264 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



of the conditions under which his class lives. As a child 

 he had known the gloomy interior of a workhouse, for his 

 father, after fighting for his country, was imprisoned for 

 taking turnips from a field in order to feed his family. 

 George had never been to school in his life, being at work at 

 the age of six, for there were seven children besides his 

 father and mother to be kept on a wage of 8s. a week. His 

 wife, who was his devoted companion, taught him to read, 

 and helped him to memorise the first chapter of St. John 

 and three hymns for the first service he conducted at the 

 age of twenty-two as a Primitive Methodist local preacher ! 



Mr. John Beard, who shares with Mr. George Dallas the 

 honour of being one of two representatives of the Workers' 

 Union on the Wages Board, started his career in life as a 

 farm labourer. Mr. Dallas, the chief agricultural organ- 

 iser for the Workers' Union, Mr. W. R. Smith, M.P., the 

 president of the N.A.L.U., and Mr. R. B. Walker, its secre- 

 tary, have not, it is true, earned their living as farm workers ; 

 but, judging by the resolutions passed by county execu- 

 tives of the Farmers' Unions, these three gentlemen have 

 been more than capable of holding their own on practical 

 questions over which controversies have raged at the 

 Agricultural Wages Board. It should be remembered that 

 Taylor, Arch's capable secretary, was a carpenter by trade ; 

 and farmers have now learnt that settlements can be arrived 

 at more quickly by dealing with men who by training can' 

 seize upon the essential points in negotiations, and do not 

 fritter away time in side issues which a purely " practical " 

 man so often does. 



However, it is the organiser who goes out into remote 

 places bringing men into the unions from the highways and 

 byways, with whom we are chiefly concerned. To obtain 

 their experiences I addressed a questionaire to all the rural 

 organisers of the two unions late in the summer of 1919, 

 and I have made a selection from some of the more interest- 

 ing letters I have received. 



"It is a great pleasure to me to know," writes Mr. H. J. 

 Vaisey, who is organiser for the Workers' Union in Wilt- 

 shire, " that you are writing a History of the Agricultural 



