LABOUR. 28 



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presiding over our International Industrial Insurance Con- 

 gress at Brussels in 1897, " whose forbears only a few 

 generations ago had not their places in the ranks of working 

 men ? " When men in good position interested in Agri- 

 culture clamour for it that Agriculture should at length 

 " come by its own," will they not include the claims of 

 Agricultural Labour, as compared with industrial, in their 

 demand ? 



The difficulty which stands in the way of the supply of 

 Agriculture with an adequate amount of labour and of the 

 agricultural labourer working out his own salvation, as 

 the industrial workman has done his, is not purely one of 

 larger wages. Wages stand for a good deal in the problem., 

 But there is very much more besides. And the point of 

 what constitutes sufficient wages has long been misunder- 

 stood. It is not so very long since a leading statesman, now 

 defunct, himself a land owner in a distinctly agricultural 

 county, astonished members of the House of Commons by 

 informing them, quite seriously, that in his district, where 

 the current rate of wages was 13s. or 13s. 6d. a week, 

 labourers' families manage on such wage to eat meat freely. 

 Whether the same optimistic assumption was shared in 

 other quarters or not, wages have undoubtedly been far 

 too low. The war, with its many needs, has given them a 

 filUp, and Mr. Chamberlain's 25s. a week has settled the 

 point for the moment. That is, by the way, nothing to 

 what has had to be accorded in France, where labourers' 

 and farm servants' wages have risen to the double of their 

 ordinary rate, and in some cases to the treble. And where 

 board is supphed, labourers' and farm servants' demands 

 have become exacting. M. Zolla tells of cases in which 

 meat twice a day has been insisted on, with cider or wine 

 to match, and coffee after the meal. But how about after- 

 wards ? All the world clamours for higher wages. But 

 how is this payment to be enforced ? A minimum may be 

 fixed. But in the country, even more than in towns, there 

 will have to be many exceptions from it, or the aged, infirm 

 and juvenile will be cruelly deprived of what to them and 

 their famiHes is a welcome godsend. There are to be 



