172 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



them politically from the labouring class, they had a very 

 good understanding, which as far as local elections were 

 concerned, found expression over the "ordinary" at the 

 Blue Boar on market days. 



Landlords, in many districts, wisely kept the political 

 allegiance of tenant-farmers during the years of depression 

 by lowering the rents ; and farmers invariably showed 

 their gratitude at the poll whenever an imperial or local 

 election took place. 



Farmers in 1908 were meant to derive some benefits 

 from the new Agricultural Holdings Act, passed by the 

 Liberal Government ; but apparently the thistle of security 

 of tenure was never firmly grasped in the hand of the 

 statesmen of the day, with the result that tenant farmers 

 rarely obtained the full compensation which the Act should 

 have given them. 1 



Except for one small corner of England the farm workers 

 were destitute of any political or industrial organisation. 

 Their friends who exercised any influence as speakers or 

 writers lived in towns. Save on paper rural England re- 

 mained as undemocratised as it was in the days of the Crim- 

 ean War. The one Act which had to some extent dispelled the 

 haunting fear of the Workhouse at the end of a life's work 

 the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 was an Act which 

 local oligarchies could not prevent being enforced. The 

 pension of 55. a week, though small, relieved the old labour- 

 er from the stigma of pauperism that intensely hated 

 stigma and at the same time made it more possible for 

 sons and daughters to look after their aged parents. 



The folly of the Act lay in its penalising thrift, and its 

 encouragement of deceit. The State, instead of rewarding 

 an old labourer or his wife for performing the miracle 

 of saving a sum of money which could bring them in a few 

 shillings a week, disallowed any pension at all if the yearly 

 income exceeded 31 ios., and the weekly pension was 

 reduced in proportion to the thrift of the pensioner. Indeed 



1 Sir T. H. Middleton considered that the Act was difficult to work in 

 different parts of the country, and that the tenant did not obtain full com- 

 pensation under it. Evidence before the Royal Commission on Agriculture, 

 1919. 



