70 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



There will be equal representation on a District Committee of local 

 emploj^ers and local workers, and it will include also at least one member 

 of the Wages Board or another nominee of the Board of Agriciilture and 

 Fisheries. Its composition will be further settled by regulations of the lat- 

 ter board. 



It will be the duty of a District Wages Committee to recommend to 

 the Wages Board minimum rates of wages applicable to its own district. 

 Only the Wages Board itself can fix, vary or cancel minimum rates of wages ; 

 but no minimum rate fixed. for any area for which a District Wages Com- 

 mittee has been established can have effect or can be varied or cancelled 

 except at the recommendation of this committee, unless it has had an op- 

 portunity of reporting thereon to the Wages Board. 



The Wages Board maj" refer an}- matter to a District Committee, which 

 will report and make recommendations thereon, and may delegate to a 

 District Committee any of its powers and duties except the power and dut^' 

 to fix minimum rates of wages. It may also authorize a District Committee 

 'to delegate any such powers, including that to issue permits of exemption 

 to workmen who are not able bodied, to a sub-committee. 



f) Expenses and Remuneration. — Expenses incurred with the consent of 

 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries b}^ members of the Wages Board 

 or of a District Committee, and sums paid to them with such consent to 

 compensate for loss of time, will be paid out of public funds. 



z) Provisions of the Act already in Force. — Pending the establishment of 

 the Wages Board and District Committees, an able-bodied man employed 

 on time-work, but no worker of any other class, who since 21 August 1917 

 has received wages — including allowances — which are in the opinion of the 

 court less than equivalent for an ordinar}^ day's work to the rate of 25s. 

 a week, is entitled to recover the difference between such rate and that at 

 which he is being paid from his em]Dloyer as a civil debt, at any time within 

 three months after the minimum has been fixed. The value of allowances 

 in the cases will, if disputed, be determined by the court. 



§ 2. The RESTRICTION ON THE RAISING OF AGRICULTURAL RENTS. , 



a) The Scope 0/ the Restriction. — Part TII of the Act prescribes that 

 when, after 21 August 1917, a contract of tenancy is made or varied, the 

 highest permissible rent is that which the landlord could have obtained if 

 the provisions as to minimum prices of wheat and oats, contained in Part I 

 of the Act, had not been in force. 



The purpose of the restriction is thus to reserve to the farmer, to the 

 exclusion of the landlord, the profit derived from the minimum prices. 



This part of the Act is said to apply to " any parcel of land which is 

 wholly agricultural or wholly pastoral, or in part agricultural and as to the 

 residue pastoral, or in whole or in part cultivated as a market -garden, and 

 which is not let to the tenant during his continuance in any office, appoint- 



