GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 197 



A resolution was passed unanimously condemning the 

 farmers' attempt to prevent the workmen combining. 1 



The farmers stubbornly refused to recognise the men's 

 Union. The Chairman of the Farmer's Union declared that, 

 " he felt sure that if there were only a united force they could 

 squash the Union and take the wind out of the sails of Mr. 

 Edwards, the secretary." 2 



The usual argument was advanced that the whole move- 

 ment was engineered by outside people who were agitators, 

 though judging from a statement made by the Graphic, 

 the agitators were not very well paid : 



" As Mr. Edwards (the secretary of the Union), an assistant 

 secretary and two organisers receive in all about 200 a year, 

 the enthusiasts at the head of the organisation are hardly leading 

 it for what they can get out of it." 



Mr. Edwards exhausted every method of persuasion to 

 get the farmers to confer with him. Then with that pathetic 

 belief, which is characteristic of the English peasant in the 

 goodwill of the landed aristocracy, he appealed to Lord 

 Derby to act as mediator. 



It was a wise step on Mr. Edwards' part, for the King 

 was to be the guest of Lord Derby, upon whose estates the 

 men had downed tools. At first Lord Derby definitely 

 refused, but later, no doubt feeling that a portion of his 

 domain in revolt would not be a pleasant picture to present 

 to the King, he consented to act as mediator between the 

 Farmers' Union and the Labourers' Union. Since the strike 

 had become not only an affair of farm workers but also of 

 the Industrial Unions who were showing their sympathy and 

 helping the farm workers with their organisers, Mr. James Sex- 

 ton, of the Dockers' Union, acted as one of the negotiators. 



Lord Derby's intervention, however, went no further 

 than influencing the farmers on his own estate, on which 

 the men withdrew their notices unconditionally and returned 

 to work. In this strike we get portents of the Federation 

 of Transport Workers which came to be such a powerful 

 factor in the industrial and political history of our country 



1 Reynolds, June 18, 1913. * The Times, May 24, 1913. 



