294 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



And the reply now comes without hesitation : " Ain't 

 you got any agitators in your Union ? " 



At the end of four or five weeks the Agricultural Wages 

 Board advertises the minimum for the county to be 323. 

 Then both sides declare the decision of the A.W.B. to be 

 " monstrous." This is about the only time that they 

 ever do agree over wages or hours. 



Where the District Committees have real powers beyond 

 merely " recommending," is in the issuing Permits to men 

 incapable through infirmity of earning the minimum wage, 

 and in deciding that a cottage through insanitation, defective 

 water supply or want of repair, is not worth the 35. a week 

 which the farmer has the power to deduct as an " allow- 

 ance " for the occupation of a farm-tied cottage. 



When the Agricultural Wages Board decided that 35. 

 should be the maximum sum which farmers could deduct 

 from wages for the occupation of a cottage, in counties 

 where it has been customary to deduct only is., is. 6d., 

 or 2s. for cottages, much discontent arose. Hence an Order 

 was made for certain counties such as Northamptonshire, 

 Herefordshire, Mid-Bucks and parts of Somerset, where 

 2s. 6d. only, and in North Bucks 2s. only, can be deducted 

 for the occupation of a farm-tied cottage. 



Some curious instances came under my notice with regard 

 to this deduction of 35. 



In the corner of a meadow, under an oak tree, close to a 

 by-road connecting one Surrey village with another might 

 have been seen a tent, locally known as a " bender." It 

 was like a diminutive Chinese sampan, or river boat, and 

 close to it were two brown baby tents in which there was 

 just room to boil a kettle of water. From a distance these 

 appear like toadstools springing up from the green meadow. 



In the tent slept a carter, his wife and two children. 

 Let no one imagine, however, that this tent was a Bell tent 

 in which a person could stand erect. Its occupants had 

 to creep in like rabbits and sit down or lie prostrate under 

 the old sacks which formed the tunnel-shaped roof. For this 

 country residence, which had been erected by the man him- 

 self, the farmer who engaged the carter deducted the 



