AGRICULTURAL DRAMATIS PERSON.^ 63 



be at a disadvantage as compared n\ ith the town labourer 

 in regard to leisure hours ; but when it is a question of 

 getting in the nation's food supply in a variable climate 

 like ours, the necessary adjustments to meet the case 

 should be made. In bad weather the hours of manual 

 labour are perforce curtailed, and I have been astonished 

 at the amount of serious reading the agricultural worker 

 can put in during the year if he is so disposed. 



The agricultural labourer in his own sphere is a 

 skilled labourer, and he should be treated as such. It 

 should be open to the energetic worker to earn much more 

 than the minimum wage by means of piecework, wherever 

 this can be arranged, and there could be much more 

 piecework if the farmers gave their minds to developing 

 it ; and the labourers should agree to the principle. 



In the winter months the hours of work are short, 

 work is often altogether held up by the weather, and 

 the labouring man can have his hours of leisure — and in 

 summer, too, except at times of pressure — hay and 

 corn harvest, for example. At these times there should 

 be no question of knocking off at 5 o'clock ; work should 

 go on late into the evening and the overtime should be 

 well paid. The unfortunate thing is that at the present 

 moment many labouring men stop work at 5 p.m., 

 regardless of any other consideration, and the overtime 

 wages do not tempt them. There is the other side ; 

 many of the farmers think they cannot afford to pay over- 

 time and so do not encourage it. The nett result is seri- 

 ous ; less work is being put into the cultivation of the land. 



It is not that I am an advocate of long hours ; in the 

 factory the 8-hour day is certainly long cnough^ — too 

 long in some cases— and an 8 or 9-hour day in agriculture 

 may be long enough, though personally I would rather 

 work 9 hours on the land than 6 hours in a factory. 



