MINUTES 'OF EVIDENCE. 



1J5 



13 August, 1919.] 



SIR JAMES WILSON, K.C.S.I. 



[Continued. 



2845. With the cost of living at the tremendously 

 high level at which it has been during the past 18 

 months? You must remember the standard of com- 

 fort varies very much in Scotland. 



2846. Would you say there could be any standard 

 of comfort at all on a wage of 30s. a week with prices 

 as they are at present? I should say it would be a 

 standard rather of discomfort? Your standard is -not 

 the same as those people's. In some parts of Scot- 

 land the standard hitherto adopted has been com- 

 paratively low. There is a difference between the 

 Lowlands and the West Highlands. 



2847. You have to reconcile the standard of comfort 

 with something that will promote efficiency. Would 

 you say that a wage of 30s. a week would be likely 

 to promote efficiency in a workman? Not generally 

 speaking, no. You will remember that these decisions 

 are not generally my own decisions. 



2848. I thought most of them were? No, not quite. 



2849. According to your evidence I think you stated 

 that the employers and the workmen did not agree 

 on the District Committees, and that it came up to 

 the Central Committee, and on the Central Committee 

 the employers and workmen disagreed again, and 

 generally you voted with the majority which was a 

 majority of one, and therefore it came down to you? 

 Not always. 



2850. Will you explain how the District Committees 

 came to fix a wage of 20s. a week for women? In 

 almost all these cases the wages were fixed by the 

 District Committees and passed by the Central Com- 

 mittee. 



2851. Would you suggest that a woman could keep 

 herself in decency and comfort on a wage of 20s. a 

 week? I should not say so myself in most cases. 



2852. It seems to me extraordinary? The actual 

 wages are a good deal more than that in the greater 

 part of Scotland at present. 



2853. Do the organised workers in Scotland, through 

 their trade unions, take the Wages Committees and 

 the Wages Board as a serious factor in determining 

 their wages? In determining their actual wages? 



2854. Yes? No, not at all at present. 



2855. Mr. Qreen: What we are after, Sir James, 

 is a balance sheet. Have you any balance sheets in 

 your office to present to this Commission, of Scottish 

 farms? No, not in my office. 



2856. Are you able to get hold of balance sheets 

 for us are you a member of the Scottish Board of 

 Agriculture? No, I am simply Chairman of the 

 Central Wages Committee. 



2857. With all due deference to Mr. Batchelor ,are 

 not the Lothian farms the most efficient in Scotland? 

 I should not say they are the most efficient; they 

 are among the most efficient. 



2658. I think it would be very useful to this Com- 

 mission if you were to get balance sheets for the 

 Lothian district and for Forfar, and the potato 

 district of Ayrshire. I suppose we cannot get those 

 from you? No, not from me. 



2859. With regard to the Chairmen of these Dis- 

 trict Committees, are they invariably fanners? No. 

 There is only one farmer that I know who is Chairman 

 of a District Committee that is Mr. Gardner. 



2860. All the others are farm servants? No, they 

 are generally outsiders. There are two sheriffs, and 

 one sheriff's substitute, one lawyer, and two land- 

 owners. 



2861. Are there any farm servant* as Chairmen? 

 No, not as Chairmen. 



2862. Was not the half-holiday instituted in Scot- 

 land before the war? In some parts of Scotland 

 not aa a general rule. 



2863. In the Lothians district is was? Only in 

 part of the Lothiang. 



2864. When the cost of living went up very rapidly 

 during 1916 and 1917, were the rates of wages altered 

 at all in the case of the yearly hirings, or did the 

 men have to submit to the increased cost until the 

 next hiring? They were not altered between the 

 hirings. If a man was engaged for the year he had 

 t<> wait until the end of the year before he oould 

 make a new bargain and get his wages raised. 



2865. In that case the nii-n were having a very bad 

 time while the farmers were having a very good time 



during that period ? I was not in Scotland then, and 

 cannot speak from personal knowledge. 



2866. With regard to crofters, I suppose most of 

 the crofters' families work on the crofts? I believe 

 so. 



2867. The arrangement as to wages does not affect 

 the crofters very much, does it? It affects very few 

 people in the Western Highlands, where the crofters 

 are most numerous. 



2868. What are the relative comparative figures 

 about ploughmen and ordinary labourers? Is it not 

 the case in Scotland that the stock men rather out- 

 number the ordinary labourers? Yes, the ordinary 

 labourer in Scotland who is neither a ploughman, 

 a cattleman, nor a shepherd, is comparatively few in 

 number. There are very few men who are not either 

 ploughmen, cattlemen, or shepherds. 



2869. On. several occasions when I have advocated 

 higher wages for the English agricultural labourer, 

 I have been informed by the Press that if the 

 English agricultural labourer would only imitate the 

 Scottish agricultural labourer and live upon porridge, 

 he would have a better time of it. Do the Scottish 

 agricultural labourers live entirely upon porridge? 

 Not entirely, but many of them live largely on 

 porridge. 



2870. Mr. J. M. Henderson: You said that the 

 hours for farm servauts were 60 hours a week 

 formerly, and now they are 50? In a great part of 

 Scotland before the war the hours' were practically 

 60 a week in summer time not perhaps in winter. 



2871. You know the climate of Great Britain and 

 you know the climate of Scotland. Did you ever 

 know a farm servant to work ten hours a day for 

 six days? Taking the year right through, you will 

 find at least two days almost out of every week, 

 except perhaps in harvest time, on which the farm 

 servant cannot work ? He cannot work out of doors 

 perhaps, but he does some work. There is generally a 

 lot of barn work and farm work and other work to be 

 done, although I daresay it is slack work. At the 

 same time he is on duty. 



2872. I have seen a good deal of it in my time, and 

 I know the climate is so irregular, particularly in 

 Ayr, that it is impossible for you to say that the 

 man works 60 or even 50 hours a week. I know they 

 are excellent workers, and they are always willing 

 to' \vork. If a man sets out to hoe a field of turnips, 

 and there is a torrential storm comes on and continues 

 the whole of the day, he cannot go on working ; he has 

 to stop. When you have been discussing the wages, 

 have there been any suggestions from any of the 

 farmers lately as to the effect of these wages upon 

 their profits? Yes; a number of the farmers' repre- 

 sentatives pointed out that if they had to pay very 

 high wages they would not be able to employ so many 

 men, or plough up so much land. 



2873. Or make so much profit? They did not put it 

 in that way ; they said it would not pay. 



2874. That is the same sort of thing. When these 

 farmers came before you to discuss these things, and 

 said what you have just told us, that it would not 

 pay them, did any of them produce to you at any of 

 your meetings any statement which showed you that 

 they could not meet these extra wages? No, we did 

 not go into that question. 



2875. No statement of revenue or payments at all? 

 Vo. 



2876. That, of course, is what this Commission is 

 after, and you cannot help us in that respect? I am 

 nfraid not in that way. 



2877. Mr. Thomas Henderson: Will you tell the 

 Commission in how many districts the minimum rate 

 in operation is actual wages? In very few indeed. 



2878. How many individual cases? That applies to 

 pach individual man how many individual cases. 

 Perhaps you mean in how many cases has the fixing 

 of the minimum wage raised the actual wage. 



2879. It may come to that, but that is hardly my 

 point. Have you any evidence to show that the 

 minimum wage fixed by the Central Committee is 

 actually in operation? -No, except in one or two cases 

 that have been reported and gone into when the 

 Committee has decided what the statutory wage 

 should be. In that case, of course, the farmer now 

 pays it. 



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