io8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



winter time, and finds no piece-work for him, is in an infinitely 

 poorer position, for under these circumstances he may lose is. 

 to 2S. a week, from his weekly wages of us. or I2S., but even then 

 his wages would be higher than the nominal one when harvest 

 money, amounting to j los. and 9 for a month's work, is taken 

 into consideration." 



It is probable that all these authorities were right ; that 

 is to say each of them found instances of men being paid 

 the wages stated, however divergent one writer may be 

 from another, for if there is one thing that is true, 

 it is that the wages of farm workers have had very little 

 relation to prices of farm products and to the current prices 

 of unskilled labour in other trades. Wages of agricultural 

 labourers have indeed been a matter of custom, varying not 

 only in one county from another but also from one parish 

 to another, and even from one employer to another. And 

 as we have seen wages were lower in the " golden era " of 

 the 'fifties and 'sixties than in the depression of the 'eighties 

 and 'nineties. 



Custom has largely been fostered by the patriarchal 

 system lingering longer in agriculture than in any other 

 industry, of a considerable portion of the weekly wage 

 being paid in kind, such as cottage accommodation, or board 

 and lodging, or litter for pigs, or potato ground or milk and 

 other allowances ; each generation of labourers showing a 

 pathetic dependence upon the generosity of the farmer. 



Arch's Union was said to have destroyed good feeling 

 between master and man. But Arch stoutly denied before 

 the Commission of 1881 that this good feeling existed at 

 any time. Whether this be true or not the gulf between 

 labourer and farmer was widening, firstly by the enrichment 

 of farmers in the 'sixties and then again during the depres- 

 sion when three or four farms in very many districts were 

 thrown into one and the small holder was squeezed out. 



There can be little doubt that wages at the beginning 

 of the 'nineties were scandalously low. The Daily News 

 Commissioner's investigations which extended beyond 

 Essex into Suffolk, Norfolk, Oxford, Berkshire and Bucks, 

 were challenged on the attitude of parsons towards. 



