254 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



which put an enormous strain upon the older men, for the 

 life of an organiser in rural districts is only compassable 

 by a strong, young man. 



Meanwhile, the Board of Agriculture in order to obtain 

 reliable, up-to-date information as to conditions of employ- 

 ment in agriculture, sent out in 1917 a body of investigators 

 into every county under the direction of Mr. Geoffrey Drage. 

 These Reports deserve a better fate than internment as 

 official documents in their monumental drapery of Blue. 

 They give us not only a bird's-eye view of men and women 

 working in the fields, and of their cottages, but also a survey 

 of farming in England and Wales in 1917, and are written 

 with a literary skill which might be expected from authors 

 like Mr. Maurice Hewlett and Mr. A. D. Bradley. One of 

 these investigators aptly summed up the labourer's position 

 thus : 



" It may, I think, be taken for granted, since it is universally 

 agreed that the farm labourer is the hardest-worked, lowest- 

 paid, worst-fed and clothed, and worst-housed class of the 

 whole British community. 



" His pre-war wages did not even warrant him paying 2s. 6d. 

 a week in rent, and, in the vast majority of cases, neither he nor 

 his family could have existed at all but for the supplementary 

 earnings of his wife. In having to work, the wife almost invari- 

 ably suffered in health, as in spirit ; she was obliged to neglect 

 herself, her children, her husband, and her home. Both 

 she and her family occupy the lowest rung upon the social ladder, 

 and they are spoken of in tones of pity, if not of contempt, by 

 their more fortunate, better organised brethren and fellow- 

 workers. 



" The farm labourer now, as in the past, approaches nearest 

 the state of serfdom. He is, in fact, a serf, with the privilege of 

 sleeping under a roof which, by courtesy, is called his own, 

 though his wages would not allow of him paying a just rent for 

 it. 



" Hitherto he has had no Union to defend his interests ; had 

 not a copper a week to spare for contribution to any scheme of 

 co-operation amongst his class." 1 



In August, 1917, the Corn Production Act became law. 

 An attempt was made by the Labour Party to substitute 

 a minimum of 303. for 255., but this Mr. Prothero refused 



1 Wages and Conditions of Employment in Agriculture, Vol. II. Cmd. 

 25. 1919. 



