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 155. 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 95. 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 i 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 4jd. 



Flour . 



Meat, 6 Ib. at 8d. . 



Potatoes 



Cheese, i Ib. at 8d. 



Sugar, 2 Ib. at 3d. . 



Tea, Ib. at 2s. 



Butter, i Ib. at is. 



Milk 



Treacle . 



Salt and pepper 



Candles and paraffin 



Fuel 



Clothes washing material, repairs, etc. 



Tools, furniture, sundries 



" 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 



