280 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



a minimum has to be paid), and Mr. Piggott gives an 

 amusing instance of how a man who had always been paid 

 53. a week more than the other workmen on the farm 

 demanded the extra sum when the minimum wage was 

 fixed and got it ! 



Before the war Mr. Piggott was working for a farmer 

 for 1 a week with a cottage, and he worked for this wage 

 right up to 1915, when he had a wife and five children under 

 eight years of age to support. His work started at five 

 o'clock in the morning and ceased only at the pleasure of 

 the farmer, without a penny being paid for overtime. 



" I have known the time when I have been cutting up man- 

 golds on Saturday night up till ten o'clock so that I should not 

 do this on Sunday. On one occasion we had a cow bad, and I 

 sat up with her nearly all night. When I asked for some pay- 

 ment for this, my employer replied, ' I lost the cow.' I was 

 told I could have separated milk free, but he never failed to 

 remind me of this act of generosity afterwards." 



Like all other organisers he condemns the tied- cottage 

 system. To illustrate the ceaseless drudgery of farm work 

 he writes : 



" I have just had a farm labourer, one of my old mates, stay- 

 ing with me. He is 35 years of age, and this is the first holiday 

 he has had for ten years. Another one wrote me a few weeks 

 ago to say that he had drawn all his harvest pay and was now 

 going to spend it. This was the first holiday he had ever had, 

 and he was going to London. Fancy Hodge in London ! It 

 would be good material for your book." 



I wonder what the effect would have been amongst the 

 Brotherhood of Thackeray's days who possessed fine 

 calves and wore yellow plushes if they knew that a footman 

 was destined to become one of the most successful organisers 

 of the agricultural labourers ? You could not shock a 

 footman to-day by such an announcement if one is to judge 

 the fraternity by a visit I paid during war-time to an 

 exceedingly exclusive club in St. James' Street. Here I 

 handed my card to a white-haired gentleman arrayed in 

 spotless linen who might have been the family butler to 



