1922.] 



Labour on the Farm. 



697 



LABOUR ON THE FARM. 



A. G. Kilston. B.A., B.Sc. (LoncL), D.Sc. (Leeds), 

 and J. S. Simpson, B.Sc, 

 The University, Leeds. 



Since the year 1908 a large amount of statistical data bearing 

 on the various aspects of farm costs has been accumulated in the 

 Department of Agriculture of the University of Leeds, and a 

 systematic investigation of the records may be interesting and 

 instructive. More or less complete records on at least eight 

 farms can be traced back continuously to 1912, while at the 

 present time 52 Yorkshire farms of varied size and type are 

 being costed through the Department. 



During the past year the bill for manual labour has been 

 found to varv on the different farms from £1 8s. 6d. to 



Ml 



£17 2s. 4d. per acre. Such wide limits naturally lead one to ask 

 what are the varying factors which have contributed to bring 

 about such widely varying labour costs in the same year? Was 

 the one farm being farmed efficiently? Was the management 

 justified by results in so large an outlay on manual labour on 

 the other farm? How much per acre ought a farmer at the 

 present time to be spending on labour? 



During the time that the investigations have been carried out, 

 the labour bill on one small holding of 16 acres has been found 

 to increase from .£52 in the year ending 31st December, 1912, to 

 £'289 18s. Id. for the year ending 31st December, 1921. Was 

 labour in pre-war days, or in the early days of the War, before 

 the institution of the Agricultural Wages Board, getting its 

 fair share of the output from the farm? Have the awards of 

 the Wages Board, and the subsequent recommendations of the 

 Conciliation Committees with regard to labour, been reasonable 

 and fair, or is labour at the present time getting an undue share 

 of the net returns from the farms? The records available can 

 suggest answers to practically all of these questions. 



Influence of the War on the Labour Bill. — In Table I are 

 shown the yearly variations in the labour bills of 4 different 

 types of Yorkshire farms, these variations being typical of those 

 found on the other farms of which available records date back to 

 pre-war days. II will be seen that with the outbreak of the War 

 and the subsequent rise in prices the wages bills on the farms 

 remained with very few exceptions fairly stationary until in 



