THE RURAL PROBLEM 29 



the case of Local Boards there should be no difficulty about 

 this. There would be presumably a Local Board for each 

 county area, and periodical elections would take place in each 

 village, in which the labourers would not fail to take con- 

 siderable interest, seeing that their pockets would be so 

 directly affected. Their class consciousness would thus be 

 awakened, and the bonds of old servility and terrorism would 

 be gradually cast off. But this could not happen all at once, 

 and in many districts intimidation would still be a very real 

 thing for some years. But Wages Boards have proved a 

 boon in trades less favourable to freedom and representation 

 than agriculture, and devices, such as voting by sides and not 

 by heads,* have been adopted to counteract intimidation. 



In view of this danger, however, it is very doubtful whether 

 it would be safe to leave to the chances of direct election such 

 important matters as the national rate and current con- 

 ditions, which the National Board would have to decide. 

 The first National Board must therefore be formed in 

 some other way, either by representatives from the Local 

 Boards or by nomination. Experience proves that bodies 

 composed of representatives of representative bodies are 

 always incompetent. It will probably be best therefore to 

 have a nominated National Board to start with. And this 

 being so, why should not the national rate, for the first five 

 years at least, be definitely fixed by Parliament itself putting 

 figures in a Bill ? The House of Commons, with all its 

 defects, is not likely to be behind public opinion in a matter 

 of this kind, and is at least as competent to judge of the 

 cost of living of the agricultural labourer as any other body 

 it could appoint. 



The course here recommended would appear a reversal of 

 the decision taken by the House of Commons on the Coal 

 Mines Act. But a careful perusal of the speeches made on 

 that occasion will show that none of the arguments against 

 naming figures in that Bill apply with equal force to agricul- 

 ture. Moreover, in the case of the coal mines, and also of 

 the " sweated trades," the Boards arc primarily interested 

 in fixing wages to the satisfaction of those immediately 



* In the case of the tailors. 



