262 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



hall closed against him, and that the tenant of the market 

 place had orders not to allow any more meetings there. 

 He immediately announced through the local Press that 

 he would hold a meeting and take the consequences, when to 

 the credit of one religious body he was offered the free use 

 of a schoolroom, and there the meeting was held with 

 successful results. 



I should like to say a word here as to the attitude of the 

 clergy. The hostility shown, as instanced above, has, I 

 think, been rare in recent years. Many clergymen to-day 

 not only are showing their sympathy in an unobtrusive 

 manner, but several, who are personal friends of mine, 

 are exceedingly active branch secretaries of unions ; and 

 where they do take the lead the branches thrive with 

 amazing rapidity. 



The majority of the meetings, however, have been held 

 not in schoolrooms or institutes, but in public-houses. 

 I have attended a number of these meetings and have been 

 struck with the pertinacity of the organiser, who, if he 

 could not make the slow-moving peasants shift from the tap- 

 room to a room adjoining, would address the men as they 

 sat, or stood, drinking their beer in the tap-room through a 

 fog of tobacco smoke. Publicans have become new and use- 

 ful allies of Labour. It is in the interest of a publican to 

 get a branch established in his public-house, but this does 

 not altogether account for the sympathy shown by them 

 to organised labour. I found that the ne\v race of pub- 

 licans who cropped up during the war have been recruited 

 from old trade unionists, who have worked as carpenters, 

 or railway workers, or bricklayers. 



Trade union organisers visited places other than public- 

 houses. They entered the private domains of Royalty! 

 Before the war they had invaded Sandringham, and 

 now in 1917 they boldly entered the gates of Windsor 

 Castle and drew up an agreement signed by a Court func- 

 tionary which gave the men working in the Royal park 

 and farm an increase of ros. a week. Here, every 

 man excepting two old men, joined the Workers' 

 Union. 



