THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 133 



of these cottages is, however, very solicitous about the morals, if 

 not about the health, of the inmates. If any tenant's daughter 

 ' gets into trouble,' the parents must immediately drive the 

 unfortunate girl from home, otherwise the whole family is 

 evicted." x 



" The cottages . . . and the water supply of their inhabitants 

 are in many of the villages deplorably bad, and in spite of the 

 depopulation which has been going on sometimes the former are 

 quite inadequate to the needs of the labourers. At Navestock, 

 in Ongar union (Essex), the lecturer found ten small cottages in a 

 row, inhabited on the average by ten persons each. Some 

 cottages at Maplestead and Pebmarsh he describes as hovels. 

 . . . The borough of Saffron Walden deserves reference ; in that 

 sanctuary of the Society of Friends, where a publican is regarded 

 as almost an outcast, the labourers' cottages are all in one quar- 

 ter a horrible kind of labourers' ghetto, of which Castle Street 

 is the centre. The houses are small, inconvenient, without 

 proper air space, and in insanitary condition. Some few have 

 a few square yards of drying ground." 2 



The economic grounds on which Rural District Councils 

 based their arguments against building cottages were that 

 it would entail a charge upon the rates. They showed with 

 some reason that you could not compete with cottages let 

 at the uneconomic rent of is. 6d. or 2s. a week. That was 

 perfectly true of a great many districts, though it never 

 seemed to have occurred to the farmers who sat on District 

 Councils that if they paid their labourers a shilling or two 

 more per week the men would be able to pay the economic 

 rent which in some parishes amounted to only 35. 6d. per 

 week. 



Cottages at this time were built for about 200 each, 

 and were let at Bradwell and Bratton for 33. 6d. per week, 

 at Penshurst for 45. gd. per week. The Parish Council 

 could appeal to the County Council in the event of the 

 Rural District Council refusing to build, and this was done 

 at Penshurst at the instigation of Miss Jane Escombe. 

 But there is no doubt that low wages, besides the uneconomic 

 farm-tied cottages, were the deterrent factors, and it seemed 

 to many reformers that cottages would never be built in rural 

 districts until agricultural labourers received a living 

 minimum wage. 



1 Amongst the Agricultural Labourers, 1894. 2 Ibid. 



