H4 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



Near Diclcot men of a certain village were working for 

 9s. a week, and in the adjoining village for irs. a week. 

 Near Wycombe in Bucks was found a man with a young 

 family of six, whose wages did not average 8s. a week. 



In Bedfordshire wages appeared to be I2s. a week with 

 2s. or 3s. more for cowmen and horsemen with Sunday 

 work to do. In the correspondence columns of the Daily 

 AVzrs a Leicestershire farmer stated his wagoner was paid 

 1 9s. per week, his cowman iSs. and his labourers i6s. to i/s. 

 all the year round. 



Though Millin made his tour in these counties during 

 harvest time, when drink was more abundant than at any 

 other period of the year, he found little evidence of drunken- 

 ness amongst labourers, despite the fact that he mixed 

 freely with them at all hours in the taprooms of public houses. 

 He said the}" drank too much, but even when closing time 

 came men as a rule moved with ordinal}* precision out of 

 the taproom into the open street. 



"When in the same year of 1891 the lecturers of the English 

 Land Restoration League went into Suffolk with the Red 

 Van they found that wages were from ios. to I2s. a week 

 with harvest money averaging from 7 to 9. In a short 

 time the newly formed Union, the Eastern Counties 

 Federation, raised wages is. a week. Cottages were let at 

 from 3 to 6 a year. 



The reason why the League decided to send out its lec- 

 turers in vans was because of the difficulty in those 

 days of obtaining the use of village halls. The labourers 

 lead newspapers but rarely at this time, and the only way 

 to reach them was by means of meetings. Most of the 

 meetings were attended by from K o to 3< o labourers, and 

 many of the farmers, especially those who employed the 

 most labour and paid the best wages, were, on the whole, 

 friendly. Difficulty in finding a pitch for the van was 

 experienced where the village was owned by one man, 

 which led in 1892 to an exhibition of despotic ruling by a 

 landowner, Lord Bateman. 



" The organising secretary of the League obtained permission 

 from the landlord of the Bateman Arms, Shobdon, Herefordshire, 



