22 THE RURAL PROBLEM. 



on the wages of farm workers. Some farmers who had jireviously 

 been deterred from making advances by the disapproval of their 

 neighbours welcome the change ; others look forward to being 

 able to reduce rates of wages. The labourers generally are looking 

 forward to their maintenance ; and indeed if the return of labour 

 to the land is to be secured the rates must be higher than in 1914. 

 And there is general agreement that the conditions of employment 

 should be attractive enough to induce the labourers to return 

 in sufficient numbers to man the farms on the pre-war strength. 



The best method of maintaining the rates of wages would 

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

 to the Avar some extension was taking place, with hopehd results. 

 The National Agricultural Labourers' Union had been growing 

 in numbers and becoming active in parts of several counties, includ- 

 ing Lancashire, Cheshire, Northampton, Norfolk, Essex, and 

 Somerset. In Scotland, also, a Union of farm workers had been very 

 successful, especially in negotiations. But whatever method of 

 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 associations. Employers in agri- 

 culture have long had both formal and informal (mostly informal) 

 agreements to control rates of wages, and in principle there can be 

 no vahd objection to association amongst employees for the purpose 

 of supervising rates. Some of the obstacles to the growth of 

 unionism have been that the incomes of the labourers were not 

 sufficient to provide a surplus for the adequate support of the 

 organisation ; that the natural leaders of the men, the young 

 intelligent workers, were mostly drawn to the town, and for those 

 remaining the training in leadership was poor ; and that the men 

 were isolated, working in small groups under varymg conditions. 



If State action to raise or maintain rates of wages is required 

 on the return to peace conditions. Wages Boards should be organised 

 on a county or other local basis, with adequate rei^resentation of 

 employees. The need for obtaining information for the purpose 

 of making awards, and for activity in enforcing them, would 

 probably act as a spur to association amongst the labourers. 

 Without their personal and mutual initiative little advance can 

 be made. An increase in the rates of wages may be obtained by 

 legal compulsion or dictated by the business instincts or generosity 

 of employers, but the essential condition of the life of the labourer 

 as a person who is controlled entirely by external forces will remain 

 unless some effort is required from him in the fixing and enforcing 

 of rates. 



Next to the low economic return the most important cause of 

 the labourers' dissatisfaction is the absence of reasonable prospect 

 of advancement in life. The boy who begms work on a farm 

 at the age of twelve or thirteen years generally reaches the maximum 

 of his advancement at twenty-five, and often before. He may 

 begin with odd work in the stable or yard, sometimes as a boy 



