CHAPTER XI. 

 THE COTTAGE. 



THE subject of housing was never far distant from the 

 minds of those members of the Club who represented the 

 agricultural labourers, all of whom were well acquainted 

 with life in a cottage from the inside. The supply of 

 suitable habitations and the accommodation provided 

 therein had been matters to which their attention had been 

 forcibly directed from early childhood. They knew well 

 where the shoe pinched, for they had worn it. Conse- 

 quently it was to be expected in any case that the subject 

 of rural cottages would be introduced in discussion, but it 

 happened that during the period with which this chronicle 

 is concerned "housing," both in town and country, was 

 much in the air as part of those roseate visions of recon- 

 struction which a well-intentioned but singularly sanguine 

 Government conjured up for the encouragement of optimists. 

 In July, 1919, Lord Astor, at that time Parliamentary 

 Secretary to the Ministry of Health, had an interview with 

 the Agricultural Wages Board and outlined the policy of 

 the Government with regard to rural housing. The Board 

 was concerned by reason of the fact that in fixing minimum 

 rates of wages it had decided that the provision of a cottage 

 by the employer might be reckoned as part payment in 

 kind of the wage fixed, and had necessarily to fix the 

 maximum amount which might be deducted from the 

 cash wage in respect thereof. As cottage rents had been 

 practically stereotyped at the pre-war level by the Rent and 

 Mortgage Interest (Restriction) Act, the Board had to fix the 

 amount of the deduction representing the assumed rent 

 of the cottage on a pre-war basis, and in fact actually 

 fixed it at 35. After hearing Lord Astor the Board had 



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