THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT. 115 



to hold a meeting in the large room of the inn, for the purpose of 

 forming a branch of the Herefordshire Agricultural and General 

 Workers' Union. On arriving at the inn on the night of the 

 meeting he was informed that his lordship's secretary had called 

 and pointed out a clause in the lease which forbade any meeting 

 being held without his lordship's special permission. A similar 

 visit had been paid to every tenant holding a field or orchard 

 under Lord Batcman, who owns the whole village. An attempt 

 to hold a meeting on the waste land was prevented by the super- 

 intendent of the County Police, who WHS accompanied by a 

 constable, on the ground that Lord Bateman, as lord of the 

 manor, claimed the control of all the waste land ; and the police 

 apparently acting under the instructions of his lordship as 

 Lord Lieutenant of the County similarly prevented the holding 

 of a meeting in the public highway." 1 



This year the League sent out five vans on the road, 

 which went to work in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Berkshire, 

 Wiltshire, Somersetshire and Herefordshire, and the lec- 

 turers formed unions in all these counties. Mr. Verinder, 

 the secretary of the League, thought that it was not wise to 

 attempt to revive Arch's National Union owing to the 

 suspicions still rife, suspicions that had been sedulously 

 fostered by squire, parson and farmer, that Arch and his 

 paid agitators had robbed the men, and Mr. Verinder 

 believed that, owing to the neglect of sufficient supervision 

 by a centralised organisation, success would be more easily 

 achieved by autonomously governed federations of unions. 

 Nevertheless these county unions which sprang up like 

 mushrooms suffered a rapid decline on the financial 

 basis of a penny a week subscription. 



However, they had their day, and they kept the idea of 

 organisation alive in the breast of the agricultural labourer, 

 and sowed the seed which began to be harvested some 

 twenty years later. 



In the Church Reformer, August, 1891, it is stated that 

 in some of the Suffolk villages a flourishing branch of Arch's 

 National Union was still to be found. Parsons, it appeared, 

 still held aloof from meetings such as these. " Only on 

 one occasion did the parson think it well to hear for him- 

 self what the agitators from London were telling his flock." 



1 Among the Agricultural Labourers with the Red Vans, 1892. 



