lord Derby's intervention, however, went no further
than influencing the farmers on his own estate, on which
the men withdrew their notices unconditionally and returned
to work. In this strike we get portents of the Federation
of Transport Workers which came to be such a powerful
factor in the industrial and political history of our country
* Reynolds, June i8, 1913. ^ The Times, May 24, 1913.
198 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
By the aid of the Dockers' Union and the National Union
of Ships' Stewards peaceful picketing was carried out with
considerable success. Boats landing Irish labourers at
Liverpool, who were imported as strike-breakers, were met
by the pickets, and many Irish labourers either joined the
Union or were persuaded to proceed to Yorkshire for
work.
On July 4, the Ormskirk Branch of the National Union
of Railwaymen gave forty-eight hours' notice of refusal to
handle produce from the affected area, but before the rail-
wa3mien's threat was carried out the strike was ended. At
the suggestion of the Superintendent of Police at Ormskirk
a solicitor, respected by both sides, was called in as mediator,
and he drafted a report which was accepted as a settlement.
The men can claim to have won a victory, for in the his-
tory of agricultural labourers it was the first time they had
ever received by collective bargaining a reduction in the
hours. Overtime was granted at the rate of 6d. an hour and
there was a general rise in wages of 2s. a week.
The strike lasted about a fortnight, and nearly £800
were subscribed from outside sources. Nothing, perhaps,
more fortunate could have happened to the Labourers'
Union than to have a strike in an industrial county hke
Lancashire, for hot with the memory of the defenceless con-
dition of farm workers and the time-honoured arrogant tone
adopted by their employers, the industrial workers at the
Trade Union Congress of that year made a memorable grant
of ^500 to the N.A.L.U.^ for the purpose of helping them to
organise the whole country.
To most people unacquainted with the long-dying,
hard customs of payment for labour in rural districts, it
came as a surprise to learn that whereas the farm workers of
Norfolk were beaten in their struggle to obtain a rise of is.
a week on a low wage of 13s. the farmers of another county
who were already pa3ang about £1 a week to all classes^of
workers were able to pay another 2s. a week.^
The districts round Ormskirk, Garstang and Fylde jaeld,
1 For brevity's sake the National Agricultural Labourer's and Rural
Workers' Union is referred to in these pages as tjie N.A-LU.
" Cd. 5460.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 199
it is true, rich harvests, but much of Lancashire soil gets its
" back broken " and is soured by the poisonous fumes from
the great alkali and copper works and coke ovens, and soot
falls like a funeral pall over the farms which skirt the large
manufacturing towns. Owing to this bad atmosphere
abortion and tuberculosis are rife among cows and the ani-
mals' nostrils are found to be sooted up. Round the great
industrial areas trees, hedges, fruit tree and flowers are
blighted and killed.
If farmers were able to pay 22s. in Lancashire why did not
the farmers in Norfolk pay more than 13s. ? It showed once
more that payment of good wages was not dependent upon
prices or climatic conditions. It was a matter of custom in
Norfolk, and the farmers of Lancashire had to pay more for
labour because of the competitive industries of the adjacent
towns.
During the Lancashire strike another strike broke out at
East Chinnock, in Somerset. It was occasioned by the
action of one of the farmers discharging two men belonging
to the Union.
Very strong feeling was evinced over the foolish action
of the authorities in bringing in the police to protect the
farmer and the "blackleg" labour he imported, even to
escort them to church ! An agreement was eventually
arrived at with the employers resulting in the advance of 2S.
a week for the men and is. a week for lads.
The Lancashire strike painfully proved to Mr. George
Edwards, that veteran fighter for the agricultural labourer,
that his advancing years and increasing iU health 1 could
not sustain another such exhausting campaign, and his
assistant, Mr. R. B. Walker, was elected to take his place.
Stalwart trade unionist though he was, Mr. Edwards
had the foresight to reaUse that without a statutory minimum
wage an advance in wages would never be secure, for it was
in the spring of this year that he wrote the following
words : —
" On the farmer's own figures, the labourer's wages in Nor-
1 Mr. Edwards sustained an irreparable loss in the death of his wife,
who had been his inspiring comrade in all his life's work.
200 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
folk are 5s. 6d. below a bare living wage. That is the Union's
strong argument on the platform. But forty year^ experience
has convinced me that the labourers cannot get a living wage by
Trade Union effort alone. The difficulties of organisation are so
great that we cannot get an organisation strong enough to enforce it."^
As Mr. Lloyd George had refused the opportunity in
March, a BiU was introduced in the House of Commons in
May by progressive Conservatives, such as Lord Henry
Bentinck and Mr. Leslie Scott. But it was a poor Bill with
application only to certain low pa3dng counties.
A better Bill, which was the forerunner of the Minimum
Wage Part of the Com Production Act of 1917, was intro-
duced in the House of Commons on May 27, 1913, by Mr.
G. H. Roberts. This Bill was largely the work of the
National Land and Home League.
It was introduced " to provide for the establishment of a
Minimum Wage and the regularisation of the hours of labour of
agricultural labourers. Mr. Roberts said that according to the
latest available Board of Trade Returns the average weekly wage
(including allowances, etc.) of the agricultural labourer in 1907
was 17s. 6d. But that figure was based on information supplied
by the employers only, and was probably arf over statement.
As to hours of labour it was common knowledge that in rural
districts they were inordinately long. The Bill provided for
the weekly half-holiday for agricultural labourers. As to wages,
it followed the precedent of the Trade Boards Act. County
Boards were to be set up. He did not suggest that a flat rate
should be applied to the whole of the counties."
Sir F. Banbury supplied the humorous opposition to the
Bill:—
" Was the honourable gentleman going to regularise the
weather " ? he asked. " If not, the Bill would mean that the crops
would be ruined, through not being dealt with when the weather
was favourable. He would also like to know if cows were to be
milked on the weekly half-holiday. If there was an industry to
which proposals of the kind made in the Bill should not be
applied it was the agricultural industry."
This agricultural expert sat for the City of London.
A year later, April 21, 1914, Mr. Leslie Scott introduced
an Agricultural Employment Boards Bill.
1 The Land Enquiry.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 201
The years 1913 and 1914 proved to be two years of con-
siderable unrest in agricultural districts. In Yorkshire
and in Herefordshire the Workers' Union made the most
headway. In Lancashire, Cheshire and Somerset the
N.A.L.U., was very active. In Yorkshire, the Workers' Union
began to formulate a demand for the minimum wage of
24s. a week. Wages there varied from i6s. to 20s. for ordin-
ary labourers, and from 19s. to 22s. for cattlemen and horse-
men, plus cottages, potatoes, milk. At the May hiring, 1913 ,
at Brigg the wagoners obtained £22 to £25. A union was
formed at Scotch Comer, Richmond, called the Richmond and
District Farm Labourers' Union which demanded a weekly
half-holiday and overtime pay at the rate of 6d. an hour.
It was stated that Mr. Harry Evans, through starting the
Union, was thrown out of work, and could find none in that
neighbourhood. 1
The labourers' demand for a living wage became insistent
in Yorkshire and a year later a strike very nearly took place.
The Herefordshire labourers in 1913 were also murmurous
with discontent. A year later, as we shall see, over 1,000
notices were served on farmers ; and one can hardly feel
suiprise at the demands made by the men.
IntheHerefordfournaloiJnlyX2, 1913, there isan illiiminat-
ingreportof afarmlabourersummonedfordebt. When asked
by the Judge at the Leominster County Court what his wages
were, he answered " lis. and a cottage." He had a wife
and four children to support and his wages stopped on wet
days. He got a bit of wood now and again and was allowed
a row of potatoes in a field. He once was paid as much as 13s.
a week, but this was without a cottage. He had never kept
a pig or fowls. He offered to pay los. in the pound by in-
stalments of 4s. a month. The Judge made the order but
expressed his doubt of the debtor's ability to pay.
In August and September there was a revival of trade
unions in Somerset and Wiltshire.
Much attention was given in this year to the dietary of
agricultural labourers. Somebudgetsgivenbyme in my book
The Tyranny of the Countryside, pubhshed in 1913, evoked a
* Yorkshire Herald, August 22, 1913.
202 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
storm of protest. I received letters from ladies and gentlemen
living in country houses and from quite a number of country
parsons. The former were generally angry in tone ; the latter
sympathetic. A lady who stated she kept ten outdoor ser-
vants wanted to know why EngUsh labourers in the southern
counties who " spent their time in sriioking and loafing for
their 15s. a week could not live Uke the thrifty Scotch by
making two-thirds of their meals of porridge and milk — say
3d. a day."
A gentleman writing from a large country house main-
tained with righteous asseveration that " 15s. a week was
quite siif&cient to maintain our race in a state of physical
efficiency. If there is anything," he went on to say, " that
is undermining the thrifty habits of the country-side people,
it is the luxurious style of living pervading the whole
community. I give you one instance : the substitution of
packetsof Quaker Oats, costing7d., against good oatmeal cost-
ing 2d. Why is this ? Because they have lost the patience
to prepare and boil the oatmeal ; whereas the Quaker Oats
are ready at once."
This quaint insistence by the rich, that those who perform
the hardest physical labour should live upon a monotonous
diet of oatmeal three times a day, recalls a discussion that
took place in the House of Commons towards the end of the
eighteenth century on the deplorably low standard of vitality
of the rural poor, resulting from the enclosures of commons
and the deprivation of cottage children of milk.
When Members were making ponderous speeches over
the ignorance of the labourer who preferred white to brown
bread. Fox projected a gleam of humour into the discussion
by asking if any Members of that House could speak with any
authority on the subject of bread, as it appeared to form so
small a proportion of their daily diet ?
It appeared to me as if the governing classes who live in
coimtry houses had not progressed much in real knowledge
of life since the eighteenth century. A great change, how-
ever, had come over the ministers of religion. Papers
theologically so wide^ apart as the Catholic Times, the
Christian Globe, and the Commonwealth gave sympathetic
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 203
and wide publicity to my statements. Clergyman wrote to
me to bear testimony to the truth contained in my book.
" Things are not so bad," wrote a Worcester curate
to me, " as they are in other places. I know a wagoner who
gets 15s. a week, and who pays 2s. 6d. a week for a good cot-
tage ; and a cowman who gets 17s. 6d. a week. From my
own point of view one of the worst things about the poverty
of the labourer is the absence of privacy." Here he struck
a note which few are sensitive enough to sound.
The authors, however, who carried out the most pain-
staking investigations into labourers' budgets were Miss
May Kendall and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree. After many
visits to their homes to get as accurate details as possible,
the veil was drawn aside and the contents revealed in a
startling book, called How the Labourer Lives. We have had
many prose poems written round Harvest Suppers. It was
left for Mr. Rowntree to write the prose poem of the age
on suppers of bread and margarine.
These painstaking investigators delved into the hidden
mines of the dark larders of the cottagers and produced a
poignant human document, undecorated by literary adorn-
ment. Budget after budget, even in 1912-3, showed how
the labourer's wife was trying to make both ends meet out of
weekly earnings which did not exceed 12s. to 13s., 14s. or 15s.
a week. In the northern counties it showed how she man-
aged to luxuriate upon the higher wage of i6s.,i7s. or £1 a
week. Budget after budget revealed the fact that in coun-.
ties overflowing with milk and meat, margarine was eaten
instead of butter, and that dinner consisted of suet pudding
and potatoes, varied by bread and margarine and cheese.
There was a Sunday joint, and occasionally during the week
bacon or fried liver.
Invariably for breakfast and tea, bread and margarine
were repeated with monotonous reiteration.
Nothing more completely shattered the townsman's
delusion that life is made easier in the country because
labourers can produce for themselves the necessaries of
life, than these household tragedies written in tiny columns
of pence, A number of these labourers' budgets were ere-
204 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
dited with the produce of allotments or cottage gardens, but
many men who have to feed their masters' horses and
cattle were forbidden to keep either poultry or pigs. In the
case of one woman who was allowed to keep a pig, when
asked why she did not do so she answered : —
" What's the use of hungering ourselves to feed a pig ? "
She could not afford to purchase the necessary weekly
bag of meal even though that might become a profitable
investment.
These budgets showed how the English agricultural
labourer, instead of being the most independent, had become
the most dependent of all European peasants.
It is borne in upon us with tragic insistence that it is the
woman who had to bear the brunt of this unending
battle of trjdng to make both ends meet. With daily
self-sacrifice she saw that her man and her children were
fed before herself, and that if there were any meat on the
table it went to the breadwinner to store up physical energy
to meet the demands of his master. The village belle
became a worn-out married woman at thirty. When ques-
tioned as to how they managed on wages of 13s. a week, a
woman answered : —
" I sleep all right till about twelve, and then I wake and
begin worrying about what I owe, and how to get things.
Last night I lay and cried for about a couple of hours."
Another woman, who had to eke out 14s. a week, observed :
" We've got hell here, we have. We shall get something
good. But I believe hell's their place what don't look after
the poor.
A Yorkshire woman whose husband earned i8s. a week
said : —
" When I have seen other children in warm clothing, and
mine jealous, then I haven't known what to say. I know
our Master wasn't rich. We've got a roof to cover us and
He hadn't where to lay His head, so I daresay it's aU for the
best. But they say English people ought to be strong and
brave, and I don't know how they expect them — ^Uving as
they do — to be strong, and brave, and cheerful ! "
" I couldn't tell you how we live," said a woman whose
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 205
husband earned 12s. a week in Oxfordshire ; " it's a mystery "
(with the puzzled look of the poor at the perpetual mirade of
continued existence). " I don't know how we manage ;
the thing is to get it past."
It was the woman who invariably raised a note of revolt.
Certainly it was she who at breaking point bore the strain of
it all. One of the most terrible indictments of our modem
civilisation was that uttered by Mr. George Edwards, the
Secretary of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union
about this time : —
" In nine cases out of ten the women starve ; the first thing
she thinks about is her children and her husband. As a result
of this chronic underfeeding we have a very large percentage of
insanity amongst the women. I am on the Asylums Committee
of the Norfolk County Council and we have over 300 wives of
the labouring classes under our care. I attribute this large
number to the anxiety necessitated in making ends meet, and
to the poor food."
Mr. Rowntree and Miss May Kendall evidently noticed
the slumbering feeling of revolt in the breasts of the labour-
er's wives, for their volume ends with these words : —
" And yet, especially among the women, there is a slow dis-
turbance — something that is not yet rebellion, and not yet hope,
that seems to hold the dim promise of both. The waters are
troubled, though one hears some very contradictory accounts of
the appearance of the angel."
The authors pointed out that so bad were the prospects in
191 1 that one out of every forty agriculturists decided to
quit the country altogether ; that between 1900-1910 wages
had risen 3 per cent, only amongst agricultural labourers,
whilst the cost of living during the same period had advanced
about 10 per cent., with a further 5 per cent, in increase
between 1910-12 with the result that the real wages of
agriculturaJ labourers had actually diminished since 1900.
The minimum amount of wages necessary for a family of
two adults and three children worked out as follows : —
2o6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
s. d.
Food . . . . . . . . .i^Q
Fuel i 4
Rsnt .... .....20
Clothing ......... 2 3
Insurance .........04
Sundries . . . . . . . . . o 10
20 6
This estimate did not allow for any expenditure on tobacco,
beer, newspapers, amusement, railway fares, postage, church
or chapel collections, etc.
All families living below this sum necessary for the main-
tenance of physical efficiency were living below the poverty
line, and with five exceptions — Northtmiberland, Durham,
Westmoreland, Lancashire and Derbyshire — the average
earnings in every county in England and Wales were below
it!
" Let the reader try for a moment to realise what this means.
It means that from the point of view of judicious expenditure,
the be-all and the end-all of life should be physical efficiency.
It means that people have no right to keep in touch with the
great world outside the village by so much as taking in a weekly
newspaper. It means that a wise mother, when she is tempted
to buy her children a pennyworth of cheap oranges, will devote
the penny to flour instead. It means that the temptation to
take the shortest railway journey should be strongly resisted.
It means that toys and dolls and picture books, even of the
cheapest quality, should never be purchased ; that birthdays
should be practically indistinguishable from other days. It
means that every natural longing for pleasure or variety should be
ignored or set aside. It means, in short, a life without colour,
space, or atmosphere, that stifles and hems in the labourer's soul
as in too many cases his cottage does his body." ^
Little wonder that Cardinal Manning, who at one time
lived amongst farm workers in Sussex, said : —
"The land question means hunger, thirst, nakedness, notice to
quit, labour spent in vain, the toil of years seized upon, the breaking
up of homes ; the misery of parents, children, and wives ; the despair
and wildness that springs up in the hearts of the poor when legal
force, like a sharp arrow, goes over the most sensitive and vital
rights of mankind. AU this is contained in the land question."
A series of articles from my pen appeared in the Daily
Chronicle dealing with the minimum wage, housing, small
^ How the Labourer Lives.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 207
holdings, allotments, cultivating waste land, and I, in com-
mon with other writers such as Mr. Roden Buxton, Mr. R. V.
Lennard, urged the necessity of a legal minimum wage
worked by District Wages Committees ;^ef none of us, not even
the Conservative advocate for a minimum wage, contemplated
guaranteeing prices to farmers. Agriculture was a sweated
industry and should be treated as one of the sweated indus-
tries under the Trade Boards Act which made no provisions
for the sale price of manufactured articles.
The book, however, which produced the most facts and
arguments for Mr. Lloyd George's protracted Land Cam-
paign was the Rural Report of the Land Enquiry Com-
mittee which had been instituted under the sanction of the
Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
though the cost of it was defrayed by private individuals.
The chief organisers of the Rural Enquiry were Mr. R. L.
Reiss, Mr. C. Roden Buxton, and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree.
Investigators were sent into every county of England
and Wales and searching enquiries were made into wages,
housing, allotments, small holdings, game preserving,
security of tenure, etc. When the Report was printed the
Chairman of the Committee, the Right Hon. A. H. Dyke
Acland, sponsored it with an introduction. In this intro-
duction he qnotes the words of an Anglican clergyman who
wrote of his parish thus : —
" The recent Small Holdings Acts are dead letters here, being
completely vetoed by the power of the estate : a Labourers'
Union would be an unthinkable revolution here. Labourers in
these feudal villages are not regarded as people who should want
' to rise.' "
Writing of the new and growing class of landowners, the
nouveaux riches, he quotes from Sir H. R. Haggard's Rural
England : —
" The new style of owner, who, having accumulated money in
some commercial pursuit, buys a large estate, makes no legitimate
use of the land. His, as a rule, is merely a sporting interest, and
the rent being a matter of indifference to him he seeks to grow,
not produce, but partridges. ..."
And from the same author: —
2o8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" In the main, although we may not acknowledge it we look
upon our land, or much of it, as a pleasure proposition in which
the individual only is concerned', or so it appears to me. . . .
One in a hundred becomes a small holder, one in a thousand
becomes a tenant farmer ; the rest who can find neither work nor
outlook must perforce migrate to the cities or across the sea." ^
Mr. Acland foresaw the difficulties of getting County
Councils to act, unless men from the working classes could
be sent to the County Councils and their travelling expenses
paid out of the rates. He points out that he moved an
amendment to the County Council Bill proposing payment
of travelling expenses, but it was lost by forty-four votes.
Unless there is some radical change in the personnel of
both County Cotmcils and Rural District Councils he saw
nothing for it but to increase and use more extensively the
powers of central authorities.
These were some of the main conclusions arrived at in
this Report : —
A Minimum Wage. — Over 60 per cent, of the ordinary
adult agricultural labourers received less than i8s. a week
when aU their earnings from all sources have been taken into
consideration, whilst there were some 20,000 to 30,000
labourers whose total earnings were less than i6s. a week.
Owing to the increase in the cost of living, the real earn-
ings of the labourers in the low-paid counties had decreased
since 1907. Low wages lay at the root of the great shortage
of cottage accommodation in rural districts, and the housing
problem could never be solved satisfactorily without a rise
in the wages of agricultural labourers sufficient to enable
them to pay a commercial rent for the house.
Many of the most energetic and independent labourers
were either emigrating to the colonies or migrating to the
tovras.
It was suggested that the legal minimiun wage should
be instituted by some form of wage tribunal, fixed at least
at such a sum as would enable a labourer to keep himself
and an average family in a state of physical efficiency, and
to pay a commercial rent for his cottage. If a farmer was
^ Rural Denmark and it^ Lessons, by Rider Haggard.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 209
able to prove the rise in wages had put upon him an increased
burthen he should have the right to apply to a judicial body
such as a Land Court for a readjustment of his rent.
Housing. — They found that the proper administration
of sections 15 and 17 of the Housing Act of 1909 had prac-
tically broken down by the lack of alternative accommoda-
tion; 120,000 new cottages were needed at once in the
rural districts of England and Wales, and private enterprise
had entirely failed to provide them. The usual rent for
old cottages ran from is. to 3s. a week. Against these
rents no private builder could compete, nor was it possible
to get District Councils to build at an economic rent unless
wages rose. Thus the vicious circle went on. The Com-
mittee proposed grants-in-aid to stimulate local authorities
to build. It was estimated that, about 300,000 labourers
lived in tied cottages.
With regard to these tied cottages, they proposed that
six months' notice should be given, except in the cases where
occupation of a cottage was necessary for a man employed
in the care of animals, when a month's notice was considered
sufficient. It should be made illegal to let cottages to a
farmer for him to sub-let to his labourers.
Access to the Land. — Notices should be exhibited in every
village post-office telling the villagers what precisely are
their rights with regard to allotments, small holdings, and
housing, and the address should be given of some Govern-
ment official with whom a labourer could communicate
when he wished to make a demand.
Cottage Gardens and Allotments. — ^Probably not more than
one-sixth of the total number of the cottages in rural dis-
tricts have gardens of one-eighth of an acre or more. The
labourer preferred a garden of some size near his house to
an allotment at a distance. Only about two-thirds of all
the villages had any allotments. Most allotments in exist-
ence were utilised. Where this was not the case it was
because the land was of poor quality, or too highly rented, or
situated too far from the villages, or the hours of the
labourers were too long to enable them to cultivate their
allotments. There was still a great unsatisfied demand for
VOL. II. p
210 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
allotments on the part of the labourer. The reason that
applications were not made where there was still a demand,
was due to the apathy of the Council, the hostiUty of the
farmer, the high price demanded for the land, or the dififi-
culty of putting the compulsory powers into force through
the Council. The Committee suggested that the Parish
Council should have greater powers not only to acquire
allotments, but also for the acquisition of village greens or
common pasture ; that Parish CoimcUs should have the
right to obtain a compulsory order for the purchase of land
at a price to be fixed by a Land Court. Legal costs should
be borne by the Exchequer, as in the case of smaU holdings*;
and the Parish Council rate should be raised.
Small Holdings. — ^There was a large unsatisfied demand for
small holdings, which frequently was not voiced, owing to
the fear of applying, the excessive price paid by the
Councils for the land, and the rents being higher than they
should be. These high rents were due to the cost of
adaptation and equipment being unnecessarily large, the
sinking fund being too high and included in the
rent. The Committee suggested that the administration of
the Act by the County Council should be stimulated by
withholding grants-in-aid. That the cost of the sinking
fund in respect to the land should be borne by the State ;
and other proposals.
Game. — Considerable damage was done by winged game,
and the loss caused by such damage is not adequately, com-
pensated under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, mainly
owing to the insecurity of the farmer's tenure. A large
amount of land was withheld from its best use for the
purposes of sport. The preservation of game to the extent
to which it is now carried on had injurious social effects,
which were increased by the right of search on the
highway without a warrant. The tenant farmer should
be entitled to kill and take ground game both by him-
self and by any person authorised by him. He should
be entitled to snare and entrap rabbits both on his
land and on the edges of his land, and not be restricted to
placing traps at the holes. The tenant farmer should have
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 211
compensation for damage done to his crops by ground game
coming from neighbouring land, whether such ground was
in the occupation of his landlord or someone else. These
reforms it was suggested would be of comparatively little
value without security of tenure. The medieval Prevention
of Poaching Act, 1862, which gives constables power to
search on the highway without a warrant should be repealed.
Other reforms put forward in this Report concern the
farmer more than the labourer, and I shall therefore omit
them.
The right agricultural atmosphere having been created
for him by investigators and publicists working in many
instances quite detached from one another, and belonging
to different political parties, Mr. Lloyd George saw the time
was ripe for another series of orations on the Land Question.
A Minimum Wage of £1 a week and a Reform of the
Game Laws constituted his two chief propositions. The
labourers took fresh courage as their hopes mounted high.
The landowners and the English farmer took fright and
became as brothers. Not so the farmers of Scotland and
Wales, who followed their David in order to obtain security
of tenure, and the reform of the Game Laws.
GoUath, now definitely two-headed, issued its counter-
blast in a pamphlet called " The Land Problem," which
received the blessing of and was sponsored by both the
Central Land Union and the National Union of Farmers.
Gohath had become more cultivated, and sobered. It
used its brains to good effect and was careful to display
sympathy with the agricultural labourer, protecting him
from agitators who might by statutory proposals drive
him out on to the roadside seeking work !
" As to the earnings of agricultural labourers, there are no two
opinions," they wrote.^ " The broad fact is beyond controversy.
The rate of cash wages paid in some agricultural districts is very
low, and everyone is prepared to support any sound measures
which can be reasonably expected to effect a material rise."
They criticised the statement " when the increased cost
of living has been taken into account, the real earnings of
1 The Land Problem, 1913.
212 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
nearly 60 per cent, of the ordinary agricultural labourers
have actually decreased since 1907, " by stating, " that the
Board of Trade Enquiry shows that there has been a smaller
increase in the south than in fhe north."
Their argument that though you may establish a legal
minimum wage you carmot guarantee continuous employ-
ment is of course true, but in no way mihtated against the
enforcement of a minimum wage, for labourers had no
continuous employment secured to them even without a
minimum wage.
They went so far as to suggest the forming of District
Commissions to enquire into earnings and " bring to bear
the pressure of the pubhc opinion of the district," thus
instituting an irritating Paul Piy method. They made the
frank admission that : —
" A country village at the present day affords scarcely any
opportunity to its inhabitants of bettering their position. Men
have no openings, no chance of trying their fortunes. Existence
has become listless, monotonous, narrow. Something must be
done to bring new hopes, new interests, new prospects into
village life, if young, energetic, and vigorous men are to be
attracted to the cultivation of the soU. Experience shows that
higher wages are not attraction enough. It is, without any
exaggeration, probably true that a Saturday half-holiday would
be a greater inducement to stay on the land than an extra is. 6i. a
week. The rural exodus is as great where wages are high as
where they are low. Some other change is needed. The
reconstruction of village life must be taken in hand. The
labourer to-day owns practically nothing."
In conclusion they suggested that he should own his
cottage and enjoy right of pasture common.
The economists now entered the fray.
Professor A. C. Pigou stated ^ that
'' it appears to be the case that farm wages are sometimes kept
down, in the face of economic forces tending to raise them, by
what is, in effect , a species of monopolistic action on the part of
a group of lo cal farmers. The rate of pay to agricultural labourers
has become a matter of tradition and custom . . . under present
arrangements some groups of farmers are unconsciously playing
the part of a ring of monopolists paying their workpeople less
1 Nineteenth Century and after, December, 1913.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 213
than the value of the marginal net product of their work, and
holding away from agriculture labour that might, with great
advantage to the whole community, be employed there. . . .
" Now, everybody is aware that agricultural workmen are
exceedingly ignorant of what is going on outside their immediate
neighbourhood, that their poverty is too great to allow them to
hold out for long against attempts to break down, or keep down,
the price of their labour, and that they are without the support
of a trade union organisation. These circumstances place them
in an exceedingly weak position for bargaining with the farmers — ■
a position, too, whose weakness is further emphasised when, as
is often the case, their employers are also the persons from
whom they hire their houses ! "
Professor Pigou suggested that a minimum rate might
drive the inefficient farmer out of business, which he con-
sidered a desirable result. He seemed to fear, however, that
if fixed too high the wage would attract men from the town,
or from other industries into agriculture, and lead to unem-
ployment and idleness, and a diminishing of the national
wealth.
Armed with the facts brought to light by the Land
Enquiry Report, Mr. Lloyd George started his Grand Tour,
in October at Bedford. But here again he was careful
not to make any definite pronouncement. His speech was
full of the good things the labourers ought to have, but he
never outlined a single BiU to contain these things. Instead ,
his supporters had the satisfaction of vociferously singing The
Land Song, which no doubt cheered them to a certain extent.
" The first thing you have to do," Mr. George said, "is to
deal firmly, thoroughly, drastically with the monopoly ' '
(of land).
" Take a political map of England and you will find in the
main that where the power of the landlord is unchallengeable
there the wages are lowest. Can you wonder that the young
labourers are flying by their thousands and scores of thousands
away across the sea from such a land of mean bondage."
The campaign was continued at Middlesbrough and other
places ; but land remained a monopoly.
Hodge, after being told by the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer that he ought to have at least £1 a week, grew
214 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
tired of waiting for a Minimum Wage Bill, and once
more tried the weapon of the strike.
This time the trouble arose in a little known village in North
Essex with the delightfully rustic name of Helions Bump-
stead. The strike area was small in dimension-; no great
names figured in it, and the numbers involved were small,
but it aroused an extraordinary amount of notice. It
started, not by a demand from the men for more money,
though wages were miserably small, being 13s. a week, but
by the farmers' dislike of seeing so many of their men walk-
ing about with trade union badges ! Four farmers, who
had met together on market day at Haverhill, decided to
dismiss their men unless they left the Union, which was
the NatiouEil Agricultural Labourers' Union. The men
received notice of dismissal together with a notice to quit
their cottages unless they surrendered their union cards.
To the astonishment of the farmers, not only did the
men refuse to submit, but they walked off the farms, declar-
ing that they would not return without a rise of wages of 2s.
a week. Thus the lock-out initiated by four farmers
developed into a strike, embracing the villages of Steeple
Bumpstead, Ashdon, Stunner, Ridgewell and Birdbrook,
besides HeUons Bumpstead.
The General Secretary of the N.A.L.U. tried to arrange
a conference with the farmers, but they were Early Victor-
ians and the Union was anathema to them. They refused
to have anything to do in any way with a Union man,
or a Union delegate." It was Lloyd George's fault, they
said, for unsettling the men's minds.
Public opinion went dead against the farmers. The
Times in a sympathetic article said that : " As a dass
the agricultural labourers of the country are an unorganised
body, incapable of concerted action in a national strike
movement, for comparatively few of them are yet enrolled
on the books of the Union." 1
Nevertheless, when the lock-out occurred at Helions
Bumpstead, the farmers discovered that they were now up
against a new spirit ; and there is no doubt that although
1 The Times, March 6, 1914.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 215
Mr. Lloyd George had not drafted a Bill, he had at any
rate roused high hopes, and a "divine discontent." This is
what a special correspondent found, at any rate, in North
Essex.^
" Helions Bumpstead," said this writer, " is certainly a mile-
stone in this campaign. When you talk to the labourers you
find that they have been roused by the possibility of a minimum
wage of a sovereign, which would be riches to them. Soon after
the Land Campaign started many of the Essex farmers put the
wages up IS. ; but I am told that now it would be difficult even
to find a farm in North Essex where the weekly wage is over
13s."
Not only were the wages desperately low, but the housing
conditions were shockingly bad. Here is a description of
some of the tied cottages.
" I looked into one or two of the cottages. They were neat
outside, but inside one dark and damp little room, I found paper
peeling off the walls, broken floors, and general disrepair. In
one bedroom some pieces of sacking were nailed on the wall.
The old man who lived there said they were to cover holes in
the plaster. He said that one wet night recently he had to get
up and nail some more sacking on the wall. Cottages are left
until they become uninhabitable, and this is one cause of the
shortage of labour which is being felt severely all over North
Essex. Very few cottages are being built, and in some villages
in the Saffron Walden Division there is a serious overcrowding.
I was told of a two-roomed cottage, in one Essex village, in
which twelve people are living. Another case was that of a
woman who moved from a cottage to the one next door ' because
she did not feel easy in it.' The day after she left it the cottage
collapsed from decrepitude." *
Not all the fanners, though, in North Essex were mentally
Uving in the remote Early Victorian times, for one of the
largest, Mr. Cowell, a magistrate, observed to a Daily News
representative : — " There is no getting away from the fact
that fanners will have to pay more money to their labourers,
and as for the Helions Bumpstead farmers saying their
men must not belong to the Union, it is out of the question.
They are years behind the times."
1 Manchester Guardian, March 14, 1914.
' Ibid.
3i6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
A remarkable letter also appeared in the Press,^ written
by Mr. James Middlehurst, senr., a farmer of Great Chester-
ford, who said : " Why should the labourer not form a
union if he likes ? What business is it of anybody but him-
self ? Suppose he should say to his farmer-employer, ' If
you do not leave your Chamber of Agriculture you shall
not harvest your crops.' What would the farmer think
and do ? "
There was trouble also brewing amongst the 14s. a week
labourers of Norfolk, the dramatic side of which was in-
creased by the King being involved in it. But we will
finish with the Helion Bumpstead strike first.
The farm labourers of Helions Bumpstead adopted primi-
tive but picturesque methods to win solidarity in the neigh-
bouring villages. When as the result of a ballot all the
men in the neighbourhood voted in favour of the strike —
that is between 350 and 400 farm workers — groups of men
went round the villages at naidnight and at the break of
dawn rousing the inmates of cottages by bell, whistle and
tin can, declaring the strike to have begim.
The chief demands of the men were now as follows : the
labourer should get i6s. ; stockmen i8s. to 20s. ; horsemen
20S. ; overtime, at 6d. an hour ; harvest work, £8 for 4
weeks, and 5s. a day beyond 4 weeks ; weekly half-holiday ;
holidays on recognised Bank holidays ; and the tied cot-
tage to be held on a three months' tenancy.
June arrived, when the luscious grass was ready for
cutting, but rather than give way the farmers were pre-
pared to lose the harvest. They imported police to afford
protection to themselves whilst working in the hajTfield.
The Bishop of Chelmsford tried to settle the strike at Haver-
hill at a conference of masters and men, but the fanners
refused to deal with any men who were branch secretaries.*
" The men have formed the Union to rebel against their
masters, and I won't have none on't," said one employer,
which fittingly expressed the mentality of the Bumpstead
farmer. Eight men were prosecuted and fined by the
Bench for leaving work without proper notice. These men,
» Paily Citizen, March 13, 1914. ' Morning Post, July 12, 1914.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 217
rather than pay the fine, accompanied by 200 comrades,
carr3dng hayrakes, forks and red flags and singing Labour
songs, marched to the Police Station to deliver themselves
up. They preferred imprisonment for a good cause to
being fined. The Superintendent of Police, of course,
refused to take them, and once more on the march home
the good people of Saffron Walden opened their eyes very
wide at this motley, bucolic crowd singing songs and lifting
hayrakes and forks high aloft Hke some decorative panel
of Walter Crane's.
Though a dispute had arisen as far back as February,
the strike itself lasted only about eight weeks, for the begin-
ning was a lock-out by the farmers. Twenty-three members
of the Union were victimised well into the summer and it
was not till then that the strike was actually declared, in-
volving over 400 men. And, strangely enough, a settle-
ment only occurred on the day before the whole nation
was involved in a militant strike against German despotism.
On August 3 the Federation of Farmers agreed to the
following terms : —
" The Federation of Farmers agree to reinstate all men going
out at time of strike. Harvest men to be paid not less than £8,
other hands and these also, not to have less than 15s. per week ;
men not to be refused work wet or fine." ^
This was a distinct gain for the men, for not only did
it mean a rise of 2S. a week, but that wages should be paid
wet or fine.
Whilst the farmers in North Essex were locking-out
labourers for daring to join a trade union to better their
conditions, the King was taking steps to recognise the
National Agricultural Labourers' Union at Sandringham.
It might be said indeed that his Majesty the King was the
first farmer to recognise an agricultureJ labourers' union
in England. This decision had far-reaching effects.
In March, 1914, there was much unrest amongst the farm
workers of Norfolk and Nottingham. In Nottingham two
members of the Farmers' Union granted is. increase to all
men in their employ, whilst the Nottingham Corporation,
1 Trade Union Congress Report, 1915.
2i8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
which farmed nearly 2,000 acres at Stoke Bardolph and
Bulcote, decided to advance all labourers' wages to 19s.
and wagoners' to 22s., with free cottage and garden for
both classes. The Earl of Kimberley raised his men is.
a week in Norfolk, and so did Sir Ailwyn Fellowes on his
estate at Honningham. The tenants on the Earl of Leices-
ter's Holkham estate in Norfolk also agreed to give their
farm labourers a rise of is. a week, which made their wages
15s.
But on estates outside those owned by these excellent
landowners, wages were still 14s., and even 13s., and the
men made a demand for i6s. and a weekly hglf-holiday.
These demands were voiced all over the county.
Trade Unionism now took root within the gates of
Sandringham.^ The demand for a half-holiday became
insistent, and wishing to avoid any friction, the King's agent.
Captain Beck, agreed to grant an interview to Mr. R. B.
Walker, general secretary of the N.A.LiU. It was then
Mr. Walker had the surprise of his life. Accompanied by an
organiser he took the train to HiUington station, and when
he arrived he proceeded to get his bicycle out of the guard's
van. The station-master, however, quickly informed him
that his bicycle was not needed for the journey to Sandring-
ham since his Majesty had sent a carriage and pair to
convey the two agitators to Mr. Beck !
Wondering if some Royalist plot lay hidden behind this
gracious act, Mr. Walker, with some trepidation, stepped into
the carriage, assisted by one of the King's footmen. Arriving
at the inn where the meeting was to take place with Captain
Beck,* the two agitators found a resplendent liuich spread
for them.
The interview with Captain Beck resulted in all men work-
ing on the King's own farm receiving i6s. a week and a
weekly half-hoHday. Further, Captain Beck agreed to
recommend to the King's tenants that cottagers should hold
their houses on a six months' tenancy.
' I understand all the King's men are now trade unionists.
' Capt. Beck's tragic disappearance in the wood in Gallipoli will be
remembered by most readers.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 219
These terms, when bruited abroad, gave rise to much
heart-burning, for if there is one point of honour amongst
farmers it is this : that no one should raise wages without
consulting his brother farmers first in the same neighbour-
hood.
Viewed in this light the action of Captain Beck was most
ungentlemanly ! On the other hand the men regarded the
action as one of long delayed justice, and " The King's Pay
and the King's Conditions " became the slogan of all Norfolk
labourers.
As the farmers were slow to follow the King's example
trouble soon broke out between the King's tenant farmers
and their labourers. The men working at the Babingley
and Flitcham farms on the Sandringham estate demanded
shorter hours and i6s. a week. About forty men went
on strike on the farmers' refusal to entertain the King's
conditions, and a hut was erected for the housing of a
number of strike-breakers. The strike was quite spontan-
eous on the part of the men, but their Executive decided to
support them and make a general demand throughout
Norfolk for i6s. a week and a Sat\u-day half-holiday.
The Farmers' Federation assisted the King's tenants by
supplying them with a sufficient number of workers for
their immediate needs. The moment chosen for the strike
was not a good one, the spring sowing being well advanced ;
yet, in spite of this, the men won an advance of is. a week ;
and, as it was observed afterwards, they would have got their
Saturday half-hohday had they held out a little longer.
During the strike the N.A.L.U. started a weekly journal
called The Labourer, but after four issues, it ceased as a
weekly paper. It started again as a quarterly in February,
1915-
Though apparently the men were not successful in win-
ning all their demands, there appears'to have been a general
rise to 15s. in many parts of Norfolk, which was the highest
cash wage recorded since the days of Arch,^ but another
' It was decided at the annual conference of the N.A.L.U. at King's
Lynn on March 14, 1914, to take a ballot of all the members in favour
of financing a member of the Union for Parliament.
220 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
year had wearily to pass before this became the standard
wage recognised by the Fanners' Federation.
The farm workers of other counties besides Norfolk were
demanding better wages and shorter hours. The men of
Wiltshire, Herefordshire, Kent and Bedfordshire showed
great signs of a newly awakened sense of solidarity.
A strike at Trunch, near Mundesley, in Norfolk, for a
shilling or two rise and a shorter working day is worth re-
cording, because the settlement showed how keen was the
growing demand for more leisure. The farmers refusing
to grant both more wages and shorter hours, gave the men
their choice, and the men chose the shorter hours.
However, the most surprising and dramatic rural revolt in
the spring of 1914 was the Burston School Strike. This
strike of the children of farm labourers was one of the links
which drew the industrial and eigricultural workers closer
together ; and illustrated the innate love of justice in the
breast of the English labourer. The strike took place on
April I, 1914, in this Norfolk village close to Diss.
The reason why this strike should find a place in this
history of the agricultural labourer is because the labourers,
their wives, and even their children, knew that it was not the
trumped-up case of the caning of a Bamardo child, or even
discourtesy to the Rector's wife and the Rector's daughter,
but the determination of the " powers that be " to get rid
of a school teacher who deliberately set himself the task
as a labour of love to organise the ill-paid Norfolk labourer
and to remedy the bad housing conditions. Not only
had Mr. Higdon committed these offences, but he also
helped labourers to get elected to Parish Councils, to
manage their own village affairs, and had thus turned
out old Parish Councillors who were also school man-
agers. In fact the whole trouble, the conflict between
the schoolmaster and his school managers, began at the
Parish Council Election in March, 1913. Mr. Higdon at
this election was the acknowledged leader of the labourers,
who defeated the farmers and churchwardens who sat on
the Council, and brought about a " Labour " victory. The
Crown Inn was crowded that night of the election, and great
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 22
excitement prevailed in the village. The news spread inti
other villages and circulated in the town of Diss. It resulte(
in newspaper men visiting Burston, and one local newspape
referred to it in an exaggerated headline as " The Bursto:
Revolution."
It was a fitting day, this ist of April, for the count;
constabulary to parade in force to overawe the chil
dren ; but it was not the chattering, smiling childrei
who looked foolish. They, arrayed in their brightes
pinafores and carrjdng Uttle flags, assembled on the villag
green and, marshalled by their mothers, marched in pre
cession past the open gates of the Council school, which the;
were determined never to enter again until their dismisset
and weU-loved teachers had been reinstated. Rather, i
was the large-limbed, blue-coated constabulary paradin:
in front of the fearless children, as well as the schoc
managers, the Rector, another clergyman and the Rector'
wife, who looked exceedingly foolish.
It was a curious scene, fuU of colour and movemeni
which must have appeared to the detached spectator as
pastoral play with a strong element of comedy, and to
student of Uterature as a scene of rustic life in the earl;
nineteenth century, rather than a hundred years later whei
we were on the eve of a world struggle for the defence c
freedom.
The pronouncements of County Councillors, of lawyers, c
managers, had been set at naught by these simple villager
and their children, who felt that their teachers, Mr. and Mn
Higdon, had been vm justly dismissed and victimised fo
their championship of the labourer's cause.
On the moonlit village green, even as late as midnigh
with a keen east wind blowing, mothers and fathers
girls and boys, had assembled to protest against th
dismissal and to decide upon future action. Parent
and children had been helping by means of donkey cart
and wheelbarrows to move their evicted teachers' goods t
the only possible places in overcrowded labourers' cottage:
that is, to empty coal holes and larders, whilst the teachei
took up their quarters at lodgings proffered at the mil
222 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
A resolution was passed that night declaring the intention
of the parents not to send their children to school before
justice was done.
The next morning, in spite of the ringing of the statutory
beU, which rang longer and more violently than usual, the
whole school marched past the school gates, with the
exception of one Burston scholar, the son of a glebe-renting
farmer, and three Bamado children. Thus the school forms
remained scornfully empty of life. The whole village was
in revolt against the powers that be.
In spite of prosecutions, fines, and victimisations the
parents displayed a stubborn loyalty to the teachers.
A remarkable scene took place at the county town at
Diss when eighteen parents were summoned and individually
charged and fined half-a-crown for refusing to send their
children to the Council School : —
" The proceedings," reported the East Anglian Times,
" aroused a great deal of interest in the town and there was a
large gathering in the vicinity of the Court Room to watch the
arrival of the strikers and their parents. Preceded by a little
girl riding a decorated bicycle and headed by a red banner
bearing the words, ' We Want Justice ' borne by a couple of
lads, the strikers, who numbered about fifty, set out from Burston
with their parents shortly after nine o'clock, and marched the
three miles to the Court House, which is part of the Com Hall
Buildings in Diss. Many of the children carried miniature
Union Jacks whilst most of them had placards on which were
inscribed the words, ' We want our old teachers back, and
Justice.' Several mothers were in the party with collection
boxes, and their appeals for support for the strike met with a
fair amount of response."
The necessary £2 5s. to pay the fines was collected on
the village green on the following Svmday and the money
duly paid. Still the parents held out. In a fortnight's
time, instead of eighteen summonses being issued there
were thirty-two, and the fine was doubled ! This heavier
burden of £8 was collected and paid, and still the parents
held out, not for higher wages or for better conditions, not
for anything that concerned them materially, but for
justice to be done to the teachers.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 223
All the villagers turned out to welcome them on their
return from the Court House. It must not be imagined,
though, that the children were not being educated. Their
emotions being aroused, probably their receptivity was
greater for the assimilation of knowledge. Their teachers,
Mr. and Mrs. Higdon, gave classes when the weather was
fine on the village green, and when it was wet these were held
in a carpenter's shop which, whitewashed and repaired,
became known as the Strike School. Inspectors, councillors,
school attendance officers visited the school, found the regis-
ters carefully marked, the room warm and comfortable,
and the children very happy at their lessons. The Chair-
man of the Depwade District Council had to confess " that
the parents of Burston were but exercising their right to
send their children to whatever school they liked." The
Government Inspector was satisfied with the educational
work being done at the school, and the educational autho-
rities were completely beaten by this form of Soviet edu-
cational government set up by the villagers of Burston.
Naturedly the question is asked how could this school
be maintained without school fees, for how could the
teachers live ? As the revolt attracted a good deal of Press
notice, sympathisers, chiefly trade unionists, in particular
railwaymen and miners, sent money to a central fund, and
out of this the teachers have been paid.
But the villagers themselves, recognising the self-sacrifice
of the school teachers, gave what they could in kind in the
generous manner of the poor. That the Strike School should
stiU (1930) be kept open after six years, is a rather remarkable
record for a movement which was scoffed at by the authori-
ties as aU moonshine and a nine days' wonder, bom on April
Fool's Day.
The character of Mr. Higdon needs no defence. Since
the school strike he has been made the treasurer of the
National Agricultural and Rural Workers' Union, a member
of the War Agricultural Committee, and a member of the
Agricultural Wages Board.
An extraordinary feature of the School Strike at Burston
was the notices to quit issued by the rector to three allotment
224 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
holders of the Glebe land. One of these was the owner
of the carpenter's shop, who was bUnd. The other two
attended the Strike School meetings. Mr. Sandy, the
blind man, gave up his land and went away ; but the other
two who would not give up their allotments were summoned
and had to go to Court three times. The Judge upheld
the legality of the notice, as he was obliged to do, but the men,
who were tj^pical of those who followed the plough, knew
their Bible quite as well as the rector, and could interpret
it better, contended that they were carrjdng out a Divine
Law which said " As a man sows, so shall he reap." They
had sown their crops, and they were determined ^to carry
out the biblical injunction to reap what they had sown.
And in spite of the rector, in spite of the ponderous law,
reap their crops they did !
On Sunday, July i6, 1915, a great demonstration was
held in this Uttle village, when eighteen trade union banners
were displayed, brass bands from Norwich and London
played, a special train from London ran conveying hundreds
of railwaymen, and 1,500 people assembled. Special
constables were suminoned, but for what purpose no one
seemed clearly to know. BUnd Mr. Sandy, one of the
evicted Glebe tenants, returned to the village that day to
receive innumerable handshakes.
An attempt was made to convert the school into a
Council School, which perhaps would have been the wisest
course to adopt. This, however, was not done, and the
Burston Strike School still (in 1920) remains a successful
institution controlled by a " National Committee," consist-
ing chiefly of trade unionists, of which Mr. F. O. Roberts,
M.P., is the secretary.
Strikes and rumours of strikes filled the air in rural Eng-
land in the spring of 1914. Living under the grinding
poverty of 12s. a week, some eighty labourers in the neigh-
bourhood of Chitteme, on the Wiltshire Downs, struck work
in February for a rise of is. in wages, and an hour less
work a day. The strike at Chitterne was a rebuke to those
farmers who are continually asserting that the men are quite
contented as long as they are not interfered with by agita-
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 225
tors. Apparently none of these men were members of a
union, but every man was an unpaid agitator.
With the placidity, patience, and kindliness of the peasant,
the carters, though on strike, attended to and fed their
horses, the cowmen looked after the cattle, and on the last
day of the strike, when the South and West Wilts Hounds
met at Chitterne, they joined in an exciting chase over the
Down after the fox ! Who can say after this that those
who tie their trousers with string under the knee are filled
with class hatred for the booted and spurred ?
A meeting was held at Heytesbury tmder the historic
chestnut tree. It was a dark February night. One man
told the audience that he " took home lis. gd. and the
baker wanted lis. 8|d. of it. (Instead of bitterness this
statement raised a laugh.) He asked, what had he left
for boots and clothing and everything else ?
An old man whose hair was white, stood bareheaded and
asked, with that pathetic love of men for their horses, how
he could strike, as he had his cattle to feed. He was told
he could feed his cattle, but do no more. Then some one
suggested that they should start a trade union.
No animosity was displayed. They were unorganised,
but the men had come to the end of their tether : they could
not carry on with only 12s. a week. This tolerant placidity
was too much for the farmers. They granted an immediate
advance of is. a week to all over 16 years of age, and of 6d.
a week to boys under that age.
The Workers' Union soon visited the villages in this
county and made rapid strides in organising farm labourers.
Branches were formed, but the farm worker very quickly
learnt how impolitic it was to be the secretary of a branch
when his employer refused his labourer the same right to
combine as himself. At Broad Hinton, a local secretary
was dismissed. Immediately, one hundred men on the neigh-
bouring farms struck work, which sign of soUdarity and
disciphne took the local farmers completely by surprise.
A large protest meeting was held, at which an improvised
band consisting of melodeons, concertinas, triangles and
tambourines discoursed anything but sweet music, for the
VOL. II. Q
226 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
benefit of the exacting farmer. But the farmers stubbornly
refused to recognise the Union.
At the end of February the Workers' Union held a confer-
ence of farm workers from Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire
and Wiltshire to draw up a scale of wages and hours. The
following programme was then drawn up : Minimum wage,
i8s. ; shepherds and cattlemen, 22s. ; hay and corn har-
vest, 5s. a day ; half-hohday ; hours to be fifty-four in
summer and fifty in winter; and tenants of farm- tied
cottages to have six months' notice to quit.
A conference was also held at Haverhill Town Hall;
Suffolk, at which Councillor Beard presided. Wages
decided upon for the eastern counties were i8s. for ordin-
ary labourers ; shepherds 21s. ; horsemen and cowmen 22s. ;
harvest money ;^io for 4 weeks ; weekly half-holiday.
Another conference held by the Workers' Union was that
at Hereford, where a chaxter similar to that of Cirencester
was drawn up. The Herefordshire Farmers' Union, like
that of Wiltshire, stubbornly challenged the right of the men
to any form of trade union organisation, which impelled
Mr. E. W. Langford, one of the leading farmers, to declare
that " I am of opinion that a big mistake is being made by
farmers in refusing to treat through their own Union the
men as represented by their Union." »
The Lord-Lieutenant, Sir John Cotterell, however, granted
a rise of 3s. and a Saturday half-hoUday. Several other
farmers raised wages to i8s., but the majority refused to
make any concessions. Thus the position dangerously
stood in June and even in July, when both Herefordshire
and Wiltshire were rapidly moving towards a great strike.
In Shropshire, the Workers' Union submitted a scale of
wages to the Fanners' Union formulating a demand for
payment of 19s. a week for ordinary labourers and 22s. a
week for wagoners, cowmen, and shepherds. In Worcester
the N.A.L.U. decided upon a demand for i8s. a week for
a sixty-hour week, with half-holiday on Saturday and 4d.
an hour overtime, A seven weeks' strike occurred in the
* President of the National Farmers' Union and member of the Royal
Commission on Agriculture, 1920. He paid his men £1 a week.
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 22^
Wilmslow and Alderley Edge districts in June and resulted
in an increase of |d. an hour.
In the market garden district of Wallasey, Cheshire, a
strike had begun on April 12. The labourers, numbering
about 150 or 160, demanded 27s. a week, yd. an hour
overtime and a Saturday half-holiday. The strike lasted
nine days, the masters agreeing to the Saturday half-holiday
but declining to go further than 24s. a week for drivers
and experienced men, with 2s. extra for drivers on market
mornings and 6d. an hour for overtime. Before the dis-
pute the average wage had been 22s. The Union in this dis-
trict was still young and lacking in funds, and the organiser
there, Mr. J. Phipps, considered the result satisfactory.
In Jime many of the branches of the N.A.L.U. in Cheshire
and South-West Lancashire broke away from the parent
Union and formed a new one called the Farm and Dairy
Workers' Union, with Mr. Phipps as secretary, and this
later, during the war, became merged in the Workers'
Union.
A farm strike occurred at Swanley in Kent when a de-
mand was made for a minimum wage of 24s. by branches
of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, and in
June a strike was proclaimed involving some 500 men.
In Jime farmers were discharging men at Whittlesford
and Duxford near Cambridge for joining the N.A.L.U.
"We don't want our men to be led away by agitators,"
they said compassionately ; " if they want to come back
they must ask us and they will have to come back as non-
union men."i
In this summer of impending strikes, when farmers in
every county without exception refused officially to recog-
nise the existence of an agricultural labourer's union,
declining to confer with the men's leaders, when Hereford-
shire and Wiltshire were smouldering with revolt, it was
aroxmd a tiny village in the county of Northampton that
public interest centred in the fight for recognition.
Just a handful of farm labourers pitted their united
strength against a great landowner, a Peer of the Realm,
• Daily Chronicle, June 13, 1914.
228 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Lord Lilford, who employed them and owned their cottages.
It was a conflict between the pride of the peasant and the
pride of the peer ; and the pride of the peasant was nobler ;
for it was less personal, being instinct with race : the fight
for the freedom of aU EngUshmen ; whilst the other was
coloured with the baser passion of repression of Liberty.
Hitherto, at any rate since Queen Victoria mounted the
throne, our landed aristocracy, displaying the EngUsh
characteristic for compromise, had kept out of any violent
collision with their labourers. Thus by never challenging
the landless to action they had made themselves the strong-
est aristocracy in the world. They had left it to their ten-
ants to squeeze rents out of the bones of the labourers.
But they, the lords of the soil, had always held themselves
like a squadron of cavalry in reserve at the base — ^in reserve
for the farmers. Petulantly, and somewhat ingloriously,
one or two of the vmdisciplined of the booted and spurred
had sounded a faint note of challenge from the horn in
their backwoods in 1874 and again in 1909.
Now, for the first time, a noble peer was courageously
heard to sound the horn, and it was on the hunting field
amongst his mounted companions that he gave full cry.
Every Union man was to be himted like a fox from his hole
of a cottage. Northamptonshire was to be purged of
vermin.
Northamptonshire had stood foremost amongst the coun-
ties of England which had robbed the peasantry of common
land, and it was equally noted for the payment of low
wages.
The N.A.L.U. had been at work in the district of Thrap-
stone in 1913, and sixty faim workers on Lord Lilford's
estate had joined the Union. In April, 1914, the men
asked that their wages should be raised from 14s. to i6s.
a week and that they should enjoy a weekly half-hoUday.
They asked for the " King's Pay and the King's Conditions."
Lord Lilford agreed to give his men the much needed rise
of IS. a week, but refused the Saturday half-hohday, and
the rise of the shiUing a week was on the condition that the
men should be disloyal to their Union. As each labourer
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 229
presented himself at the estate ofSBce for his wages, he was
told he must either give his word of honour that he would
not join the Union or else leave his work and his cottage.
To their honour, rather than surrender an elementary and
statutory right twenty-four men chose exile.
" Unless they tell us they, leave the Union they must
leave our employ." Thus spoke the agent.^ And the ukase
went forth to all his lordship's villages Thorpe, Thorpe
Achurch, Lilford, Clopton, Aldwinckle, Wigsthorpe and
Tichmarsh.
An attempt was made by the local branch secretary to
settle the matter with Lord Lilford, but the attempt was
not successful. Seven men employed on the home farm
who refused to leave the Union were instantly dismissed,
and no farmer on the Lilford estate dared to employ them.
These men, like nearly all the others, lived in Lord Lilford's
cottages and the branch secretary was forced to suffer
eviction.
Charles Robinson, a horse-keeper, after eighteen years
of faithful service received notice to leave his employment
and quit the house in which he was bom. His mother,
aged eighty, who had spent her whole life there, was heart-
broken at being turned out.
Mr. W. R. Smith witnessed the throwing out of the fur-
niture on to the roadsid? in the rain. Fortimately he
managed to enlist the sympathy of a farmer who protected
the beds and the few household gods which form all
there is of a labourer's furniture from the weather, by
housing them in a bam.
The effect of Lord Lilford's act of feudal tyranny was
electrical. Every workman in the county, whether he was
a bootmaker or a farm labourer, felt lowered in the eyes of
his fellow-men by this action. It roused the whole coimtry-
side. On a Sunday, men and women on foot and on cycles
surged into the Uftle hamlet of Thorpe from Northampton,
Wellingborough, and Kettering, and in a village boasting
of not more than twenty-five houses 1,000 people assembled.
Speeches were made by Mr. McCurdy, M.P., Mr. Lees
1 Northampton Mercury, April 17, 1914.
230 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Smith, and Mr. F. O. Roberts, (both of whom also became
Members of Parliament,) and collections were taken up
through the country for the victimised men. Cycling corps
were organised by the Trade and Labour Councils of North-
ampton, Kettering and Wellingborough. The membership of
the N.A.L.U. increased rapidly and spread its influence
into the adjoining counties.
In justice to the fanners, let it be here said, that officially
they did not approve of Lord Lilford's action. The Mark
Lane Express, the official organ of the Farmers' Union, on
June 29, 1914, said : —
" We utterly fail to understand the attitude of the farmers of
these localities. We have heard a good deal lately of the blessed
word ' recognition.' Whatever it may really mean, might we
point out that one weak ineffective way of recognising the
labourers' effort to combine is to attempt to kill it by coercive
measures ? "
The Times commenting upon Lord Lilford's attitude
said : —
" To turn good men off the land merely because they choose
to belong to a union, as we understand that he has done, is to
adopt an antiquated attitude wholly out of touch with the
current of thought and feeling to-day. He is trying to swim
against the stream, which is an exceedingly foolish proceeding.
The men have just as much right to belong to the Union, if they
choose, as he has to belong to the Carlton Club. . . . Lord
Lilford has taken the best possible course to stimulate the
movement he dislikes and to justify Mr. Lloyd George." ^
The labourers' wives encouraged their husbands to hold
out, displaying that endurance which invariably distin-
guished their action in a strike.
As the movement spread to Raunds and other villages,
inevitably the farmers were drawn into the dispute, and in
July they came to terms with the men, when it was agreed
that there' should be is. a week increase wages for men,
6d. a week for boys ; 6d. an hour overtime for men earning
more than i6s. a week ; 4 o'clock stop on Saturdays ; rein-
statement of all men ; and withdrawal of all notices to quit.
The Union was now " recognised " all over the Lilford
t The Times f April 21, 191 4,
GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES 231
estate — except on his lordship's farm. The seven dismissed
men were never reinstated, but found work in the district.
Thus the fight ended, and soon, very soon, there was another
battle cry sounded both for masters and men, and it
was not long before one of these men who had been fighting
for freedom at home laid down his Hfe fighting for the free-
dom of little nations, despite the fact that he was refused
a living wage and a roof over his head in the land of his
birth. The pride of the aristocrat surely was humbled
before the exsilted patriotism of the peasant.
Evidently the shackles of feudalism had not been severed
by July 1914. But what of Mr. Lloyd George's great Land
Campaign, it may be asked, with his promises of land, of
higher wages, of " free " and abundant houses ? In May
of this year in a preface to a little book written by Mr.
Rowntree ^ Mr. Lloyd George wrote : —
" More than half the wage earners in the most ancient, the
most worthy, and the most vital of our industries are living on
wages which do not allow them and their families the same
amount of nourishment which they could obtain in a workhouse
or a prison. Many thousands of them are lodged in dwellings
which are damp or insanitary or too small to provide for the
decent separation of the sexes.
" Future generations will ask with astonishment why this
great, rich nation, nineteen centuries after Christianity began
its work in the world, tolerated with so little indignation so
shameful a blot alike on its religion and its civilisation. . . .
The attack must be made from many sides and by many methods.
It must be made with untiring energy and, above all, with uncon-
querable hope. Legislation cannot do everything, but it can
do much, and it can do some things which no other power can
accomplish. At any rate, the Government of which I am a
member is firmly resolved that the strong arm of the State shall
be used to obtain for the labourer a living wage, a decent house,
and the right to cultivate, in independence and security, the soil
of his native land."
From the clatter of political tongues sounded during this
year, it seemed as if noble earls and landed plutocrats were
rushing off to their armouries, to defend their old and new
estates to the last ditch against the expected surging tide
^ The Land and the Labourer.
232 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of the landless proletariat. They envisaged England like
a familiar old threadbare carpet of excellent quality cut up
into a patchwork quilt of holdings as they had seen in
France. Their minds swung back to the French Revolution
and they feared that private parks even would not be
inviolable.
Then to the intense relief of landowners, the Dublin
riots J followed by the Ulster " rising " backed by Sir Edward
Carson and Mr. F. E. Smith, now the Lord Chancellor,
administered the death blow to Mr. Lloyd George's Land
Campaign.
But the farm workers in Bedfordshire, Kent, Hereford-
shire and Wiltshire, impatient for the long-delayed act of
justice had struck their tents and were on the march.
By the third week of July over a thousand notices had
been served in Herefordshire by the Workers' Union to
recalcitrant farmers. Strike Committees had been formed
and picketing arranged. In Wiltshire the same Union was
preparing for a big strike for the minimum wage of i8s.,
and it was estimated that 10,000 men might be involved in
Wiltshire and the surrounding counties.
Then came August 4.
In tragic silence the men went back to their work and to
their tents to equip themselves for a greater struggle.
Their country was in danger, and to avoid discord they
were content to return to the plough and work long hours
for their old meagre wages, whilst thousands offered
their lives to defend their country for a shilling a day.
And the farmers ? They, for the most part, continued
to pay the old wages, worked the men for long hours and
received the benefit of the steadily rising prices.
PART EIGHT
WHAT OF THE HARVEST ?
I. THE AUTUMN OF 1914.
As German guns battered down the gates of Western
civilisation there was a quickening of fellowship amongst
all classes in rural England. The enemy's high explosives
had done" what the churches and politicians had failed to
do. Squire and squatter, peasant and plutocrat, farmer
and labourer grasped hands during this tense moment of
spiritual aiHatus.
The first to leave the farms were the reservists, then,
with that implacable patriotism which always distinguishes
the EngHsh peasantry, the youths and unmarried men left
the plough and byre to shoulder a rifle. The farmer's boy,
so long despised, was appealed to by patriotic songs sung by
fine ladies to defend them and all EngUsh women ; and the
rich man's motor car swiftly sped these lads to the nearest
recruiting station. Then it was that the well-fed, well-
housed, learnt with a shock the number of lads reared in
country cottages, who had to be rejected on account of
rupture, varicose veins, defective hearts, and bad teeth.
Then, too, it was that the man who could swing an axe,
who could turn a furrow, or milk a cow, was acknowledged
to be of more importance than the man who spent his days
in driving a ball across a common or loimging about a Club.
The squire who sat on the Bench looked for the moment
with a tolerant eye upon the well-known poacher who might
make a useful sniper in the ranks of the British Army.
Yet in spite of our terrible losses in man-power, and the
danger in which our island-home stood of being cut off
from food supplies, men still gaily rode in pink, hounds were
233
234 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
still fed on the best oatmeal, the gamekeeper still kept
his job and the landowner still reared pheasants on the best
wheat.
As autumn passed and winter wore on, the stay-at-homes
who were needed to grow food, corpulent farmers and lean
labourers, stood side by side in the ranks of the Volunteers
forming fours. This comradeship, and the feeling amongst
farmers that as labourers became scarcer they should behave
more kindly towards them, as well as the common danger
threatening aU classes, broke down for a time that barrier
which had divided them since comparative comfort had
been the lot of one class, and poverty that of the other.
The quality of the education meted out to our rural
democracy became strikingly apparent in these early days
of the war. Maps exposed at village clubs and inns were
almost meaningless to the farm workers. The treasure
houses of the mind had been closed to them, and their imag-
ination failed to grasp even vaguely the disposition of the
far-flung battle line.
" Do Belgium belong to us ? " asked a cowman I knew.
" Is India this side or t'other of Egypt ? " anxiously ques-
tioned an old man whose son had gone to the banks of the
Nile.
The women, puzzled and distraught at the son or
husband slipping away in the dark to some imknown bourne,
were perhaps in the most pathetic plight.
Those who lived close to the sea, men who were jerseyed
seamen to their waist, and corduroyed labourers from their
waist to their boots, would steal away in the night on some
dangerous mine-sweeping adventure, and many a branch
of a labourers' vmion recently formed during the stressful
months of June and July rapidly dissolved, and iii some
cases every member of a branch joined either the Army or
the Navy.
The farmers were losing the services of the strong, active
young men this winter, yet the step they took to replace
this skilled labour was as foolish as it was mean.
Men and women were beginning to register themselves
at Labour Exchanges volunteering to work on the land
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? .235
wherever labour was short. But many farmers refused to
avail themselves of these Exchanges, and instead, petitioned
the County Education Committees to release httle boys of
thirteen, or even of twelve years of age from school attend-
ance to come to the rescue of British agriculture !
The Board of Education had no powers to override the
law with regard to school attendance in the employmeint of
children, and the local authority was under no obUgation
to take proceedings for non-attendance if they were satis-
fied that a reasonable excuse had been given. The farmers
who controlled the Rural Education Committees stretched
this elastic " reasonable excuse " to cover in some districts
children of twelve and even eleven years of age whom they
wanted to employ.
Between the beginning of September, 1914, and the end
of January, 1915, no less than 1,152 boys and 42 girls had
been allowed to leave school, ^ including 34 between eleven
and twelve and 7613 between twelve and thirteen.^
It soon became evident that the children needed pro-
tection against being robbed of their education, whilst
their natural protector was away fighting our battles in
the trenches.
Nothing is meaner in our war annals than this exploit-
ation of childhood ; nothing rendered us smaller in the eyes
of the world. The action of farmers, who had always looked
upon the education of their labourers' children with a cold
eye, we can understand ; but what are we to say of " cul-
tured " persons who presided over Education Committees
and supported this exploitation with Gradgrind fervour ?
They displayed little exquisite sensibility. For that high
quality we had to look to the man who had followed the
plough — the man who was sorely tempted to stoop to this
mercenary traffic in childhood — ^to condemn it with no
uncertain voice. The National Agricultural Labourers'
Union strongly protested against the employment of child-
labour, and the crime for doing so rests primarily with our
1 Of these West Sussex was responsible for 210. The Board of Edu-
cation informs me that complete figures up to date are not available,
? ffie Times, Jfarch 5, 191^,
236 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
.Government, led at that time by Mr. Asquith, who refused
to interfere. The Bishop of Oxford, to his honour, opposed
it vehemently, as a " disastrous reactionary measure " ; and
the Liverpool and District Farmers' Club had the manhood
to discountenance the employment of boy labour on farms. ^
But what can we say of the spirit displayed by some
Education Committees ? Take, for instance, a committee
of what has always been considered a highly educational
county — Oxford. A farmer at Kelmscott (oh, shades of
WiUiam Morris!) proposed that " any boy may be exempted
from attending school on the production of a certificate
from a farmer saying that he is engaged in the production
of food." As to age, he said " he would accept ten, for at
that age a boy could lead a horse as well as a man." After
a discussion a resolution was finally passed to the effect that
the Attendance Committee of the county be asked to con-
sider favourably the absence from school of any boy not
under eleven years of age, who was temporarily employed
by a farmer in agricultural work ! ^
Mr. Reginald Lennard in a letter to the Westminster
Gazette made the following caustic comment concerning
this resolution : " that hunting fixtures were still frequent
with the three Oxfordshire Packs, though hunting uses a
good deal of labour ; and that if there has been any transfer
of male domestic servants to agricultural work it has been
kept singularly quiet."
It is no wonder, surely, that an accident occurred of a
boy aged fourteen, the son of a farm labourer, dying as the
result of injuries received when in charge of two horses.'
I ventured to protest one day with a farmer, from whom I
was purchasing calves, for employing a boy of twelve
to harrow with a pair of horses. And to walk over a
ploughed field is more tiring to the feet than to walk in the
furrow behind the plough. He answered me shortly with
the remark : " What do these little beggars come into the
world for but to work for us ? " He had taken the boy
* Farmer and Stockbreeder, February 8, 1915.
^ The Times, January 23, 1915.
^ Doncaster Chronicle, May 31, igij.
WHAT OF THE HARVIiST ? 237
away from school without consulting the school managers,
and he said he did not care if they fined him, as it would
still pay him, as he was getting the boy for 6s. a week !
Needless to say, the boy's father was a cowman employed
by the farmer and was hving in a farm- tied cottage. »
This bears out a remark of a farmer at a meeting of the
National Farmers' Union who " had no hesitation in advising
any farmer who wanted a boy of that age (twelve) to take
him, and ask permission afterwards." " Mr. Nunneley
(a prominent member of the National Farmers' Union and
Chairman of the Northamptonshire Agricultural Committee)
in supporting the employment of boys at school said that : —
" hours were long, but not what they used to be. A boy's hours
were perhaps from half-past five in the morning till eight. That
was 14I hours. Well, 2 J hours were taken up with meals ; 4
hours riding on a cart ; 4 hours driving ; and 4 hours waiting
till the cart was emptied or filled. (Laughter.) In fact, a boy
did not do more than 4 or 5 hours a day." ^
Lord Chaplin advocated the wholesale surrender of Uttle
boys to farmers, and in doing so made the significant
admission that they (the farmers) may get them, he said,
" from the Reformatory Schools, but what are they as
compared with the boys living under their own thumb and
known to them." *
Later, the Paignton magistrates went so far as to rule
" that the exigencies of the present time override aU by-
laws relating to education and that a farmer may employ
a boy of eleven on farm work."
These meannesses on the part of some farmers did not
pass unchallenged by the Press. The Morning Post, while
condoning the use of child labour) said the " farmer has come
to depend too much on cheap and casual labour, casueil
because it is cheap, and cheap because it is casual." *
' In .West Sussex boys over twelve were being released from school
to work for lod. a day. — West Sussex Gazette, February i8, 1915.
' Middlesex Advertiser, March 6, 1915.
» Report of a meeting held at the Shire Buildings by the Northampton-
shire County Council. — Northampton Mercury, March 20, 1913.
* The Vote, March 19, 1915.
• March 6, 1915.
238 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
Canon Scott Holland in The Commonwealth said : —
"There is no class more terribly in danger of missing its
heritage than the agricultural labourer's boys. There is no
class more ready to skimp their hold upon it than the farmers.
There are a dozen ways out of the difficulties in which the agri-
cultural labourer is placed. A decent wage would bring men in
out of the trades that are suffering by the war."
But it was a decent wage which the farmers as a class
still refused to pay.
Mr. W. Bartlett made a strong protest against the employ-
ment of children of twelve years of age.
"It is said they will be ' only employed in light work with
horses.' I have bitter memories of a personal experience of
what work on farms meant to a child of twelve, and have seen
others, younger and less happily placed, leading these quiet
horses, stumbling up and down with weary feet over the rough
clods of a ploughed field, poorly clad and not always well fed,
their hands, feet, and ears covered with chilblains, shivering
in the bleak wind of a March day, their eyes blinded with the tears
they vainly strive to repress, a picture of suffering and child
misery." ^
Lieut.-Col. Pedder suggested that the farmers were
desiring a return of the Crimean days " when much of their
work was done by women at 6d. and gd. a day and the men
who got 9s. a week were lucky." *
Nor did resolutions at County Education Committees
pass without opposition. In the Salop County Court Mr.
William Latham, a miners' representative, made a spirited
protest.
" He spoke as one who had been under that foul system of
boy labour on the farm. Soon after he was ten years of age he
was at work on a farm with a whip in his hand — ^thirteen hours
for 6d. (cries of ' Order,' ' Order '), and the farmer at night too
drunk to pay him. (Loud cries of ' Order ' and ' Chair.') Could
they wonder that he was on his feet, protesting ? He was there
to protect the lads of the agricultural workers, 90 per cent, of
whom, owing to the tied-cottage anomaly and the Registration
1 Daily Chronicle, February 23, 1915.
' In February, 1916, a case was mentioned before the Somerset Educa-
tion Committee of a farmer who was offering a boy of twelve years of age
Jd. an hour, with no pay for Sunday work. — DaUy News, February 27,
1916.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 239
Laws, were not represented on that Council. The farm labourer
was tied hand and foot to the farmer. He was reminded of the
saying that —
To be Shropshire born and bred
Is to be strong in the muscle.
And weak in the yed.
And it is to keep these children weak in the head that they had
this request for boys of twelve on the land." ^
Few more poignant statements have been made than the
passionate utterance of Mr. George Edwards at a Norfolk
County Council meeting : —
" He owed," he declared, " his smallness of stature to being
dragged into the fields as a boy of six years of age ; to overwork
and bad living ; and he was anxious that the rising generation
should not be dragged into the field and back into the old system.
... He had followed the plough when he was ten, and he had
been handicai^ped all his life in consequence."
^ Our country had not sunk to such depths of despair that
farmers were obliged to call in the labour of little children
of twelve years of age to help us to fight the enemy at our
gates. Had they offered higher wages, they might have
obtained, perhaps not all, but most of the men they wanted.
Though the War Office was responsible at a later stage in
endangering our food supply by a reckless enlistment of
men from the land, the blame was not theirs in the winter
of 1914-15. Soldier labour was offered, and strong,
robust girls were eager to lend a hand ; an^ had the mem-
bers of education committees shown the same eagerness
to have their own children taken away from school as they
did the children of labourers, farmers could have had the
labour of athletic boys of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and
seventeen years of age. But the farmers would not pay
sufficiently high wages to attract adult men ; their conser-
vatism at first prevented them from employing strong girls
of the middle classes ; and the just pa5mient demanded by
the War Office for soldier labour found no favour in the
eyes of the farmer.
" The truth of the whole matter," wrote a land agent, " is that
I Oswestry Advertiser, March 17, 1919.
240 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
with the increasing prosperity that has come to the farmer of
late years, Uttle or none of this has filtered through to the lab-
ourers, who are (with all the benefits that the State has tried to
shower upon them), little better off than twenty years ago." i
It is enough to make us as Englishmen blush for shame
when we compare our attitude with that of the French
nation, stricken sore by a remorseless enemy. Their cir-
cular to local authorities ran thus : —
" The existing laws on the attendance of boys at school must
be maintained tiiis year with more strictness than ever. ... It
would be disgraceful to see children robbed of their education as
if the military service of their fathers had left them only the
choice between beggary and premature wage-labour."
By the end of May the number of exemptions from
school attendance had increased to 5,000.*
An attempt was made in the Press by myself, the Coun-
tess of Warwick and others to get our large Pubhc Schools to
show some sense of equality of sacrifice, but beyond the
formation of holiday camps little was done in this direction.
That the labourers felt that there was a class difference
involved here is evidenced by a statement made by a
Shropshire branch of a labourers' union.
" We poor labourers have as much respect for our children as
the farmer, of whose sons there are some going to school in
Shropshire at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, and not
called on to do the least little job because they are farmers' sons,
and yet they are asking for ours without the parents' consent." *
To avoid misunderstanding, let me here say that I hold
no exalted ideas as to the value of the scraps of education
picked up at the village school (how could I, being a school
manager ?) ; but as every one knows it is the last year
spent at school — the year between thirteen and fourteen —
which counts so enormously in the educational life of a
poor boy. To rob him of this year, to say nothing of the
year before, is to rob him of a ripe apple after he has tasted
one bite.
' The Land Agent's Record, Maxch 23, 1915.
* Daily News, June 2, 1915.
' Village Trade Unions, by Ernest Selley.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 24T
The farmers' complaint was the lack of skilled labour, and
yet they employed the most unskilled labour possible.
One can only come to the conclusion that they did so
because it was cheap.
I do not wish to indict a whole class. There were many
farmers who refused to dishonour their manhood by the
exploitation of children of twelve. The " cultured "
classes who sat on Education Committees were more, and
the Government was most, to blame, over this disgraceful
episode in our national history. But unfortunately for
the farmers, their Union officially declared in favour of
the employment of children of school age, and as a class
they were tarred by this brush. The teachers through
their Union expressed strong disapproval of the entire
scheme.
The scale of wages rose with terrible slowness in the spring
of 1915, whilst the cost of living was steadily rising (20 per
cent.), and farmers were begiiming to experience the benefit
of war prices for their produce. The Times said " the
farmer was having the time of his life." ^
In the north, at the hiring fairs, the hinds were engaged
at rates showing a rise of 3s. or 4s. a week, with the usual
perquisites ; that is to say a free cottage, potato ground,
or cow pasturage and a fortnight's hoUday. The written
agreement was becoming genereJ in these northern coimties
and the farm servant insisted on the holiday bargain
being set down definitely. The Yorkshire Farmers' Union
increased wages to ^^i a week, but in the southern and
eastern counties wages remained dangerously low.
In the Braintree and CoggeshaU districts of Essex wages
were 17s. only. At the Dorchester hiring fair they were
advanced by is. to 2s. weekly. Parts of Somerset had
advanced wages only 2s. above the pre-war rate of 12s.
Advances in Wiltshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, North-
amptonshire, Cambridge, Nottingham and Worcestershire
were made at var3dng rates of is., 2s. and 3s. 6d. per week.
The higher rates were obtained only where the Union was
comparatively strong.
I March 15, 1915.
VOL. II. R
242 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
In Norfolk 15s. a week became the standard rate only
by January, 1915.
At Thetford County Court the Judge said that in some
cases in Norfolk that came before him the agricultural
labourers only earned 3d. per hour. " That did not seem
to be a wage upon which a man could very well keep a
family," observed the Judge.^
With the cost of hving risen 20 per cent., the National
Agricultural Labourers' Union now made a determined
effort in Norfolk to obtain 3s. a week increase, which would
make the minimum i8s.
In spite of the fact that we were at grips in a deadly
struggle with the enemy, the farmers actually went to the
length of refusing to meet the men's Union,* risking a
strike and all that a strike entailed. Their stubbornness
went so far as to compel the men to issue strike notices,
and these were served in a large area of Norfolk on the last
day of February. Then, and not tiU then, was a confer-
ence agreed upon ; and this was due to a chance meeting in
Norwich, of Mr. Overman (one of the best and most enlight-
ened farmers) and Earl Leicester, the Lord Lieutenant of
the County, with Mr. George Edwards and Mr. H. A. Day.
Even then the farmers officially held back. However, on
March 11, the conference took place at Fakenham, where
Earl Leicester, Colonel J. E. Groom, and Mr. Lionel Rod-
well, Mr. W. Everington, Mr. A. Keith, and Mr. H. Over-
man represented the employers ; whilst Mr. W. R. Smith,
Mr. George Edwards, Mr. G. E. Hewitt, Mr. James Coe,
and Mr. R. B. Walker represented the Union. This meet-
ing was momentous and had a far-reaching effect. It was,
I think, the first time on record that a group of farmers
and landowners met representatives of a labourers' union.
Mr. W. R. Smith most ably conducted the case for the
men, and on the promise that all strike notices should be
withdrawn it was agreed that the minimum wage should be
i8s. Mr. Overman said that the spirit displayed by the
1 Richmond Herald, February 27, 1915.
» Eastern Daily Press, February 26, 1915.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 243
men was simply splendid, and that " the men did a fine thing
in withdrawing their notices."^
Unfortunately, not all farmers honoured this agreement,
which caused some men at Swanton Morley to come out on
strike to demand their i8s. They marched in a body one
Sunday into the parish church, where the sight of a number
of agricultural labourers attending Divine Service so sur-
prised the Rector that he walked down the aisle to ask the
men if they had come to worship ! The strike lasted only
eight days, when the farmers agreed to pay the i8s.
Now the southern and midland farmers would have been
spared the hostility and suspicion which were evinced in
the years that followed, had they shown at this time the
common humanity of anticipating the 25s. minimiun wage
which did not become law until August 21, 1917. Prices
of all farm products had risen,^ and in the northern counties
of Westmoreland, Durham, Northumberland, wages in
1915 had risen to 25s., as well as in parts of Lancashire and
Middlesex.
But the farmers were not to blame so much as the Gov-
ernment. Farmers were living in a state of imcertainty.
Traffic was becoming disorganised and blocked. Supplies
of feeding stuffs and fertilisers were being rigorously re-
duced. Farmers were losing many of their best men. Hay and
horses were conscripted and it was bruited abroad that farms
might be conscripted, too. They certainly had their diffi-
culties, but this was no excuse for placing their burthens upon
the backs of the children. Mr. Asquith, or Mr. Lloyd George,
had he been wise, would have pronounced early in 1915,
or even in the autiunn.of 1914, a definite agricultural policy,
including a minimum wage, for which the country had to
wait nearly three years. By the Government's procrastina-
tion the food supply of the nation was seriously endangered.
Those farmers who did behave well to their men did not
apparently meet with the approval of other farmers. The
Chairman of the Oswestry Farmers' Union, for instance,
1 Norfolk News, March 13, 191 5.
• Wheat was 56s. and oats 31s. 8d. in 1915 as compared with 34s. and
19s. gd. in July 1914.
244 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
stated that " some farmers were enticing labourers from
their neighbours '6y offering them a higher wage. He thought
farmers would have been too gentlemanly to do that."^
Certainly, farmers have generally shown a nice, gentlenianly
feehng in this matter.
At a large conference of Yorkshire agriculturists at York,
Mr. Furness had the temerity to say that, " they would
have to give men less hours or something. He had come
to the conclusion that if they could allow the men off at
one o'clock Saturday until Monday morning there would
be no scarcity of labourers."*
Early in 1915 another difficulty arose. Landowners and
agents were urging farmers not to employ men of mihtary
age. Now it was estimated that up to July, 1915, 243,000
agricultural labourers volunteered for the Army and Navy,
and eventually, according to the Wages Board Gazette,
September 15, 1919, no less than 400,000 left the land
for the Services. Apart altogether from the insult con-
tained in this circular, it was a foolish pohcy to enlist a]l
men of military age, as the nation soon discovered, when it
needed the services of the skilled agricultural labourer on
the land more urgently than it needed him in the ranks.
Besides, at this time there were thousands of men working
at parasitical luxury trades.
The War Office now began to offer the help of soldier-
labourers to the farmers, but the War Office quite rightly
insisted that these men should be properly paid. This
insistence on an adequate wage was resented by many far-
mers, and at a meeting of Malton Agricultural Club, in
discussing the schedule of rates from 4s. a day for the hay
harvest to 5s. a day for the com harvest, Mr. F. Dee, with
a curious sense of patriotism, declared he
" would rather let his crops rot than accept those terms, and he
moved a resolution, which was carried, that unless the pay was
the same as for ordinary agricultural labourers, soldier labour
must be declined."
Mr. Dee did not stand alone. Personally, I knew one
1 Manchester Guardian, April 16, 1915.
' Yorkshire Herald, April 3, 1915.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 245
or two farmers in 1915 who refused to cut their hay rather
than pay soldiers 4s. 6d. a day.
On the fanners' side, it is only fair to say, that they had
to put up with a number of useless substitutes, but eventu-
ally these were removed and the skilled agricultural labourer
in khaki became a feature on a great number of farms ;
and it is undoubtedly the fact that the 4s. 6d. a day usually
paid to soldiers became a powerful lever for raising wages
all round. Another factor in raising wages was the 25s.
a week instituted later on by Mr. Neville Chamberlain in
his ill-fated National Service Scheme.
•A sinister feature of the farm-tied cottage cropped up
in the spring of this year. Women, whose husbands were
fighting abroad, began to be evicted from their cottages by
farmers. A memorable case was fought at Tewkesbury
Police Court on February 4. A member of the N.A.L.U.
was disabled at the battle of Mons, and after receiving hos-
pital treatment in England rejoined his regiment in the
fighting line. Whilst there, his wife, the mother of four
young children, received notice that the farmer was apply-
ing for an ejectment order. The Union fought the case
for the wife and won it with honours.
At the Trade Union Congress of this year a resolution
was proposed by Mr. J. Coe, and seconded by Mr. R. B.
Walker, calling upon the Government to insist upon the
" compulsory cultivation of all agricultural land and when
and wherever practicable to acquire and retain land to be
worked and controlled by the State." This was the fore-
runner of the Cultivation Orders worked under the Defence
of the Realm Act by the War Agricultural Committees ; and
in spite of the fact that agricultural labourers showed their
keenness for good husbandry before either landlord or
farmer did, very few of them were invited at first to sit on
these committees. This omission, from the national
standpoint, was a bad one, for not only were the skilled
farm workers in many cases more intimate with the land,
but they would have shown more independence in criticis-
ing farmers (those who, at any rate, were not their employ-
ers) who were neglecting to cultivate the land properly.
246 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
On August 23 the Small Holdings Colonies Act, 1916,
came into force, but this I will discuss later.
Before the year was out a demand was voiced by the
N.A.L.U. for a minimum wage of 25s. a week, which was the
minimtun being paid in Nottingham. The Scottish agri-
cultural labourer had secured his 30s. a week by January,
1916, with meal, potatoes, and a free house ; and yet in
England farmers in many counties were still paying less
than £1 a week, although the cost of Uving had risen in
January, 1916, 45 per cent. In Bucks only i6s. was being
paid in the Cuddington district, and Essex workers had not
yet been able to secure i8s. a week ; whilst in Dorset wages
were still as low as even 14s. I myself, whilst staying in
the Isle of Purbeck in September of 1916, came across
instances of able-bodied men who were working at as low
a wage as 13s. and 14s. a week !
A great stride was made in the spring of this year in
Norfolk by the N.A.L.U. when for the first time the farmers
officially recognised the men's Union, and held a conference
at the Royal Hotel, Norwich, on February 19, with the
result that the minimum wage of £1 per week, with over-
time payment of 6d. per hour, was agreed upon for the
whole county.
In Shropshire, a dispute arose this summer at the Earl
of Powis's estate at Bishop's Castle. The Earl, it appears,
was pa5dhg wages on his home farm lower than his tenants
round him, and after serving notices the organiser secured
an increase of 2s. 6d. a week, bringing the simi up to
25s., which was higher than in most midland and southern
counties. Some stiff fighting, though, even up to the
application for ejectments, had to be undergone before in-
creases were obtained in this campaign. By October, 25s. per
week was the common wage throughout the whole county.
A dispute at Bassingham, Lincolnshire, took place in
Jime, during which one employer dismissed two members
for daring to ask another workman to join the Union. This
action was resented by the men, and they withdrew their
labour from his farm. This resulted in an increase of
as. 6d. per week.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 247
By September the cost of living had risen 65 per cent,
over pre-war costs, and Mr. George Edwards showed by
publishing a labourer's budget at this time ^ that in Norfolk
the men were worse off than they had been in 1914. In-
cluding harvest the total earnings were only £1 3s. i|d.
Trouble arose in Norfolk during harvest time over the
harvest rates which were agreed upon at a conference at
King's Lyim, in 1915. Mr. G. H. Roberts, M.P., was called
in as Government mediator, with the result that he awarded
a 25s. advance on the hairvest rates of 1915.
Life pressed very heavily upon the agricultural labourer,
especially upon his wife, in the spring of 1917. The cost
of living on January i showed an increase of 87 per cent.,
and wages had risen only 42 per cent., and many other
factors led to a smouldering spirit of discontent in rural
districts. At the end of 1916 farmers made as much as
75s. lod. a quarter on their wheat, 67s. 5d. on their barley,
and 47s. 4d. on their oats ; ^ and they made, too, enormous
sums on their bullocks.^ Furthermore,, whilst labourers
were asked to economise in every way, dn fuel, in bread,
and in meat, up to December pheasants were still being fed
by hand on the best grain. That is to say, whilst they were
restricted in their bread, and even cheese, which forms so
large a part of a labourer's diet, they saw wheat being
wantonly used in order to provide sport for the rich man.
This iniquity was, fortunately, stoppeid in January, 1917.
But though this was stopped, the labourer felt the injus-
tice of being restricted in his meat rations whilst the farmer
or landowner could sally forth gvm in hand over his fields
and shoot innumerable pheasants, rabbits, partridges,
hares, wood-pigeons and wild ducks.
Farm labourers, too, were now told that the pig in the
stye which they had bought and industriously fed, was to
count as part of their rations, at a time when they saw
round about them the fiUing of big bags of game which went
to the rich man's table. The feeling that there was one law
• The Labourer, October, 1916.
* Journal of the Board of Agriculture, January, 1917.
" Wages in some counties were still under £1 a week in xgi6 {vide Cmd
76).
248 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
for the rich and another for the poor was expressed in a
letter I had sent me from a Hampshire cottage. I will
quote it just as it was written, with its appalling lack of
erudition and its sound common sense : —
" The man must deprive him self of something to get a pig in
the house wich a lot mor people could do if they ware to try
wich they ought to do at these times but the man that do keep
a pig ought to have the benefit of it the same as the uper tens
that got land and can go out and can kill Rabbits, Hares, and
wild birds as they please but what I want to know is does the
poor man's pig come in with the Meat Rations or not ? "
The labourer could still be fined or imprisoned for snaring
the rabbit which was so destructive to our crops. It was not
until later, that the County Agricultural Committees placed
warreners on estates overrun with game and issued certifir
cates to farmers or their appointed men to destroy game.
But in spite of the wedge driven into the Game Laws by
an order issued by the Board of Agriculture prosecutions
for being in pursuit of game continued through the whole
of war time. The Government repeatedly asked every one
to produce as much food as possible and to keep down all
pests, and yet poor folk were still living under the shadow
of the iniquitous law of 1862 which subjected them to the
indignity of a search without a warrant. It is extraordinary
what a difference there is between a good and ragged coat
in the eyes of the law. Walking through a wood my dog
ran down and killed a rabbit. I picked up the dead rabbit
and carried it boldly through the wood past a row of cot-
tages and a policeman. Though the policeman saw me
carrying the rabbit almost immediately after I left the wood,
I was never questioned.
These petty prosecutions angered many men, especially
those who had been fighting. I remember a case before the
Bench at Horsham where a discharged soldier was fined £1
for being in pursuit of conies. As he left the Court he
flung out this taunt to an astonished Bench :
" If I kill three Germans I am a sanguinary hero ; now
if I snare a rabbit I am a sanguinary felon."
Fortunately, sport has its Ughter side, and I was very
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 249
much amused at a list of crimes presented to me by a young
officer who had lost his eye and won the M.C. in France.
I lent him my gun one day when he was at home on leave,
and after half an hour he returned with a pheasant, saying
with a smile of triumph, " I have broken the law in five
places. I have shot without a licence ; I have killed a
pheasant ; I have trespassed ; I have shot after sundown ;
and I have committed these crimes on a Sunday."
Farm workers are quick to respond to the change in the
social conscience with regard to game. They are growing
bolder and more independent with their rise in status as
essential food producers, and the following anecdote will illus-
trate their greater assertion of manhood. A ploughman well
known to me was told by his mates that " Farmer John,"
who looked with an evil eye upon the ploughman's black
dog, had said in the taproom of the King's Head that there
was no chance of getting a hare whilst somebody's black dog
was about. Thereupon the ploughman walked into the
King's Head and intentionally not noticing the farmer, who
was sipping his whisky, said in a loud voice : "I say, you
chaps, what do you think I saw to-night ? — such a strange
thing. I saw a hare miming up the road with a card round
his neck, and on this card was wrote : ' / come from Farmer
John's wood.' "
Fuel was getting increasingly dear, even in woodland
districts. The cottager had to pay 26s. for his cord wood
instead of i8s. ; 26s. for spray faggots instead of 12s. ; yet
he saw great logs being continually drawn. out of the woods
to warm the landowner's spacious hearth.
Munition factories and aerodromes had invaded the
most remote country districts by 1917, and farm workers
regarded with curious eyes the spectacle of men and women
earning large wages to make things to destroy life, while
they, who produced the food to sustain life, remained the
worst paid workers of the whole community. They heeded,
too, that their fellow workers in these industries were able
to keep almost abreast with rising prices by means of trade
unions. Thus it came about in places where trade unionism
had never before taken root the feeling arose that it was only
250 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
by combination that a living wage could be secured.
In many country districts unionism had been regarded
as some alien antagonistic force which increased the cost of
the farm worker's coal, or of his oil, or of his boots. But
the war, which dispelled so many illusions, dispelled this
one too. Had not farmers, in their very presence, told trib-
unals that without Hodge they could not carry on their
farms ? There were rumours, too, that District Wages
Committees were to be set up to fix a minimum rate
of wages, and on these Hodge must get men appointed who
could argue with the farmers ; and how could that be done
-without combination ?
In the beginning of 1917 the National Agricultural
Labourers' Union asked for 30s. a week. The
Farmers' Federation offered 25s. a week and as the
employers and men could not come to any agreement an
arbitrator was called in, who was Mr. Harry Courthorpe-
Munroe. To the astonishment of both employers and men,
Mr. Courthorpe-Munroe, on March 12, 1917, made an
award of exactly 25s. a week. Naturally, this award
gave rise to much discontent amongst the Norfolk farm
workers. It was considered that the Goverimient's an-
nouncement that a minimum wage of 25s. would be in-
serted in the forthcoming Com Production Act prejudiced
the decision of the arbitrator, especially as 25s. was to include
aU extras.
The demand for 30s. in Norfolk soon became the minimum
demand in other counties. In some counties, such as
Nottingham, the wages rose to 27s., though in other coun-
ties, such as Somerset, Suffolk and Worcester they were as
low as 22s., and in Bucks even as low as 21s.
On February 14, 1917, the Trade Union Parliamentary
Committee presented themselves before Mr. Prothero,
(now Lord Ernie), the President of the Board of Agriculture,
to submit to him the resolution passed by the Trade Union
Congress held in Birmingham, 1916, which was as follows : —
" That while recognising the land problem cannot be effectively
dealt with outside national ownership and control, this Congress
is strongly of opinion that any scheme that has for its purpose
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 251
the re-establishment of the industry of agriculture, will be most
unsatisfactory and unacceptable unless it secures to the labourer
(i) an adequate wage ; (2) good housing free from the tied-
cottage system ; and hereby requests the Parliamentary Com-
mittee to use their best endeavours to secure these in any measure
or effort that may be made to deal with this question."
Mr. R. B. Walker was the chief spokesman for the agri-
cultural labourers. In the course of a speech he said that
" in certain rural parts men were even charged for buckets
of water for ordinary use, and even that charge had gone
up to the extent of 50 per cent." He quoted Mr. A. J.
Balfour's famous declaration, that " if the owner of every
insanitary dwelling was hung at his doorpost he would not
weep his eyes out."
Mr. Prothero, in replying, said he could see no solution
to the tied-cottage system other than that the cottage
should be let direct to the labourer by the landowner and
not by the farmer.
Mr. J. H. Thomas asked if an appeal covld be made to
the proposed Wages Boards in the case of unfair evictions.
Mr. Prothero expressed his opinion that such Boards would
be able to deal with those cases. Unfortunately, though,
as after events proved, neither of Mr. Prothero's suggestions
were effectively dealt with under the Act.
On February 23, 1917, Mr. Lloyd George made his
memorable speech in which he outlined the new agricul-
tural policy committing the nation to guaranteed prices
to farmers for wheat and oats during a period of six years.
Able-bodied agricultural workers were to have a minimum
wage of 25s. a week.
It should be distinctly understood though that the
minimum wage had no connection with guaranteed prices.
As a writer in the Wages Board Gazette aptly observes :
" There is no real connection between the two, and any attempt
to make a guaranteed price of wheat a corollary to an Agricul-
tural Wages Board should be strenuously resisted as having no
foundation in history. Wheat growing, it must be remembered,
forms a very small part of the English farmers' output of agri-
cultural produce. No minimum price is guaranteed for milk, a
necessity as great as bread, for meat or for fruit and vegetables.
252 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
and yet the minimum wage applies equally to all persons em-
ployed in agriculture whether they are engaged in wheat and oat
production or. not." ^
That the farmers hailed Mr. Lloyd George's speech with
elation could be seen by reading the farmers' papers which
were published immediately afterwards. They had been
given their price for 1917 — 60s. — which was a distinct
advance from the 42s. recommended by the Selbome Com-
mittee of 1916.2 They would not meet trouble half way Ijy
looking at the declining figures for the following years.
Mr. Lloyd George was indubitably their champion. They
would forgive him all the unkind things he had said in his
Land Campaign.
How Mr. Lloyd George arrived at these figures no one seems
to have been able to discover. We only know that he was
" assured by a farmer who is one of the most upright men
I have ever met and who I am perfectly certain would not
mislead the Government that on the prices we were guar-
anteeing the farmer on the whole he would not get much
out of them having regard to all the conditions." One
wonders who this upright gentleman was who had so im-
pressed the ingenuous Premier. Mr. Lloyd George, appar-
ently, never stopped to enquire of a labourer how much it
cost to maintain him and his family in a condition of
physical efficiency and comfort.
Wages had now risen generally to 22s. a week. There
were instances, as in Dorset, where i6s. was the wage in
January, and at Ledbury, in February, it was discovered
on a farmer making an appeal for exemption for his son, that
he had been papng a man who had just left him only los.
a week. But these instances, we hope, were isolated cases.
During the summer of this year the N.A.L.U. managed
to raise wages in the Thorne district of Lincolnshire from
24s. to 30s. a week. The Nottingham Co-operative Society
granted the full demands of 30s. and 32s. respectively to
the different grades of men working on their farms, whilst
in Salop the average wage was brought up to the 25s.
standard. In Su:ffolk, a lock-out occurred in the Darsham
* Wages Board Gazette, ist April, 1920. ' Cd. 9079.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 253
district on the men demanding the Norfolk conditions.
But after several weeks the Norfolk terms were conceded
by the farmers.
Naturally the 25s. did not evoke- much enthusiasm
amongst labourers (except in those rural backwaters where
wages were much lower), especially when it dawned upon
the farm workers that the 25s. was to include all " allow-
ances," even the rent of farm- tied cottages. But there was
one ray of hope : a Wages Board was to be set up with
equal representation for farmers and workers. District
Committees were to be established under it and a higher
wage than 25s. could be fixed if they had the right men on
these District Committees and on the Wages Board to fight
for them.
This meant combination, and here came the supreme
opportunity of the trade union organiser.
Thus, during the spring and summer of 1917 an exceed-
ingly active campaign was carried on by the Workers'
Union as well as by the N.A.L.U. The leaders of the Workers'
Union, Mr. John Beard, who organised agriculturcil labourers
in the midlands in the first year of the Union's existence,
and Mr. George Dallas, had the foresight to seize the oppor-
tunity which the formation of^the District Wages Committees
in the forthcoming Com Production Act gave to trade
unionism amongst farm workers.
They, and the organisers acting under them, realised
that the new Act gave a tremendous impetus to trade
union organisation. They visited remote villages in the
southern, eastern, midland, and south-western counties
and spread the news to men, many of whom had even
regarded trade unions with aversion, that if they would only
organise and secure adequate representation on these Dis-
trict Wages Committees they could forge a powerful lever
to raise wages and shorten hours. These organisers
worked day and night and put an extraordinary amount of
energy into their work, infusing enthusiasm amongst middle-
aged and even old men who glimpsed the dawn of a new day.
With rising prices the seed did not fall on stony groimd.
The war had taken its toll of young and active organisers.
254 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
which put an enormous strain upon the older men, for the
life of an organiser in rural districts is only compassable
by a strong, young man.
Meanwhile, the Board of Agriculture in order to obtain
reliable, up-to-date information as to conditions of employ-
ment in agriculture, sent out in 1917 a body of investigators
into every county under the direction of Mr. Geoffrey Drage.
These Reports deserve a better fate than internment as
official documents in their monumental drapery of Blue.
They give us not only a bird's-eye view of men and women
working in the fields, and of their cottages, but also a survey
of farming in England and Wales in 1917, and are written
with a literary skill which might be expected from authors
Uke Mr. Maurice Hewlett and Mr. A. D. Bradley. One of
these investigators aptly summed up the labourer's position
thus :
" It may, I think, be taken for granted, since it is universally
agreed that the farm labourer is the hardest-worked, lowest-
paid, worst-fed and clothed, and worst-housed class of the
whole British community.
" His pre-war wages did not even warrant him paying 2S. 6d.
a week in rent, and, in the vast majority of cases, neither he nor
his family could have existed at all but for the supplementary
earnings of his wife. In having to work, the wife almost invari-
ably suffered in health, as in spirit ; she was obliged to neglect
herself, her children, her husband, and her home. Both
she and her family occupy the lowest rung upon the social ladder,
and they are spoken of in tones of pity, if not of contempt, by
their more fortunate, better organised brethren and fellow-
workers.
" The farm labourer now, as in the past, approaches nearest
the state of serfdom. He is, in fact, a serf, with the privilege of
sleeping under a roof which, by courtesy, is called his own,
though his wages would not allow of him paying a just rent for
it.
" Hitherto he has had no Union to defend his interests ; had
not a copper a week to spare for contribution to any scheme of
co-operation amongst his class." ^
In August, 1917, the Corn Production Act became law.
An attempt was made by the Labour Party to substitute
a minimum of 30s. for 25s., but this Mr. Prothero refused
» Wages and Conditions of Employment in AgricuHure, Vol. II. Cmd.
25. 1919.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 255
to accept. He said that if he did, the Com Production
Act would soon become a Grass Production Act. I wonder
if Mr. Prothero (now Lord Ernie) ever considers what a
false prophet he was to his own child, for the lowest mini-
mum fixed imder the Agricultural Wages Board was 30s.
and the acreage of grassland which came under the plough
showed an increase in 1917-18 over 1916 of 1,806,601 acres.
The hard logic of events two years later produced the
most destructive criticism of the economic theory that agri-
cultural wages have been dependent upon prices. When
the Act was passed, instituting a minimum wage of 25s.,
farmers were obtaining 78s. 7d. per quarter for their
wheat, 1 hours were not then defined, and cattlemen were
working overtime without extra payment.^
On October 6, 1919, when a new Order came into force
fixing an increase in wages of 6s. 6d. a week, the price of
wheat was 5s. 6d. a quarter less (it was 73s. id.), and many
men in charge of horses and cows who worked about the
same number of hours as in 1917 earned on an average 50s.
a week, that is, exactly double wages.
Under the Act " permits " were allowed to employ a man
at less than the minimum who was " affected by any mental
or other infirmity or physical injury which renders him
incapable of earning that minimum rate." This provision
rendered innocuous the cry that a legal minimum wage
would deprive old men of their hvelihood.
The able-bodied men were to have wages fixed by the
Agricultural Wages Board high enough to " promote
efficiency and to enable a man in an ordinary case to
maintain himself and his family in accordance with
such standard of comfort as may be reasonable in rela-
tion to the nature of his occupation." All those, of either
sex came under the Act, who worked on farms, nursery
and market gardens, in woods, orchards, or osier land.
When the benefits or advantages received by the labourer
• Vide Average Prices of British Corn, Journal of the Board of Agriculture.
* " At Christmas, 1917, was a period, lasting tjiree or four weeks, when
little fortunes in some instances were made ... in the fat stock market.
Instances are known where as much as £50 profit per beast was made."
. , . Minutes of Evidence Royal Commission on A^culture, 1919. Vol.
II. Appendix No. V.
256 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
as part of his wages were defined by the Wages Board, these
consisted of cottages which were rent free, mUk, potatoes,
and board and lodging, and no others.
The farmers were guaranteed 60s. a quarter for wheat
for 1917 crop, 55s. for 1918-ig, and 45s. 1920-22. For oats
they were guaranteed 38s. 6d. for 1917, 32s. for 1918-19,
and 24s. for 1920-22.
Landlords were forbidden to raise rents if this part of
the Act came into force. The farmers on their part were to
cultivate their land according to good husbandry ; and
" for the purpose of increasing the national interest of the
production of food the mode of cultivating any land or the
use to which any land is being put should be changed."
The Board of Agriculture had wide powers under this
Act : to enter on and take possession of any land which
is not being cultivated according to the rules of good hus-
bandry or growing crops required in the national interest.
These powers were reinforced by Orders under D.O.R.A.,
which as subsequent events proved became more powerful
agents for speeding the plough than any guaranteed prices
contained in the Act.
The first meeting of the Wages Board did not take place
until December 6, 1917. It consisted of the following
members : —
AGRICULTURAL WAGES BOARD.
Appointed Members.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Ailwyn Fellowes, K.C.V.O., K.B.E. {Chairman).
Sir Henry Rew, K.C.B. {Deputy Chairman).
The Rt. Hon. F. D. Acland, M.P.
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Kenyon, K.C.V.O.
Mr. C. B. Orwin.
Mrs. Roland Wilkins, O.B.E.
Mr. W. B. Yates.
Repeesentatives of Employers.
Mr. Colin Campbell. Mr. Ivo Neame.
Mr. John Evens. Mr. H. Overman, O.B.E.
Mr. W. S. Gibbard. Mr. H. Padwick. C.B.E.
Mr. R. W. Hobbs. Mr. R. G. Patterson, O.B.E.
Mr. M. H. Holman. Mr. G. G. Rea, C.B.E.
Mr. S. Kidner, O.B.E. Mr. R. R. Robbins,
Mr. W. S. Miller. Mr. J. Roberts.
Mr. A. Moscrop, O.B.E. Mr. S. T. Rosbotham.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 257
Representatives of Workers.
Councillor John Beard. Mr. Thomas Lovell.
Mr. George Dallas. Mr. G. Nicholls.
Mr. George Edwards, J.P. Mr. Haman Porter.
Mr. Robert Green. Mr. Robert Richards.
Mr. J. T. Gurd. Mr. W. R. Smith, M.P.
Mr. G. E. Hewitt. Mrs. F. R. Toon.
Mr. T. G. Higdon. Mr. R. B. Walker.
Mr. W. Holmes. Mr. Denton Woodhead.
The appointed or " Impartial " members were appointed
by the President of the Board of Agriculture. Of the
sixteen representatives of the employers, the National
Farmers' Union were responsible for eight, whilst the other
eight were selected ty the Board of Agriculture from lists
submitted to them by employers' associations such as the
R.A.S.E. Of the sixteen workers' representatives, six were
selected by the N.A.L.U., two by the Workers' Union, and
eight were selected by the Board of Agriculture from names
submitted to them by the workers. These eight were gener-
ally speaking workers selected from areas where unions
were non-existent, but since their appointment they have
attached themselves to one union or the other.
Amongst the appointed members of the Wages Board
and the District Wages Committees, one had to be a woman,
and the same rule applied to the workers' representatives.
The first duty of the Board was to form District Wages Com-
mittees, which, with one or two exceptions in England,
were confined to the county area. In Wales the counties
were grouped to form District Committees.
No less than thirty-nine District Committees had to be
formed, with representatives of employers and workers in
equal numbers, and appointed members not exceeding a
fourth of the whole numbers of representatives. The
formation of these District Committees was not completed
until May, 1918.
The trouble was to get suitable representatives on the
workers' side. The farmers, who were better organised than
the men, found little difficulty, to appoint their representa-
tives ; but amongst the farm workers there were districts,
VOL. n. s
258 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
especially in the north of England and in Wales, where
trade unionism was still weak, or non-existent.
At this stage of the history of the farm workers we get
the organiser systematically entering every county of
England and Wales and making desperate efforts to find
suitable men to sit on the District Committees. Organisers
can teU humorous stories of how they have descended,
when hard put to it, upon a man who was not even a trade
unionist, milking a cow or baiting a horse, insisting upon
him serving on the Committee. The part the organiser
played in improving the condition of the farm worker
is so great that, though I am nearing the end of my history,
I feel I must devote an entire chapter to this modern
product of agricultural trade unionism. That the farm
worker was ready to listen to the organiser one can
easily understand, for even as late as January, 1918,
official investigators declared that the average wage of
the ordinary agricultural labourer in sixteen counties
was 25s., or less,^ whilst the cost of living had risen
106 per cent.
* Wages and Conditions of Employment in Agriculture. Cmd. 24, p.
105.
PART EIGHT
WHAT OF THE HARVEST?
II. THE " ORGANISER " AT WORK.
Nearly every man who has spent his energies in champion-
ing the cause of the agricultural labourer has been broken
on the ruthless wheel of fortune. Though his spirit burned
like a bright flame to the very last, Cobbett, was broken
financially ; Arch was broken ; Vincent was broken ; and
those secretaries who attempted to organise the counties
of Kent and Suffolk disappeared in the darkness of financial
difficulties. Nearing the end of a long and strenuous career,
the South-West Lancashire strike almost killed Mr. George
Edwards, and financially, but for the assistance of friends,
even he, in these days of revived trade unionism, would have
been a broken man.
During the war, in the freer atmosphere of a growing
spirit of independence, organisers had an easier task than
their forerunners, and when the Corn Production Act was
passed, not only was it lawful to be a trade unionist, but it
really became an injunction upon every labourer as well as
every farmer to belong to some organisation ; otherwise
the Act would be inoperative. No longer could any patron
of a village institute, be he squire or parson, refuse with
reason the use of the room for a meeting " to explain the
Act." Unreasonable men of course did refuse under the
plea that this was entering into the realm of politi-cs ;
and it should not be assumed that the organiser was re-
ceived with open arms by the dominant class. Obstacles
had still to be overcome and organisers have many a story
to teU showing the hostility they had to meet. In Wilt-
shire, for instance, which has always been a county of hard
259
26o ENGLISH AGRICtJLTUIiAL LABOURER.
taskmasters, a branch of the Workers' Union was formed in
a village which shall be nameless. The farmers visited each
of their men and told them to hand over to them their
trade union cards. The men meekly obeyed ! The fanners
thereupon returned these cards to the office of the Union.
And that, for the time being, was the end of this branch.
It may seem strange to the factory worker that men
shoiild meekly obey these injunctions from their employers,
but a factory worker does not understand the isolated posi-^
tion, and what has been termed the " human relationship "
existing between the farmer and his men. The farmer has
unlimited opportunities for sapping the independence and
undermining the courage of the labourer. He may follow
the ploughman across the field nagging at him ; he may
stand about the stable whilst the carter is feeding the horses
and cajole him. He may sit on the stool or corn-bin in the
cowshed and expostulate with the cowman as he nulks the
cows, until the farm worker either throws up his job or
turns down his card.
One or two humorous instances have been related to
me by trade union organisers. Oxfordshire — that is
to say, the Oxfordshire of low-lying fields in contradistinc-
tion to hilly country — ^has bred a timid race of men. Into
this part of the country went two organisers to hold a meet-
ing. As they were unable to obtain a room they held the
meeting on a piece of roadside waste. They spoke to an
entirely empty road and a deserted wayside green, but they
were conscious that at the back of them stood a blacksmith's
shop fuU of men secretly hstening. Thus the trade union
orators had the strange experience of addressing an empty
space in front of them, whilst behind them was an audience
craning necks out of windows to catch the words of the
speakers.
As darkness fell the men crept out of their dug-out in
the rear, and many had the courage to join the Union.
In another part of the county they addressed a meeting
in front of a barn, whilst their listeners for the most part
stood behind the barn so that they should not be visible to
vigilant farmers passing along the road !
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 261
It is strange to learn that before the men on a certain
great duke's estate decided to join a union they asked for
his sanction. The duke graciously conceded this their
right as EngUshmen — even though only labourers — to
protect themselves.
But the most amusing incident of aU happened to a trade
union organiser in Wiltshire. His rostrum was a roadside
bank, and his audience Uned up in extended order behind
the hedge to listen. Presently a well-known figure rode
proudly by. Every labourer's head immediately disap-
peared below that hedge as though a German machine-gun
were enfilading the road, whilst the rider rode on staring
hard into the face of the astonished and silent orator, erect
and bare-headed on the bank.
It was during the earlier years of the war when the
grea;test hostility was shown to organisers. In Nottingham,
yo\mg farmers, who should have been displaying their pug-
nacity at the Front, found a safer place for displaying it
at open-air meetings held in English villages. Here the
organiser was met with threats of violence and filthy lan-
guage.^ So bitter was the opposition in one village that
both the Vicar and his wife came to the meeting to appeal
to the farmers " to preserve the fair name of the community
and the rights of British citizenship." On the following
Sunday the Vicar reproached those who had acted so un-
fairly, declaring that " while he did not hold with all that
had been spoken at the meeting, a case had in his opinion
been made out for a vast improvement in the lot of the
agricultural labourer."
Another incident occurred in one of Mr. Mackley's meet-
ings at Bingham market place, where the Rector displayed
a spirit worthy of Bishop Ellicott of Arch's days. He
suggested in his Parish Magazine that if the Union speakers
dared to come to the parish again they should have " free
baptism in the rectory pond."^ This was the kind of chal-
lenge dear to the heart of Mr. Mackley, and it lured him to
the spot again like a magnet ; but he found every public
1 The Labourer, 1915. « Ibid., January, 1916.
262 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
hall closed against him, and that the tenant of the market
place had orders not to allow any more meetings there.
He immediately axmounced through the local Press that
he would hold a meeting and take the consequences, when to
the credit of one reUgious body he was offered the free use
of a schoolroom, and there the meeting was held with
successful results.
I should like to say a word here as to the attitude of the
clergy. The hostiUty shown, as instanced above, has, I
think, been rare in recent years. Many clergymen to-day
not only are showing their sympathy in an unobtrusive
manner, but several, who are personal friends of mine,
are exceedingly active branch secretaries of unions ; and
where they do take the lead the branches thrive with
amazing rapidity.
The majority of the meetings, however, have been held
not in schoolrooms or institutes, but in public-houses.
I have attended a number of these meetings and have been
struck with the pertinacity of the organiser, who, if he
could not make the slow-moving peasants shift from the tap-
room to a room adjoining, would address the men as they
sat, or stood, drinking their beer in the tap-room through a
fog of tobacco smoke. PubUcans have become new and use-
ful aUies of Labour. It is in the interest of a pubhcan to
get a branch estabhshed in his public-house, but this does
not altogether account for the sjonpathy shown by them
to organised labour. I found that the new race of pub-
licans who cropped up during the war have been recruited
from old trade unionists, who have worked as carpenters,
or railway workers, or bricklayers.
Trade union organisers visited places other than public-
houses. They entered the private domains of Royalty !
Before the war they had invaded Sandringham, and
now in 1917 they boldly entered the gates of Windsor
Castle and drew up an agreement signed by a Court func-
tionary which gave the men working in the Royal park
and farm an increase of los. a week. Here, every
man excepting two old men, joined the Workers'
Union,
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 263
It has been a complaint of farmers * that the men's
unions have selected for their organisers railway men,
miners, and other industrial workers, which makes it
difficult for farmers to negotiate with them. They forget
when they urge this in defence of their past aloofness to
trade union organisers, that they themselves selected a
schoolmaster who had been called to the Bar to act as the
chief organiser of their own powerful tinion ; an organiser
who has proved himself to be exceedingly capable.
The farmers' criticism, if well founded, is one which reacts
upon themselves. The unfortunate experiences of the men
at St. Faith's, Lilford, Potter Heigham, and other places
prove that a farm worker required a singular amount of
moral courage to undertake the duties of branch secretary,
and it was natural to appoint as organiser the most capable
of the branch or district secretaries.
Fearing dismissal, or eviction, in many a country district
served by a railway, farm workers frequently sought the help
of a signalman, or a porter, who had some acquaintance with
trade unionism and was usually a better penman than those
who had 1been bred at the plough tail. Often, railway men
who act as branch secretaries have themselves worked as
youths on the land, leaving it for the higher wages and the
greater freedom of service on the railways. Many of these
men lodge in farm labourers' cottages and are as intimate
with the life as the farm worker himself.
The agricultural labourer owes a great debt to the rail-
way worker for the voluntary part the latter has played
in helping to lift his fellow-worker from the mire of low
wages and long hours. Indeed, it was considered before all
the counties became organised, whichever agricultural imion
obtained the help of the railway workers first, that union
was the most successful in estabUshing branches.
Of the leading workers' representatives on the Agricultural
Wages Board, Mr. George Edwards is the most honoured.
No one can say that he has no knowledge of farm life, or
* I have heard this complaint made by farmers at a small conference
held in Lord Ernie's room at the Board of Agriculture and at the Royal
Commission on Agriculture.
264 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
of the conditions under which his class lives. As a child
he had known the gloomy interior of a workhouse, for his
father, after fighting for his country, was imprisoned for
taking turnips from a field in order to feed his family.
George had never been to school in his life, being at work at
the age of six, for there were seven children besides his
father and mother to be kept on a wage of 8s. a week. His
wife, who was his devoted companion, taught him to read,
and helped him to memorise the first chapter of St. John
and three hymns for the first service he conducted at the
age of twenty-two as a Primitive Methodist local preacher !
Mr. John Beard, who shares with Mr. George Dallas the
honour of being one of two representatives of the Workers'
Union on the Wages Board, started his career in life as a
farm labourer. Mr. Dallas, the chief agricultural organ-
iser for the Workers' Union, Mr. W. R. Smith, M.P.,.the
president of the N.A.L.U., and Mr. R. B. Walker, its secre-
tary, have not, it is true, earned their living as farm workers ;
but, judging by the resolutions passed by county execu-
tives of the Farmers' Unions, these three gentlemen have
been more than capable of holding their own on practical
questions over which controversies have raged at the
Agricultural Wages Board. It should be remembered that
Taylor, Arch's capable secretary, was a carpenter by trade ;
and fanners have now learnt that settlements can be arrived
at more quickly by dealing with men who by training can
seize upon the essential points in negotiations, and do not
fritter away time in side issues which a purely " practical "
man so often does.
However, it is the organiser who goes out into remote
places bringing men into the unions from the highways and
byways, with whom we are chiefly concerned. To obtain
their experiences I addressed a questionaire to all the rural
organisers of the two unions late in the summer of 19191
and I have rhade a selection from some of the more interest-
ing letters I have received. .
" It is a great pleasure to me to know," writes Mr. H. J.
Vaisey, who is organiser for the Workers' Union in Wilt-
shire, " that' you are writing a History of the Agricultural
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 263
Labourer, or rather. Agricultural Mechanic. This matter is
of life interest to me, as all my relations are working upon the
land. If you go into Gloucestershire round Tetbury way and
ask for Vaisey, they will ask you if it is Vaisey the carter that
you want. All Vaiseys are carters except me, and I kicked
over the traces. But nevertheless, I was being brought up to
be a carter. My father can neither read nor write, but can plough
with the next man in the county. He has been ploughing at
ploughing matches since the time when he was not strong
enough to turn the plough at the ends ; when grandfather
helped him at one end and uncle at the other in the matches.
He won prizes in the boys' class, in the undercarters' class,
as a carter, and then had to plough in the open championship
class. He ploughed and won in the double furrow class until
no one would compete against him, and was barred even from
the championship class at one of the places where the plough-
ing matches were held.
" I was brought up to plough like father, and even got as far
as to fancy my chance. When my legs were long enough to go
across the horses' backs, I was put upon them. Many a time as
a schoolboy I have got up early in the morning to fetch the
horses in from the field for father, and have caught one of them
and mounted upon his back without a halter, whip in hand driv-
ing the other horses in front of me. Saturdays and Sundays I
have put in at crow scaring for a few coppers. At eleven years
of age I started work in earnest with the horses. Horses are
lovable animals, but their big feet used to be pretty hard when
they stepped upon mine, as they sometimes did as I well remem-
ber. I remember once that I fell down over the rough land
when leading four horses, and they all stepped over me with
such care, that I came out at the other end little the worse had
it not been for the drags that were following on behind. I
was holding the plough with a pair of horses for the large wage of
3s. 6d. per week, when more often than not the plough turned me
at the ends instead of me turning the plough, in the winter time,
when the ends were all mud or rough land. I have been dragged
round many a time under the handles of the plough, and then
heard the carter shout that he would come and put his hand up
against my ear, all for 3s. 6d. a week. I was riding mowing
machines when my legs were not long enough to reach the
footrests, and I was sitting up on the seat like a crow upon his
perch, with about as much control over the horses, seeing that I
had to slip down off the seat to get a grip with my legs before I
could pull on the reins. This is how farmers treat boys at
work. Do you remember reading the county papers ' Wanted
a man, with boys preferred ' ? They did not want the man at
all ! they wanted the boys to do men's work for boys' wages.
266 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" At a very early age I began to feel that things were not
very satisfactory, and had a desire to join the Navy. When I
was eighteen years of age I had a feeling that I would get into
a town, and on my nineteenth birthday I set out for Swindon
to look for work, with i8s. in my pocket and all my belongings
tied up in a red handkerchief. Boys in a town don't know what
an effort has got to be made to get away from the serfdom of the
land. I trudged away like Dick Whittington to become a Coun-
cillor of Swindon, instead of Lord Mayor of London. I was out
of work for four weeks and worked in the townsmen's gardens
for odd shillings to keep up the i8s. I started. with. At last I
got a job in the Railway Works. The laugh that went round
the others when they saw me with my brown corduroys on
covered with plough dirt, and when I took my coat off and they
saw the way my shirts were made, then they tumbled at the
truth, that I came from some outlandish place where ignorance
was bliss.
" The lot of the agricultural labourer was going down the
hill previous to the war. Piecework and privileges were drop-
ping off fast, and prices had a tendency to rise. I remember
the time when home-bred meat could be bought for 8d. per lb.
and I have bought 24 eggs for is. We used to go to Cirencester
Mop with a few pounds in our pockets which we earned in the
summer time at piecework. But the self-binder came in to
tie up the corn, and the farmers left the corn to hoe itself rather
than pay for its being done. Wages may have stopped still,
or even rose is., but the allowances and privileges went, and
the piecework gradually dwindled to none at all, and prices went
up, while the farm workers grumbled.
"I cannot say that farm workers generally are more difficult to
organise than other men, providing all things were equal, which
they are not. In the first place town workers live and work in
hundreds and thousands, and it is very easy to put their heads
together on any matter if they desire to. If farm workers have
a meeting at night, then the farmer comes round to overawe
them individually in the morning while at work. If that hap-
pened in a factory, it would have to happen before the eyes of
all the other workers, who would want to know what was on.
The farm workers Uve in tied cottages, of which town workers
generally know nothing of the drawbacks. Men in the villages
have all the maiihood knocked out of them long before they are
grown men, for the reasons I have stated before, and because
men cannot be produced on 14s. per week. Village influence,
and village schools, are inferior to town schools. Generally, if
the townsmen had the same difficulties to overcome they would
be in the same position as the villagers.
" I started as organiser for the W.U. early in 1914, and I
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 267
should say that the main factors then that helped us were that
the villagers thought that they had a backing by Lloyd George's
campaign, and they had a further backing by the offer to them of
a townsman's Union. The fact that we told the men that the
Union would back them at once if they joined us, gave them much
courage, and they mustered up their strength with such force
that I believe we were well on the road to success when the war
started. The war took the live blood from our new branches.
I had one branch, which, after I had been waiting for some time
for a reply for the secretary, I went over to see what had hap-
pened, and found that the secretary, president, and all the mem-
bers but five old men, had gone off one morning to join the army.
Times again, as fast as we got a secretary the army got him,
and after making every effort to officer a branch, it would dwin-
dle down to nothing. I have never had a rowdy meeting of farm
workers, except at Eynsham, Oxon., where a butcher and a
farmer's son tried to upset the meeting. If the Unions go down
in the village^ now, it will be the greatest calamity that could
happen to the villages."
" Regarding my own history," writes Mr. Tom Mackley,
organiser for the N.A.L.U. in Nottingham and Lincolnshire,
" one feels somewhat diffident about doing more than just out-
lining a few of the more pertinent incidents in a life that never
was three weeks from the workhouse door for nearly forty-five
years. Bom in the little hamlet of Garthorpe, near Melton
Mowbray, Leics., of hard-working parents, fifty-four years ago
on August 18, 1919, I have had some experience of the lot
of the land worker.
" My father married twice, and all his family (six) being from
his second wife, we were young when he was grey. I was the
second son and second in family. My father having got his feet
frozen cutting hedges in winter of 1873, and gangrene intervening,
he was taken to Leicester infirmary, leaving my mother with
six children, and only one working and being paid 3s. 6d. weekly.
I was taken from school at nine years of age and got 3s. a week
as a bird-tender, 6s. 6d. all told to keep mother and six chil-
dren, not to mention the expense of my father at JLeicester.
My father worked on the same farm for 55I years without any
break whatever, and won the long service prize given by the
Leicester Agricultural Society for Long Service the year he had
to cease work. His employer got the prize-money and was
going to dole it out in usual fashion until my mother threw it
back at the person who brought it.
" At just turned ten years I was packed off to Farm Service,
i.e. Slavery, and did some five years at various places. At
the last place I had to clean thirteen pairs of boots, milk seven
268 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
cows and look after two ponies and then be ready to start working
with labourers. However I had to go home to hold it and pro-
tect my parents when sixteen years of age, and got the magnifi-
cent offer of gs. od. per week and keep myself. When nineteen
my father passed away, and I had to look after a widowed mother
and young sister on a man's full wage of i2s. per week, pay rent
to an idle landlord, bow to the parson and go to church each
Sunday and sing in the choir that famous Doxology, ' Praise
God from whom all blessings flow,' a mockery to me all the time,
and only my love for my mother made me bear it.
" However events were shaping my future. The old employer
retired from active management of the farm, got a bailiff to do
it and, like many workers when put in authority proved to be
a greater tyrant than his real employer. For my daring to
exchange with an old man and do his heavy job whilst he did
my light one I got into trouble, and on hearing the bailiff tell this
old man that it was time he was either dead or in the work-
house, I lost my temper and knocked him down, and for that I
got instantly dismissed from my work, followed by having to
leave my native place and take my mother and sister to new
fields of labour. I vowed then, and I have kept it, I would never
again work for a farmer until I had made the lot of the
agricultural labourer much better.
" From being an agricultural labourer, I became a gentleman's
coachman, and whilst I had a thorough gentleman for a master,
the old spirit of revolt against being a slave to others' bidding
possessed me, and when he left the district I parted company
with him. In the meantime I managed to scrape a home to-
gether and get married and went into a mechanic's shop as a
labourer.
" I was for ten years the only member of the ' Gasworkers'
Union,' now the National Union of General Workers, in that shop
or town, and I paid the penalty once more by being dismissed
for refusing to leave my Trade Union. When offered the choice
between leaving trade unionism or my work I had to consider
I had four children under ten years of age, so I consulted my wife-
and she decided. Her decision was I was to maintain my Union
card no matter the cost, and it proved a very heavy cost, too,
for it meant I walked the streets for 15 long weary months out
of work, and never once during that trying period did the part-
ner of my joys and sorrows ever complain. Only those who
have been through such an experience can really grasp what
that meant.
" Eventually I secured work as a drayman on a canal company,
and even there the fangs of capitalism tried to bite me, but once
I found a man and a brother who absolutely refused the many
appeals to sack me because I was a Trade Union and Labour
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 269
Agitator. For some nine years I did my duty to that company,
joined the United Carters' Trade Union and became a member of
its Executive Committee and did much spade work in the Trade
Union movement on the new order.
" In 1908 I was selected as I.L.P. Organiser for Woolwich,
and for two years did some good work there for Political Labour
and SociaUsm. Taking advantage of the Tutorial Class then
being formed, I tried to make amends for early years in edu-
cation. I attended them regularly and have much to thank a
good friend. Rev. C. H. Grinling, for during that time.
" My stay in Woolwich terminated in Dec. 1912, when I re-
moved to Nottingham where for some short time I was Secretary
of the local I.L.P. Eventually I was asked, through Mrs. Bruce
Glasier, to consider taking a post of organiser in the National
Agricultural Labourers' and Rural Workers' Union, which
eventually I accepted. One word about the rural workers'
child I must mention. I have five children. The two eldest
never had any chance beyond an Elementary school education.
The other three have passed or are passing through the Secondary
Schools, two now hold good positions as a result and the third
promises to eclipse them later on. The point I wish to empha-
sise is, GIVE THE CHILD OF THE RURAL WORKER AN EVEN CHANCE
WITH THE REST OF THE CHILDREN OF THE COUNTRY AND THEY
WILL MAKE GOOD IN AS MANY INSTANCES AS ANY OTHER CLASS.
" My work amongst the Land Workers during the past
few years is an open book. In the early days I covered or vis-
ited no less than 17 counties in England and Wales. Eventually
I was put down in Lines, and Notts. At that time just one
branch with forty-three members existed in Lines, and none
whatever in Notts. To-day we have in the former coimty
about 228 real strong live branches of the Union with about
22,000 members, making it the premier county for numbers in
the country. We have also done well in the latter county and
still growing every week.
" Our success I hold is due to several causes, but mainly to
two things outside of the militant propaganda carried oftHby our
numerous officers of the Union, helped by many enthusiasts
both inside and outside our own membership ranks. The two
causes are, — (i) Education. (2) Economic Forces. The first
is far from complete, but, whereas I hold that one great cause of
our predecessor Joseph Arch's failure was the fact that at least
90 per cent, of the rural workers could neither read nor write,
to-day there are very few comparatively but can read a printed
document, even if they do not always grasp the meaning of what
they read. Give the coming generation in rural England better
means of education, and they will once again lead the world in
progress towards the Light. The other cause is the. fact that
270 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER
Mrs. Hodge has found out her husband's money will not pur-
chase as much as in the past, and she has grumbled at her hus-
band about it until both have often got to words and finally
he hears of a Trade Union meeting somewhere ; he goes to get out
of her company, he listens, and the dawn of a new world opens
before his vision, he joins and becomes an enthusiast, gets more
and so the cause has spread, is spreading, so fast that, given the
same rate of progress for another five years we shall come near
the top of the Trade Union tree, and what applies industrially
applies also politically. Every member of our Union is a poten-
tial Labour Voter given the chance at any and every election
from the Parish Council to the British Parliament."
Mr. S. E. George, the N.A.L.U. organiser for Leicester,
vmtes : —
" The N.A.L.U. seems to have been re-bom at Fenny-Drayton
in 1915 and at Empingham later, but no great strides were made
until 1918-19, when the membership rose from 500 to 3,000.
The Union not only brings men together, but is the means of
making them discuss the cost of living, the economics of farming,
etc. The men are certainly more independent ; more like men
and less like sheep. The trouble lies in getting suitable rooms
in which to hold meetings. We are barred from church and
chapel schoolrooms ; I don't know why, for I am sure we should
be more use there practising temperance than they are preach-
ing it to teetotallers. The parson generally asks me if I have
tried to get a room at the pub.
" At one place — Medboume, near Market Harboro' — ^we had
the use of a Church Army hut. It was purchased by a kindly-
natured woman when she discovered we had been debarred
from the church schoolroom. Three classes are now running
for farm labourers : two dancing classes, a reading circle, and
a book club, and we are going to make an outdoor skittle alley
in the summer.
" I once rode with a farmer towards Melton in the train, and
although a member of his own union, he absolutely denied his
men the right to join their union. He said ' I am done with
them directly they join the imion. I keep them no longer.'
" He quite forgets," caustically adds Mr. George, " it is not
he who has kept the men but the men who have kept him and
allowed him to put a pile away."
In the outlying districts he finds that the men are still
given a week's notice to qtiit their cottage if they join the
union, and that it is difficult to convince some of the men
WHAT OP THE HARVEST? 271
in these rural areas that the ininimum wage is compulsory,
though round the coal-pits and ironstone works and quar-
ries many of the farm workers were receiving 50s. for the
forty-eight hours week. He thinks it is quite remarkable
that in a grazing county so many men have joined the union.
He has about eighty branches to look after, each branch,
averaging about thirty-eight members.
" The tied cottage is an abuse," he adds, " which will have to
be fought by getting workers on the R.D.C. and the C.C., and
a plentiful supply of cottages at a nominal rent."
Mr. T. Roberts, the organiser for the-N.A.L.U. for Cum-
berland, Westmoreland, and Fumess, has a more difficult
task to perform to organise farm labourers in rural areas
where trade unionism has never taken root, and where
men are not only habitually boarded, but also have to sleep
with their masters. In these counties, too, the annual or
six-monthly hirings have assured farm labourers of a regular
wage, wet or fine.
He held his first meeting on August 24, 1918, and opened
a branch of nine men at Dalton-in-Fumess. He himself
acted as secretary pro tern. The second meeting was held
on a Sunday morning, September i,
" in Mr. Dunn's cowshed, at Rocs, near Barrow-in-Furness,
where a branch of twenty-four stalwarts was opened. During
the meeting the farmer's wife came into the cowshed to feed the
calves and enquired as to ' whether the meeting was for the
benefit of the farmers, or what ? ' "
The next meeting was also held on a Sunday morning,
on the seashore, and though the farm labourers had to rush
off to rescue twenty sheep which were sinking into the
quicksands ; and despite many of the men being wet
through, they stayed to the meeting and opened a branch of
eighteen.
As the Union is opposed to hiring, the organiser has a
difficult task to get men to join, for it means a definite break
with the farmers who insist upon the continuance of the
hiring system. Though the northern farmer, as a rule,
feeds his hind or farm-servant fairly well he is sometimes
272 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
a hard taskmaster, and exercises an old-world patriarchal
tyranny over the lads, and even the married men, when they
are weak in the powers of resistance, Mr. Roberts tells
us of one or two instances of this.
"A young lad arrived at the house of our branch secretary
in a certain village early one morning seeking advice, for his
employer having heard he had joined our organisation threat-
ened to take two meals a day from him and work him out in
all weathers."
He knows " of a man with a wife about to be confined
being engaged on low wages and damnable conditions be-
cause he knew the man could not move on," and of a West-
moreland farmer, who said to his men, when the milk was
raised in price : " The kids will have to get some oot of
their mothers' chests."
At one meeting the lads left in order to be in at 9 p.m.,
one youth leaving early to sleep in the cowshed, the door
being barred at 9.15 in the month of June.
He, like other organisers, found difficulty in obtaining
rooms for meetings. At Kirkby Lonsdale his meeting
was broken up by farmers. At Kirkhampton the meeting
being again broken up by the farmers, " a comrade Steel of
the N.U.R." challenged any man to come on to the King's
highway. No one accepted the challenge, although the
whole village resolved to kick out the agitators. It is very
rare to find an instance like this where agricultural labourers
and farmers combine together to hound out an organiser.
In many of these small farms, it must be remembered
that the entire work is accomplished by the farmer's family.
Mr. Roberts tells us he has worked on farms in this district
on an average thirteen hours a day with four hours on
Sundays. " The last hay-time I put in was during a fine
smnmer when we worked from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three
weeks except Sundays, receiving no overtime pay, only my
weekly wage of ids. 6d. and food."
He admits that both wages and food are now better
than they used to be, and that there are certain advantages
in the hiring system, such as drawing wages during sick-
ness and having clothes mended and washed.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 273
The terrible long customary hours have been considerably
curtailed since the Agricultural Wages Board came into
existence, Prior to 1918 he contends it was customary
to work in summer, thirteen to fifteen hours per day, and in
winter Sunday's work would average seven hours.
The Workers' Union started organising Yorkshire in
1911. Their East Riding District organiser, Mr. J. A.
Aldous, worked as a farm labourer all his life until 1918,
when he was appointed organiser.
" I was brought up in South Suffolk," he writes, " where I
worked untU seventeen years of age. The workers in Suffolk
at that time were receiving 12s. per week, and I, being small,
was receiving 6s. and my parents had to keep me on that amount.
In Yorkshire wages were then 15s. ; and hired lads fourteen
to seventeen years of age received £5 to £15. The hours of work
were very long. In spring hired lads used to work from 4 a.m.
to 8 p.m. When the W.U. began to organise in Yorkshire in
igii we managed to get leaving time on a Saturday from 5 to
6 p.m. A number of estates gave the half-day, but the farmers
greatly objected. Wages rose very slowly from 1914 until the
minimum wage of 25s. was established in August, 1917.
"The instant the weekly men received 25s. instead of 15s.,
hired lads who received £20 got £40 , and casual men for thresh-
iag received 8s. per day instead of 4s.
" What the workers require most now is recreation and edu-
cation. I should like to see night schools established, because in
four years at a night school I learnt more than I ever did at a
day school. Many a man never reads a newspaper, to say no-
thing of books, and is easily led astray, especially in politics.
We have still to educate them that they should elect men from
their own class to represent them.
" The tied house remains the curse. We have power now to
get some land, but those who live in tied cottages dare not apply,
never knowing when the employer is going to get out of bed the
wrong side.
" One C.C. landowner said the other week that he did not
believe in allotments, because if a man had done his duty he
would not require any work after tea — as much as to say, if he
wasn't tired he ought to be.
" Small holdings in Yorkshire have not been as successful
as one would wish, owing to land being often unsuitable, too
heavily rented, too scattered, and most of all, because the small
holder tries to farm on the same lines as the farmer.
VOL. II. T
274 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" In Yorkshire farmers attend all markets and sales, even if
there is one every day. A good number have their motor cars,
whilst many are buying their farms. The yearly and half-
yearly hiring is still in operation, though a good number were
engaged by the week last Martinmas."
Mr. Aldous was himself victimised for his activities on
behalf of his fellow workers, and modestly refers to his lack
of education, thus : —
" I am still at school, though over thirty years of age. I
have not the education to write as I should hke, having been
a farm worker until 1918, and much time that ought to have
been spent in reading was not allowed to us when we used to
work on the land."
The concluding paragraph of his letter is significant,
illustrating the demand by the agricultural labourer for a
fuller intellectual life : —
" One thing that I have not mentioned is that a number of
branches have sent to the Fabian Society for the box of books
which should prove helpful."
The taunt that the organisers of farm workers are towns-
men unaccustomed to farming becomes an iU-placed gibe,
when we find an organiser jumping off his bicycle to doctor
a cow belonging to a distressed fanner, as an incident in
the following letter illustrates : —
Mr. W. B. Whittle is the district organiser in Lancashire
for the N.A.L.U. " The Union," he writes, " came into being
in the Ormskirk district in 191 1. In 1913 the memorable Lan-
cashire strike took place. The outbreak of war suspended trade
union activities. In 1915 a new start was made and right
through up to the present the growth is wonderful.
"In S. and S.W. Lancashire the minimum wage has been
left behind, and at present the majority of practical farm hands
are ranging from 48s. to 50s. a week, whilst in the case of first
or leading hands 55s. is given. In other parts of Lancashire
(notably east) wages are not so good, and as the larger parts
are in the dairy interest, workable conditions are more difi&cult
to arrange. Men are not so independent as in the S. and S.W.
and naturally do not strike one as being of the same calibre
regarding trade unionism generally.
" Regarding R.D.C. contests, one stands out very promin-
ently where only last week (September) a branch secretary
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 275
(Tarbock) contested the position with a noted gentleman of
means. The voting was equal. A recount occurred. Again
the votes were equal. To settle the question it was decided to
spin a coin, which, unfortunately (from our standpoint) came
to the ground in favour of the opposite side.
" Men of to-day are certainly better off, in spite of much that
is said to the contrary, than in pre-war days. Logically this
is the outcome of the organisation to which they belong. Many
a man to-day is in receipt of 48s. and 50s. a week who was only
in receipt of 22s. 6d. and 23s. and £1 a week when war was de-
clared. I have known agricultural labourers spend £2 in a trip
in a Sopwith this summer at Southport."
Even the heavy-footed have an ambition to fly !
" Manliness is asserting itself. Men on the land are realis-
ing their importance ; but unfortunately tyranny still exists.
There was a case of a member threatened for being in a union
in the Burnley district. Waylaid by farmers (father and son)
he was kicked mercilessly and left to die. The wife started in
search and found her husband torn and bleeding in a lonely
road (Worsthome). She summoned medical and police aid.
The doctor pronounced the case serious. A solicitor was en-
gaged, and the case would have been tried at Burnley. It was
settled before going into court for the miserable sum of £8.
" The farm-tied cottage is the modem curse of agriculture.
Men loathe the system ; masters, cling to it.
" North and East Lanes, are notoriously bad in this respect
and there will never be any improvement substantially until
the system is totally abolished. Bad sanitation ; impure water ;
dampness ; defective roofs ; are amongst the main grievances.
The Fylde area is particularly bad. At Westby Mills (where I
have slept myself) these facts are glaring. In the Reedley
Hallows, Pendle Bridge and Cliviger districts of East Lanes,
the same conditions exist and there is almost a feeling of des-
pair amongst the dwellers. The Bolton-Bury district is similar;
and as the farmer is both landlord and architect, as well as a
shielded person, there is very little chance of successful appeal.
" The boon of shorter hours is a great one to the agricultural
labourer. All that is needed to perfect any working arrange-
ment is an improved organisation of the conditions. To-day
hours are wasted in the conveyance of food to cattle, also lack
of better arrangement for preparing same. There is a consider-
able mileage covered by the ordinary cattleman in connection
with watering and feeding.
" In my work as an organiser my experience with farming
since childhood has been invaluable. Sometimes I have posed
276 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
as a salesman for cattle drinks in order to introduce the sub-
ject for conversation. At other times I have walked leisurely
along and gone into the hayfield or cornfield and assisted to load,
stack or stook com, in order to get into touch with the
workmen, and introduce myself.
" On one occasion on passing a farmhouse, die old farmer,
who was alone at the gate, was in great distress. Jumping from
ray cycle, I was informed that his three men had gone with pro-
duce to the market town and during their absence a valuable cow
was taken ill. I went along to the shippon, examined the cow,
procured the old-fashioned horn, and donning the mistress's
apron administered a drink.
" ' Whoa are yo ? " exclaimed the farmer.
" ' I am a Labour organiser,' was my reply.
" ' Is it yo that puts men into the Union ? '
" ' I'm him.'
" ' Well, put my three in, and I'll pay for them .'
" One of these men is a branch secretary to-day !
" One day when visiting an employer in connection with a
wages dispute, the gun was taken down, but no threat was
uttered. It was a rough argument, but a challenge to a sparrow
shoot which followed settled the matter.
" Disputes are much more easily settled at a conference than
individually, as numbers produce thought. The individual
farmer is stUl behind the times in many ways and needs great
education. The lot of the organiser is hard and entails a great
deal of sacrifice. I have done all kinds of things to settle dis-
putes ; sometimes drawn " shorts " and sometimes spim a
coin. My latest experience is one of being boycotted in a remote
district where I could not get lodgings anywhere. One could
hardly fancy such a state of things as this in these days, though
one of the world's greatest Reformers had not where to lay
His head."
Mr. W. T. Fielding, the organiser of the N.A.L.U. in
Salop, left farm work to become a railway servant, and then
returned to help those who followed the plough as an organ-
iser. He tells me that at a meeting at Craven Arms, two
veterans came forward to testify that they had been
members of Joseph Arch's old Union in 1872.
"Shropshire" he says, "has had small branches in the
county for about eleven years, but it was not until the last
two or three years that the spirit of combination began to
take hold of the workers." Writing in September, 1919,
Mr. Fielding says " 76 branches have been started with 4,000
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 277
\
members. Before the war there were not 500 members."
He considers that the greatest stride that the farmworkers
have made has been in the shortening of the hours of
labour and in the fixing of overtime rates. He finds
" The farm worker is not the docile creature he was twenty
years ago. More intelligent, he has now more initiative,
greater capacity, and desires a higher standard of comfort — ■
— ^better houses, more furniture, musical instruments, a good
class of literature . . . how many embryo Miltons and Shake-
speares have human society pounded back to the earth again :
their latent genius and talent buried without opportunities of
development !
" With regard to my own experiences as an organiser I think
every organiser will agree with me that our life is not exactly
on a bed of roses. We are moving about every day from village
to village in all kinds of weather. With strange lodgings almost
every night, and correspondence following us about which has
to be dealt with under great difficulties — very often not able to
secure a diet to keep one fit and well.
" We are regarded by the farmers mostly as firebrands who
are bent on stirring up discontent where previously nothing but
content existed. Even by the most business-like farmers
we are regarded as a beastly nuisance and one that has to be
tolerated."
Mr. S. Box, the Workers' Union organiser in Hereford-
shire is one of a family of ten, and was left an orphan at
eight. He has been at work since he was nine, his school-
ing consisting of three years at a natiopal school. He has
been a farm labourer all his life, and before me lies a pam-
phlet containing verses written by him descriptive of the
life of the labourer.
He says that wages remained practically stationary in
Herefordshire from 1872 to 1912, when he, Mr. W. Palmer
and two others began to start a union of labourers for the
county. The Workers' Union came to their assistance,
resulting in Mr. Box being appointed organiser.
" The work was highly successful," he adds, " but met with
intense opposition from the farmers of the coimty. The farmers
circulated a canard that Joseph Arch had collected enough money
to purchase a mansion and live in retirement and had become
Sir Joseph Arch. Even many labourers believed this and speak
of him as Sir Joseph.
278 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" During 1912-14 fifty branches were opened and upwards
of 2,000 members were enrolled. Conferences were held, rates
of wages tabulated, and presented to the local Farmers' Union,
but were rejected. Still, wherever branches existed, wages rose
at the rate of 2s. to 6s. per week. Where no branch existed,
wages remained stationary.
" A strike was raging when the Great War broke out. The
result was disastrous to many branches, the members enhsting
en bloc. The strike was closed, propaganda ceased, and I took
up work again in another sphere. I was reappointed in April,
1919, and now have upwards of 5,000 members and the member-
ship is rapidly increasing.
" The remarkable fact was that few farmers in Herefordshire
were paying 25s. a week when it became law, thus showing the
fallacy tiiat wages were paid according to the prosperity of the
industry. Very few farmers pay above the minimum, and the
scarcity of cottages combined with the tied-cottage system —
the curse of the agricultural labourer's life — ^make further
advances difficult.
" So cruel has been the tied-cottage system that it will be well
to cite a few cases. In 1914, when the men of N. Herefordshire
were standing out for i6s. to i8s. a week of sixty hours, they
received lawyers' letters from their employers ordering them to
quit their cottages. I have many of the original notices in my
possession. In S. Herefordshire a workman who had been a
wagoner for thirty years to the same farmer, was sacked for a
younger man and ordered to leave his home in less than two hours.
He became insane, and an inmate of the asylum for months.
Another case in S. Herefordshire which occurred during the war
was that of a labourer who had worked on the same farm for
forty years receiving notice to quit. His three sons had volun-
tarily enlisted. Two of these were killed and the third returned
home to see his dear old dad die a week after. In less than a
week after the burial the farmer, a very wealthy man, ordered
the poor old widow to quit her home to make room for a young
man. The returned soldier, to save his old mother's home,
offered his services to the farmer, which were accepted, but he
sacrificed a higher position elsewhere to prevent his mother
being turned out.
" But the Union has now taught the labourer to respect him-
self, and given him confidence, creating a more manly and inde-
pendent spirit which wiU act for the good of the community."
Mr. H6v?ard, the Workers' Union organiser in the Basing-
stoke district of Hampshire, writes to say that in some parts
of his district 90 per cent, of the men are organised and that
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 279
the labourers have about forty representatives in Parish
and Rural District Councils, though the district is unde-
fined. He finds that on large farms the men are " more inde-
pendent and more prepared to insist on their rights than
on small farms."
" I have recently," he adds, " been endeavouring to get all
cottages examined lay the District Wages Committee in view
of getting the rent of 3s. reduced where cottages are in a bad
state. I got more opposition from farmers on this than on any
other question, but we have been successful in getting rents
reduced in bad cases. The tied house is the thing that to-day
is preventing men from being independent, as they are afraid
of being turned out into the road.
" I know of a case near Alton where a man knowingly agreed
that his son should work at a lower rate than the minimum
because he was afraid of being turned out. This he admitted
only when he left his situation through a quarrel. He said
it was a common practice to do this where a man had one or
two sons, and that they do not complain, because of the housing
difficulty. Some farmers deduct from each employee living in
the same cottage the 3s. a week for rent. I have known 9s.
deducted in this way at one cottage. We got two cases settled
in favour of the men. Owing to years of oppression the rural
mind is less receptive than that of most workers."
Mr. G. C. Piggott, the Isle of Wight and Hants organiser
of the N.A.L.U., tells me of the curious way in which he
became an organiser : —
" With regard to the birth of our imion in the Isle of Wight
it was brought about in this way. My late employer had been
to London as the representative to the Central Chamber of
Agriculture and I had to meet him at the station on his return.
On his way home he kept on telling me what they were going to
do and what they were not going to do, and I said, ' What is
wanted is an Agricultural Labourers' Union in this district,
and I'm going to try and get one.' He said ' I agree with you,'
and I immediately set to work. I got two dock workers from
Cowes to speak, and we started our first branch at Newport
with forty-seven members. That was on January 12, 1918,
That branch is now 257 strong, and there are altogether fourteen
branches on the island with a total of over 1,000 members."
Farmers continually complain that the objection to a
trade union rate of wages is that you have to pay aU men
alike. This of course is not true, (except in so far as
28o ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
a minimum has to be paid), and Mr. Piggott gives an
amusing instance of how a man who had always been paid
5s. a week more than the other workmen on the farm
demanded the extra sum when the minimum wage was
fixed — and got it !
Before the war Mr. Piggott was working for a farmer
for £i a week with a cottage, and he worked for this wage
right up to 1915, when he had a wife and five children under
eight years of age to support. His work started at five
o'clock in the morning and ceased only at the pleasure of
the farmer, without a penny being paid for overtime.
" I have known the time when I have been cutting up man-
golds on Saturday night up till ten o'clock so that I should not
do this on Sunday. On one occasion we had a cow bad, and I
sat up with her nearly all night. When I asked for some pay-
ment for this, my employer replied, ' I lost the cow.' I was
told I could have separated mUk free, but he never failed to
remind me of this act of generosity afterwards."
Like all other organisers he condemns the tied- cottage
system. To illustrate the ceaseless drudgery of farm work
he writes :
" I have just had a farm labourer, one of my old mates, stay-
ing with me. He is 35 years of age, and this is the first holiday
he has had for ten years. Another one wrote me a few weeks
ago to say that he had drawn all his harvest pay and was now
going to spend it. This was the first holiday he had ever had,
and he was going to London. Fancy Hodge in London ! It
would be good material for your book."
I wonder what the effect would have been amongst the
Brotherhood of Thackeray's days who possessed fine
calves and wore yellow plushes if they knew that a footman
was destined to become one of the most successful organisers
of the agricultural labourers ? You could not shock a
footman to-day by such an announcement if one is to judge
the fraternity by a visit I paid during war-time to an
exceedingly exclusive club in St. James' Street. Here I
handed my card to a white-haired gentleman arrayed in
spotless Unen who might have been the family butler to
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 281
the distinguished Peer upon whom I was calling. My
astonishment was great when this very respectable elderly
waiter asked me in a voice audible to others if I knew if his
lordship paid good wages to farm workers. I answered that
I hoped so. Thereupon he burst out with : " It's about
time they did. My father was an agricultural labourer and
he had to bring nine of us up on los. a week." He said it
with such feeling that I felt that if I had put a Red Flag
into his hand he would have rushed out into the street
heralding the Social Revolution !
Mr. Jack Shingfield, the Workers' Union organiser of
the farm labourers in Suffolk, was at one time a footman.
His father was a farm labourer and a member of Joseph
Arch's Union. Jack left school at eleven years of age,
when he worked in the gardens attached to a castle. As
his calves developed it was but a short flight of steps into
the servants' hall ; and he took his calves in the wake of
a sporting gentleman on to the hunting fields, the grouse
moors and the deck of a yacht.
Bored with this parasitical kind of labour, and throwing
respectability to the winds, he became a London dairyman,
and soon agitated to improve conditions for his fellow work-
ers, forming what was then known as the National Union of
Dairy Employees. Despite his twelve hours a day for seven
days a week, he attended classes at the Polytechnic and
secured diplomas. At the beginning of the war he was
fired with the desire to organise the class from which he had
sprung, and he was appointed an eastern counties organiser
for the Workers' Union.
Under forty years of age, he is still young, and his energy
found a boundless field in Suffolk and in Essex, where
since his appointment as organiser in 1915 he has opened
200 new branches with a membership of nearly 30,000.
He organised one of the largest and most successful farm
labourers' demonstrations ever held in England. This was
at Bury St. Edmunds, when it was estimated that 20,000
men were present (June, 1919).
Mr. Shingfield believes in plain language when speaking
to labourers, and as an organiser, in giving simple directions
282 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
even as to the smallest details to men who are unaccustomed
to print.
" I have long ago discovered," he writes, " that you have got
to lead the farm worker ; tell him what he has to do and he will
do it to a man. But leave it to him to think it out for himself
and you won't get much response. Just tell him what you want,
and tell him plain and straight, and he will be with you. It's
his class-consciousness that you want to discover. It is there,
though it is difficult to find. I know, because I am one of them
and have felt the stifling, stunting atmosphere of the great
estate."
Though Mr. Shingfield is a member of the District Wages
Committee, he has found it necessary to institute a standing
joint council of the Farmers' Union and the Workers' Union,
which has done very useful work in settling disputes as to
the tenancy of cottages, victimisation, and the non-pasmient
of the minimmn wage. By avoiding sending reports to the
Agricultural Wages Board and the consequent visitation
of an inspector (which often results in the labourer being
dismissed) this Council, by frank discussion, has prevented
a good deal of friction between the farmers and the workers.
Of the new school of organisers similar to that of Mr.
Shingfield belongs Mr. Harry White, the Workers' Union
organiser for the county of Bedford. The two men are
quite dissimilar in character and temperament ; but both
are sons of farm labourers and being deprived of education at
an early age they sought knowledge where the poor man only
can gain it, that is in the towns. Mr. White's father worked
in the Bedfordshire village of Leagrave, seven days a week
for I2S. a week. Harry was the second of a family of eight.
He left school at ii| years of age, being driven to increase the
family earnings by 2s. 6d. a week as carter's boy.
At the first opportunity he abandoned this fife to bepome
an errand boy to a firm of straw hat manufacturers. At
seventeen he began to take a keen interest in social and
political problems, joined an adult school in the village and
became a convinced socialist. Two years later, at the age
of nineteen, he, with one or two others, gave his village a
profound shock by opening a branch of the I.L.P. He soon
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 283
came into touch with the Workers' Educational Associa-
tion, being one of the first members to join the Luton
tutorial class. He attended these classes for four years,
walking six miles after his factory work ended.
In 191 1 he moved to Luton, and there when Alderman
Morley opened a branch of the Workers' Union he joined
it, and in 1914 became branch secretary. In 1915 he was
appointed organiser in Bedfordshire and the surrounding
counties. Since he took this work in hand the membership
increased from 1,000 to 15,000 in the space of four years.
Like most organisers who belong to the " advanced "
movement he is a tactful negotiator, displaying this gift with
success when he handled the Chatteris strike, with which
I will deal later.
Writing to me of the social conditions at Ridgmount,
which is in the centre of the Duke of Bedford's estate, he
says : —
" It was in the autumn of 1917 when I tried to fix up a meeting
but could not get a room for some time. Then a friendly publi-
can offered the use of a room and we opened a small branch
with the publican as secretary. Since that time quite a trans-
formation has taken place. Our membership has grown to about
250 and the old influence has gone, as is proved by the fact
that at the last Parish Council all its successful candidates were
members of our Union ! "
There are other organisers as able and successful as these
I have mentioned, but their replies have not reached me in
time for publication. Yet there is one other letter from which
I should like to quote, and this comes not from an organiser,
but from a branch secretary still working as a farm labourer.
This poignant human document, consisting of thirty-one
pages of closely written clear handwriting, was sent to me by
the writer last autumn. It was the record of the Hfe of a
farm labourer in Sussex, and is written by the man himself.
Considering how loth men who handle the plough are to put
pen to paper, one can imagine the nights this man has
spent of his scanty leisure laboriously penning the salient
facts of his life. Unfortunately I have space only to
include extracts.
284 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" Bom in the year 1873," he writes, " my father was a carter
at Brede in the county of Sussex. Before my birth there were
in the family two boys and one girl. My father's wage was 15s.
per week with his cottage, then out of that his employer stopped
IS. per week for the firing, so that left 14s. to keep my father,
mother, and the three little ones, and then, of course, there arrived
myself to increase the family. Unfortunately, I lived to add to
their great burden. Then another girl was bom, which like
myself lived and had to be kept, on the same wage, and
after her two others, making a family of nine living upon
14s.
" When I was attending school a stroke of luck fell upon my
father. His employer wanted a carter's boy for 4s. a week,
so of course my brother started work with the horses, not be-
cause he had had sufficient schooling, but because his 4s. were
wanted to make ends meet in the home. He was out in the stable
in the moming by six to go either to Rye or Hastings, and as
there was no compulsory school attendance in those days I
often went with my father and brother for a ride in the wagon,
and I carmot tell you how I enjoyed those rides along the Udimore
Road on the starUght mornings in the winter !
" Whilst I was attending school in this kind of way my mother
fell ill, and the cottage where we lived, like many others, had no
water close to it — ^the nearest being about two furlongs from the
house — so again I kept away from school, for on the' day my
mother did the washing I used to be at home to fetch the water
with two small buckets.
" I loved my mother so much that I felt I must always be
with her, but how she managed to make ends meet God only
knows. Often at dinner I have seen the tears come in her eyes
when father asked her if she could not eat more dinner and her
answer was, ' I must think of those vAio go to work and the
children,' and often I am sure she has gone short of food through
thought of the children.
" Another stroke of luck though fell to the home, when my
eldest sister was old enough to go to service ; but the struggle
was no less as those at home still grew older and wanted more to
eat ; but the wage of my father never grew.
" My mother, though often ill, had to go to work in the field
and hop-garden to help support the home. When my father
had worked at that farm for nearly nine years my mother's
illness led to calling in the doctor, who told my father that if
he wished to save my mother's life he must get a better house.
So on Monday, February 25, 1884, my father heard of another
situation. It was a lovely, clear day, and as it was mother's
washing day I was at home fetching water and seeing to the
fire, and my father, as he sat at dinner, said he was going, as
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 285
soon as he got the horses in the stables, to Udimore to see about
another situation.
" The home was made clean and as comfortable as circum-
stances would allow, and my mother got herself dressed with
the intention of visiting a friend, but she complained of feeling
so tired and said she must rest awhile. So she made herseH
comfortable upon the sofa, and there, on that lovely bright after-
noon, on February 23, 1884, she passed away.
" My father got his situation, not realising the news that was
awaiting him on his return. His old employer to show his appre-
ciation of my father's nine years' service offered, free of charge,
one of his manure carts to carry all that remained of a loving
mother to the church.
" I may say that just before that time, there was in existence
a union known as the Kent and Sussex Laboinrers' Union, of
which my father and a few others in Brede were members ;
but not being far enough of years off the Peterloo slaughter it
had to be kept pretty secret, and whether it got to the know-
ledge of the employer or not one cannot say, but if it did, that
was no doubt the reason of him offering so respectable a convey-
ance to convey my mother to the church, though my father
worked very long hours, receiving no pay for overtime.
" We moved to Udimore, and I, though not twelve years of
age, was compelled to leave school to help to maintain the home
on a wage of 3s. a week, getting to the stable in the morning
at half-past six and not leaving till the evening. The ordinary
labourer's wage was then 12s. a week, losing time on wet days.
I worked for 3s. a week for two years and then made up my
mind to ask for more money, as I was over thirteen years of age.
But all that I was told by master was that he thought of lower-
ing wages. That was the cause of my father in 1887 leaving
Udimore to go to Westfield.
" At that time, about 1886, there was a talk of raising the
wages from 2s. to 2S. 3d. a day, and the farmers said that if the
wages did go up 3d. a day they would lay their land down to
grass. Some of the Sussex farmers openly said it was a pity
men were not like mangolds, that they could be buried in the
autumn and dug up again in the spring. Labour was plentiful
but work was scarce, and many children were then learning
what it was to go to bed hungry.
" At the age of fourteen I was getting 5s. per week, but as my
father, through getting older, and through being kicked while
harnessing a colt, was beginning to get very lame and unable
to follow his occupation as carter, we did not stay there long,
so in August of 1887 we left Westfield for Brede. Then it was
I began to realise more of the hardships of life. My father
unable to get work, and I only getting 5s. a week to buy bread
286 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
for father my three sisters and myself, often worked all day with
nothing but a piece of bread to eat not so large as the hand.
1 hat IS how our family existed in the winter of 1887-8
iiut m the spring of 1888 my father got work again at 3s.
a day when fine, and this continued to be the wage in E. Sussex,
between 1890 and 1900, though some were being paid as low as
los. a week.
'• One neighbour of ours through losing time on wet days
got only 7s. a week to keep- his wife and family on.
" I remember about this time during the harvest there were
some oats to be carried on another farm, and being fine the men
worked on till it got dark. Then it was necessary to have a
light m the bam, and at twenty minutes past ten one of the
lights was gettmg low. The boss came into the bam and see-
ing one lamp abnost out asked the poor old chap who was stack-
mg the oats if he didn't want a candle. The poor old fellow
replied that he wanted his tea more.
" When all the com was carried next week and the old chap
went for his 12s., his kind employer took into consideration
what had been done and how late they had worked without
overtime pay by saying: "Well, S , the com is all got
together so I shall not want you again. Then perhaps you will
be able to get your tea a little earlier in the future ! ' And the
man was unemployed for many weeks.
" Fortunately for us a brickfield was opened in the district
in 1891 or 1892, whilst I was eighteen years of age. The pay at
the brickfield was double the pay on the farms, so you may guess
what a godsend it was to the labourers. But the land was still
being laid down to grass, and many that could not get work in the
brickfields, emigrated to other lands to take up their abode there,
to grow com to feed those in the country they had left behind.
"My father, though now a cripple, was made the foreman of
the brickfield on a wage of 24s. a week. I need not tell you how
annoyed the farmers were over the brickfield. The worst of
it was that as soon as the brickmaking season came to an end,
the hands were stood off, and the men had to find work wood-
cutting, or on the road, or threshing.
"An attempt was made to organise the agricultural labourers,
but it failed, and a man who was then a member of the old
Labourers' Union had to flee the parish for trying to better the
condition of his fellow working men. The agricultural labourer
was not allowed to have a union at this time, and if a poor girl
met with a misfortune she had to leave the parish by order of
ihe parson, knd if the father refused to let his daughter go he
had to clear out too.
" I think we can leave this terrible time and step on to 19141
when the beginning of the awful sacrifice had to be made. Many
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 287
a worker had to leave his situation so that the farmer's son
could take his place mstead of going into the army, and often
the worker was married with a family, whilst the son of the
farmer was a single young man. I could state many cases
where that was done.
" But I must go back a few years, as there are one or two
things that I have omitted. There was the Old Age Pensions
Act, and I was thinking of the trouble the workers were put to
to get it. I well remember when my father reached the age of
seventy the Pension Officer called to see him to make sure that
he was not a wealthy man ; asked him if he had any cash in the
Bank. What a lot the poor agricultural labourer ought to have
done out of their poor wages after bringing up a family ! Far-
mers became very thoughtful about a labourer's age, and would
do all they could to help them to get the Old Age Pension, and
when they got it for them they hired them at lower wages.
" I well remember one poor old worker, nearly eighty years
of age, still forced to work to keep himself alive ; but one day
he could not be seen in the field. So a search was made and the
poor old chap was foimd in the hedge dying, but as he was only
an agricultural labourer no notice was taken of him.
" When the war started the recruiting officer would tell the
farm worker if he joined the army it would be a holiday for him ;
no food or clothes to buy, and he would be able to see the lands
beyond the seas, and many of the employers went so far as to
promise the men half their wage and to look after their wives
and families while they were away ; but these promises were
soon forgotten. Farm workers began to be attracted by higher
wages elsewhere, but the Labour Exchanges soon stopped
all that, and when tribunals were set up as soon as a man was
exempt from service he was threatened with military service
if he asked for higher wages.
" In 1917, when a few of us held our first meeting in Westfield,
many farmers refused to pay the minimum wage, but as the guns
still roared, and the blank places in the battle lines had to be
filled and labour became scarce they had to pay the 32s. per week
for Sussex, and were compelled to plough the land, though many
of them would not do that — grow food for the people — ^without
the compulsory order. Though the cost of living went up twice
as high as before the war, and the farmers were making large
profits they still said they could not afford to pay 32s. Now
they have to pay 38s. 6d.
" But the slaughter is finished and the brave lads are at home
again, though not all of them that went away. . . . But
oh, how we all longed for the return of those who did come back,
that after all the horrors and hardships that they have had to
endure, they would return to a better England than when
they left. But what do we find ? . . ."
PART EIGHT
WHAT OF THE HARVEST?
III. THE CORN PRODUCTION ACT AT WORK.
Farmers were no less busy than labour organisers, and
whilst combination was going on apace amid the armies
of the two opposing forces, the Agricultural Wages Board
had set its house in order, formed its District Wages Com-
mittees, and made its first pronouncement as to wages and
hours. Norfolk was the first county for which an Order
was made, and this was dated May 20, 1918. Wages for
ordinary labourers were fixed at 30s. for a fifty-four hour
week in the summer and a forty-eight hour week for the
winter months of November to February. A special
class was made of cowmen, who had to work the " customary "
hours for 36s. Overtime rates of pay were fixed at 8|d.
an hour for week-days and lod. for Sundays. These wages
came into operation for all male workers over eighteen.
It was not until September that the Orders were eventu-
ally issued for all counties. Based on the Norfolk stan-
dard, many counties had 30s. fixed for them, others 31s. and
32s. whilst Kent and Surrey had 33s., and Middlesex and
Lincolnshire 34s., and the northern counties 35s. for the
same number of hours. Some counties decided that eighteen
years was too young an age to receive manhood's pay,
fixing this at twenty-one years. Most cowmen, shepherds
and carters had to work the " customary hours " for an
additional sum of 6s. As these Orders were abrogated in
1919 when an increase of 6s. 6d. a week was granted we need
not detail the varying district rates.
As the cost of living had risen 106 per cent. ^ these rates
' Large towns no per cent., small towns and villages 102 per cent.,
United Kingdom 106 per cent. — Labour Gazette, April, 1918.
288
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 289
were by no means received with universal satisfaction.
It was unfortunate that a low-paying county like Norfolk
should have been the first county for which an Order was
made. High as the wages appeared compared with the
ordinary pre-war wages, the labourer was no better off
save in one way ; he had his hours defined, and for the first
time in his life he could legally claim a definite overtime
rate. By a restriction of his hours of labour he was able
to earn more overtime, and in that manner he gained some-
thing. He at least gained more leisure.
But the man in charge of stock was kept in his old state
of servitude by the unfortunate clause " customary hours."
I strenuously opposed this clause on my District Wages
Committee, as I knew that it would give rise to much dissat-
isfaction, varying not only from county to county, and parish
to parish, but even from farm to farm. It bore grievously hard
upon cowmen in particular. I knew cowmen, for instance,
who were still getting up at 3.30 in the morning to milk,
and were kept at work until half-past five in the afternoon,
with hours on Sunday beginning at 4 a.m. and lasting until
II a.m., when there was a break of an hour for pious medita-
tion ; and then work again until 1.30. For working these
long hours in 19 14 men were paid £1 a week in the county of
Surrey ! Such men under the Order were paid higher
wages than the ordinary labourer, but they were working
many more hours, and in spite of being generally considered
more highly skilled men, were paid less per hour. Though
there was a scarcity of labour, it was an injustice difficult
to combat, for cottages were scarcer than men, and most
cattlemen lived in farm-tied cottages. The hard task-
master still wielded great powers. Nevertheless, this was
remedied in 1919, when farm workers in most counties,
irrespective of their duties, came under the general Order
of fifty hours for summer, and forty-eight hours for winter.
The abolition of " customary hours " was a distinct im-
provement, welcomed by the best of the employers, and one
which made the worst employers not only shorten their hours
but improve their methods of organisation.
It was an arduous task to raise the minimum higher
VOL. II. u
290 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
than 30s. after the Board's Order had been fixed for Nor-
folk. In my opinion the minimum rate should have been
fixed in 1918 at not lower than £2, which, considering the
rise in the cost of living, was barely eqtiivalent to the £t
a week which Mr. Rowntree showed us was absolutely
necessary to sustain physical efficiency before the war.
Farmers were rising on the high tide of their prosperity, and
if they were capable of paying £2 a week, as approximately
they did, in 1919, they were capable of pa57ing £2 a week
in 1918. The Order of 30s. for Norfolk was due to the mod-
eration of the workers' representatives, combined with the
lack of data at that time as to farmers' profits to convince
the appointed members that farmers would not be ruined
by a higher standard.
Complaints were made both by farmers and workers
of the bias displayed by these appointed members of the
District Wages Committees, who, after all, were the jury
which tipped the scale one way or the other, and so decided
the rate. Although the District Wages Committees can
only recommend to the Central Board rates and hours,
their decisions are generally accepted with shght modi-
fications. The appointed members therefore stand as the
figiure of Fate, uncomfortably balancing itself on the tight-
rope stretched between the two parties pulling with all
their strength.
I find that there are one earl, three barons, four ladies,
of title, three " honourables," thirteen baronets and knights,
fourteen colonels, some landowners and quite a number of
Justices of the Peace, amongst those selected for pos-
sessing minds so equipoised that they can give an imbiased
judgment between capital and labour.
It was natural that the workers viewed with misgiving
the decisions of men and women drawn almost entirely
from the employing class and felt that they were negotiating
with opponents who had strong allies.*
• The inner history of the selection of appointed members should make
curious reading. For the most part names were suggested by the Lord
Lieutenant of each county. Now a Lord Lieutenant cannot be said to
possess a strong bias towards Labour, and feeling the scales w^ould be
v/eighted against Labour I ventured (unofficially) to suggest one or two
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 291
I gather, however, from the workers' representatives
who sit on the Central Wages Board that the appointed
members have behaved with commendable fairness. These
gentlemen, and the one lady, Mrs. Roland Wilkins, bear
names which are honoured by all classes of the agricultural
community ; but I do not feel quite so sure that the ap-
pointed members on the District Committees were selected
with the same care by the Board of Agriculture. Decisions
arrived at show that the appointed members on these Dis-
trict Committees invariably tipped the scale on the side
of the farmers, \yhen workers' representatives were mak-
ing demands for £2 a week and the farmers refused to go
beyond 30s., there were but few instances where the ap-
pointed members gave their vote for a rate of more than
a shilhng or two above the farmers. The appointed mem-
bers may attempt to justify their decision by the assertion
that the workers made too high a demand, but this falls
to the ground in the light of the decision of the following
year when the minimum rates ranged from 36s. 6d. to
42s. 6d. and the hours were materially shortened.
On the workers' side of the District Committees, the
trade union organiser is generally the chief spokesman.
Yet the farm workers are beginning to feel their feet, for
though most of them have never opened their lips on any
public body before, it is extraordinary what advances
they have made in the art of expressing themselves. For
the first time in their lives they sit on an equality with
farmers and draw the same payment for their public work.^
It is a common error to regard the farm labourer
as stolid as an ox in a fattening stall. Wordsworth grasped
the truth when he wrote of the peasant : —
persons in different counties whom I knew to possess a sympathetic know-
ledge of the life of the rural poor. One or two of these were eventually
appointed, but I was not so fortunate with a lady whose knowledge of
the farm workers of her county exceeded that of any other educated person
of my acquaintance. I thought if it was pointed out that her grand-
father was a Baron, whose peerage dated back to the middle ages, she
would pass without further scrutiny. Unfortunately enquiry was made
of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, who replied, " By no conceivable
stretch of the imagination could this lady be called impartial^'
1 That is I OS. and their travelling expenses.
292 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
" Words are but under-agents in their souls ;
When they are grasping with their greatest strength
They do not breathe among them."
Scrutinise the faces of the men selected to negotiate and
you will find them anything but immobile. Every facijil
muscle moves, as they sit listening with watchful intentness.
Nervous tension is betrayed by the eye, which is as keen as
a hawk's ; and when their silence is broken it is by the
language of a long pent-up pain.
I shall never forget the outburst of a sunburnt plough-
man who sat by my side on a Wages Committee and who
had through several sittings never uttered a word. The
farmers were complaining that boys of eighteen could
not plough ; that they were all but useless, when he, with
every nerve twitching, broke out with : " Lookee 'ere,
guvnors. You say that our boys are no good. They
think this country is no good for them, and yet I have four
sons fighting for it. In 1912 one of these boys, then aged
sixteen, who was ploughing for a few shillings a week, said to
me, ' Dad, I'm going to chuck this old country ; it ain't good
enough for the likes of us.' Well, he emigrated to Australia.
In 1914 he came home with £200 in his pocket to fight for
the country that had refused to give him a living wage."*
This speech rendered us all dumb for a few minutes.
And this man had known what it was for nine in the family
to sit down to a table with himself as the only breadwinner.
The farmers have behaved with exemplary fairness to
• their men who sat on District Wages Committees. I heard
of only one unpleasant incident, and over this the National
Farmers' Union very properly used its influence.
Let us take a lightning glance at an imaginary sitting of
a District Wages Committee. Eight farmers sit on one side
of the table ; eight workers' representatives on the other ;
and five appointed members divide the two opposing fac-
tions. Like an auctioneer, the Chairman cautiously feels
his way for a bid. How much wiU the farmers offer ? What
price do the workers put upon the vedue of their labour ?
^ Vide The Awakening of England, 191 8 edition.
' It is easy to soo the fanners have the weight on their side.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 293
There is a dead silence. Each side waits like diplomats
for the other side to show its hand. " Come on, gentle-
men," pleads the Chairman. " Some one must make a
start."
" Well, we want 40s.," blurts out the spokesman of the
workers, who is the county organiser. He gives his reason :
the extra cost of living ; the profits the farmers are making,
etc. The farmers lean back in their chairs, puff out their
cheeks, and murmur the word " ruination."
" What about the poor land we have to farm ? " shouts
a fanner across the table, as though he were driving a horse-
rake across the stubble, and ignoring the Chairman.
" Settle that with your landlord," replies a worker
promptly. An appointed member who is a landowner
moves uneasily in his chair.
" Oh, the rent — that's nothing," exclaims another farmer.
The appointed member looks relieved.
" Then why make such a song of the Income Tax, now
that you are assessed on double rents because you won't
show your profits. And what about the profits you claim
to make when the Government wants your land for an
aerodrome ? "
" Address the Chair, gentlemen, please," interposes
the Chairman, feeling his position is being rendered super-
fluous. " Be reasonable, and come to terms if you can."
" Not a penny above 30s.," declares the most dogged of
the farmers, " or the Government can take our farms."
" Mr. Chairman," says the workers' representative,
" we are prepared to take possession."
" Oh, I am not aware you are the Government," chides
the Chairman. The farmers laugh ; but neither side bates
a shilling. The Chairman then asks each side to retire.
They do so ; and pull out their pipes At the end of a
quarter of an hour each side is summoned back and the
Chairman gives the appointed members' decision : 32s.
Thus does impartiahty triumph.
Then as the meeting closes one of the fanners greets
a ploughman with the remark : " You know, you fellows
would be quite content but for your trade union agitators "
294 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
And the reply now comes without hesitation : " Ain't
you got any agitators in your Union ? "
At the end of four or five weeks the Agricultural Wages
Board advertises the minimum for the county to be 32s.
Then both sides declare the decision of the A.W.B. to be
" monstrous." This is about the only time that they
ever do agree over wages or hours.
Where the District Committees have real powers beyond
merely " recommending," is in the issuing Permits to men
incapable through infirmity of earning the minimum wage,
and in deciding that a cottage through insanitation, defective
water supply or want of repair, is not worth the 3s. a week
which the farmer has the power to deduct as an " allow-
ance " for the occupation of a farm-tied cottage.
When the Agricultural Wages Board decided that 3s.
should be the maximum sum which farmers could deduct
from wages for the occupation of a cottage, in counties
where it has been customary to deduct only is., is. 6d.,
or 2s. for cottages, much discontent arose. Hence an Order
was made for certain counties such as Northamptonshire,
Herefordshire, Mid-Bucks and parts of Somerset, where
2S. 6d. only, and in North Bucks 2S. only, can be deducted
for the occupation of a farm-tied cottage.
Some curious instances came under my notice with regard
to this deduction of 3s.
In the comer of a meadow, under an oak tree, close to a
by-road connecting one Surrey village with another might
have been seen a tent, locally known as a " bender." It
was like a diminutive Chinese sampan, or river boat, and
close to it were two brown baby tents in which there was
just room to boil a kettle of water. From a distance these
appear Uke toadstools springing up from the green meadow.
In the tent slept a carter, his wife and two children.
Let no one imagine, however, that this tent was a Bell tent
in which a person could stand erect. Its occupants had
to creep in like rabbits and sit down or he prostrate under
the old sacks which formed the tunnel-shaped roof. For this
country residence, which had been erected by the man him-
self, the farmer who engaged the carter deducted th?
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 295
sum of 3s. from the latter's weekly wage — regarding the
edifice as a farm-tied cottage for which he imagined he was
legally entitled to charge the maximum sum of 3s.
It certainly was " farm-tied," but that was about all
that could be said for it, as it was " tied " to one of the
farmer's fields. Instead, however, of paying for house
accommodation, what the carter was really paying was
£y i6s. per annum as ground rent for a few feet of bare
earth. Worked out in cubic space it was assuredly the most
expensive cottage in England ; probably it is more expensive,
cubic foot for cubic foot, than a mansion in Park Lane.
Let it not be supposed, however, that the man regarded
it as a grievance to live amid sackcloth and ashes. It was
his choice, and had been his choice, for a number of years
to live under " canvas," but what he did complain of —
and very rightly, too — was the iniquitous deduction of 3s.
a week from his wages for the space of a man's grave !
I also visited a cottage, for the use of which 3s. was
deducted from another carter's wages. One bedroom was
uninhabitable because rats came down the ivy inside the
room, through the roof of which rain dripped on wet nights ;
and while the unhappy carter ate his meals in the kitchen
he could watch through the cracks in the wall the leaves
dropping in the orchard ! A pond green with slime was
the water supply !
As a member of the Cottage Committee, Mr. Jack Shing-
field visited a cottage in his area in response to a complaint.
He asked the cottager's wife where the oven was. " There,"
she said, pointing to a comer of the room, " but it's no good."
" Why not ? ' he asked. " Because it has no top."
" Where's the copper ? " " There," she answered, point-
ing to another corner, " but that's no good either." " Why
not ? " " Because it has no bottom." " Where's the well ? "
he next asked. " We haven't got one ; we have to fetch
the water from 300 yards away," came the answer. " Well,
let's have a look at the bedroom," he said finally. " Wait
till I fetch a ladder," said the woman, at which she brought
a ladder and thrust it through a hole in the ceiling. The
value of this allowance was reduced to 6d.
296 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
So bad have housing conditions become that many
instances could be cited of the shifts to which both farmers
and men were put to find accommodation. A farmer at
Woking told the Court on June 29, 1918, that his carter
with his wife and three young children were living in a
cowstall without any sanitary or other convenience.
At Oswestry the Rev. D. Gwynfryn Jones gave an instance
of a house in Flintshire, " with only five rooms, counting
the coal-house, with four families living in it."»
It was found, however, that men living in farm-tied
cottages were extremely chary of reporting insanitation,
for fear of eviction, and through this conspiracy of silence
the public has no idea of the terrible conditions under
which many of the families of farm labourers are living at
the present day.
Some persons have curious ideas on housing reform.
At Montacute, in Somerset, a land agent suggested, that
" there were persons in receipt of relief under the Poor Law,
who occupy whole cottages at Montacute, who might very
well be lodged together in one cottage to their own greater
comfort, economy and convenience. ' ' The reply of the Rural
District Council was commendably brief ; it was " There
is no need to comment on this most inhuman suggestion."
In the case of Permits for the old men it is very gratifying
to find that in the majority of cases farmers are paying their
old retainers sums which fairly approximate to the minimum
wage. One humorous case came under my notice of a farmer
who sent for Permits for four of his men working in the prime
of life. The reason given why he was not paying the mini-
mum wage was that ' ' the price of com was not high enough. "
On the forms filled in by the same men the reason given why
they wished to work under the minimum wage was " be-
cause master couldn't afford to pay them such high wages
with com at the price it is." Feudalism is not quite dead
yet ! Of course the Permits were refused — and this hap-
pened before every farm worker got his rise of 6s. 6d.
One unpleasant incident which very nearly precipitated
a strike at harvest occurred this year. It will be noted
* Daily News, 24 April, 1920,
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 297
that though the Corn Production Act was passed in 1917,
men were, with rapidly rising prices, entitled legally only
to 25s. a week, until the Agricultural Wages Board had fixed
the minimum rate for the district. As we have seen the
first Order was made only on May 20, 1918, whilst others
were made three or four months later. This gave rise to much
discontent, and the workers' representative on the Central
Board, to prevent strikes breaking out, asked the farmers if
they would not agree to all minima when fixed being retro-
spective from the end of March ; and at their meeting
on March 28, 1918, the following resolution was passed :
" That having regard to the fact that it is not possible for all
the District Wages Committees to meet at once and determine
what recommendations they wish to make regarding wages,
etc., this Board is of the opinion that by mutual agreement
between employers and workers it is desirable that any minimum
rate of wages which may be fixed should be made retrospective
as from the end of March."
Unfortunately, however, many farmers did not consider
this resolution one which they were bound to honour
as they were not consulted, and a good deal of
strong feeling was displayed over the matter in many
counties. Compromises were made in various counties ;
but I am afraid very few of the farm workers got their
" back pay " as far back as March. The most honourable
farmers of course fulfilled their moral obhgations, but in a
great many cases the partial fulfilment, or non-fulfilment,
roused a good deal of bitter feeHng, sundering at a blow
every vestige of respect existing between master and man.
That there was no strike in the harvest field before
victory was won on the battle field, credit must be given
to the farm workers, who felt that they had been betrayed
by the farmers. Indeed, it should be remembered that
during the whole of war-time, in spite of, or perhaps because
of, the astonishing rise of trade unionism amongst farm
labourers not a single strike had taken place.
Owing to the rather clumsy machinery of the Com
Production Act, the Agricultural Wages Board found it
was too late to fix the harvest rates for 1918 and left em-
298 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
ployers and workmen to make their own arrangemenis. In
some counties special overtime rates were atranged by mas-
ters and men, in others a lump sum was 2^;reed upon, such
sums as £13, £14 or £15, irrespective of the time occupied.
In Essex, the following agreement was drawn up between
the Farmers' Union and the Workers' Union : —
"It is hereby agreed between five representatives of the Essex
Comity Farmers' Union, and five representatives of the Workers'
Union, that the harv^t wages for 1918 shall be paid at the rate
of 32s. per week for 54 hours, plus payment for overtime at the
rate of is. gd. per hour, and that the men shall be given the
opportunity of working three hours' overtime per day, and that
if the harvest is not completed within twenty-four fine harvest
days, and the men have not been given the opportunity of
working seventy-two hours' overtime in that period, they shall
receive pajrment for seventy-two hoius' overtime ; and it is
also agreed that boys be paid overtime rates in proportion to
their wages."
The setting up of the Agricultural Wages Board coinci-
dent with the growing confidence amongst the workers
that they could improve their conditions by organisation
and negotiation no doubt accounted for the weapon of
the strike being laid aside for the time being. When the
country was stampeded into a General Election in Novem-
ber, 191 8, some very remarkable results were achieved by
rural Labour Parties which had hitherto never attempted
to contest the parliamentary seat. These Labour Parties in
rural areas, were for the most part made up of branches of the
farm workers' tmions, and for the first time in his history
Hodge had become not only industrially class-conscious,
but poUticaUy class-conscious. The votes won by the fol-
lowing Labour candidates at the General Election, 1918,
indicated the growing tendency of the rural worker to dis-
card the old political parties and support the Party to which
his trade union is affiliated.
Bridgwater (Somerset) S. J. Plummer 5.771
Dorset (East) A. Smith 4,321
Dorset (South ) Brette Morgan 5.i59
Maldon (Essex) G. Dallas 6,315
Saffron Walden (Essex) J. J. Mallon 4,531
Petersfield (Hants) J. Pile 4,267
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 299
Hereford S. Box 3,730
Kitchen (Herts) R. Green 5,661
Epsom (Surrey) J. Chuter Ede 4.796
Famham (Surrey) J. Hayes 3.534
Guildford (Surrey) W. Bennet 5,078
East Grinstead (Sussex) Major D. Graham Pole 6,208
Chichester (Sussex) F. E. Green 6,705
Lewes (Sussex) T. Pargeter 4.164
Westbury (Wilts) Captain E. N. Bennet 3,537
Camborne (Wilts) G. Nicholls 6,546
Kings Lynn (Norfolk) R. B. Walker 9,780
Norfolk (South) George Edwards 6,536
Stroud (Glos) Captain Kendall. 8,522
Though none of these were elected, Mr. Walker came
within an ace of election, whilst Mr. R. Green, who had only
a fortnight in which to conduct his campaign, scored aston-
ishingly well. It is remarkable, surely, that Mr. Plummer,
who consented to stand only two hours before the time
for nomination, polled 5,771 votes. Very few, if any, of
the candidates possessed any shred of political organisation,
or an agent, before the campaign started, and most were
in desperate financial straits to meet the ;f 150 necessary
for the Returning Officer. At the Wrekin by-election,
February, 1920, Mr. Charles Duncan, the secretary of the
Workers' Union, though not elected, polled very heavily,
and easily beat the Coalition candidate. Mr. W. R. Smith,
the President of the National Agriculturcd Labourers'
Union was successful, but he stood for a constituency which
cannot be called rural. Mr. George Edwards, in delicate
health, made a splendid fight of it for a man of sixty-nine.
Unfortunately, Mr. J. Pile succumbed under the stress of
political warfare waged in all weathers without adequate
transport service, and died on the day the poU was declared.
In January, 1919, Joseph Arch passed away at his cottage
at Barford at the advanced age of ninety-three. The King
paid a graceful tribute to the whilom champion hedge-cutter
of England by sending expressions of regret to his widow.
The New Year opened with a strike at Chatteris, which
lies in the centre of the fen district of North Cambridge-
shire. A minimum rate of 30s. a week had been fixed
for Cambridgeshire, in spite of the fact that the wages of
300 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
the ordinary labourers varied from 36s. to 42s. per week
— the majority receiving the higher rate.
On December 28, 1918, the farmers took advantage of
this low minimum to reduce the wages of all labourers to
36s. a week, on the ground that it was customary to reduce
wages for the winter period. As the cost of living was
still rising, the workers determined to resist this reduction,
and demanded in its place an increased minimum wage of
45s. per week, resolving to give a week's notice to stop
work if it was not granted.
Now, though the Corn Production Act had been in exist-
ence over sixteen months the farmers refused to acknowledge
any communication from the Secretary of the Workers'
Union, but instead, published their decision in the local
press on January 3, 1919, which was that the labourers
were to have £2 per week, horsekeepers and cowmen
£2 4s., rootmen 8s. a day and threshing men gs. a day.
These rates were rejected by the men, who resented the
attitude of. the farmers in not recognising their Union.
Mr. Harry White, the organiser, failed to secure an
interview with the farmers' chairman, and on January 6,
300 men ceased work, including 30 non-union men. By the
end of the week over 400 men were out, including 100 non-
unionists, aU of whom joined the Union diuing the strike.
The Agricultural Wages Board and the Food Production
Department now came on the scene, with the result that
on January 17 a conference was arranged between the
farmers and workers, and it was mutually decided to refer
the matter to arbitration, the men returning to work on
the 20th, after being out a fortnight.
Sir Charles Longmore was appointed arbitrator. He met
representatives from both sides on February 20. Mr.
Harry White stated the workers' case whilst Mr. Ruston
stated the employers'. On March 8 the award was
issued. It declared that from January 17 to the com
harvest the following rates should be paid : labourers
and yardmen, 42s. for a forty-eight hours' week ; horse-
keepers and cowmen 50s. for customary hours ; rootmen
IIS. per day of eight hours ; threshing men, 12s. per day
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 301
of eight hours ; with proportionate overtime rates for the
various classes of workers.
It will be observed how far the minimum rate fixed by
the Board fell short of the wages awarded here. This was
the first victory won by the farm workers for a forty-eight
hours week.
Employers openly confessed afterwards that they admired
the manner in which the strike was conducted, and an
incident occurred which confirms the statement. On
Sunday, January 13, all the strikers went to church in
the afternoon, when the curate congratulated the men
and the Workers' Union on the Way in which the strike
was being carried on, and he brought a similar message
from the Vicar, who was indisposed.
On the previous night at an open-air meeting one of the
two men who addressed the meeting was the leader of the
Salvation Army, and the other a local nonconformist
preacher, while the chairman was a local publican.
Whilst ominous clouds were gathering over the fenland
district of Chatteris, battaHons of darker clouds charged
with electricity were massing over the whole countryside.
The cost of living, instead of going down, as the Prime
Minister assured the workers it would after the Armistice,
steadily rose. Since January i, 1919, it had risen twenty-
four points.
Finding that the newly elected Coalition Government
did nothing to control profiteers effectively and that relief
from such a source seemed hopeless, the strike fever began to
rise in the veins of the torpid south as well as in the fiery
north. Soldiers returning to the land from the War found
that the New Earth which had been promised them was
very much hke the old, old earth ; that 30s. a week pur-
chased no more than 13s. or 14s. had before the war— ^nd
it should always be remembered that the 30s. included
" allowances." Things were better in one respect : their
hours of labour were curtailed and payment for overtime
could be legally enforced.
But it WEis felt, and rightly felt, that a workman should
be able to maintain himself at a reasonable standard of
302 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
comfort on wages earned by a working week of forty-eight
hours without being compelled to resort to overtime to
make both ends meet. Conditions should be better, and
not merely on an equality with the servitude of pre-war days.
The agricultural labourer who could barely raise an
organised army of 15,000 before the war now had a dis-
ciplined army of nearly 200,000. No body of workers
had in the history of the English working class organised
with such rapidity in spite of the tremendous difficulties
which lay in the path — a path on which the milestones
were few and far between.
Now, on January 15, 1919, through their representatives on
the Agricultural Wages Board they made a bold demand
of an aU-round £1 increase for a forty-eight hours' working
week. Mr. W. R. Smith, M.P., their leader, said they
wished to lift the farm- worker above the pre-war conditions
of life which aU classes had now condemned as a degrading
poverty. The meeting which followed was stormy. Every
section of the Wages Board was filled with grave anxiety.
If a strike took place now it would not be confined to a
few parishes, but would become a national strike imperilling
the food supply of the nation. This momentous time was
aptly described by Sir Ailwyn Fellowes at a Conference
with District Wages Committees held in May :
" The workers had made no secret of a demand for an all-
round increase. From their point of view an increase was
over-due when they made their demand last January.
Their representatives had great difficulty in agreeing to
the postponement of the matter, but they loyally accepted
the Board's decision and did their best to curb the im-
patience of those whom they represent . . . the general
situation in regard to the relations between capital and labour
was disturbed ; I may even say it was inflammable. Incon-
siderate action might have had disastrous consequences. It
is not too much to say that the country was on the edge of a
precipice where a rash step might have led to a catastrophe."
Indeed, preparations were on foot for a strike on a large
scale if the farmers had refused to concede anything.
Farm workers around Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, in
Cheshire and South-West Lancashire were getting their
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 303
50s. a week, so why could not other farmers pay the same
was asked. When the matter came up for discussion again
in March, the appointed members let the farmers and the
workers thrash it out between themselves in an exhaustive
conference of three days, which resulted in the farmers
agreeing to an all-round increase of 6s. 6d. a week for male
workers over twenty-one years of age. The farmers had
offered an advance of 5s., which was rejected ; then 6s.,
and finally 6s. 6d. The whole Board had three successive
meetings in March when the discussion centred largely
round hours. A compromise was arrived at, it being
agreed on both sides that the hotrrs without overtime pay
should be fifty-four until October, when fifty hours should
come into force for one month, forty-eight hours for the
winter, and fifty hours for the following, summer.
The workers made it understood that though they would
loyally abide by this compromise, it should not prejudice
them in fighting to include agriculture in the " Forty-eight
Hours Bill " for all industries. The Agricultural Wages
Board took up the position that the grave state of affairs
in the country warranted no delay caused by referring to
District Wages Committees, so immediately advertised
the proposal for a month to hear objections as enjoined by
the Act, and made the Order on May 6, 1919.
One result of this Order was that three or four farmers'
representatives on the Sussex District Wages Committee
resigned, on the grounds that when 32s. was fixed for Sussex
as the minimum wage, they had carried out the law in giving
the workers a " reasonable standard of comfort " !
No minimum was now less than 36s. 6d., and customary
hours were abolished save in Northumberland and Durham
(for which a wage of 49s. 6d. a week was fixed) and the
administrative counties of Cambridge, Isle of Ely, Hunt-
ingdon, Bedford, Cumberland, Westmoreland, part of Lan-
caster, Denbigh, Flint, Carnarvon, Gloucester, Worcester,
Merioneth, Montgomery, and Warwick, for which special
arrangements were made. It wiU be observed that the
farmers in many counties, who said in 1918 that they
could not carry on the farms unless an Order were made
304 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
for customary hours, or hours ranging from sixty to seventy
or more, now submitted to the new Order for fifty or forty-
eight hours.
On March 3, 1919, the farm workers were granted their
first great charter of leisure. ' After this date no farmer
could insist upon any of his employees working for more
than 6J hours on one working day of the week without
payment of overtime. This became popularly known as
the Saturday half-holiday.
The Press, including The Times, and even papers written
for the country gentleman, displayed a lamentable ignor-
ance over this new Order. Without troubling to read it
with any care, or at any rate with any intelligence, they
jumped to the conclusion that all farm workers would down
tools on Satiurday at about i o'clock and the cows would
remain immilked and the horses unfed. In reality the
Order did not stipulate that the half-holiday should fall
on one particular day, nor that overtime could not be
worked on that day.
In practice, of course, Saturday was the day generally
chosen by the workers, and the milking of cows and tending
of stock went on just the same by mutual agreement be-
tween the workers and the farmers. It meant that fewer
men were engaged on Saturday afternoon, the workers
taking turns alternately to do the necessary work. Where
a farmer employed one man only, that fanner would either
milk his own cows on, say, Saturday afternoon or the
cowman would agree to work every Saturday afternoon at
overtime rates.
A modification was made which affected the position
of special classes of workers whose weekly wages were
based on customary hours. In these cases time spent in
feeding and cleaning stock did not rank as overtime em-
ployment. In some counties arrangements were made
between farmers and men for a fortnight's holiday at special
overtime rates of pa37ment, in lieu of the weekly half-holiday.
1 When the Wages Board was set up the workers hoped that the half-
holiday would be instantly instituted, but it was agreed to postpone it
until three months after tiie cessation of hostilities.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST > 3o5
The importance of farm workers obtaining one half-
holiday a week of a day which is not Sunday, cannot be
over-emphasised both from the national point of view and
from the workers'. This particular hay-seed of having to
work every day of the week for the same hours was at last
removed from the labourer's shirt. The absence of a half-
holiday had largely been the cause of young fellows refusing
to stay in the country and drifting away into the towns.
By the institution of the half-hoUday village sports began
to be revived at once. The attractions of town life were
dimmed, and the long-closed avenue was opened for farm
labourers living in districts badly served by railways, to
meet together in conference to educate themselves in a
manner hitherto rendered almost impossible.
In the spring of this year Orders were made for the fixing
of the minimum wage for women and girls, which resulted
in those over eighteen years of age receiving wages of 5d.
an hour in all counties excepting Northumberland, Cum-
berland, the Furness district of Lancashire, Yorkshire and
Westmoreland, where 6d. an hour was paid.^
Not only had the organised workers made a step forward
in the spring of 19x9, but the political class-consciousness
which was expressed at the General Election found a more
universal application when it reached the point of capturing
many seats on Parish Councils, Rural Councils and even on
that hitherto sacrosanct body, the County Council. During
the war no municipal elections had taken place, and now in
nearly every village where there was a branch of the N. A.L.U.
or the W.U. an attempt was made to infuse life into the
moribund Parish Councils.
Hitherto, with few notable exceptions, the farm worker
who stood as a candidate, as I have said, found his pathway
in life anything but pleasant, without an organised company
of comrades to render him support either in victory or
defeat.
Amongst the exceptions I should like to mention the
village of Hitcham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, where seven
' In July an increase of one penny an hour was granted in all counties.
— Vide Note to Appendix IV.
VOL. II. X
3o6 £N(iLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURlER.
labourers formed the first Parish Council, and seven labourers
have held the citadel ever since ! The farmers fought the
first two or three elections and then gave up the contest
in despair. But Hitcham is, I think, unique in the history
of Parish Councils.
Now a greater breath of freedom was abroad in the
land and it was the Union, and not a Liberal Association,
or a Gladstone League, which fought the elections as an
organised political body, and some democratic successes
were achieved.
In the parish of Ascot Wing, where six members of the
Workers' Union were nominated, all were elected with a
big majority. Amongst the defeated candidates was
Mrs. Leopold de Rothschild, who, I have been told, owns
practically the whole parish.^
Another remarkable election took place which throws a
flood of light on the moribund condition of many a Parish
Council and the quickened political sense of the workers.
At the Parish Meeting of Idsworth, Hants, held at the
Parish Hall, Rowlands Castle, on March 17, 1919, besides the
chairman, vice-chairman and clerk, only one Local Govern-
ment elector attended. The clerk explained that no nom-
ination papers had been asked for up to the time. The
chairman decided to wait until 8.15, but as no other persons
turned up, and as none of the old members offered them-
selves for re-election, the chairman, after waiting a little
longer, declared the meeting closed and instructed the
clerk to report to the Returning Ofiicer at Havant the
state of affairs.
In the meantime, the local branch of the Workers'
Union became very active, and a further Parish Meeting was
summoned on June 16. There were fifty persons present.
Seven nomination papers were handed in this time, all from
members of the local Labour Party, and these were unan-
imously elected by the fifty persons present. Amongst
the Labour candidates were a major and a parson.
1 " You should have seen the old ones ; they was Uke anything mesmerised ;
it seemed to take them by storm as the saying is, didn't seem to reaUse
it could be true," writes a farm worker to me.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 307
Yet this Hampshire village by no means stood alone in
betrasdng the low pulse into which parochial politics had
sunk where no workers' organisation revived the interest.
In a West Sussex village, lying in a charming, but sleepy
hollow of the South Downs, five persons only made their
appearance at the Annual Parish Meeting.
In my own parish no organised attempt had ever been
made by the workers to capture the Parish Council before
1919. The farm workers pressed me to stand with six of
them, and I agreed to become once more a Parish Council
candidate after a lapse of twenty years. The experience
was interesting to me, for it marked a distinct milestone on
the road towards freedom taken by the agricultural worker.
I managed to borrow a motor car from a well-to-do gen-
tleman who considered Parish Councils were quite harmless
institutions, and I conveyed a nimiber of electors from dis-
tant farm-tied cottages to the polling station. The marked
difference I noted between 1897 and 1919 was the growing
fearlessness of farm-workers and their wives. In broad
daylight I whisked them away from under the very noses
of their employers and from under the eyes of the Rector,
who dispensed the loaves and fishes, and was working
against us. Even the elderly, reared in the old school of
servitude, displayed an astonishingly gay spirit of indepen-
dence. Amongst these I shall always remember with
special interest an old man in his smock frock who could
neither read nor write and retired to bed every night at
six, and an old lady of eighty who could read and write
and who proudly refused any help on the score of failing
eyesight. Had she not stitched a smock-frock for me fifteen
years ago for 3s. and a brace of rabbits ?
It has been impossible to obtain a list of farm workers
who won seats on Parish Councils, but the number must be
very considerable, judging by reports sent to me by organ-
isers. I have, however, been able to obtain figures, which
are still incomplete, of the number of " Labour " Rural
District Councillors in England and Wales, and that number
is 860.1 An incomplete list of County Council seats won
1 Supplied by the Labour Party.
3o8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
by Labour representatives, excluding London, gives the
number as 235. These figures are swollen by the great
triumphs in the mining counties of Durham and Monmouth,
where the miracle happened of Labour being in the ascen-
dant. Members of the Workers' Union won striking victor-
ies in Essex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Bucks,
Wilts and Suffolk ; whilst the N.A.L.U. won their most
remarkable victories in Norfolk, where Mr. Codling, who had
been forced to earn his living with a pedlar's basket on his
back, won a sensational victory over Lord Hastings, and
where seats were also won by Messrs. Hewitt, Peel, and
Taylor, whilst Mr. Edwards remained an alderman. At the
by-election in 1920 Messrs. W. Smith and Jesse Brighton
have captured seats. The victory in Dorset of Mr. James,
an ex-farm worker, was significant, for in that county
Labour representation had been hitherto unknown.
Though the farm worker will undoubtedly play an in-
creasing part as a candidate for the County Council, it is
the Parish Council only on which he tan afford to sit. The
County Council will surely remain the citadel of the well-to-
do until payment for attendance and travelling becomes law.
Whether the Parish Coimcil will ever become an effective
regenerating force is doubtful. Certainly little can be done
with a rate limited to 3d. in the pound, extended only to
6d. for special purposes by the approval of a Parish Meet-
ing. The powers of a Parish Council may be extended, it
is true. On the other hand it may be found that the unit
of the parish is too small for effective village planning and
the re-enclosure of land, especially where road-making
water supply, and electric power on an extensive scale
are involved.
An unfortunate strike broke out in Staffordshire at the
end of August. The farm workers of Staffordshire were
bitterly disappointed at no special harvest rates being
fixed for them. Other coimties, such as Cambridgeshire
and Gloucestershire, were awarded is. 8d., Derbyshire
IS. 9d., and Yorkshire is. iid. an hour for harvest over-
time rates, but the farm labourers of Stafford were told to
work overtime at the normal overtime rate of lojd. an hour,
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 309
unless employers and employed made special arrange-
ments. A conference between the Farmers' Union and the
N.A.L.U. resulted in a refusal on the farmers' part to agree
to fix any definite rate. Thereupon a number of men round
about Tamworth, GonsaU, Eccleshall, and Wolverhampton
struck work, apparently without giving proper notice.
The strike dragged on for four weeks. The farmers man-
aged to get in their crops, and the men were beaten. They
had yet to learn the lesson that harvest is the worst time
of all, from the workers' point of view, to succeed with a
strike.
Bad feeling, unfortunately, was shown, and a few assaults
took place, the strikers being heavily fined. Such instances,
however, have been rare in agricultural disputes ; and when
the workers' leaders called off the strike, the farmers, to
their credit, agreed to reinstate every man.
On the very day the Staffordshire strike was ended — >
Saturday, September 27 — ^the great railway strike started.
Now came the test as to whether that hnk which had been
forged in the fiery furnace of war between the industrial
and the rural workers would stand the strain of a great
railway strike. Hitherto, the temptation to leave iU-paid
work on the land for the railway had been irresistible.
The railway porter's minimum was 51s. ; the farm worker's
average minimum was 37s. 6d.
But the farm worker and the railway porter, the plate-
layer and the signalman, even in the most remote country
districts, had now become comrades in the new trade union
and political movement ; and many of them had seen a
vision of a new eaxth as they stood close to one another
in the ordeal of battle. The link, as of truest steel, held.
To most, not excluding those who had been watching
the growing solidarity of labour, the loyalty of the farm
workers to the men on the line came as a surprise. They
were firmer in their determination to stand by the railway
men even than the industrial workers, and this, I think,
can be traced to their minds being uninfluenced by the daily
press to the same extent as townsmen. They learn not
from the printed page, but from Nature and their nearest
310 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
neighbours ; and the younger men through the ordeal of
battle had learnt much from the null-hand and the miner.
As more and more labourers became demobilised and
returned to their homes, after the feeUng of relief of being
discharged from military service had evaporated and they
looked for the cottage with an brchard or a few acres of
land which had been promised them, and found it not,
a new feeling took possession of them — a feeUng of bitter
disappointment. Had they then fought in vain ? Were
they only to return to the overcrowded, insanitary cot-
tage and be subject to be treated as a trespasser if they
strayed off the road ? The Government pointed to the
60,000 acres they were in the course of acquiring for settHng
soldiers, but even so, 60,000 acres could only settle 6,000
if we allot 10 acres to every man.
The scheme — on paper — was a good one, it was true.^
The Government had, strange to relate, thought of making
those colonies attractive to the wives and daughters. There
were to be good schools, institutes, sports, dances, and even
telephones and motor services. But what about a man who
did not want to live in a colony in some distant county,
and craved to live where all his friends were, in his native
village ? To provide for these County Councils were speeded
up ; and as much land was acquired in a year as it had taken
County CouncUs ten years to acquire ; which proved, at any
rate, that the critics of County Councils were right in blaming
them for their supineness in the past. The Land Settle-
ment (Facilities) Act was passed giving the County
Councils further compulsory powers.
County Councils are now bujTing estates large enough to
encourage co-operation amongst the settlers, but they stiU
have to pay the landlord's price, which has advanced 30
per cent., 40 per cent, or even 50 per cent. The trouble is
that after a few years have passed ex-soldiers will be called
* Credit should be given to Sir Harry Vemey and his Committee for
drafting the scheme (Cd. 8182). The absurd Umitations as to borrowing
necessary capital embodied in the 1916 Act have now been broadened
(Vide First Advice to Would-be Farmers by F. E. Green. — Country Life
Library.)
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 311
upon to pay heavily for the footing on the land for which
they have fought. They wiU find, as Mr. Joseph Fels did
at Mayland in Essex, that the acquisition of land for small
holdings inevitably means the growth of a golden harvest
for the surrounding landlords. And although the approved
ex-soldier may be granted land in his own county, the cot-
tage with an acre, or even half an acre, attached, which he
desires to possess in his own vUlage, remains as elusive as
ever. Already the Ministry of Agriculture is discouraging
County Councils creating isolated holdings in villages
and thereby defeating one of the features of the Land
Settlement (Facilities) Act.* No doubt it is wiser to en-
courage colony making, but why make the special promises
and special provisions unless it is intended to carry them
out ? Discharged soldiers now recall with bitter reflec-
tions the recruiting posters of a picturesque cottage, a
meadow and an orchard, with the alluring legend, " Is
this worth fighting for ? "
Controversy in the late summer and autumn of 1919
in the agricultural world raged round the Hours of Employ-
ment BUI. The ways of the Government in regard to this
BiU were conducted behind a veil of mystery. Farmers
had declared vociferously that they must know what the
future agricultural policy of the Government was before
they could plan the cultivation of their farms. One would
have thought that the sense of " insecurity " under which
they smarted, as farm after farm was thrown into the
auction market, derived from the tenuous hold they had on
the land, rather than from any other cause.
However, a Royal Commission on Agriculture was insti-
tuted on which, excepting the Coal Commission, for the
first time Labour representatives were asked to sit. Har-
assed by the importunities of his landowning friends, who
• Besides permitting the acquisition of holdings of less than an acre
(half-an-acre) this Act contains this useful clause : " The Council of any
borough, urban district or parish may purchase any fruit trees, seeds,
plants, fertilizers or implements required for the purposes of allotments
cultivated as gardens, whether provided by the Counal or otherwise, and
sell any article so purchased to the cultivators, or, in the case of .imple-
ments, allow their use, at a price or charge sufficient to cover the cost of
purchase."
312 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
had resented the invasion of the State tractor in their parks
and meadows, and certain features of the Land Facilities
Bill, and attacked right and left by the farmers, who de-
tested the policy of control and supervision. Lord Ernie
resigned office. Thus passed a great gentleman from the
high office he had filled with dignity and fairness during
the nation's darkest hours. Before he resigned the Govern-
ment had agreed, after receiving the decision of the Indus-
trial Council, at which employers and employed were equally
represented, to include agriculture in the forthcoming
Forty-eight Hours Bill.
Into Lord Ernie's place stepped Lord Lee, the friend of
the Prime Minister. No sooner was the Baron seated than
he tried to break a lance with that doughty Knight, Sir
Ailwyn Fellowes, and the Baron fell most ingloriously in
combat. Without understanding, he tilted at the new
fifty and forty-eight hours Order, making the blunder, which
no Minister of Agriculture should have made, of assuming
that no farm labourer was to be allowed to work more than
these hours. The Knight, backed by his loyal followers,
fell upon the Baron and wounded him sorely, telling him
unequivocally that there was no law in the land to prevent
the farm labourer if he chose from working all day and all
night provided the proper overtime rates were paid.
The Royal Commission on Agriculture, owing to the
clumsiness of the Government, did not meet imtil July was
far advanced, and when the members sat round the table
for the first time, they discovered that the terms of refer-
ence on which they had consented to enquire had been
altered since acceptance by the majority of them. The
terms were now " to enquire into the economic prospects
of the agricultural industry in Great Britain with special
reference to the adjustment of a balance between the
prices of agricultural commodities, the costs of production,
the remuneration of labour, and hours of employment."
The words " hours of employment " had been added to
the original terms of reference. Why ?
Because the Government had after including agriculture
in the first Bill presented decided to exclude agriculture from
WHAT OF THE HARVEST ? 313
the Forty-eight Hours Bill ; and it was evidently their
policy to place on the shoulders of the Commission not only
the onus of fixing the guaranteed prices, but also the hours
of employment.
Naturally, the Labour members on the Commission felt
that they had been led into a political trap. Their repre-
sentatives had already fought and won the battle on the
Industrial Council, and they had no intention of fighting
it over again ; at any rate, they considered it an unjusti-
fiable act on the part of the Government to alter the terms
of reference without proper notification. In this the
farmers and economists sitting on the Commission loyally
supported their colleagues. Furthermore, the whole Com-
mission, with one exception, intimated to the Board of Agri-
culture, that, in spite of its protestation, they considered it
their duty to enquire into security of tenure, if they had to
consider the " economic prospects " of the agricultural
industry.
It became evident that neither Mr. Lloyd George nor
Lord Lee appreciated the independent spirit shown by the
members of the Commission. This was shown in the speech
which was delivered by the Prime Minister at Caxton Hall,
and by statements made by officers of the Board, to the
effect that the Commission were responsible for checking
the hand of the sower in putting in the Michaelmas corn.
The Government had intimated they wanted an Interim
Report by September though the first sitting of the Commis-
sion to take evidence did not take place until August 5, and
the Commission had to cover the whole field of the cost of
production with all the data available. Delay had been caused
by the questionable political manoeuvres of the Govern-
ment ; but even without the delay accountants agreed
that neither the Costings Committee appointed by the
Government nor the farmers had sufficient costings data
to justify any report being made before the end of the year.
As the Commission proceeded it became obvious to those
Government officials who followed the printed evidence
carefully, that the majority of the Commission might
declare against guaranteed prices. Mr. Lloyd George
314 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
(flushed with having victoriously torpedoed the Profiteering
Committee) at a meeting of agriculturists at Caxton
Hall on October 21, with Lord Lee at his elbow, de-
livered a lecture to the members of the Royal Commis-
sion on Agriculture, in which, without waiting for that
Commission's Rejport, he outlined a policy of guaranteed
prices for a period (unstated) of years and at a figure
(unstated) approximating to the present prices.
At Labour — it is true there was hardly an agricultural
labourer present though there were a few workers' repre-
sentatives — ^he shook an admonitory finger, warning them
not " to drive too hard a bargain." It became evident,
even to the dullest intellect, that Mr. Lloyd George
could no longer be considered a champion of the agricul-
tural labourer. Before the landowners present he sat on
the stool of repentance. He prayed forgiveness for his
Limehouse speeches. He evidently wanted them to forget
he had ever made this famous peroration: "We want
to do something to bring the land within the grasp of the
people. The resources of the land are frozen by the old
feudal system. I am looking forward to the spring-time
when the thaw will set in, and when the people, and the
children of the people, shall enter into the inheritance
given them from on high."
The Commission published its Interim Report in Decem-
ber. The Majority, viz. twelve, including the Chairman,
out of twenty-three members — ^with many reservations
by Mr. Cautley — ^recommended : —
" That whilst the producer should be allowed an unrestricted
market for his produce, that for the grain crops of 1920 and subse-
quent years the guarantees be calculated from year to year on a
sliding scale based on the average bare costs of cereal production of
the preceding year, rent being disregarded for this purpose ; and
that the datum line to which increases or decreases in the average
costs of the 1920 grain crops above or below those of 1919
should be applied, shall be 68s. per quarter of 504 lb. of wheat,
59s. per quarter of 448 lb. of barley, and 46s. per quarter of
336 lb. of oats.
"That the guarantees be continued until Parliament
otherwise decides, subject to not less than four years' notice
of withdrawal being given."
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 315
The Minority Report recommended.
" That farmers be informed that they shall be left free to
cultivate their land in such manner as they deem best, in accord-
ance with the rules of good husbandry.
" That the Boards of Agriculture organise an efficient system
of distribution of all available information relating to the pro-
gress and prospects of agriculture, with special reference to the
course of world prices.
"That, so long as prices of cereals are controlled by the
Government, the farmers be paid at prices not less than those
at which commodities can be imported."
It also accentuated the need for further report on security
of tenure and other matters.
The Majority Report was signed by Sir William B.
Peat (Chairman), Sir William Ashley, and Messrs. Charles
Douglas, G. G. Rea, W. Anker Simmons, H. Overman,
A. Batchelor, H. S. Cautley, E. W. Langford, George Nich-
olls, E. H. Parker, and Rowland R. Robbins. The Minority
Report was signed by Messrs. Arthur W. Ashby, George
Dallas, Joseph F. Duncan, WilUam Edwards. F. E. Green,
J. M. Henderson, Thomas Henderson, Thomas P. Jones,
Reginald Lennard, Walter R. Smith, and R. B. Walker.
I was convinced, both by the evidence and by my own
personal knowledge, that the plough which drove its share
through the grass-land in war time was not drawn by the
team of guaranteed prices for wheat and oats, but by the
petrol power of Compulsory Orders. Writing as a member
of the Commission I may say that the whole problem of
guaranteed prices resolved itself into a psychological one.
The prices that farmers received for their corn were,
and still are, high above the guaranteed prices of the
Act ; but the fear that the world's prices might
drop considerably in a short time was honestly felt by a
great number of uneducated farmers, who had been fright-
ened by stories of vast stretches of golden grain in Siberia ;
of plains of luxiuiant wheat watered by the Euphrates
and Tigris ; of giant granaries of grain waiting for ship-
ment on the seaboard of the Argentine prairies, sedulously
circulated by interested propagandists. The more en-
lightened and progressive farmers showed greater keen-
3i6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
ness over security of tenure, transport, equipment, and the
game laws, than they did over a guaranteed price, which
few of them cared to see estabhshed as a permanent feature
in British agriculture, carrying with it as it does the danger-
ous tendency to encourage slovenly farming. I felt con-
vinced, too, that a guaranteed price of 68s. per quarter
for wheat would not help to produce a single extra acre
of wheat in this country. Whilst the farmer knew that
the world's price was approximately loos. a quarter, he
resented being paid only 76s., and whilst he was in that
mood 68s. made no appeal to him. But as we shall see the
Commission was not allowed to investigate those regions
of reform which would be of permanent value to British
agriculture.
PART EIGHT
WHAT OF THE HARVEST?
IV. 1920.
It would be an error to assume that though agricultural
workers had the protection of the law in demanding the
minimum wage, that they always obtained it. The number
of enquiries and prosecutions wMch had to be taken up by the
Wages Board Inspectors, show how secure farmers still con-
sidered their position to be if they stubbornly set their faces
against the law. The number of complaints received at the
Wages Board from October 28, 1918, to December 31,
1919, were no less than 5,266. The number of cases " com-
pleted " were 3,898. The amount recovered by the Board,
of wages due, was £9,532. The number of cases in which
prosecutions were entered into were 127.
These figures give no indication of the wages recovered
(without reference to the Board) by the agricultural unions ;*
but they are large enough to show us how necessary have
been the unions to the men, for in the majority of cases cited
above, the amounts were recovered by Trade Union secre-
taries reporting cases to the Board after faiUng to make far-
mers pay. Indeed, so congested has become this Department
of the Board that steps should be taken to delegate to District
Committees the duties of inspection and prosecution. Dis-
trict Committees could do this work more expeditiously than
a centralised Department, and they would then have some-
thing more to do than issue permits and glance occasionally
at an insanitary cottage.
That Justices of the Peace in rural areas betrayed their
bias in favour of the emplo5dng class, is evinced by the num-
' According to The Land Worker, March i8, 1920, the N.A.L.U. in one
month alone recovered over ;£i,ooo of arrejirs of pay, and every month
hundreds of pounds are recovered by trade union effort.
317
3i8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
ber of prosecutions reported in the Wages Board Gazette in
which the statutory fine, " not exceeding £20 and to a fine
not exceeding £z for each day on which the offence is con-
tintied after conviction therefor," were not imposed in
spite of many a flagrant defiance of the law.
This, unfortunately, is not the end of the story. The
victimisation pay-sheets of the two Unions reveal a state
of things which is discreditable to a civilised community.
In the winter of 1919, a number of men were discharged
and it was invariably the active trade unionist who received
his " marching orders," in spite of the fact that in many
instances he had fought for his country, whUe his employer
had remained at home. These dismissals are aU the more
significant when we learn from the January Report of the
Ministry of Labour that there was a shortage of skilled labour.
When inspectors called upon the farmers to enquire
about the non-payment of the minimum wage, farmers have
been known again and again to give an instant notice to the
man who had made the complaint. Consequently there are,
at the present moment a number of farm labourers working
for less than the minimum wage because of the fear of dis-
missal or eviction. I have followed up a niunber of these
cases myself and ventured to appeal to the sense of justice
in aU farmers in an open letter which was printed in a number
of newspapers. 1 I may say that the National Farmers'
Union deny any official knowledge of victimisation, and
1 CLEAN fighting;
An Appeal to Farmers.
I know some of you in Surrey, Hants, and Sussex, as straightforward,
clean-fighting, honest English gentlemen, but what, oh ! what am I to
call those farmers who to-day are putting men out on the roadside — ^men
who went across the seas to fight for you whilst you were permitted to stay
at home to make money. You know that the bones of many thousands
of farm labourers have been bleaching on the plains of Flanders while most of
you have been able to remain at home in your comfortable homesteads.
It has come to my knowledge that some farmers are victimising dis-
charged soldiers and other labourers who have taken an active part in
their Trade Unions. They have not been given notice in a straightforward
manner, but have been sacked under some pretext or other. I ask you,
is this plajdng the game ? Is it clean fighting ? Is it English ? Is it not
hitting below the belt ?
Don't you admire these men who stand up pluckily for their rights,
and the rights of their mates ? Do you want to rear a race of broken
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 319
thoroughly disapprove of the actions of black sheep amongst
their flock over whom they contend they have Httle control.
But it seems as if a little more effective shepherding would
check that spirit of hostility which is steadily growing in
certain districts.
My own experience is that the worst offenders in refusing
to pay the legal minimum wage are not farmers, but land-
owners farming their own land. I have reported several of
these to the Board, and in each case they have been very
wealthy men who can plead neither poverty nor ignorance.
In one instance the bailiff went so far as to advertise that
' no Union man need apply,' and when the men asked for the
correct wage he gave them a week's notice ! Herein Ues the
power of the large landowner. He owns the cottages ; and
the men, afraid of being turned out on to the roadside,
submit to being robbed.
Apparently, there is no feeling of noblesse oblige amongst
even these titled gentry, and they seem to experience no
dishonour in being fined. Each case should now be taken
separately, costs assessed separately, and the maximimi
fine imposed on those who are flagrantly defjdng the law.
A sad case was reported in a Sussex paper in 1919 of a
man who won his appeal for his minimum wage, which he
recovered at a court of law, and then was sent to Coventry
by his new employer by being made to work alone in a field,
spirited, servile English peasants ? For you must recognise that these are
the most EngUsh — the white men— -amongst our workers — ^these men who will
sacrifice their job to win justice for their comrades. These are the very men
who made the best fighters at the Front. Surely you must admire them
for displaying the sturdy independence of our historic British peasantry ?
Therefore I appeal to you, to the sportsman in you, to bring pressure to
bear upon the black sheep amongst your own flock, upon the mean farmers,
who are cowardly enough to victimise men who show any moral courage.
We respect those of you who take an active part in your own Trade
Union. Surely you should return the compliment. You have never heard
of labourers victimising a farmer by striking because he belongs to his
Union. You cannot approve of labourers being victimised because they
are doing what the best of you are doing.
I appeal to you therefore as lovers of British fair play to put a stop to
this evil spirit of persecution which has taken possession of the meaner
members of your fraternity, and insist upon them fighting in a clean way.
Your Union is now strong enough to do this. Give these members a
straight talking to. Do it now — ^before it is too late — ^before all farmers
are looked upon as being tarred with the same brush.
F. E. Green.
320 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
This so preyed upon his mind that he committed suicide.
The Jear of eviction is greater than the fear of dismissal,
and until the labourer is as secure of his home as the farmer
is of his holding, beneficent Acts of Parliament will fail to
operate effectively. ' Arch's " cottage-right " is as much
needed now as it was in 1881.
Terrible as was the shortage of cottages before the war,
that shortage has been infinitely increased during war-time.
Eviction from a cottage now almost inevitably leads to exile
from the parish, and the fear of eviction holds the man who
has taken root in his own parish from asking for his rights
more than the fear of dismissal. In 19131 it was estimated
that from 300,000 to 350,000 farm workers lived in farm-
tied cottages, which means, according to current figures, more
than half of our agricultural labourers are doing so to-day.
An amendment to the Rent Restriction Act was passed in
December, 1919, which appeared to make it difficult to evict
a tenant if there is no alternative accommodation ; but few
imderstand this Act,* and fear takes a long time to die. Un-
fortunately, the absence of "alternative accommodation"
does not afford sufficient protection to the farm labourer
from eviction, especially if he lives in a tied cottage. The
Court can go through the form of " considering " the alter-
native accommodation, and issue the ejectment order if it
pleases. The Act, even as amended, is still quite unsatis-
factory, and as loosely worded as any County Court lawyer
could wish.
The cottage problem is indeed the most serious problem
of all in rural England to-day. It is difficult to see how we
are going to retain the services of our most virile young men
on the land until new cottages are built. Young men and
women have nowhere to go if they wish to get married, but
to drift to the towns and add to the congested areas of our
great cities.
The Government delivered a cruel blow to agriculture
when it played into the hands of the large profiteering con-
tractors by ceeising to control building materials. Our
>• The Land Enquiry.
• This Act which expired in June, 1919, is now being extended.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 321
one hope seems now to be in Guilds of Building Operatives
erecting cottages, dispensing with the profit-taking builder.
Tragic as many of these eviction cases are, fortunately
there is sometimes a humorous side to them. The follow-
ing report was given me by an eye-witness at the County
Court at Arundel, in 1919.
A discharged soldier found on being demobilised Christ-
mas, 1918, that his wife and family, goods and chattels
had been removed by a farmer from one cottage to another
without his, or his wife's, consent. On returning home he re-
fused to pay rent, except from the time of demobilisation.
This the new owner of the farm and cottage refused to accept,
and summoned the discharged soldier for arrears of rent.
When the case came up the folldwing conversation took
place between the Judge and the farmer : Judge: " How do
you prove your title to these cottages ? " Farmer : " I don't
know what you mean." Judge : " Surely you know what a
title is ; you've been to school." Farmer : " We bought
the property in the name of and rent it with the farm."
Judge : " How do you prove the cottage is yours, and that
this man has not as much right as you have to the cottage ? "
Farmer : " I moved the woman there because I wanted the
cottage she lived in." Judge : " You say you moved her
there, and dumped her and the nine children down as if they
were chairs or tables without proving your title to the cot-
tage ? " Farmer : " We bought it, your Honour." Judge :
" How do you prove it ? Have you the title deeds ? "
Farmer : " No." Judge : " Then you have no case."
Farmer : " But they pay no rent, your Honour." Judge :
" And you have not proved you are entitled to collect rent."
Farmer : " The man has come home and is living in the
cottage with his wife." Judge : " Surely you do not object
to the man living with his wife. You are not jealous, are
you ? "
The Judge dismissed the case, advising the farmer to engage
counsel next time. The farmer has since admitted that he
never felt such a fool in his life !
According to calculations made in April, 1916, the niunber
of permanent full-time workers employed in agriculture
VOL. n. y
322 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
in England and Wales in July, 1914. was approximately
750,000, of whom about 693,000 were males and 57,000
females. These numbers were considerably reduced during
the war owing to enlistment, but in November, 1919, the
numbers rose again to 554,000 males and 60,000 females;
and in January, 1920, it was estimated that there were
462,000 men, 588,000 boys and 49,000 women and girls.^
These figures show, especially after the increase of arable
farming which took place during the war, that the land must
be starved of labour even more than it was in 1914.* But it
is difl&cult to see how we are going to increase the number of
agricultural workers until there is more housing accommo-
dation available.
In comparing these figures with those of the men
organised we realise how amazing has been the growth
of trade imionism amongst agricultural workers. Before
the war, or even in 1914, I doubt if there were more
than 15,000 farm labourers enrolled as members of the
National Agricultural Labourers' Union and the Workers'
Union, giving 10,000 to the former, according to their Trade
Union Congress figures in 1914, and 5,000 to the latter, based
on estimates I have made from enquiries of the chief officials.
At the Conference of representatives of agricultural
workers in the Workers' Union held in Januaiy, 1920, in their
agricultural section alone a membership of 150,000 was
claimed. In the same month the N.A.L.U. reported to
me a membership of 200,Q00, all being farm workers, with
the exception of about 2,200, who are village blacksmiths,
and village carpenters, etc.* It is historic justice that
the town of Dorchester which condemned six men in 1834
to transportation for joining a trade union, should to-day
possess the strongest branch, with a membership of 900,
of any agricultural labourer's union. Amazing as was the
rapid gr(Jwth of the N.A.L.U., that of the Workers' Union
was still more astonishing. Besides there are a number of
farm labourers enrolled in the National Union of Gen-
' Wages Board Gazette, April, 1920.
' Ibid., January i, 1920.
' In October 1919 the actual numbers were 170,749, which I take from
an official return I was privileged to see.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 323
eral Workers, National Amalgamated Labourers' Union,
National Union of Labour, the Navvies' and the National
Bricklayers' Labourers' Union. We may therefore reckon
that more than half of the agricultural labourers in England
and Wales are now organised industrially.
In January, 1920, a demand was made by the farm workers
for a minimum wage of 50s. on a forty-eight hours' week.
His average earnings, including all allowances, stood in
1919 at 37s. 6d., and the cost of living had steadily risen.
To spend a whole week's wages on purchasing a pair of boots
for her ploughman-husband — boots which lasted only six
months — let alone the purchase of shoes for her children
and clothes (which had risen 300 per cent, in price) for all the
family, filled every wife with anxiety. Had not farmers
declared before the Tribunals that their farms could not be
worked without the labour of this or that man ? As the
unskilled labourer in any industry was awarded 50s. or more
why should not the craftsman of the fields be paid as much ?
All workers began to feel it would be disastrous to British
agriculture if farm labourers left the land as soon as the
building boom began, in order to obtain the £3 a week, or
more, paid to any bricklayer's labourer.
Furthermore, in the face of the evidence before the Royal
Commission on Agriculture, that the Forfar farmer paid
his ploughman £3 a week, and provided him with meal, milk,
potatoes, a cottage, and fuel, which altogether were equiva-
lent to £190 a yeari the claim for 50s. seemed irresistible.
That much of the land in Forfar is first-class is undeniable,
but there is also poor land in this county on which the
farmer has to pay exactly the same wages, and the £190 a
year is paid in cash and kind on land which is rented as highly
as £2 los. an acre.
However, the 50s. a week minimum was not granted,
but on March 8, after consulting the District Wages Com-
mittees, the Agricultural Wages Board decided to pubhsh a
proposal to raise the minimum wage to 42s. , with an increase
of 4S.2 a week in areas where the rate was already fixed
' Minutes of Evidence, Royal Commission on Agriculture, Vol. II., pax.8705.
' With the recent incresise in the price of bread the 4s. increase in the
wage of a farm labourer with a family will be rendered nugatory.
324 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
higher than 38s. ^ The Order took effect from April 19,
and Proposals were made for proportionate higher scales
for male workers under 21 and for women, (vide Appendix)*
On the pubhcation of the Proposal with the meagre
increase in the minimum wage, trouble immediately broke
out in Lancashire and Essex. West Lancashire once
again became the storm-centre and a strike on March 20
was averted only by the farmers and workers coming
to an agreement for a standard wage of £3 a week, which
is the highest regular rate of payment for agricultural
labour in England.
Despite the fact that farms had been worked during the
War with at least 100,000 fewer male workers, agriculture
was the one industry which could show an increase in pro-
duction. Even before the War (1911) the stockman was
tending twice the number of cattle that he looked after
in 1871.^
Almost simultaneously the Government announced the
fact that in view of the serious decUne of the wheat area
since last year, they would guarantee the farmer the average
world price of imported wheat up to a maximiun of 95s. per
quarter of 504 lb., for 1920, and loos. for 1921 ; and at
the same time announced their intention to introduce a
BUI early in the session to carry into effect the recom-
mendation of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, that
minimum prices should be beised upon and varying with the
cost of production as a continuous policy, subject to four
years' notice, before it can be withdrawn.
In the previous month Lord Lee intimated to the Chair-
man of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, that the Prime
Minister was advising his Majesty to release the Commission
from its duties and to bring its proceedings to a close. This
letter followed after the resignations of seven members of
the Commission had taken place — ^seven members who had
apparently grown weary of well-doing. The sixteen re-
maining members, including all the Scotch and Welsh
members, had decided to continue to sit and to carry out
1 Vide Appendix IV of complete schedule of all counties.
* A proposal for a further increase of 4/- a week on all minima rates was
made by the A.W.B. on the 3rd June, X920, bringing the minimum to 46-/.
» Wages and Conditions of Employment in Agriculture. — Cd. 24, igig.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 325
the terms of reference, to consider the economic prospects
of agricultiire and to issue their Final Report.
But it was soon made manifest, as I have ahready inti-
mated, that the Government were not serious in appointing
the Commission " to consider the economic prospects of
agriculttire " : they were only serious in obtaining a deci-
sion as to the price to offer farmers for their cereals. It
was not an unusual line for this Government to take, which
ever since its formation has lived from hand to mouth. But
the Minister of Agriculture had surely put himself out of
court in the eyes of the public, in refusing to allow the
presentation of a Final Report by a Commission which his
Ministry had created.
Lord Lee, in a letter addressed to Sir William Peat, stated
his objection to any enquiry into security of tenure without
the presence of landowners on the Commission, and that the
subjects which the Commission intended to investigate were
outside the terms of reference and had already been dealt
with by Lord Selborne's Committee.
Now Lord Selborne's Committee was appointed in 1916,
and since then the ownership of half the farms in many coun-
ties in England and Wales had changed hands. Thus new
conditions had been created giving farmers a sense of
insecurity greater than they had hitherto experienced.
In a dignified, but scathing letter, signed by the sixteen
members of the Commission (that is, by the total body since
seven had resigned) addressed to Lord Lee, it was poiiilted
out to him that at the very first sitting of the Commission
" it was resolved, one member alone dissenting, ' that the
Royal Commission agrees to consider the subject of security of
tenure in relation to the costs of production and to the general
economic prospects of the farming industry.' It had thus been
resolved by the Commission and apparently agreed by the Gov-
ernment that security of tenure is a factor which cannot be omit-
ted in any adequate examination of the economic conditions
of production. The Commission had at no stage resolved
or intended to consider this subject otherwise than in its rela-
tion to agricultural production, but they had thought it right to
point out to H. M. Government that the problem could not be
discussed at all unless the possible solutions were allowed to
be examined without restriction of their method or scope."
326 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
The Commission had already welcomed the addition of
landowning members which it imagined the Government
would appoint in due course, and it had no intention of
spending" much time on hackneyed subjects such as co-
operation and smaU-holdings, which had been fully discussed
by the Selbome Committee.
Every economist has agreed that a policy of guaranteed
prices, whether one is in favour of it or is not, can only
be a temporary, artificial device, and that if the economic
prospect of agriculture is to build on that as a foundation
stone, it will be buUt on shifting sands, swayed by varying
political waves of feeling. Its permanent prosperity is surely
dependent upon giving security of tenure to farmers, cottage-
rights to labourers, a new system of transport and marketing,
drainage, equipment of farms, the abolition of game laws,
which are by no means efficiently explored by the Selborne
Committee, especially in view of the changed conditions
since the end of the war. But as the editor of Farm Life
wrote : — *
" the Government had already made up its mind and did not
intend to do anything suggested by the Commission that had
not been agreed upon previously by the gentlemen behind the
scenes who manage these affairs whether they concern corn
or coal or less essential matters. ... No body of men has ever
enquired into the agricultural problem more ably, or painstak-
ingly, or courageously than the Farmer and Labour members
of this Commission ; and the present day student and the
future historian alike will find in the evidence, and especially
in the replies to questions, more illumination on the details of
British agriculture in our time than can be found anj^where else."
Though the Interim Report was restricted to a statement
on the merits or demerits of guaranteed prices, and concerned
the farmer more than the labourer, the student will find in
the printed evidence abundant information dealing with the
life of the labourer.
Lord Lee, though possessing great energy, is a man of war
rather than an agriculturist ; and his Prime Minister is essen-
tially a politician. Neither of them is an economist. Neither
of them seems to have grasped the fact, for instance, that if
1 March 6, 1920,
WHAT OF THE HARVEST ? 327
farmers are locking up their available capital in the forced
purchase of farms they will have less capital to develop them.
Both Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Lee have uttered economic
puerilities in tr3dng to scare the public into the behef that
our adverse exchange is due to the British farmer not growing
quite so much wheat. As long as the British Government
are permitted to borrow from day to day from international
financiers in the City, instead of taxing them, so long will
British credit suffer ; and it will continue to suffer if labour is
diverted from the highly productive industries such as ship-
building, to plough the unprofitable field, for to pursue that
policy, as opposed to arable dairying, is to plough the sands.
The Government, as usual, had but one panacea — ^high
prices ; and in spite of the fact that farmers had again
and again in giving evidence declared that guaranteed prices
were of little avail without security of tenure, refused to
allow a discussion on that point. Thus the Commission
which would have attempted to outline a real agricultural
policy of lasting benefit to the country was suddenly brought
to a close by the ulcase of Lord Lee.
Perhaps it was not to be wondered at that the Govern-
ment should view with disquietude the findings of a Commis-
sion on which it was plain to all who read the Evidence, that
after the dangerous rock of guaranteed prices had been
passed the opposing elements of farmer and labourer were
coalescing.
We have seen that farm labourers have been rapidly becom-
ing one of the best organised crafts in the country ; but farmers
have not been behindhand either, and the National Farmers'
Union now numbers some 100,000 members. Are labourers,
now that they are so well organised, more antagonistic to
farmers than they were in the 'seventies or 'eighties ? To
this I would answer unhesitatingly, that the antagonism
has moved to a higher plane. It is less bitter ; less personal.
In Arch's time the farmers were unorganised, and the men
regarded their masters a& personally responsible for the undue
hardships, the unjustifiably long hours and low wages which
were their lot in life. Masters and men never met in con-
ference. They never thrashed out things together. Now
328 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
they do, and though antagonism exists, both farmers and
men are more educated; their understanding is greater;
their horizon has widened. The farmers on their side, since
they have been organised, have shed certain industrial and
political prejudices and acquired more political principles.
They are beginning to view affairs from a national, rather
than from a class point of view.
Both classes have come to realise that it is not only
a question of wages and hours, but that it is equally as much
a question of more and better cottages, of tenure, of trans-
port, of markets, of drainage, of equipment, of coal and elec-
tric power. The labourers understand quite as well as the
farmers that agriculture can never prosper, and be remuner-
ative either to employer or employed, where the land is water-
logged ; where tenants are subject to quit without proper
compensation ; where capital and machinery are lacking.
Labourers no longer worry themselves over the disestabUsh-
ment of the Church, as Arch did. Cobbett regarded " a
couple of flitches worth 50,000 Methodist sermons," and
men to-day are regarding the right distribution of water as
of more importance than the re-distribution of tithes ; for
this new orientation of knowledge the much mahgned agi-
tator is responsible. The farm labourer is beginning to read
tracts other than those to be found within the pages of the
Parish Magazine ; and it is to be hoped that the subjective
poverty which he has endured through the dark depressing
ages covered by this history, will be lightened by an extension
of public libraries in the villages under the operations of the
Public Libraries Act, December, I'gig.
It may be, as they watch the successful development of
State Co-partnership farms at Patringdon and elsewhere,
that they wiU regard communal ownership and working
of land as the only goal in the race of wages and prices.
And what of their attitude to the squire or landlord?
There is little or none of that class hatred so vividly imagined
by nervous persons. The attitude of mind towards the
squire has been that of tolerant puzzlement ; of disappoint-
ment : "like only knew, if we could only get at him, things
would have been different ; but it is that bailiff,"
WHAT OF THE HARVEST ? 329
has been the commonly expressed sentiment. But the
landlord is receding more and more into the background ; and
the farmer, as owner, is rapidly taking his place.
More and more the farmer and the farm labourer will be
drawn together, not only on agricultural wages boards and
committees but also on the new Council of Agriculture for
England » in which the agricultural labourer is to take a seat
by statutory right. He may be selected to sit as an expert
on a County Agricultural Committee. The State now recog-
nises that he is as much interested in good husbandry as the
fanner, and as there are three labourers to one farmer, the
prosperity of the industry is even more his concern than the
farmer's.
The farm labourer's social status has altered for the better
in war-time, and with this improvement we may look for a
change in the attitude of the girls to the farm worker as
a Ufe-companion. No longer, let us hope, shall we hear
wives of farm labourers imploring their daughters, as
one mother implored her daughter who is known to me,
" Promise me never to marry a farm labourer, my dear."
She promised, and did not marry a farm labourer. Neverthe-
less she never deserted her class, but to-day sits on a Wages
Committee as a representative of the workers. Since the
passing of the Corn Production Act the farm worker has
become socially a more desirable mate than the smart young
gardener at the big house, for the farm worker has a wage
higher than the gardener's. When employers refused to pay
their gardeners the labourer's wage the gardener on many
an estate stepped up and not down the social scale as he
became a farm worker.
Cottage girls who have watched during war-time rich
men doing work of " national importance " in loading tum-
brils with dung with the exalted look of a saint ; who have
seen the squire's and the vicar's daughters working as field
labourer's, milking cows and cleaning out byres, have come to
realise that there is no indignity in farm work — that the indig-
nity lies only in the sordid conditions which have prevailed.
The objection to farm work on the part of cottage women,
■ Vide Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Act, December, 1919.
330 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
even by those who have no children to care for, is not to be
condemned as an example of the perverse snobbery of the
poor. Its roots lie deep in the rank soil of social degradation
when poverty drove their mothers to work as field labourers
in gangs hovelled promiscuously like swine. In those
dark days to be a female worker in a gang was to be a social
outcast ; and the miserable pittance meted out to women
for milking cows or cleaning roots since the gang system
was abolished did not compensate for the damage done to
their health, their skirts, or their boots in wet weather.^
To work at haymaking, harvesting, and fruit-picking
when the sun is shining was one thing, but to get your
skirts saturated by wet sprouts or roots, or soiled by the mire
of the cow-yard, even for is. 6d. a day, was another matter.
The sensible introduction of breeches and leggings ; the
higher wages fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board ; and
the greater respect shown by farmers to women workers
on the land effected a speedy transformation.
The farm -worker is once more taking his place in the
social life of the village as he did in the more leisured days
of a hundred and fifty years ago. As a member of a Trade
Union, of a Sports, of a District Wages Committee, or of a
Food Control Committee ; as a parish councillor, or even as a
county councillor, though still a farm labourer, he is a worker
who is able to hold his head higher than has been his lot for
many a long year. He walks, even on heavy clay soil, with
a more elastic step, and since demobilisation he joins in
country dances and impromptu concerts. He has expressed
himself in drama at Glastonbury of Arthurian legends ; and
across the melancholy meres of Cambridge, the deep- throated
fenman sings a song in which the cadences are in flawless
unison with life. His manners are not to be judged by the
conventions of other classes. The gentleman who is the
first to open a door to a lady is often the first to shut it in
the face of Woman. , His manners are not the manners of
those -who hve on terms of good-humoured friendship with
their wives.
* Even as late as May, 1916, a case was reported by the Somerset
Women's War Service Committee of a labourer's wife who was paid only
4s. $d. a week for milMng twelve cows morning and evening.
WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 331
It may be as Professor Pigou pointed out, that higher
wages will drive the inefficient farmer from business, but
that surely is not an undesirable consimimation. What
the farm labourer has won in better conditions he wiU never
relinquish. Landlords may go ; the inefficient farmer may
go ; and if neither landlord nor farmer will cultivate the
land, he, the peasant, will remain to reap what he has sown
CHIEF BOOKS AND PAPERS USED
Hammond, J. L. and Barbara. The Village Labourer.
Hasbach, W. a History of the English Agricultural Labourer.
Slater, G. The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of
Common Fields.
Prothero, R. E. English Farming : Past and Present.
Melville, Lewis. Life and Letters of William Cobbett.
Clayden, Arthur. The Revolt of the Field.
"The Labourers' Union" Chronicle. 1872-76.
"The CongregationaUst." 1872.
Clifford, Frederick. The Agricultural Lock-out. 1874.
Heath, F. G. The Romance of Peasant Life in the West of
England. 1872.
Girdlestone, Canon. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, 1874.
Joseph Arch : the Story of his Life, told by Himself.
EvERSLEY, Lord. Commons, Forests and Footpaths.
Heath, Richard. The English Peasant.
Smart, W. Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century.
Garnier, Russell M. Annals of British Peasantry.
CoLLiNGS, Jesse. Land Reform.
CuRTLER, W. H. R. A Short History of English Agriculture.
Lawson, William. Ten Years of Gentleman Farming.
HosKYNS, C. W. Chronicles of a Clay Farm.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. History of Trade Unionism.
Heath, F. G. British Rural Life and Labour.
Hewlett, Maurice. The Song of the Plow.
Jefferies, Richard. Hodge and his Masters.
Graham, P. Anderson. The Rural Exodus.
Royal Commission on Agriculture. 1880-82.
TucKWELL, Rev. W. Reminiscences of a Radical Parson.
Kebbel, T. E. The Agricultural Labourer.
Plowman, Thomas. Fifty Years of a Showman's Life.
Jessopp, Augustus. Arcady for Better or for Worse.
FoRDHAM, Montague. A History of English Rural Life.
Paul, Herbert. Modem History of England.
Baverstock, Rev. A. H. The English Agricultural Labourer.
DuNLOP, JocELYN. The Farm Labourer.
Stubbs, C. W. The Land and the Labourers.
Haggard, H. Rider. Rural England.
332
CHIEF BOOKS AND PAPERS USED. 333
Report on the Decline in the Agricultural Population. 1881-
1906. Cd. 3273.
Report of Royal Commission on Labour : The Agricultural
Labourer. 1831-94.
"The Church Reformer." 1890-93.
Enghsh Land Restoration League Reports. 1891-97.
"Among the Suffolk Labourers with the Red Van." 1891.
"Among the Agricultural Labourers with the Red Vans." 1892-97.
MiLLiN, G. F. Life in our Villages.
Mann, H. H. Life in an Agricultural Village in England.
(Sociological Papers. 1904.)
Davies, Maude. Life in an English Village.
Rogers, Professor Thorold. Six Centuries of Work and
Wages.
Fox, Wilson. Reports by. Wages and Earnings of Agricul-
tural Labourers. Cd. 2376. 1905.
Earnings and Hours of Labour : Agriculture, 1907. Cd. 5460.
Graham, A. H. and Brodhurst, Spencer. Parish Councils
Act.
Fabian Society, The. Parish Councils and Village Life.
Pedder, Lieut. -Col. D. C. Where Men Decay.
Matthews, A. H. H. Fifty Years of Agricultural Politics.
Masterman, C. F. G. To Colonise England.
Bourne, George. The Bettesworth Book.
Bourne, George. Lucy Bettesworth.
Bourne, George. Change in our Village.
Williams, Alfred. A Wiltshire Village.
Hudson, W. H. Nature in Downland.
Hudson, W. H. Afoot in England.
Lennard, Reginald. Enghsh Agricultural Wages.
Small Holdings and Allotments Act. 1908.
Jebb, L. Small Holdings.
Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908.
Gambier-Parry, Major. Allegories of the Land.
Wolff, H. W. Co-operation in Agriculture.
Housing and Town Planning Act. 1909.
Scott, J. Robertson. The Land Problem.
Scott, if. Robertson. The Townsman's Farm.
Sutherland, William. Rural Regeneration in England.
Unwin, Mrs. Cobden. The Land Hunger.
Bryce, James. The Story of a Ploughboy.
HoLDENBY, Christopher. Folk of the Furrow.
RowNTREE, B. Seebohm. How the Labourer Lives.
Hall, A. D. A Pilgrimage of British Farming.
PiGOU, A. C. The Miminum Wage {Nineteenth Century,
December, 1913).
The Land : Report of the Land Enquiry Committee.
334 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
Welsh Land : Report of the Land Enquiry Committee.
The Land Problem. 1913. (A Reply to the Liberal Land
Enquiry).
Harben, Henry D. The Rural Problem.
Aronson, Hugh. Our Village Homes.
Radford, George. The State as Farmer.
Green, F. E. The Tyranny of the Countryside.
Annual Report of Small Holdings. 1914. Cd. 7851.
Agricultural Holdings Act, 1914.
AsHBY, Arthur. Allotments and Small Holdings in Oxford-
shire.
Orr, J. Agriculture in Oxfordshire.
Orr, J. Agriculture in Berkshire.
Orwin, C. S. Determination of Farming Costs.
Russell, George W. (A.E.). Co-operation and Nationality.
EngUsh Agriculture : the Nation's Opportunity.
Green, F. E. Home Colonisation by Soldiers and Sailors.
{Nineteenth Century, April, 1916.)
Hall, A. D. Agriculture after the War.
Report on Settlement or Employment on the Land of Discharged
Soldiers cUid Sailors. Cd. 8182.
Seventeenth Abstract of Labour Statistics. 1915. Cd. 7733.
Small Holdings Colonies Act, 1916.
"The Labourer."
"The Land Worker."
" The Worker's Record."
Green, F. E. Agriculture and the Minimum Wage. {Nine-
teenth Century, September, 1917.)
HocKiN, Olive. Two Girls on the Land.
Wolseley, Countess. Women and the Land.
Com Production Act, 1917.
Report of Agricultural Policy Sub-Committee. 1918. Cd. 9079.
Green, F. E. The Awakening of England. (1918 Edition.)
Sayle, a. Village Libraries.
Selley, Ernest. Village Trade Unions in Two Centuries.
Land Drainage Act, 1918.
Report of the Cost of Living of Rural Workers. 1919. Cd. 76.
Agricultural Land Sales Act, 1919.
Wages and Conditions of Emplo37ment in Agriculture. 1919.
Cd. 24.
Journal of the Board of Agriculture.
Royal Commission on Agriculture. Reports of Evidence.
1919-20.
Wages Board Gazette.
Housing (Financial Assistance) Committee's Final Report. 1919.
Cd. 9238.
Land Settlement '(Facilities) Act, 1919.
APPENDIX I
AVERAGE PRICES, PER IMPERIAL QUARTER, OF
BRITISH CORN, IN ENGLAND AND WALES FROM
1850 TO 1919
Year.
Wheat.
Barley.
Oats.
Year.
Wheat.
Barley.
Oats.
S.
d.
S. d.
s. d.
s. d.
S. d.
s. d.
1850
40
3
23 5
16 5
1885
32 10
30 I
20 7
1851
38
6
24 9
18 7
1886
31
a6 7
19
1852
40
9
28 6
19 r
1887
32 6
25 4
16 3
1853
53
3
33 2
21
1888
31 10
27 10
16 9
1854
72
5
36
27 II
.1889
29 9
25 10
17 9
1855
74
8
34 9
27 5
1890
31 II
28 8
18 7
1856
69
2
41 I
25 2
1891
37
28 2
20
1857
56
4
42 I
25
1892
30 3
26 2
19 10
1858
44
2
34 8
24 6
1893
26 4
25 7
18 9
1859
43
9
33 6
23 2
1894
22 10
24 6
17 I
i860
53
3
36 7
24 5
1895
23 I
21 II
14 6
1861
55
4
36 I
23 9
1896
26 2
22 II
14 9
1862
55
5
35 I
22 7
1897
30 2
23 6
16 II
1863
44
9
33 II
21 2
1898
34
27 2
18 5
1864
40
2
29 II
20 I
1899
25 8
25 7
17
1863
41
10
29 9
21 10
1900
26 II
24 II
17 7
1866
49
II
37 5
2-4 7
19OI
26 9
25 2
18 5
1867
64
5
40
26
1902
28 I
25 8
20 2
1868
63
9
43
28 I
1903
26 9
22 8
17 2
1869
48
2
39 5
26
1904
28 4
22 4
16 4
1870
46
II
34 7
22 10
1905
29 8
24 4
17 4
187I
56
8
36 2
25 2
1906
28 3
24 2
18 4
1872
57
37 4
23 2
1907
30 7
25 I
18 10
1873
58
8
40 5
25 5
1908
32
25 10
17 10
1874
55
9
44 II
28 10
1909
36 II
26 10
18 II
1875
45
2
38 5
28 8
1910
31 8
23 I
17 4
1876
46
2
35 2
26 3
1911
31 8
27 3
18 10
1877
56
9
39 8
25 II
1912
34 9
30 8
21 6
1878
46
5
40 2
24 4
1913
31 8
27 3
19 I
1879
43
10
34
2I 9
1914
34 II
27 2
20 II
1880
44
4
33 I
23 I
1915
52 10
37 4
30 2
1881
45
4
31 II
2I 9
1916
58 5
53 6
33 5
1882
45
I
31 2
21 10
I917
75 9
64 9
49 10
1883
41
7
31 10
2I 5
1918
72 10
69
49 4
1884
35
8
30 8
20 3
1919
72 II
75 9
52 5
335
APPENDIX II
AVERAGE CASH WAGES PER WEEK OF ORDINARY
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS
From Mr. Wilson Fox's Report on Wages, etc., of Agricultural
Labourers in the United Kingdom, 1905. Cd. 2376.
This Table should be compared with prices of British corn.
England
England
Eastern
Cmintips
Year.
and
Wales,
1850-
1903
(69
farms).
Eastern
Counties
of England,
I 850-1 903
{12 farms).
Year.
and
Wales,
1850-
1903
(69
farms).
of Eng-
land,
1850-
1903
(12
farms).
England and
Wales,
1874-1903
(128 farms).
s.-d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
1850
9 3i
8 8
1874
13 7
13 2-1
13 114 ^
1851
9 2i
8 3
1875
13 7
12 11^
14
1852
9 3
8 6i ,,,
1876
13 8
13 I
14 14
1853
9 II
9 Hi
r-
1877
13 8
12 10 1
14 14
1854
10 8
II 2
<^t-
1878
13 8
13 oj
14 oj
1855
10 ii|
II 5
1879
13 3i
12 54
13 8i
s
1856
II oj
II 5
I-P
1880
13 2j
12 I
13 74
(0
1857
10 ii|
10 II
WSo.
1881
13 2
12
13 74
&
1858
10 gi
10 5i
1882
13 2i
12 I
13 74
1859
10 8i
10 2f
111
1883
13 3
12 0|
13 8
•S"
i860
10 II
10 8
ill
1884
13 2^
II Il|
13 74
8.0
1861
II I
10 10
1885
13 I
II 5
13 54
|S
1862
II I
10 7 .
1886
12 II
II 2j
13 4
&■-
1863
II
10 i^ = *
1887
12 9i
10 Il|
13 24
■ll'
1864
II oj
10 3
1888
12 9i
10 7i
13 24
ll
1865
II 3
10 5
1889
12 10 1
10 II
13 4
.■^l.
1866
II 6
10 i^
1890
13 oj
II oi
13 6
i^-
1867
II II
II 6i
1891
13 4
II 94
13 94
I'd
1868
12
II 9
1892
13 5
II 8
13 10
ff'g
1869
II 8i
II 3
1893
13 3i
II 44
13 9
«2
1870
II io|
II li
1894I
13 3
II I
13 8
•3.t!
1871
12 I
II 7i
1895
13 2i
II
13 84
5£
1872
12 8i
12 4^
1896
13 4
II 14
13 9
DO
1873
13 4
13 0^
1897
13 5
II 6
13 104
M
1898
1899
13 8i
13 10 i
12 3
12 64
14 14
14 4
U3
"
1900
14 5i
13 14
14 10
1901
14 6J
13 24
14 II
1902
14 7
13 24
14 114
1903
14 7
13 24
II ii4 J
1007
14 9
12 62
y /
Eneland
Norfolk &
1
Suffolk
Note. — Extra earnings per week : Ordinary Labourers, lod. ; Horse-
men, IS. 6d. ; Cattlemen, is. 8d. ; Shepherds, is. lod.
• In 1894 wheat dropped to its lowest recorded figure, aas. lod.
' Cd. 5460.
336
APPENDIX III
TABLE SHOWING AVERAGE PRE-WAR WEEKLY EARN-
INGS OF ORDINARY AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS,
Including Cash Wages, Extras and Allowances together with minimum
Weekly Wage and Hours of Employment for Male Agricultural
Workers of 21 years and upwards on October 6, 1919.
Couuty.
Board
of
Trade
Report,
1907. »
Board
of Agri-
culture
Enquiry,
1912.
Central
Land
Associa-
tion
Enquiry,
1912-13.
Rural
League
Enquiry
1912-J3.
Minimum
Wages Board,
October, 1919.
Wage.
Sum- Win-
mcr. ter.
Hours.*
Northern Counties.
Northumberland. . . .
Durham
Cumberland
Westmorland ....
Average
YoRKS, "Lancashire and
Yorks — East Riding
North Riding .
West Riding
Whole County .
Lancashire
Cheshire
Average
North and West Midla
Leicestershire
Rutland
Lincolnshire ....
Nottinghamshiru
Derbyshire ....
Gloucestershire •
Herefordshire
Shropshire ....
Staffordshire ....
Worcestershire .
Warwickshire
Average ....
South Midland and East
Middlesex
Hertfordshire ....
Buckinghamshire
Oxfordshire
Northamptonshire .
Huntingdonshire
Bedfordshire ....
Cambridgeshire ....
Essex
Suffolk
Norfolk
Average
South Eastern Counties,
Surrey
Kent
Sussex
Hampshire
Berkshire
Average
South Western Counties.
Wiltshire
Dorsetshire
Devonshire
Cornwall
Somersetshire ....
Average
s. d.
20 3
20 q
20 5
Cheshi
ig 6
19 10
20 2
19 10
20 8
19 I
19 9
ND COU
18 9
I? O
19 5
19 5
20 10
16 3
17 I
18 2
18 10
16 3
17 2
18 4
ERN Co
20 3
16 10
16 II
14 II
16 9
S. d.
24 8
24 8
18 6
15 6
RE.
20 10
20 2
22 O
18 8
NTIES.
17 I
17 6
19 5
22 6
17
18
19
16
17
16 3
16
16
16
l6
15
15
16
15 II
18 9
18 10
17 9
17 5
16 8
18 1
16
16
17
17
17
16 10
18 7
18 3
17 4
s. d.
24 8
24 10
22 6
18 o
22 6
21
21
22
21
22
19
21
19
20
21
20
20
17
20
20
20
16
20
19 8
18 6
19 7
21 10
19 2
18. II
18 9
19 7
17 2
17 7
19 o
17 o
18 6
17 10
s. d.
25 0I
25 6)
20 o
20 6
23 3
20 8/
21 5
20 2
20 9
19 8
20 O
19 8
18
25
16
17
19 10
19 6
17 II
17 4
19 2
21
17
18
15
17
16
16
16
16
16
16
17
18 10
21 2
18 2
16 10
16 10
IS i
17
17
17
19
18
17
s. d.
42 6
40 o
40 o
41 o
39 6
39 o
38 6
36 6
36 6
36
36
37
37
36
50
48
48
48
48
48
-18
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
Av erage for England
17 6 -'-
19 10
37 6
50 I 48
* For purposes of comparison these wages are based
of 50 and 48 hours, though higher rates were allowed
were longer.
VOL. II. 337
on a uniform working week
where the>tatutory hours
338
APPENDIX 111.
WEEKLY CASH WAGES, ALLOWANCES AND EARNINGS
OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN WALES
All Classes
Cash Wages.
Allowances
and Extra
Earnings.
Total Earnings.
Wages Board.
October, 1919.
County.
Central
Board
of
Trade,
1907.
Central
Central
Board of
Land
Land
Board of
Land
Minimum
Wage.
oj
to
Trade,
1907.
Associa-
tion,
Asso-
ciation.
Trade,
1907.
Associa-
tion,
a
1
19H-13.
1913-13
I9ia-i3.
tn
S. d.
s. d.
S. d.
s. d.
s.
d.
S. d.
S. d.
Flintshire .
15 II
18
2 II
3 8
18
10
21 8
36 6
50
48
Denbighsiiire .
13 II
20
4 z
4 6
18
I
24 6
36 6
50
48
Carnarvon .
13 10
17 6
4 9
3
18
7
20 6
36 6
50
48
Anglesey . .
II 9
16 6
5 9
3 3
17
6
19 9
36 6
50
48
Merionethsliirc ■
13 3
1+ 3
4 II
7 6
18
2
21 9
36 6
50
48
Montgomeryshire
12 8
18 I
3 II
3 I
16
7
21 2
36 6
50
48
Cardiganshire .
II 6
15 9
5
I 6
16
6
17 3
37 6
50
48
Radnorshire
II I
10
5 7
7 6
16
8
17 6
36 6
50
48
Brecknockshire.
14 1
13 10
4 2
5 6
18
9
19 4
36 6
50
48
Carmarthenshire
13 9
19 I
4 4
5
18
I
24 I
37 6
."io
48
Pembrokeshire.
12 9
9 10
4 6
8 6
17
3
18 4
37 6
50
48
Glamorganshire
15 8
19 5
3 7
3 3
19
3
22 8
41 6
50
48
Monmouthshire
14 9
17 3
3 4
I 10
18
I
19 I
41 6
50
48
Average for
Wales.
13 9
16 2
4 3
4 5
18
20 7
37 6
50
48
NoU. — In some cases the Minimum Wage applies to all classes./ In others
higher rates are allowed for horsemen, shepherds, etc.,
X
Q
Z
w
a ai S,
O
>ri
-*!
•o
to
en
M
•6
M
m
M
60
3
§
M
O
■ m
(U !»
■ ■ o
.b 'So =^ !3 5 .a
^3 8 1^1
CI
nj
■ ■•a
(J
•T)
• fi
CI)
III!
•^1
2 CI V
7! S (U h -M
Bsar "^
P4 [/)«}"
r^^
339
340
APPENDIX IV.
s s
4
H
i
S B
B E
^H
"B
W
5
^
S
a rt
S
o|
g
M
a'l^
"
^■a
is
s«
s
00 CO 00 00 00
^ -^ -(j- U-) ■<;^
o O O s o
lO »o »o VO lO
Ti- -ti- Tf CT) CO
m "
M
^
M
•"I
M M
H W
l-l
W H
13 M
"
r*4
M
«
M tH
M M
If
M "
M
M
M
'-'
M M
M H
M
H H
ofO
: : -i- ■■ ■■■ ■■ ta^
3
5 3 9
... g" ... i £
•9 3 ^
^ S 5
^ "^ TO
8 T3 O
., : :^ : : S -a
■3 I I :§ §> «
^§ I^S -S I I 5
Km MiJm h) >H O <!
o
o
+J
en
o
55
K
•St) g o
° h o o
^° >;>d
Mill
tun
o, Pi's o
a'2 s § ">
OS rttn S
o
I
o
p<
o
*
Mi
ncludi
tingdo
dshire
12.0 b
3£
2«1
3S"
i,«1
ambrid
Isle of
shire a
a>
O
O
APPENDIX IV.
341
i.
c
i
cnoD
00 00
0000
r^
I^OO
II
1
<o Tl-
IT) ■*
■* -a-
<o
•o
Tl ^
at
si
p-
t
fl
fO
M
00
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a
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342
APPENDIX IV.
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APPENDIX IV.
343
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d O b 0)
APPENDIX V
STATEMENT SHOWING CHANGES IN COST OF THE
UNDERMENTIONED ITEMS OF WORKMEN'S
EXPENDITURE IN LONDON AND LARGE TOWNS
IN GREAT BRITAIN (Cost in 1900 = 100).
Extracted from Second Series of " Memoranda, Statisticai. Tables
AND Charts." Cd. 2337 of 1904.
Year.
Food.
Rent.i
Clothing.
Fuel and
Lighting
Cost of the
Four
Items.
1880 . .
142-3
86-6
I08-5«
74-1
121 -7
1881 . .
140-2
87-3
108-5
77-0
120-8
1882 . .
140 -I
88-0
107-5
73-0
120-4
1883 . .
1399
88-7
105-1
757
120-2
1884 . .
127-9
89-4
102-7
75-1
II2-9
1885 . .
Il6-2
90-1
I02-I
75-1
I06-I
1886 . .
110 -3
90-1
102-2
73-2
102-5
1887 . .
104-9
90-0
102-2
71-5
99-2
1888 . .
104-6
90-0
100-8
72-9
98-9
1889 . .
108-3
89-9
100-4
73-9
lOI-I
1890 . .
106-3
89-9
I0I-8
79-6
100-6
1891 . .
io8-8
91-2
101-9
78-2
102-2
1892 . .
108-9
92-5
10 1 -0
777
102-3
1893 . .
103-1
937
100-3
84-5
9?-5
1894 . .
100 -0
95-0
99-1
73-4
96-8
1895 • •
95-0
96-3
97-8
71-3
937
1896 . .
91-0
97-0
98-6
72-1
91-7
^^97 • •
97-6
97-8
98-2
72-6
957
1898 . .
103-9
98-5
97-0
73-3
99-3
1899 . .
97-4
99-3
96-2
79-5
96-0
1900 . .
100 -0
100 -0
100 -0
100 -0
100 -0
1901 . .
105-1
100-7
100-6
90-2
102-4
1902 . .
102-6
101-5
99.9
87-2
100-7
1903 • .
104-3
102-2
997
82-5
101-4
• In the case of rent only the figures for 1880, 1885, 1890, 1895 and
1900 are ascertained data. The intermediate figures are interpolated
on the assumption that the average level of rents within each five year
period changed at a uniform rate. For 1901-3 the rate of increase between
1895 3nd '900 has been assumed to have continued.
' Figure for i88i has been used, earlier information not being available.
344
APPENDIX VI
PERCENTAGE CHANGES IN AVERAGE RETAIL PRICE
OF FOOD IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, TO A WORK-
MAN'S FAMILY (Average Price in 1900 = 100).
Extracted from " Memoranda, Statistical Tables, and Charts
BEARING ON BRITISH AND FOREIGN TrADE AND INDUSTRIAL
Conditions." Cd. 1761 of 1903.
Year.
Year.
Year.
1877
143
1886
105
1894
95
1878
134
1887
100
1895
91
1879
128
1888
100
1896
87
1880
136
1889
104
1897
94
1881
133
1890
102
1898
100
i88a
133
1891
104
1899
93
1883
133
1892
104
1900
96
1884
122
1893
98
I901
100
1885
III
PERCENTAGE CHANGES BETWEEN 1905 AND 1912
IN RENTS, RETAIL PRICES, AND RENTS AND
RETAIL PRICES COMBINED IN LONDON AND 87
LARGE TOWNS.
Extracted from " Seventeenth Abstract of Labour Statistics."
Cd. 7733 of 1915.
Mean Percentage Increase {+)
or Decrease (—
)in
Rents
Geographical Group.
Rents.
Retail
and
Retail
Prices.
Prices
Com-
bined.
I'Middle Zone . .
-4
+12
+9
London Area] Inner Zone . . .
-6
+12
+8
I Outer Zone . . .
—2
+10
+8
Northern Counties and Cleveland.
+0-7
+13-2
+10-7
Yorkshire (except Cleveland) . .
+1-3
+14-0
+II-5
Lancashire and Cheshire . . .
+3-4
+15-8
+13-3
Midlands
+0-4
+14-4
+II-6
Eastern and East Midland Counties
+3-1
+12-4
+10-5
Southern Counties
+1-2
+ 9-8
+ 8-1
Wales and Monmouth ....
+4-3
+15-0
+12-9
Scotland
+1-9
+I3-I
+10-9
Ireland
+1-2
+150
+12-2
345
346
APPENDIX VI
ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE INCREASE, ON THE PRICES
OF JULY, 1914, IN THE RETAIL PRICES OF FOOD.
Extracted from the " Labour Gazette."
Date.
January ist, 1915
January ist, 1916
January ist, 1917
January ist, 1918
January ist, 1919
January ist, 1920
Increase per cent.
18
43
87
106
130
136
APPENDIX VII
NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS, SHEPHERDS,
NURSERYMEN, GARDENERS, ETC., IN ENGLAND
AND WALES AND GREAT BRITAIN, AS RETURNED
AT THE CENSUS OF 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 AND 1911
RESPECTIVELY.
Agricultural Labourers (incl. )
cattlemen and horsemen . [
Shepherds j
Nurserymen, Seedsmen, Florists'\
Market Gardeners, Other I
Gardeners (incl. Domesticj
Gardeners) /
England and Wales
Great Britain
England and Wales
Great Britain .
England and Wales
Great Britain .
1871.
798,087
891,185
23,323
31.675
103.564
112,490
1881.
847.953
983,919
22,844
33.125
148,283
163,621
i8gi.
1901
Z911.
Agricultural Labourers \
incl. cattlemen and I
horsemen) j
Shepherds . . . |
Nurserymen, Seeds- \
men. Florists, Mar- 1
ket Gardeners, other ?■
Gardeners (incl. I
Domestic Gardeners) '
England and Wales
Great Britain .
England and Wales
Great Britain .
England and Wales
Great Britain .
759.134
866,546
21.573
31,686
i79.33'5
195.721
595.702
689,292
25,366
35.022
216,165
235,971
635.493
722,031
20,844
29,885
263,147
284,830
347
INDEX.
Adderley, Sir Charles, 40
Agricultural education, grants for,
151
Agricultural Employment Board's
Bill, 1914, 200
Agricultural Holdings Act, 68, 172
Agricultural Ratings Acts, 1896-
1902, 150
Agricultural Wages Boards : —
Creation of, 253 et seq., 298
District Wages Committees,
see that title.
First meeting, 256
Harvest rates, 1918, 297
Minimum wage, see that title.
Orders, 288
Aldous, J. A., 273
Allotments and Small Holdings : —
Act of 1887. 82
Chaplin's Bill, 1886, 84
Co-operative Society, i6g
County Councils, powers of,
161
Ex-soldiers' settlement, 310
Extension Act, 1882, 80
Glebe land used as, 80
Labourer's Friend Society,
1834. 79
Land Enquiry Report, 209
Liberal Party's programme,
1906, 159
Organization, lack of, 165, 171
Parish Councils, powers of, 136,
161, 162
Popularity of, 81
Small Holdings and Allotments
Act, 1907, 127, 136, 161, 163
Small Holdings Act, 1892, 137,
139
Small Holdings (Colonies) Act,
1916, 246
Spalding Association, 1892, 139
Appeal to Farmers," 1920, 317
Arch, Joseph, 6, 12, 14, 28, 29, 31,
33. 34. 36, 37. 38, 41. 44. 45.
46. 50. 53. 58, 69, 70, 277
Death of, 299
Emigration schemes, 45
First meeting held by, 34
Grace — Joseph Arch's grace,
32
Interview with, 1909, 173
Parliament, election to, 83,
84, 85
Royal Commission, 1880-2,
evidence by, 71-7
Arnold, A., 38
Ashby, Arthur W., 315
Ashley, Sir William, 315
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 243
Back to the Land movement, 159
Balfour, A. J., 251
Ball, R., 61, 63
Bankruptcy statistics, 1 892-1918,
177
Barttelot, Sir Walter, 87, 238
Batchelor, W., 315
Bateman, Lord, 114
Beard, John, 142, 143, 144, 183
257. 264
Beaufort, Duke of, 113
Bedford, Duke of, 74, 113, 154
Bedfordshire labourer, conditions
before 1872, 19
Bennet, Capt. E. N., 297, 299
Bennett, Sir John, 40
Bennett, W., 299
Bentinck, Lord Henry, 83, 165, 200
Berkshire labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 20
Birkenhead, Lord, 232
" Black Year," 1879, 67
Board of Agriculture, creation of,
1899, 150
Booth, Charles, 153
349
350
INDEX.
Bothy system, 90
Bourne, George, 178
Box, S., 277, 299
Bradlaugh, Charles, 40
Bradley, A. D., 254
Brighton, Jesse, 308
Brine, James, 184
Bristol, Marquis of, 62
Buckinghamshire labourer, con-
ditions before 1872, 19
Budgets, Labourers', 78 note, 203
et seq.. 344. 345, 346.
Burns, John, 173, 185
Burston school strike, 220
Buxton, Charles Roden, 165, 207
Cambridgeshire labourer, con-
ditions before 1872, 19
Campbell, Colin, 256
Carrington, Lord, 139
Carson, Sir Edward, 232
Cautley, H. S., 315
Caxton Hall Meeting, October,
1919, 313
Census of agricultural labourers,
322, 347
Central Land Union, 211
Chamberlain, Joseph, 70, 87
Chamberlain, Nevflle, 245
Chaplin, Lord, 237
Charitable Trusts Act, 1884,
80 note
Charity lands : —
Allotments Act, 1882, 80-126
Maladministration of, 79
Chatteris strike, 1919, 299
Cheshire labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 21
Child-labour, war exemptions,
235 et seq.
Chitteme (Wilts) strike, 1914, 224
Clayden, Arthur, 14, 46 note
Clergy, attitude towards labourers,
42, 44, 118, 119, 262
CUfford, Frederick, 14, 49, 52,
56 note, 58 note
Cobbett, William, 6 et seq.
CodUng, W. G., 160
Coe, James, 242, 245
Close, Admiral, 113
Collings, Jesse, 38, 79
Common and grazing rights, 136
Conference of agricultural workers,
Jan. 1920, 322
Co-operative Land Company, 69
Co-operative Small Holdings
Society, 165
Co-partnership State farms, 328
Corn prices, 1850-1919, 335
Corn Production Act, 1917, 200,
250. 253. 254, 297
General working of, 288 et seq.
See also Wheat, etc.
Corsley village, investigation re-
ports, 157 et seq.
Cost of living : —
Kises in, 241, 247, 287, 301
Workmen's Budgets, 78 note,
203 et seq., 344, 345, 346
Costings Committee, 313
Cottages, see Housing.
Cotterell, Sir John, 226
Council of Agriculture, labourers
eligible for, 127, 329
County Agricultural Committee,
eUgibility of labourer, 329
County Councils : —
Allotments, powers as to,
162 et seq.
Creation of, 122, 127
Elections, 1919, 307
Ex-soldiers' settlement, 310
Courthope-Munroe, Harry, 250
Cowdray, Viscount, 136
Cox, J. C, 41
Credit Societies, advances to, 191
note
Cultivation of unused land, 245,
256
Cumberland and Westmoreland
labourers, conditions before
1872, 17
Curtler, W. H. R., 30 note, 31
note, 32 note, 67 note
" Customary Hours " Clause, 288,
289
Dailt Chsonicle reports, 206
Daily News reports, 37, 104, 108,
Dallas, George, 253, 257, 264, 298,
315
Davenport, Bromley, 45
Davies, Maude, 154, 157
Day, H. A., 160, 179, 180, 182, 242
Dee, F., 244
DemobiUsed soldiers, settlement
of, 309
Denmark, Suffolk Farmers' Depu-
tation to, 1901, 150
Depopulation of Rural Districts,
88, 93
Derby, Lord, 195, 196, 197
Derbyshire labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 18
INDEX.
351
Devonshire labourer, conditions
before 1872, 21
Dilke, Sir Charles, 40, 80
District Wages Committees, 207,
212, 250, 253
Bias of members, 290
Working of, 288 et seq.
Dixon, 9, 38
Dockers' Union, 197
Dodd, J. Theodore, 80
Dorsetshire labourer, conditions
before 1872, 20, 183 note
Douglas, Charles, 315
Drainage — Peel's Drainage Loan,
30
Drage, Geofirey, 254
Duncan, Charles, 142, 299
Duncan, Joseph F., 315
Durilop, Miss, 178
Dyke-Acland, Rt. Hon. A. H.,
207, 256
Eastern Counties Agricultural
Labourers' and Small Holders'
Union, 160, 179
Eastern Counties Labour Federa-
tion, 97, 98, 100, loi, 114, 140
note
Ede, J. Chuter, 299
Education : —
Child labour exemptions, 235
Rural, in 1872, 70
Technical, in 1889, 151
Edwards, George, 29, 44, 73, 118,
124, 160, 179, 195, 196, 199,
239, 242, 247, 257, 259, 263, 299
Edwards, William, 315
Eliot, George, 13
Ellicott, Dr., 37
Emigration schemes, 37, 45, 58
Enclosures : —
Acts, 1 760-1 867, 16, 79
Arch's statements, 62
Parish Council's action, i
Royal Commission on In-
closures of Commons, 1869,
16
English Land Restoration League,
97. 98. 109, 114, 116
Engineers, Amalgamated Society
of, 56
Ernie, Lord, 14, 30 note, 178, 250,
254. 255. 312
Escombe, Jane, 133
Essex and Suffolk Farmers' Associ-
ation, 54
Essex Labourers' Union notices,
1872, 52, 53
Evans, Howard, 80
Evens, John, 256
Everington, W., 242
Exodus from villages, 88, 93
Fabian Society pamphlets, 137,
178
Farm and Dairy Workers' Union,
227
Farmers' Federation, 219
St. Faith's strike, 179
Farmers' Union, 197, 211, 226,
237, 264, 292
Workers and Farmers Joint
Council, 282
Farming : —
Corn Production Act, see that
title
Improvements, growth of, 31
War profits, 1916-17, 247
Federal Union of Agricultural
General Labourers, 55
Fellowes, Sir Ailwyn, 256, 301, 311
Fels, Joseph, 311
Fielding, W. T., 276
Footpath rights, 135
Forbes, Archibald, 37, 38
Fordham, Montague, 165
Forfarshire labourers, wages in
kind, 323
Forty-eight Hours Bill, 1919, 312
Fox, T. Hamilton, 165
Fox, Wilson, 16, 116 note
Wages, etc., report, 1905, 152,
155
Franchise, agricultural, 86
Eraser, Bishop, 37
Frozen meat, 76
Game Laws : —
Committee, 1873, 33 note
Ground Game Act, 68
Land Enquiry Report, 210
Warreners, appointment of,
248
" Gang " system for field work, 77
General election, 1918, rural vote,
298
George, S. E., 270
Gibbard, W. S., 256
Girdlestone, Canon, 19, 21, 37, 44
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 85
Gore, Bishop, 46 note, 235
Graeme, Lloyd, 165
Grafton, Duke of, 74, no
Graham, Anderson, 87 note, go,
104, 109
Green, Robert, 257, 299
352
INDEX.
Groom, Col. J. E., 242
Ground Game Act, 68
Guaranteed prices, wheat and oats,
251. 255. 315. 324
Gurd, J. T., 256
Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton, 83
Haggard, Sir H. R., 145, 207
Hall, Sir Daniel, 178
Hammett, James, 184
Hammond, J. L., and Barbara, 16,
178
Hampshure labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 19
Hardy, Thomas, 14
Harvest rates, 296, 308
Hasbach, Dr., 6
Hastings, Lord, 308
Hayes, J., 299
Heath, F. G., 15, 23 note, 49
Helions Bumpstead strike, 1914,
214 et seg.
Henderson, J. M., 315
Henderson, Thomas, 315
Herbert, Hon. Amberon, 38
Hereford, Dean of, 37
Herefordshire labourer, conditions
before 1872, 21, 25
Herts County Council Housing
Inquiry, 1906, 166
Hewitt, G. E., 99, 181, 242, 257
Hewlett, Maurice, 254
Higdon, T. G., 173, 220, 257
Holdenby, Christopher, 178
Hours of Employment Bill, 1919,
311
Heath, Richard, 15, 35
Hobbs, R. W., 256
Holman, M. H., 256
Holmes, W., 257
Hours of labour, decreased,
298 et seq., 303 et seq.
Housing : —
Bothy system, 90
Conditions, 1853-92, 32
" Cottage Right," 72, 73
Depopulation caused by bad
housing, 88
Heath's Report, 1872, 35
Herts County Cotmcil Inquiry,
1906. 166
Insanitary conditions, 32, 52,
295, 296
Ixworth Cottages Inquiry, 121
Land Enquiry Report, 1912,
209
Rural District Councils' atti-
tude, 133
Housing — continued.
Tied cottages, 72, 73, 173.
209, 24s, 251, 294
Times reports, 1874, 52
Workers' Union reports,
264 et seq.
Housing and Town Planning Act,
1909, 134, 166, 185
Housing o5e the Working Classes
Act, 1890, . 121, 122
Hudson, W. H., 14, 23, 146
Hughes, Tom, 40
Hull, Daniel, letter to Essex
County Council, 141
Hyder, Joseph, 97
Ixworth Agricultural Labourers'
Association, 121
Jebb, Miss, 165
Jefieries, Richard, 15, 87
Jenkins, E., 38
Jessopp, Dr., 1% 85, 88, 89, 91, 92
Jones, Thomas P., 314
Kebbel, T. E., 104
Keith, A., 242
Kendall, Capt., 299
Kendall, May, 178, 203
Kent and Sussex Labourers' Union,
64, 99
Kent labourer, conditions before
1872, 19
Kenyon, Lord, 256
Kerrison, Sir Edward, 62, 174
Kidner, S., 256
Kimberley, Lord, 160
Labour Party Policy, 159
Labour Party Rural Vote, 1918,
298
Labour, Royal Commission on,
107 note
" Labourer," 219
Labourer's Friend Society, 1834, 79
Labourers' Unions : —
" Black Year," effect on, 68, 69
Circular notices, 50, 51, 52, 53
Clergy, attitude of, 42, 44
Congress, 1872, 38, 39
Corn Production Act, 1917,
effect on, 259
Creation of, 1872, 29, 34
" Federals," 69
Imprisonment of women, 41
INDEX.
353
Labourers' Unions — continued.
King George, reconigtion
Unions, 217 et seq.
Letter to farmers, 1872, 36
Magistrates, attitude of, 41, 42
Meetings, 46, 47, 261, 262
Membership, growth of, 322
National Agricultural Union,
see that title
National Unions, formation of,
38
Organiser's reports, 264 et seq.
Revival of Agricultural
Unions, 201 et seq.
Right of meeting, 41
Victimisation cases, 318
Warwickshire Union, forma-
tion of, 38
Laiotirer's Union Chronicle, 35, 39
note, 42, 47
Land Enquiry, 1912, 191 et seq.
Rural report, 207
Land Nationalization Society, 97
Land Settlement (Facilities) Act,
1919, 310, 311, 312
Landlords laenevolent despotism,
III
Langford, E. W., 38, 315
Lansdowne, Lord, eviction on
estate, 1912, 185
Latham, William, 238
Leamington Chronicle, 34, 36
Leamington demonstration, 1872,
37
Lee of Fareham, Lord, 312, 313,
324, 325, 326, 327
Leicester, Earl, 242
Leicestershire labourer, conditions
before 1872, 20
Leigh, Hon. and Rev. J. W., 37
Leigh, Lord, 37
Leighton, Sir Baldwin, 38
Lennard, R. V., 207, 236, 315 '
Liberal Party Programme, 1906,
159
Libraries, village, 134, 328
Lilford, Lord, dispute with labour-
ers, 1913-14, 228
Lincolnshire Labourers' Union, 56
Lines and Norfolk Small Holdings
Association, 139
Literature, agricultural labourer
in, 13 et seq.
Little, W. C, 107, 117 note
Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. D., 191.
207, 231, 232, 243, 251, 252, 313,
Land campaign, 173, 177, 178
VOL, II
Local Government Act, 1894, 112,
116, 121, 125, 127
Lock-outs : —
Agricultural lock-out, 1874,
49 et seq.
Warwickshire Labourers'
Union, 38
See also Strikes
London and Southern Counties
Labour League, 50
London Trades Council, 37, 40
Longmore, Sir Charles, 300
Loveless, James and George, 184
Lovell, M., 257
Macdonald, James, 106,
Machinery, displacement of la-
bour by, 145
Mackley, Tom, 261, 267
Magistrates, attitude of, 41, 43
Mallon, J. J., 298
Mann, Dr. H. H., 153 et seq.
Mann, Tom, 142
Manning, Cardinal, 40
Marlborough, Duke of, 40, no
Meetings, open air, disallowed, 41
Meredith, George, 14
Military, use of, in strikes, 40
Mill, John Stuart, 81, 13S
Miller, W. S., 256
Millin, G. F., 104, 105, 109, no, 114
Minimum wage : —
Complaints and prosecutions,
317
Corn Production Act, working
of, 288 et seq.
Demand, January, 1920, 323
Land Enquiry Report, 1912,
208
Lloyd George campaign, 211,
312
Rates in force, 1920, table,
339 et seq.
Twenty-five shilling minimum,
243, 246
Women and girls, 305
Mordaunt, Sir Charles, 37
Morgan, Brette, 298
Morley, Alderman, 1S3, 282
Morley, Samuel, 40, 60
Morris dancing, 47
Moscrop, A., 256
Moulton Small Holdings move-
ment, 140
Mundella, A. J., 40
Music in villages, decay of, 92
AA
354
INDEX.
National Agricultural Labourers'
Union, 34, 38, 42, 50, 51, 155,
195, 217, 250, 322, 323
Conference, 1915, 235, 242
Decline of, 69, 70
Increased membership, 1890,
99
Trade Union grant to, 198
National Agricultural Labourers'
and Rural Workers' Union,
179, 182
National Farmers' Union, 211, 291
National Insurance Act, 1911, 182
National Land and Home League,
165, 185, 200
National Union of Railwaymen,
Ormskirk Branch, 197
National Unions, 1872, 38
Nationalisation of Land, early pro-
paganda, 97
Navvies' and National Brick-
layer's Labourers Union, 323
Neame, Ivo, 356
Newmarket Agricultural Associ-
ation, 54
NichoUs, George, 160, 181, 256,
299, 315
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 83
Nottingham Co-operative Society,
252
Northumberland, Duke of, 167
Northumberland labourer, condi-
tions before 1872, 17
Old Age Pensions Act, 1908, 172
Old Age Pensions, Liberal Party
programme, 1906, 159
Orwin, C. B., 256
Oswestry Farmers' Union, 243
Overman, H., 242, 256, 315
Overwell, H., 242
Oxford, Bishop of, 46 note, 235
Oxfordshire labourers, conditions
before 1872, 20
Padwick, H., 256
Pargeter, T., 299
Parish Councils : —
Creation of, 116, 118
Elections, 1919, 305, 306
Labourers' eligibility, 122, 123,
305
Powers and work of, 134 et
seq.
Parish Councils Act, 1894, 112,
116, 121, 125, 127
Parker, E. H., 315
Patterson, P. G., 256
Paul, Herbert, 28, 46 note
Pease, Edward R., 165
Pease, Mrs. Edward R., . 165
Peat, Sir William B., 315, 325
Pedder, Lt.-Col., 148, 185, 238
Penshurst cottage building, 133
Perrott, F. D., 121
Phipps, J., 227
Piggott, Professor G. C, 279
Pigou, Professor A. C., 212
Pile, J., 298, 299
Pilgrims' march, 1874, 56 et seq.
Pirrie, Lord, 190
Plowman, Thomas, 48 note, 59
Plummer, S. J., 298
Poaching Prevention Act, 1862,
33. 211
Pole, Major D. G., 299
Politics of the agricultural labourer,
86 et seq.
Porter, Haman, 257
Powis estate dispute, 246
Prothero, R. E., see Lord Ernie
Public Libraries Act, 1919, 328
Railway strike, 1919, 309
Rea, G. G., 256, 315
Read, C. S., 49
Reading rooms, parish, 134, 135
Red Van reports, 1893, in et
seq., 129
Reiss, R. L., 165, 207
Rents : —
Increase forbidden, 256
Rebates in 1881, 68
Revolt of the Field, 1872, 28 et seq.
Rew, Sir Henry, 256
Reynolds, James, 63
Richards, Robert, 257
Richmond and District Farm
Labourers' Union, 201
Richmond, Duke of, 68, 71
Ridgmount village, investigations,
154
Ridgmount estate, conditions,
1917, 283
Rights of way, 135
Robbins, Roland R., 256, 315
Roberts, G. H., 165, 200, 247
Roberts, J., 256
Roberts, T., 271
Rodwell, Lionel, 242
Rogers, Thorold, 2
Rosbotham, S. T., 256
Rothschild Committee, 1898, 141
note
Rothschild, Mrs. Leopold de, 306
INDEX.
355
Rowntree, H. Seebohm, i6, 153,
158, 178, 203, 207
Royal Commission on Agriculture,
1880-2, evidence before, 65
Royal Commission on Agriculture,
1919, 177 note, 254 note, 311 et
seg., 323
Resignations, 1920, 324
Royal Commission on Labour,
107 note
Runciman, Walter, 190
Rural District Councillors, labourers
as, 127
Rutland, Duke of, 60
Sage, J., 160
St. Faith's strike, 1889, 99
St. Faith's strike, 1910, 178 et seq.
Sandringham estate wages, 217
et seq.
Saturday Half Holiday Order, 304
Saumarez, Lord de, no
Saye and Sele, Lord, 165
Scott, Leslie, 200
Scott, Holland, 238
Selbome Committee, 1916, 325
Selborne, Earl of, 125
Selley, E., 39 note
Sexton, James, 197
Sheep counting, Sussex methods,
1880, 71
Shingfield, Jack, 281, 295
Shipham and Winscombe Inquiry,
1913. 187
Shropshire labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 20
Simmons, W. Anker, 50, 64, 65,
73 note, 315
Simpson, John, 142, 144
Single Tax movement, 97, 102
Skilled work in agriculture, 2 et seg.
Small Holdings, see Allotments and
Small Holdings
Smith, A., 298
Smith, Adam, 9, 43
Smith, W., 308
Smith, W. P., 181, 242, 257, 264,
299, 302, 315
Social status of farm labourer,
1920, 329
Soldiers : —
Demobilised, settlement of,
310
Soldier labour on farms, 239,
244
Strikes, use of military in, 40
South West Lancashire strike,
1913. 195
Sports, village, decay of, 92
Staffordshire strike, 1919, 308
"Standard" articles, 40 note
Stanfield, John and Thomas, 184
State co-partnership farms, 328
Stradbroke, Lord, 74
Strikes : —
Burston school, 220
Chatteris, 1919, 299
Chitterne (Wilts), 1914, 224
Dockers' strike, 1 889, effect on
labourers' unions, 96
Helions Bumpstead, 1914, 214
et seq.
Military, use of, 40
Railway strike, 1919, 309
St. Faith's, 1889, 99
St. Faith's, 1910, 178
et seq.
Staffordshire, 1919, 308
South West Lancashire, 1913,
195
Trunch, 220
Wellsbourne district, 1872, 36,
37.49
Surrey labourer, conditions before
1872, 20
Sussex labourer, conditions before
1872, 19
Taylor, Arnold, 119
Taylor, Henry, 38, 44, 56
Technique in agricultural work,
2 et seq.
Thomas, J. H., 251
Tied cottages, 72, 73, 193, 209, 245,
251, 294
Workers' Union reports, 264 et
seq.
Times reports, 43 note, 49, 52
Tolpuddle Martyrs' memorial, 183
Toon, Mrs. F. R.j 257
Trade Unions, see Labourers' Unions
Trades Union Congress, 1890, 96
Birmingham resolution, 1916,
250
Compulsory cultivation reso-
lution, 1915, 245
Transport Workers' Federation, 197
Trevelyan, Sir C, 40
Trunch strike, 220
Tuckwell, Canon, 37, 80, 85, 103
Vaisey, H. J., 264
Verinder, H, 98, 115
Verney, Sir Edmund, 134, 309 note
Vemey, Sir Harry, 134
Villages, social life in, 134, 327, 330
356
INDEX.
Vincent, J. E. Matthew, 34, 36, 38,
47. 69
Walks, agricultural labourers be-
fore 1872, 21
Walker, P. B., 199, 242, 245, 257,
264, 299, 315
Wallace, ]>. Alfred Russel, 168
Walsingham, Lord, 62
Wantage, Lord, good conditions
on estate of, iii
War :—
Agricultural committees, 245
Disorganisation caused by, 233
et seg.
Ward, W. G., 38
Warwickshire Agricultural Union,
38
Wages : —
Agricultural Wages Board, see
that title
" Back Pay "— Cotn Produc-
tion Act, 1917, 297
Board of Agriculture investi-
gation reports, 1917, 254
Custom, cause of variation, 108
Diminution, 1900-10, 205
District Wages Committees,
see that title
Fines and deductions, 117
Fox, Wilson, report, 1905,
152 et seq.
Harvest rates, 296, 308
Investigations, 1890-3, 103
et seq.
Increased demand, 1919, 301
Kind, wages paid in, 108, 323
Lock-out, 1874, non-union
wages, 60
Minimum wage, see that title
Prices and wages, 1853-72,
17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 31 et seq.
Rates, 1915, 241 et seq.
Royal Commission, 1880-2,
Arch's evidence, 72
Sandringham, estate, zijet seq.
Soldier labour, 239, 244
Tables, 76, 336, 337, 338
Victimisation of Trade Union-
ists, 318
Wet weather losses, 77, 78, no
Wages — continued.
Winter and summer rates, 1 16,
117
Women field workers, 117, 303
Workers' Union campaign,
1917, 253, 264 et seq.
Workers' Union scale, 191 4,
226
Wages Board Gaiette, 318
Webb, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney, 114
note
Wet weather wage losses, 77, 78,
no
Wheat and Oats : —
Com Production Act, see that
title
Guaranteed prices, 251, 255,
315. 324
Prices, 1850-1919, table, 335
White, Harry, 282, 300
Whittle, W. B., 274
Wilkins, Mrs. Roland, 256, 291
Wilson, P. W., 194
Wilts Agricultural and General
Labourers' Union, 117
Wilts labourer, conditions before
1872, 21
Winfrey, Sir Richard, 139, 160, 165,
181
Winscombe and Shipham Inquiry,
1913, 187
Winterbourne, Dorset, small hold-
ings, 169
Women, imprisonment, Oxford-
shire case, 41
Women farm workers : —
Social status, 329, 330
Wages, 117, 305
Woodhead, Denton, 257
Workers' Union, 142, 144, 183, 201,
322
Organisers' reports, 264 et seq.
Wages and hours scale, 1914,
226
Yates, W. B., 256
Yorkshire Agricultural Union, 1915,
244
Yorkshire labourer, conditions be-
fore 1872, 17
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