649 



workmen in agriculture and of such workmen. As was antici- 

 pated, in several cases local feeling was in favour of forming 

 Committees for smaller areas than had existed under the 

 Wages Board and in consequence the 39 District Wages Com- 

 mittees have been replaced by 61 Conciliation Committees. In 

 26 cases the original areas have been retained but in certain 

 cases where sub-division has taken place, as many as five 

 separate Committees have been formed for a single county. 



Under the Act an Interim Conciliation Committee can hold 

 -office until the 19th August, 192B (i.e., two years from the date 

 of the passing of the Act), but nearly all the Conciliation Com- 

 mittees have now adopted some form of permanent constitution. 

 A suggested form of constitution has been supplied by the 

 Ministry providing inter alia for the regular retirement of a 

 proportion of the members and for their re-election. Fifteen of 

 the Committees have taken advantage of the Clause in the 

 Eepeal Act enabling them to appoint an independent chairman 

 (without power to vote). In the majority of the other cases the 

 chair is occupied alternately by a leader of each side. 



Wages Agreements. — Although the Agricultural Wages Board 

 did not expire until the em\ of September the Ministry had 

 suggested that the Interim Conciliation Committees should meet 

 well before that time in order to agree on rates as from the 1st 

 October and thus avoid a break in continuity, and in spite of 

 all the difficulties in the transition to a completely new system, 

 more than half of the Committees were able to reach provisional 

 agreements accordingly. Most of these agreements were for a 

 short period only — many of them simply prolonging the opera- 

 tion of the rates as left by the Wages Board. In other cases, 

 however, wages were immediately reduced by 2s. to 4s. from 

 the 42s. of the Wages Board. 



By the end of October considerable progress had been made, 

 agreements having been reached in 29 of the 53 areas for which 

 Committees had been formed by that date. The average rate of 

 wages for adult male workers by the end of November had fallen 

 to about 38s. At the end of the year the number of Committees had 

 increased to 57, of which 40 had made agreements at one time 

 or another, 31 agreements being current at that date. Most of 

 the agreements had been made for only short periods and were 

 due to expire at the end of the year, but no difficulty was found 

 in arranging further meetings of the Committees and it was 

 becoming realiserl that for the interests of both sides agreements 

 should be made for reasonably long periods. An excellent lead 



