THE MINIMUM WAGE 46 



decent cottages, a cheerier life, and such a ladder to 

 climb by as is provided in the scheme of colonies of 

 small holdings for soldiers and sailors, and there will 

 almost certainly be no shortage of labour for the land. 



XI 



THE COROLLARY OF THE MINIMUM WAGE 



The farmer will say, of course (and as things are he 

 might be justified), that he cannot afford to pay the 

 minimum wage. Minimum- wage legislation alone, so 

 far from creating confidence in the farmer, which 

 should be one of our chief aims, would cause him to 

 redouble his caution. He would want to employ as 

 few men as possible, and therefore to put more land 

 than ever down to grass. It is necessary to convince 

 him that he will be able to increase his area of arable 

 and yet pay the wages. Wages are only one side of 

 the question, though in the peculiar circumstances, as 

 we have seen, they must be placed first. Prices are 

 the other factor of the equation. The simplest plan 

 seems to be that the farmer should be promised a 

 minimum price for his wheat. It need not be a high 

 price, but it must be high enough to make arable 

 farming worth while year after year without a check. 

 As has been indicated, there are farmers in England 

 who work large farms with abundant capital, who buy 

 their materials cheaply, who can market their produce 

 at the right moment, who run agriculture as an industry 

 in the conventional sense of that word, who plough 

 much land at considerable profit to themselves, and 

 who are already able and glad to pay good wages and 



