JOSEPH ARCH 291 



Tea was 6s. to ys. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in pro- 

 portion ; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other 

 man was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything 

 he undertook, became famous as a hedger, mower, and 

 ploughman, and being consequently employed all over the 

 Midlands and South Wales, began to gauge the discontent 

 of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless, and hopeless. 

 His wages by 1872 had increased to I2.y. a week, but had 

 not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was y^d. a loaf; 

 the labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for 

 they had now all gone to school ; his food was * usually 

 potatoes, dry bread, greens, herbs, " kettle broth " made by 

 putting bread in the kettle, weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh 

 meat hardly ever' \ It is difficult to realize that at the end 

 of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, when Glad- 

 stone said the prosperity of the country was advancing * by 

 leaps and bounds ', that any class of the community in full 

 work could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came 

 to the conclusion that labour could only improve its position 

 when organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Union was 

 initiated in 1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better con- 

 ditions by combination was new to the rural labourer. It 

 was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but speedily crushed, and 

 not till 1865 was a new union founded in Scotland, which was 

 followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867, and the 

 foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.^ It was 

 determined to ask for ids. a week and a 9^ hours' working 

 day, which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. 

 The agitation spread all over England, and was often con- 

 ducted unwisely and with a bitter spirit, but the labourer was 

 embittered by generations of sordid misery. Very reluctantly 

 the farmers gave way, and generally speaking wages went up 

 during the agitation to 14J. or 15^. a week, though Arch 



* In many districts, however, his food was better than this. 

 ^ Hasbach, op. ciL, pp. 276-7. 



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