THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 99 



Under the impetus of the new union movement the old 

 Kent and Sussex Labourers' Union 1 sprang into life again, 

 and the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, though 

 now confined largely to Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, under 

 stimulus of the Red and Yellow Vans increased its 

 membership from 2,454 in 1889 to 14,000 in 1890. 



In spite of the rise of the Eastern Counties Federation, 

 farmers were lowering wages by is. a week in Suffolk and 

 Norfolk in the autumn of 1892 and the spring of 1893, 

 and strikes took place on several large farms. 



Although strikes have their tragical side they rarely 

 take place without some display of that English humour 

 which has made oar working class the most tolerant and 

 orderly working class in the world, even when provoked to 

 disorder by the presence of mounted police armed with 

 batons. 



An incident that occurred at St. Faith's a village four 

 miles out of Norwich, which became a storm centre of 

 recurring agitation illustrates that kind of English horse- 

 play, half serious and half fun, characteristic of our race. 

 This incident, however, had a dramatic ending. 



A strike took place about 1889. The agricultural labour- 

 ers involved were then members of John Ward's Navvies' 

 Union, and about a dozen men were imported from Yarmouth 

 as strike-breakers and housed in shepherds' huts. Natur- 

 ally, these men were not received with any cordiality by 

 the villagers, who saw their bread and butter going into other 

 mouths. St. Faith's is a village which lias always been 

 noted for its band, and the bandsmen playing a merry tune, 

 followed by the rest of the villagers, marched up one night 

 to the shepherds' huts, and without much ceremony made 

 captive the men. Mr. G. E. Hewitt (now a respected mem- 

 ber of the Agricultural Wages Board and the Norfolk 

 County Council) who was then eighteen years of age (I have- 

 no doubt he was one of the ringleaders), tells me that they 

 marched the unfortunate blacklegs down to the village 



1 An old banner of this Union was discovered at the Moon and Stars, 

 Preston, Kent, in 1919, by Mr. Baker, the county organiser of the X.A.L.U., 

 and Mr. Baker has it in his possession. 



