PART EIGHT 



WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 



IV. 1920. 



IT would be an error to assume that though agricultural 

 workers had the protection of the law in demanding the 

 minimum wage, that they always obtained it. The number 

 of enquiries and prosecutions which had to be taken up by the 

 Wages Board Inspectors, show how secure farmers still con- 

 sidered their position to be if they stubbornly set their faces 

 against the law. The number of complaints received at the 

 Wages Board from October 28, 1918, to December 31, 

 1919, were no less than 5,266. The number of cases " com- 

 pleted " were 3,898. The amount recovered by the Board, 

 of wages due, was 9,532. The number of cases in which 

 prosecutions were entered into were 127. 



These figures give no indication of the wages recovered 

 (without reference to the Board) by the agricultural unions ; * 

 but they are large enough to show us how necessary have 

 been the unions to the men, for in the majority of cases cited 

 above, the amounts were recovered by Trade Union secre- 

 taries reporting cases to the Board after failing to make far- 

 mers pay. Indeed, so congested has become this Department 

 of the Board that steps should be taken to delegate to District 

 Committees the duties of inspection and prosecution. Dis- 

 trict Committees could do this work more expeditiously than 

 a centralised Department, and they would then have some- 

 thing more to do than issue permits and glance occasionally 

 at an insanitary cottage. 



That Justices of the Peace in rural areas betrayed their 

 bias in favour of the employing class, is evinced by the num- 



1 According to The Land Worker, March 18, 1920, the N.A.L.U. in one 

 month alone recovered over ^1,000 of arrears of pay, and every month 

 hundreds of pounds are recovered by trade union effort. 



317 



