94 



As to conditions. There are very few industrial workers who have 

 given five minutes' consideration to the rural problem of this country. 

 Can you imagine going to work on Monday morning I won't say for 

 how many hours, but something like the tramwayman under the old 

 system, whose little boy asked the mother when he went home to dinner 

 on Sunday who that strange man was ? With agricultural labourers 

 living in tied cottages, the work is never done from Monday morning 

 till Sunday night ; there is no opportunity of standardising hours as 

 well as wages. There are men at the present moment who actually 

 work 108 hours a week for a wage of something like 17s. I was in a 

 village only last week on the borders of Yorkshire, where they are 

 actually receiving 16s. a week, with 4d. deducted for stamp licking ! 

 If you want to know the real condition of the agricultural labourer, here 

 is an exact copy of a letter I had handed to me one night, when I was 

 about to speak at a meeting. A woman came into the room, and handed 

 me this : >; Dear Sir, I am sending you a line of how eight in family 

 is kept on 16s. a week and Is. for Sunday work no potatoes. The 

 farmer reckons to pay 1 a week, but keeps back 3s. for house rent 

 (you will notice we never get behind with our rent !) Where are all 

 our clothing, boots, and club money coming from ? P.S. Excuse me 

 not giving name and address, as I am afraid if my husband's boss got 

 to know I had written this he would give him the sack and turn us all 

 out of doors." Have you ever been in that position, when you have 

 to choose between being a man, or a crawling thing at the foot of another 

 man because you could not see your wife and children suffer ? If God 

 ever intended a man to be in that position there is no just God in this 

 country. The woman gives a list of things she has to purchase in the 

 week for 17s., and it comes to 17s. lOd. and then I learned for the 

 first time in my life that you could get 17s. lOd. out of 17s. I often 

 wondered how my wife managed when I was out of work fifteen months 

 because I joined a Trade Union : now I know something of how it 

 is done. 



Mr. Ashby spoke about the need for the standardisation of working 

 conditions. In Norfolk alone we have about fifteen different working 

 systems. We want one set of terms and conditions, just as we have 

 now one set wage. When first I took up a post in this Union, in 1913, 

 the men's wages in south-west Norfolk were 9s. 6d. and 10s. 6d. a week 

 at the outside ; in the north-west they were slightly higher. We now 

 have them everywhere at 25s. a week, and I expected a wire this after- 

 noon saying what the Government has decided in an arbitration case 

 on the question of a 30s. minimum. 



There is just one other point. I often get up against my Trade 

 Union friends because I insist that the agricultural labourer 

 perhaps above all men is a skilled man. Whether the farmer 

 can afford to pay high wages remains to be seen. I have a balance 

 sheet of a farmer before the war, which shows that for every 

 1 he paid in wages he put in his own pocket 4 Is. lOd., after all 

 deductions rent and other things had been reckoned off. One other 



