WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 243 



men was simply splendid, and that " the men did a fine thing 

 in withdrawing their notices." 1 



Unfortunately, not all farmers honoured this agreement, 

 which caused some men at Swanton Morley to come out on 

 strike to demand their i8s. They marched in a body one 

 Sunday into the parish church, where the sight of a number 

 of agricultural labourers attending Divine Service so sur- 

 prised the Rector that he walked down the aisle to ask the 

 men if they had come to worship ! The strike lasted only 

 eight days, when the farmers agreed to pay the i8s. 



Now the southern and midland farmers would have been 

 spared the hostility and suspicion which were evinced in 

 the years that followed, had they shown at this time the 

 common humanity of anticipating the 255. minimum wage 

 which did not become law until August 21, 1917. Prices 

 of all farm products had risen, 2 and in the northern counties 

 of Westmoreland, Durham, Northumberland, wages in 

 1915 had risen to 255., as well as in parts of Lancashire and 

 Middlesex. 



But the farmers were not to blame so much as the Gov- 

 ernment. Farmers were living in a state of uncertainty. 

 Traffic was becoming -disorganised and blocked. Supplies 

 of feeding stuffs and fertilisers were being rigorously re- 

 duced. Farmers were losing many of their best men. Hay and 

 horses were conscripted and it was bruited abroad that farms 

 might be conscripted, too. They certainly had their diffi- 

 culties, but this was no excuse for placing their burthens upon 

 the backs of the children. Mr. Asquith, or Mr. Lloyd George, 

 had he been wise, would have pronounced early in 1915, 

 or even in the autumn of 1914, a definite agricultural policy, 

 including a minimum wage, for which the country had to 

 wait nearly three years. By the Government's procrastina- 

 tion the food supply of the nation was seriously endangered. 



Those farmers who did behave well to their men did not 

 apparently meet with the approval of other farmers. The 

 Chairman of the Oswestry Farmers' Union, for instance, 



1 Norfolk NewSi March 13, 1915. 



8 Wheat was 563. and oats 313. 8d. in 1915 as compared with 345. and 

 193. gd. in July 1914. 



