12 
LAND & WATER 
November 23, 1916 
niino-fickli; unknown to n? ran be laid, where siibmarino 
ambushes can be arranjjed with the least trouble, wiiere, 
above all, the enemy can renounce action and retreat 
to his harbours at the first sign of the action goin.i; against 
him. The first speaker has tried, in a crude way, to 
apply the doctrine of "seek out and destroy the enemy," 
to modern conditions. The second- meets this crudity by 
the obvious retort of parading the advantages whicii 
mines and tori)edoes confer on a belligerent who linds 
shallow waters in the neighbourhood of his ports. The 
first speaker lays himself open by seeming to ignore these 
'dangers. But does not the second fall into the error 
of taking their prohibitive reality for granted ? Is not 
almost a fresh concejHion of naval ])olicy imjxirted when 
we are made to realise that it is a primary duty of the 
stronger Heet — a duty ranking equally with that of 
threatening battle and being* ready for it — to neutralise 
the enemy's action in this regard ? Supposing, for 
instance, before the war it had been the principle, so 
expressed, that had been our guide. Should we have had 
our own naval bases unprotected against submarine 
attack ? Should we have been without any organisation 
for using jnines offensively against the enemy ? Still 
more, sliould we have been ])ractically without any 
means whatever of preventing the enemy using mines 
against us ? Once grasp what are the possibilities open to 
the enemy's anned forces ; once realise the scope the 
mine and torpedo possess ; once analyse their influence 
both on strategy and on tactics, with the new problems 
that they create both for cruising force and for naval 
artillery in action, and it becomes exceedingly, dear 
what it is that your own fieet must be jireparcd to 
do. And. needless to say, had these tilings been realised 
at any time between ie)ii and i()i4, we should have had 
a fleet composed of different units7 organised, traineel and 
eejuipiJed in a very different way. Arthl'k Pollun 
A Living Wage for Land Workers 
By Christopher Turnor 
I HAVE intentionally dealt with the quc^stion of 
the guarantee of price of whenet (Land & W'ATru, 
November ibth), before eliscussing the living wage 
for agricultural labourers— for the industry must 
be running under sound conditions if it is to pay the 
labourer a fair wage. 
It is the farmer who pays the labourers. He can 
employ the amount of labour he should employ and 
l>ay his workers a fair wage only if he is prospering him- 
self. If we are to maintain, let alone increase, our 
agricultural population, if we are to retain in the coimtry 
the best of our young workers, then an adequate living 
wage must be paid to our agricultural labourers. Every 
thinking man, however " urban " his bias, deplores the 
falling off of our agricultural population, and realizes 
that this shrinkage is becoming a grave national danger. 
But there is no use in " deploring " ; the town voter 
must agree to, and support, measures which will improve 
the condition of the whole industry — and so the con- 
ditions of the labourer. It is a problem that has to be 
solveel by townsmen, for they have the voting power. It is 
a good thing that millions of our townsmen while fighting 
for their nation's existence have been brought into con- 
tact with " land conditions " very different from those 
that exist in this country. 
Let them then insist when the time comes that our 
land shall be put to its fullest use and that the Govern- 
ment, jnirging itself from considerations of Party, shall 
devise a land policy which will make this possible. It 
is a question that affects every town labourer, for if 
good wages are to be maintained in our towns the 
wage of the rural worker must be good. If overcrowd- 
ing and unemployment in the towns are to be avoielcd 
the land must give employment to its full quota of men. 
The fundamental principle is that every working man. 
should receive a wage sufficient to feed and clothe and 
house himself and his family properly. That is a standarel 
that can hardly be disputed. But measuring the past 
by this standard, what do we find ? That in many 
counties the labourer's wage was not sufficient to feed 
and clothe and house himself and family properly. The 
question of housing must be considered in connection 
with that of wage. There must be a great building of 
cottages after the war, if the land is to be provided 
with sufficient labour ; further, in future the rentals of 
new cottages should be economic rentals, that is to say, 
they must be sufficient to cover repairs and insurance, 
and to pay a fair interest on the capital invested. Strictly 
speaking it should also pay the sinking fund — but 
I do not include it, because as a matter of principle I feel 
that the ultimate owner should pay the sinking fund. 
After the war it seems probable that the rental of 
new cottages built in this country will have to be 6s. 6d. 
per week. This figure will fairly stagger the country 
dweller. The difference between the rental of new and 
old cottages will be great and some means must be found 
by which this difference can be reduced, and that can 
only be done by raising the rents of existing cottages. 
To hold cottage property should be a more or less economic 
proposition ; but at present the average rental is about 
2s. a week'; in some districts only is. 6d. Also there 
are a good many cottages only worth is. 6d. per week. 
These should unhesitatingly be pulled down, for it is 
imeconomic nationally, and > morally wrong to bring 
up ehildren in houses unfit for human habitation. But 
taking the average run of cottages with their little bits 
of garden, I think that 4s. a week would be about a fair 
rental. This would considerably reduce the difference 
between the rental of the new and old cottages. In 
the case of old cottages certain reaeljustments between 
landowner and tenant would have to take place — the 
cottage rental would have to be shown as an item separate 
from the rental of the land of the farm. 
It is necessary to discuss this question of rental at 
some length, for from now onwards in any changes made 
in the wages of the labourer it must be an axioin that 
every breaelwinner shall pay a fair rental for his house 
and that the wage he is paid shall be sufficient to enable 
him to do this. Another axiom is that every man with 
a local vote should pay his rates. This would tend to 
increase the labourer's self respect and raise his status. 
This matter would be quite easy to arrange, and- onlv 
gives the rate collector a httle more trouble. 
One more point about the cottage. Cottages built 
from now on should as far as possible be built in the 
villages rather than on the farms, and they should be 
" free "' cottages, i.e., not belong to the farms. Some 
people would like to see all cottages "free" cottages, 
but this is hardly possible ; the dwellings of shepherds, 
cattlemen, cowmen must be nearer the farmstead and 
definitely go with the farm, but all the same their occu- 
pants should actually pay the rental for them. 
If we now assume that the rental of new cottages 
will be 6s. 6d. (less is. a weeic, which represents the 
sinking fund, and that of existing cottages 4s.) — I fully 
realise all the dililirulties in the way of this proposal — 
what should be considered a fair living wage for the agri- 
cultural labourer ? Presumably the price of food will go 
down considerably when the war is over, but the general 
cost of living will remain permanently higher than it 
was before the war — it is already certain that it will. 
It is therefore impossible to say no w^ exactly what the 
living wage should be. 
It must ever be borne in mind that the actual fixing of a 
living or standard wage is much more difiicult in the case 
of the agricultural labourer than in the case of the worker 
in the factory. For instance, old men mav profitablv be 
employed on the farm— but they would not earn a" full 
wage. Any arrangement which would throw these old 
men out of work would be grossly unfair. Again, the 
e)utput by the agricultural labourer, man for man, pro- 
bably varies more than in almost any other occupation. 
Still, these difficulties w-ill have to be overcome, and 
probably the most practical way in which to overcome 
them will be by the institution "of local Wages Boards. 
Many people are inclined to .say that it is really a matter 
I 
