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 Simmons 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, while 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 labourers 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 will 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 carrying 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.' " x 



The spirit of the women during the lock-out was exempli- 

 fied by the statement overheard as a farmer drove by down 



1 Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-1882. 

 VOL. II. F 



