158 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



energy, the loneliness of his hamlet and 

 cottage all these things tend to neutralize 

 the value of his citizenship and hamper any 

 collective effort for better wages. 



The case for a legal minimum wage is indeed 

 stronger than would appear from the official 

 figures. It seems that the local returns of 

 wages in cash and kind were very largely 

 derived from landowners, land-agents and 

 farmers, who naturally tend to furnish as 

 high an estimate as possible of the wage bill. 

 In the case of Bedfordshire, e.g., Mr. Wilson 

 Fox's figures for the labourers' wages in the 

 Government returns are obviously much too 

 high. Mr. H. H. Mann has by most careful 

 tests shown that in 1899-1900 and there has 

 been practically no change since the average 

 earnings of the ordinary labourers were not 

 15/5 as Mr. Wilson Fox declares, but only 

 13/7| ! Further, no adequate allowance 

 appears to have been made by Mr. Wilson 

 Fox for that highly important item, wet 

 weather, and the sad losses of time occasioned 

 by this factor hi so variable a climate as our 

 own. " Hundreds of Northamptonshire and 

 Oxfordshire labourers," says Mr. George 

 Edwards, " go home at the week-end during 

 the winter months with only 8/- for the week." 



Owing to the gradual rise in the cost of 



