A 



CHAPTER II. 



THE POVERTY OF THE LABOURER. 

 §1. Wages. 



GRICULTURAL labourers are classed in the offieia 

 returns* under the following four headings, each 

 class being paid on the average a little worse than 



the last : 



Wages and Numbers of Agricultural Labourers in England. f 



It will be noticed that the worst paid class of labourer is 

 also by far the most numerous. It must also be remembered 

 that these are only average figures. 17s. 6d., the average of 

 ordinary labourers for the Avhole country, is far higher than 

 many of the county averages — e.g., 14s. lid. in Oxfordshire, 

 15s. 4d. in Norfolk. These figures include allowances in kind ; 

 the cash wages are far lower : 12s. lid. in Oxfordshire, 

 12s. 7d. in Norfolk, 12s. 5d. in Suffolk, 12s. Id. in Dorsetshire. 



And these county figures are again averages which reveal 

 the existence of wages in individual cases far below anything 

 mentioned in the returns. For instance, the late Miss Maud 

 Da vies, in her clever book, Life in an English ViUage.% gives 



* In the Board of Trade Fifteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics, 

 Cd. 6228, 1912, the Board of Trade Report on the Inquiry into Earnings 

 and Hours of Labour (v. Agriculture in 1907), Cd. 5460, is given as the 

 authority, and may be assumed to contain the latest available 

 statistics. 



t Tables of wages in each county of England and Wales are to be 

 found in Appendix B. 



t Unwin, 1909. 



