ii4 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



Near Didcot men of a certain village were working for 

 95. a week, and in the adjoining village for ics. a week. 

 Near Wycombe in Bucks was found a man with a young 

 family of six, whose wages did not average 8s. a week. 



In Bedfordshire wages appeared to be I2S. a week with 

 2s. or 35. more for cowmen and horsemen with Sunday 

 work to do. In the correspondence columns of the Daily 

 News a Leicestershire farmer stated his wagoner was paid 

 195. per week, his cowman i8s. and his labourers i6s. to 175. 

 all the year round. 



Though Millin made his tour in these counties during 

 harvest time, when drink was more abundant than at any 

 other period of the year, he found little evidence of drunken- 

 ness amongst labourers, despite the fact that he mixed 

 freely with them at all hours in the taprooms of public houses. 

 He said they drank too much, but even when closing time 

 came men as a rule moved with ordinary precision out of 

 the taproom into the open street. 



When in the same year of 1891 the lecturers of the English 

 Land Restoration League went into Suffolk with the Red 

 Van they found that wages were from IDS. to 12s. a week 

 with harvest money averaging from 7 to 9. In a short 

 time the newly formed Union, the Eastern Counties 

 Federation, raised wages is. a week. Cottages were let at 

 from 3 to 6 a year. 



The reason why the League decided to send out its lec- 

 turers in vans was because of the difficulty in those 

 days of obtaining the use of village halls. The labourers 

 read newspapers but rarely at this time, and the only way 

 to reach them was by means of meetings. Most of the 

 meetings were attended by from ico to 300 labourers, and 

 many of the farmers, especially those who employed the 

 most labour and paid the best wages, were, on the whole, 

 friendly. Difficulty in finding a pitch for the van was 

 experienced where the village was owned by one man, 

 which led in 1892 to an exhibition of despotic ruling by a 

 landowner, Lord Bateman. 



" The organising secretary of the League obtained permission 

 from the landlord of the Bateman Arms, Shobdon, Herefordshire, 



