WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 279 



the labourers have about forty representatives in Parish 

 and Rural District Councils, though the district is unde- 

 fined. He finds that on large farms the men are " more inde- 

 pendent and more prepared to insist on their rights than 

 on small farms." 



" I have recently," he adds, " been endeavouring to get all 

 cottages examined by the District Wages Committee in view 

 of getting the rent of 35. reduced where cottages are in a bad 

 state. I got more opposition from farmers on this than on any 

 other question, but we have been successful in getting rents 

 reduced in bad cases. The tied house is the thing that to-day 

 is preventing men from being independent, as they are afraid 

 of being turned out into the road. 



" I know of a case near Alton where a man knowingly agreed 

 that his son should work at a lower rate than the minimum 

 because he was afraid of being turned out. This he admitted 

 only when he left his situation through a quarrel. He said 

 it was a common practice to do this where a man had one or 

 two sons, and that they do not complain, because of the housing 

 difficulty. Some farmers deduct from each employee living in 

 the same cottage the 35. a week for rent. I have known 95. 

 deducted in this way at one cottage. We got two cases settled 

 in favour of the men. Owing to years of oppression the rural 

 mind is less receptive than that of most workers." 



Mr. G. C. Piggott, the Isle of Wight and Hants organiser 

 of the N.A.L.U., tells me of the curious way in which he 

 became an organiser : 



" With regard to the birth of our union in the Isle of Wight 

 it was brought about in this way. My late employer had been 

 to London as the representative to the Central Chamber of 

 Agriculture and I had to meet him at the station on his return. 

 On his way home he kept on telling me what they were going to 

 do and what they were not going to do, and I said, ' What is 

 wanted is an Agricultural Labourers' Union in this district, 

 and I'm going to try and get one.' He said ' I agree with you,' 

 and I immediately set to work. I got two dock workers from 

 Cowes to speak, and we started our first branch at Newport 

 with forty-seven members. That was on January 12, 1918, 

 That branch is now 257 strong, and there are altogether fourteen 

 branches on the island with a total of over 1,000 members." 



Farmers continually complain that the objection to a 

 trade union rate of wages is that you have to pay all men 

 alike. This of course is not true, (except in so far as 



