298 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



ployers and workmen to make their own arrangements. In 

 some counties special overtime rates were arranged by mas- 

 ters and men, in others a lump sum was agreed upon, such 

 sums as 13, 14 or 15, irrespective of the time occupied. 

 In Essex, the following agreement was drawn up between 

 the Farmers' Union and the Workers' Union : 



" It is hereby agreed between five representatives of the Essex 

 County Farmers' Union, and five representatives of the Workers' 

 Union, that the harvest wages for 1918 shall be paid at the rate 

 of 325. per week for 54 hours, plus payment for overtime at the 

 rate of is. gd. per hour, and that the men shall be given the 

 opportunity of working three hours' overtime per day, and that 

 if the harvest is not completed within twenty-four fine harvest 

 days, and the men have not been given the opportunity of 

 working seventy-two hours' overtime in that period, they shall 

 receive payment for seventy-two hours' overtime ; and it is 

 also agreed that boys be paid overtime rates in proportion to 

 their wages." 



The setting up of the Agricultural Wages Board coinci- 

 dent with the growing confidence amongst the workers 

 that they could improve their conditions by organisation 

 and negotiation no doubt accounted for the weapon of 

 the strike being laid aside for the time being. When the 

 country was stampeded into a General Election in Novem- 

 ber, 1918, some very remarkable results were achieved by 

 rural Labour Parties which had hitherto never attempted 

 to contest the parliamentary seat. These Labour Parties in 

 rural areas, were for the most part made up of branches of the 

 farm workers' unions, and for the first time in his history 

 Hodge had become not only industrially class-conscious, 

 but politically class-conscious. The votes won by the fol- 

 lowing Labour candidates at the General Election, 1918, 

 indicated the growing tendency of the rural worker to dis- 

 card the old political parties and support the Party to which 

 his trade union is affiliated. 



Bridgwater (Somerset) S. J. Plummer 5.77^ 



Dorset (East) A. Smith 4,321 



Dorset (South ) Brette Morgan 5,^59 



Maldon (Essex) G. Dallas 6,315 



Saffron Walden (Essex) J. J. Mallon 4-531 



Petersfield (Hants) J. Pile 4,267 



