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 1 88 1 he said that " the policy 

 which they have adopted has been a firebrand policy of 

 strikes and disruption." Mr. Simmons' 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 blunt, 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 all 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 language 

 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 hi the same dialect in 



