212 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



nearly 60 per cent, of the ordinary agricultural labourers 

 have actually decreased since 1907, " by stating, " that the 

 Board of Trade Enquiry shows that there has been a smaller 

 increase in the south than in the north." 



Their argument that though you may establish a legal 

 minimum wage you cannot guarantee continuous employ- 

 ment is of course true, but in no way militated against the 

 enforcement of a minimum wage, for labourers had no 

 continuous employment secured to them even without a 

 minimum wage. 



They went so far as to suggest the forming of District 

 Commissions to enquire into earnings and " bring to bear 

 the pressure of the public opinion of the district," thus 

 instituting an irritating Paul Pry method. They made the 

 frank admission that : 



" A country village at the present day affords scarcely any 

 opportunity to its inhabitants of bettering their position. Men 

 have no openings, no chance of trying their fortunes. Existence 

 has become listless, monotonous, narrow. Something must be 

 done to bring new hopes, new interests, new prospects into 

 village life, if young, energetic, and vigorous men are to be 

 attracted to the cultivation of the soil. Experience shows that 

 higher wages are not attraction enough. It is, without any 

 exaggeration, probably true that a Saturday half-holiday would 

 be a greater inducement to stay on the land than an extra is. 6d. a 

 week. The rural exodus is as great where wages are high as 

 where they are low. 'Some other change is needed. The 

 reconstruction of village life must be taken in hand. The 

 labourer to-day owns practically nothing." 



In conclusion they suggested that he should own his 

 cottage and enjoy right of pasture common. 

 The economists now entered the fray. 

 Professor A. C. Pigou stated J that 



'' it appears to be the case that farm wages are sometimes kept 

 down, in the face of economic forces tending to raise them, by 

 what is, in effect, a species of monopolistic action on the part of 

 a group of local farmers. The rate of pay to agricultural labourers 

 has become a matter of tradition and custom . . . under present 

 arrangements some groups of farmers are unconsciously playing 

 the part of a ring of monopolists paying their workpeople less 



1 Nineteenth Century and after, December, 1913. 



