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there must be provision for progressive advances similar to the 

 advances made in other industries, otherwise the economic attraction 

 of urban industries will remain. The keen worker and intelligent 

 citizen will be needed in the organisation necessary for making adjust- 

 ments. Indeed, no system of adjusting rates of wages is likely to be 

 entirely successful which does not involve the interest and action of 

 the most numerous party to the contract. With much regulation 

 and supervision of a police character by public officials it may be 

 possible to enforce a statutory minimum wage in the determination 

 of which the labourer has had no part, but such a system will leave him 

 in the position of a minor in the social world, for whom everything is 

 decided and carried out by superior persons. 



The best method of maintaining and adjusting rates of wages would 

 be by an extension of trade union activity in the villages. Prior to 

 the war some extension was taking place, with hopeful results. The 

 National Agricultural Labourers' Union had been growing in numbers 

 and becoming active in several counties, including Lancashire, Cheshire, 

 Northampton, Norfolk, Essex, and Somerset. Other unions also had 

 some branches in rural areas. In Scotland, also, a union of farm workers 

 had been very successful, especially in negotiations. Whatever method 

 of adjusting and supervising rates of wages is adopted, it is essential 

 that it should require personal initiative on the part of the labourer, 

 and this will require some form of mutual association. 



Employers in agriculture have long had both formal and informal 

 (mostly informal) agreements to control rates of wages, and to bargain 

 on equal terms the men must prepare group opinions and demands. 

 In this sphere the best of the workers are needed. Obstacles to the 

 development of common action have been enormous : the incomes of 

 the labourers have not been sufficient to provide a surplus for the 

 adequate support of an organisation ; the natural leaders of the men 

 the young, intelligent workers were mostly drawn to the towns ; 

 and the men were isolated, working in small groups, under varying 

 conditions. Prior to the war the growing strength of the union was 

 due largely to the growing interest of young men. If these return 

 to the farms and wages are raised by public action the outlook should 

 be hopeful. 



The farmer's interest in the retention of good men on farms ought 

 to be obvious, but it has not always been obvious to the farmer. In 

 large districts in the Midlands and Southern Counties the standard 

 of work on farms has sunk to a very low level, owing to the fact that 

 most farmers held out no incentive to good work on the part of their 

 employees. Almost any young man of the Midlands who has worked 

 for some time in a Northern county will tell of the greater speed and 

 higher standard of work in the North, and most prefer the better class 

 work where wages are adequate to pay for it, even while they feel bound 

 to ' work according to the pay ' in the low-wage areas. In the Midland 

 and Southern counties a greater application of intelligence and skill 

 is required, together with provision of more and better implements 



