It follows directly from what I have just said that a time of high costs
and low prices like the present, like the time of lower costs but still
lower prices of the late '80's and early '90's, is not a favourable time
for expecting employment to be brisk or wages high. And reasons other
than those which we have yet considered make the farmer feel his labour
to be specially burdensome at present. He finds that the prices he gets
on the average are one and one-third times what they were before the
war: what he has to buy costing from one and a half to one and
two-thirds what it cost before the war; and he is expected in very many
counties in England and Wales to pay his workers about double what he
paid before the war. This is a strong point for him. But the labourers'
position is just as strong. "I was not sufficiently well paid before the
war. If this is to be recognised in any way at all, I must at the
present cost of living (185) have double my pre-war wages." It is
certainly beyond all question that 30/- a week, which is the present
wage over a large part of England, is not, even with only 3/- a week
rent for house and garden, enough to keep a man and his wife and family
in a state of real efficiency. Yet I know from personal experience that
this fact is not properly recognised in practice. If one tries to pay
more one is regarded as a very rich man, and an extremely stupid one--an
idea erroneous as to one's wealth and possibly exaggerated as to one's
mentality.
How have the two conflicting views of farmer and labourer been
reconciled in practice. I can only say that so far as my own knowledge
extends--bearing in mind that the farmer has not the business man's
habit of cheerfully setting off a bad year against a good (for the
business man knows that trade must improve some time, and then he will
make profits, while the farmer has no certainty that things will
improve)--things might well have been worse. There has been a good deal
of mutual consideration and desire to make the best of difficult
circumstances. I have, however, little doubt that it would have been
better had the Wages Boards, which had controlled the rise in wages
during the rise in the cost of living, regulated the fall in wages
during its fall--relaxing control perhaps later when things became more
stable.
The reason why I think that things might have been worse is that the
District Wages Committee left a good legacy to the voluntary
Conciliation Committees which followed them--the men serving on the
latter were those who under the Wages Board system had learned to
negotiate with and to know and respect the workers--generally some of
the best farmers in their districts--and they genuinely tried not to let
the workers down with too much of a bump; on the other hand, they knew
that the only value their recommendations could have was that they
should be voluntarily observed, and therefore they took care not to
recommend rates higher than those which the least favourably situated
farmers in the district could manage to pay--which meant rates lower
than many might have been willing to give. This means that any general
rate agreed to voluntarily will be rather on the low side. But I would
rather have a rate which is generally observed, even if it is rather
low, than that every farmer should be a law unto himself. If there is no
recognised standard, and one man with impunity pays a lower rate than
his neighbours, other rates also tend to come down, and then the process
begins over again.
Looking to the future, the only thing that I can say with any certainty
about the wages question is that it needs very careful watching. Let us
be sure first of our principle, that the first charge on land, as on any
other industry, should be a reasonable standard of living for the
workers. Then let us be sure of the fact that there is over a very large
part of England and Wales no certain prospect of an improvement in the
condition of the labourer compared with conditions ten years ago. The
dangers to be feared are that in the present lamentable weakness of the
men's unions large sections of farmers may break away from the
recommendations of their leaders; and that if depression continues and
war savings become depleted farmers will tend to push wages down in
self-preservation. These things must be watched. If the general
condition of agriculture improves without a corresponding improvement in
the workers' condition, or if conditions get worse and the brunt of the
burden is transferred to the labourer, we ought to be prepared to
advocate a return to the old Wages Boards or the adoption of a Trade
Board system. It must, I think, be a cardinal point of our Liberal faith
that though it is better to leave industrial questions to be adjusted as
much as possible by the parties concerned in the industry, the State
must be ready to step in in any case in which the workers have not
developed the power by their own combination to secure reasonable
conditions and prospects. It is to the prospects that I now turn.