120 GREAT BRITAIN AND IREUiND - MISCELI^ANEOUS 



Ivand Conference, a body consisting of delegates from the Surveyors' In- 

 stitution, the Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute, the Central Chamber 

 of Agriculture, the Farmers' Club, the National Farmers' Union, the Cen- 

 tral Ivatid Association, the I^and Agents' Society, the Rating Surveyors' 

 Association, the Central Association of Agricultural and Tenant Right Val- 

 uers and the 1894 Club. The I^and Conference recommends the pamphlet 

 as a valuable contribution to the I^and controversy, but does not hold 

 itself responsible for the whole of the views and statements it contains. 



In regard to the earnings of agricultural labourers, the pamphlet 

 states that the broad fact is beyond controversy; that the rate of cash wages 

 paid in some agricultural districts is very low and that every one is prepared 

 to support any really sound measures which can be reasonably expected 

 to efEect a rise. It challenges the figures given in the Report, however, 

 as obsolete and unreliable., It complains that the Report makes no attempt 

 to explain variations in rates of wages. In arable districts the sum paid in 

 wages per acre is high and the amount paid per individual relatively low. 

 In districts where grass predominates, the wages per acre are low and per 

 individual relatively high. Any increase in the area under the plough wih, 

 it is contended, at once increase the demand for labour, and, as the supply 

 is short, a considerable rise in wages in the lowest-paid districts will be the 

 immediate result. The Report had also omitted to allude to the dispos- 

 session of hand-labour by machinery. Apart from these omissions the 

 Report had admitted that up to 1912 wages had been slowly rising and the 

 pamphlet states that men of experience in rural affairs are well aware that 

 they have risen in 1913. 



The pamphlet also challenges the calculations whereby the Report 

 endeavoured to show the relation between the rise in wages and the 

 increase in the cost of hving. It points out that whereas the Report 

 states that the rise in wages has been greatest in the better-paid districts, 

 it omits to notice the expHcit statement in the '' Board of Trade Enquiry 

 into the Cost of Living in the Working Classes in 1912 " (upon which it 

 mainly relies for evidence of the rise in prices) that the greatest mean in- 

 crease in the prices of necessaries has been in lyancashire and Cheshire, that 

 the smallest increase has been in the Southern Counties and the next 

 smallest increase in the Eastern and East-Midland group of counties ; in 

 other words, that the smallest increase in the cost of li\dng has been in 

 those districts where agricultural wages are stiU the lowest. 



It is pointed out, moreover, that while the calculations of the Land 

 Enquiry Committee are based on the supposition that the increase in 

 retail prices in rural districts does not differ materially from the increase 

 in London, the figures supplied by the Board of Trade show that there were 

 considerable differences even between the mean increase in London and 

 the mean increase in other urban centres. Thus, whereas the index-nmnber 

 for 1912 (taking 1905 as 100) was 151.7 in London, it was 137 in the East- 

 Midland urban centres and only 112,4 ^^ the urban districts of the Southern 

 counties. 



