I doubt if anybody grudges the farm-worker the extra six
shillings a week which he is almost certain to get in November. But I equally doubt whether, at his present minimum rate of 94/-, he is being underpaid, as soldiers and sailors and airmen were until recently. His demands—put forward in the majority of cases without his knowledge by a union to which he does not, belong, for the N.A.W.U. membership is under 200,000 out 'of a total of something like a million—were based rather on the incontrovertible fact that a great many classes of workers are being paid a great deal more than he is for working less hard under less exacting conditions. In other words, I suspect that the award is a recognition of his deserts rather than his needs ; for (unless he lives in a Council House and has to pay a pound a week or more in rent) practically all of his living costs are lower than those of an urban worker. I do rather wish, though, that the Agricultural Wages Board would show some sign that they realised the wider and so to speak unconstitutional effect of their award on the rather Heath Robinson arrangements which pass for a wage-structure in rural areas. Every time there is a rise in the minimum rate for agricultural workers (who include, of course, all forestry employees), everybody else in the country feels he ought to get a rise too. Roadmen, gardeners, estate car- penters, game-keepers, lorry-drivers, grooms—all sorts of people, many of them with the claims of long and loyal service behind them, feel—if they do not always say—that they ought to be paid a bit more.
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