STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 175 



" Sympathise with them ? Of course I do ! I shall always 

 sympathise with them. What do they get for their harvest 

 now ? " 



" About {Jo or 7," I replied. 



" We got it up to 8 or 9," said he. " But," he added, " it 

 is a bad system of payment. It stands in the way of a better 

 weekly wage. I always said it was a bad system. . . . What 

 strike pay do they give ? " he asked. 



" Ten shillings a week lock-out pay. I don't think they 

 believe in striking," said I. 



" Oh, we did then," he exclaimed. 



" You ordered a strike sometimes, I suppose." 



" I don't know about ordering a strike. The men would go 

 on strike themselves in various places then they would come to 

 me and I always supported them." 



" Would you advocate strikes now ? " 



" Certainly. What else can you do to get the wages up ? " 



Mr. Higdon, mentioning old friends by name, was answered 

 by Arch, with a touch of that dramatic fervour which used 

 to set the heather on fire in country districts : " My friends 

 are all dead." 



When asked if he knew Gladstone, he replied : 



" Yes, dined with him lots of times. He was always very 

 kind and friendly towards me. He was a great man an 

 eloquent man and a good man." 



" From what I have heard about you from the labourers in 

 Norfolk, you must have possessed some kind of eloquence your- 

 self, Mr. Arch," I said with a laugh. " Was it that in you which 

 got hold of the labourers so ? " 



" I don't know about eloquence," he said, laughing too. " I 

 used to talk to the farmers a bit, you know, as well as to the 

 labourers," he added with a fascinating twinkle in his eye 

 which twinkle gave a glimpse of the old time power and 

 personality of Joseph Arch. 1 



After the death of this old champion of the agricultural 

 labourer, (which took place in January 1919,) I wrote to the 

 Rector of Barford, who used to visit Arch every week and 

 had known him for fifteen years, asking him to give me his 

 impressions of the old man. 



" He was a man with considerable power of expression," 

 replied the Rev. W. Ingham Brooke, " an orator who under- 



1 Interview with Joseph Arch, by T. G. Higdon (pamphlet). 



