226 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



benefit of the exacting farmer. But the farmers stubbornly 

 refused to recognise the Union. 



At the end of February the Workers' Union held a confer- 

 ence of farm workers from Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire 

 and Wiltshire to draw up a scale of wages and hours. The 

 following programme was then drawn up : Minimum wage, 

 i8s. ; shepherds and cattlemen, 22s. ; hay and corn har- 

 vest, 5s. a day ; half-holiday ; hours to be fifty-four in 

 summer and fifty in winter ; and tenants of farm-tied 

 cottages to have six months' notice to quit. 



A conference was also held at Haverhill Town Hall; 

 Suffolk, at which Councillor Beard presided. Wages 

 decided upon for the eastern counties were i8s. for ordin- 

 ary labourers ; shepherds 2is. ; horsemen and cowmen 22s. ; 

 harvest money 10 for 4 weeks ; weekly half-holiday. 



Another conference held by the Workers' Union was that 

 at Hereford, where a charter similar to that of Cirencester 

 was drawn up. The Herefordshire Farmers' Union, like 

 that of Wiltshire, stubbornly challenged the right of the men 

 to any form of trade union organisation, which impelled 

 Mr. E. W. Langford, one of the leading farmers, to declare 

 that " I am of opinion that a big mistake is being made by 

 farmers in refusing to treat through their own Union the 

 men as represented by their Union." 1 



The Lord-Lieutenant, Sir John Cotterell, however, granted 

 a rise of 35. and a Saturday half-holiday. Several other 

 farmers raised wages to i8s., but the, majority refused to 

 make any concessions. Thus the position dangerously 

 stood in June and even in July, when both Herefordshire 

 and Wiltshire were rapidly moving towards a great strike. 



In Shropshire, the Workers' Union submitted a scale of 

 wages to the Farmers' Union formulating a demand for 

 payment of 195. a week for ordinary labourers and 22S. a 

 week for wagoners, cowmen, and shepherds. In Worcester 

 the N.A.L.U. decided upon a demand for i8s. a week for 

 a sixty-hour week, with half-holiday on Saturday and 4d. 

 an hour overtime. A seven weeks' strike occurred in the 



1 President of the National Farmers' Union and member of the Royal 

 Commission on Agriculture, 1920. He paid his men i a. week. 



