4 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH RURAL HISTORY 



of Avar, applied also to the agricultural workers, to whom 

 the whole community looked for the maintenance of the 

 food supply, though no doubt many so-called farm 

 " labourers " were not fully conscious of the national 

 importance of their services. The introduction of military 

 labour and of women workers into agriculture and the 

 steadily increasing cost of living combined to produce 

 discontent with the economic position of the rural workers. 

 It is not surprising, therefore, that the countryside became 

 a fruitful field for trade union organization. 



The growth of trade union membership in every industry 

 was a marked feature of war time, and the agricultural 

 industry was no exception. Indeed, the development of 

 trade unionism amongst rural workers proceeded with 

 extraordinary rapidity. It was undoubtedly stimulated 

 in a large measure by the establishment of the Agricul- 

 tural Wages Board. Experience has shown that the intro- 

 duction of Trade Boards in other industries has always 

 been followed by a growth of trade union membership, 

 and the Wages Board for agricultural workers certainly 

 aided the efforts of trade union organizers in the country 

 districts. It is difficult to exaggerate the effect of the" 

 establishment of the Wages Board and the District Com- 

 mittees. They have set new wages standards, but they 

 have also secured the permanent recognition of trade 

 union organizations representative of rural workers, and 

 placed organized labour on a footing of equality with 

 agricultural employers on statutory bodies. 



But this is not all. Agriculture, although the largest 

 and most fundamental industry in the country, has in 

 the past been considered, when it was considered at all, 

 as a problem to itself, and general trade union policy had 

 little relation to it. But the enrolment of the farm workers 

 in the Agricultural and Rural Workers' Union, the Scottish 

 Farm Servants' Union, and the general labour unions, 

 and the association of these bodies with the Trades Union 

 Congress, brought the agriculturalists into line with the 



