GROWTH UNDER STORMY SKIES. 205 



husband earned I2s. a week in Oxfordshire ; " it's a mystery " 

 (with the puzzled look of the poor at the perpetual miracle of 

 continued existence). " I don't know how we manage ; 

 the thing is to get it past. ' ' 



It was the woman who invariably raised a note of revolt. 

 Certainly it was she who at breaking point bore the strain of 

 it all. One of the most terrible indictments of our modern 

 civilisation was that uttered by Mr. George Edwards, the 

 Secretary of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union 

 about this time : 



" In nine cases out of ten the women starve ; the first thing 

 she thinks about is her children and her husband. As a result 

 of this chronic underfeeding we have a very large percentage of 

 insanity amongst the women. I am on the Asylums Committee 

 of the Norfolk County Council and we have over 300 wives of 

 the labouring classes under our care. I attribute this large 

 number to the anxiety necessitated in making ends meet, and 

 to the poor food." 



Mr. Rowntree and Miss May Kendall evidently noticed 

 the slumbering feeling of revolt in the breasts of the labour- 

 er's wives, for their volume ends with these \vords : 



" And yet, especially among the women, there is a slow dis- 

 turbance something that is not yet rebellion, and not yet hope, 

 that seems to hold the dim promise of both. The waters are 

 troubled, though one hears some very contradictory accounts of 

 the appearance of the angel." 



The authors pointed out that so bad were the prospects in 

 1911 that one out of every forty agriculturists decided to 

 quit the country altogether ; that between 1900-1910 wages 

 had risen 3 per cent, only amongst agricultural labourers, 

 whilst the cost of living during the same period had advanced 

 about 10 per cent., with a further 5 per cent, in increase 

 between 1910-12 with the result that the real wages of 

 agricultural labourers had actually diminished since 1900. 



The minimum amount of wages necessary for a family of 

 two adults and three children worked out as follows : 



