276 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



as a salesman for cattle drinks in order to introduce the sub- 

 ject for conversation. At other times I have walked leisurely 

 along and gone into the hayfield or cornfield and assisted to load, 

 stack or stock corn, in order to get into touch with the 

 workmen, and introduce myself. 



" On one occasion on passing a farmhouse, the old farmer, 

 who was alone at the gate, was in great distress. Jumping from 

 my cycle, I was informed that his three men had gone with pro- 

 duce to the market town and during their absence a valuable cow 

 was taken ill. I went along to the shippon, examined the cow, 

 procured the old-fashioned horn, and donning the mistress's 

 apron administered a drink. 



' Whoa are yo ? " exclaimed the farmer. 



' I am a Labour organiser,' was my reply. 



' Is it yo that puts men into the Union ? ' 



' I'm him.' 



' Well, put my three hi, and I'll pay for them .' 



One of these men is a branch secretary to-day ! 



One day when visiting an employer in connection with a 

 wages dispute, the gun was taken down, but no threat was 

 uttered. It was a rough argument, but a challenge to a sparrow 

 shoot which followed settled the matter. 



" Disputes are much more easily settled at a conference than 

 individually, as numbers produce thought. The individual 

 farmer is still behind the times in many ways and needs great 

 education. The lot of the organiser is hard and entails a great 

 deal of sacrifice. I have done all kinds of things to settle dis- 

 putes ; sometimes drawn " shorts " and sometimes spun a 

 coin. My latest experience is one of being boycotted in a remote 

 district where I could not get lodgings anywhere. One could 

 hardly fancy such a state of things as this in these days, though 

 one of the world's greatest Reformers had not where to lay 

 His head." 



Mr. W. T. Fielding, the organiser of the N.A.L.U. in 

 Salop, left farm work to become a railway servant, and then 

 returned to help those who followed the plough as an organ- 

 iser. He tells me that at a meeting at Craven Arms, two 

 veterans came forward to testify that they had been 

 members of Joseph Arch's old Union in 1872. 



"Shropshire" he says, "has had small branches in the 

 county for about eleven years, but it was not until the last 

 two or three years that the spirit of combination began to 

 take hold of the workers." Writing in September, 1919, 

 Mr. Fielding says " 76 branches have been started with 4,000 



