An amusing incident happened to me one Sunday when I was conducting a religious service in a little chapel. A poor old widow sat right against the pulpit. Her out relief had been increased from 1s. 6d. to 3s. per week. After I had finished the service the old lady came up to me, put her arms round my neck and, as innocently as a child of two, kissed me and pronounced God's blessing upon me, saying she hoped I would live for ever.
Early in 1896 a Poor Law conference was held at Norwich, and the Board unanimously elected me as one of their representatives. I was put on almost all the committees, for by this time a much better feeling existed on the Board. We began to understand each other and we gave each other credit for honest intentions.
Under the District and Parish Councils Act the Guardians were also deemed to be District Councillors, except those living in urban districts. The Council became the Highways Authority and took over all the parish roads. They also became the Sanitary Authority. I was put on the committees for these purposes and our first fight for Labour commenced. As the Highways Authority, the Council became a large employer of labour, and when we came to fixing the wages and hours a stiff fight commenced. I moved that the men should receive 2s. 6d. per day or 15s. per week. This proposition filled the employers on the Council with alarm, and we were met with the point that, if we paid that wage, all the labourers would become dissatisfied and would want the same, and they could not afford it. I retorted that it was the duty of the Council to set an example and pay a living wage. This was defeated, but we did manage to get passed that the roadmen received 1s. per week more than the labourers. In the course of two or three years we tackled the housing question, and before I left the Council in 1910 we had adopted Part III of the Housing Act and had built houses at Briston and Edgefield. I look back with more pleasure to the work I was able to do for my class on this Board and Council than to any other work I have done during the whole of my long public life. I had the satisfaction of knowing that comfort and pleasure was brought into many a poor old person's home.
We commenced the year 1895 with a very large decrease of members. Our balance sheet showed our income to be down nearly 50 per cent., and although I had my salary reduced from 18s. to 10s. and the Executive had cut down expenses by one half, our savings were very small. We had several small disputes. The Executive thought they would have one more effort to revive the Union. Again the English Land Restoration League came to our aid and sent another of their vans and a lecturer down free for the summer months. Many villages where branches had fallen through were visited. Thousands of leaflets on land and labour questions were distributed by the League. The Tory and capitalist party worked equally hard the other way. At first they devoted all their energies against Arch and published most scandalous leaflets about his balance sheet that shocked every fair-minded man in all political parties. I was the first to publish the balance sheet of 1894. No sooner had I done this than they attacked me more ferociously than they had done Arch. They manipulated the sheet in a shameful manner, so much so that even the employers were ashamed of such tactics. It had, however, its desired effect and by the end of 1895 both Unions had actually become defunct. During the year I went without my 10s. per week, knowing the Union would collapse within a few months, and I received my income from the Weekly Leader. On December 7, 1895, I wrote to the Leader the following open letter:—
Fellow Workers,—The year of 1895 is fast slipping beneath our feet, and it becomes us all who are in any way interested in labour to take a retrospect of the past months, and also to take a view of the present condition of the working classes, in order that a correct impression of the condition of the labouring classes during the year 1895 may be obtained. As one of the much despised Labour leaders I feel that the time has come when we must speak out plainly to the working men, and show them their exact position. Now, first I wish to point out to you that so far as combination is concerned, and the means to help yourselves to resist unfair treatment, you stand in a far worse condition than you did at the commencement of the year. You were then in a wretchedly disorganized condition—not more than one out of every four of the labourers being in an organization of any kind—but to-day you are in a far worse state of disorganization, and you are altogether powerless to help yourselves in any way; and what is far worse, there has been growing up amongst you a spirit of distrust and prejudice, until to-day your ranks are all chaos and confusion. You seem to be like Ishmaelites, every man's hand turned against the other. I must confess that I for one did expect better things of you. With the District and Parish Councils Act just coming into force, I hoped that new life would rise amongst you, and that you would endeavour to make the most of the opportunities that presented themselves to you, and that by this time you would have been in a much better position. But my hopes have been blighted and now I despair of you. All hopes that you as a class will make any effort to lift yourselves from your down-trodden state have vanished. Such being so, many of us are seriously considering whether the time has not come for us to step out of the field and leave you to fight your way the best you can. Now, so far as the actual state of Labour is concerned, your outlook for the future is most gloomy for reasons already stated, and at present the condition of labour is not very much improved. At the commencement of this year your wages as agricultural labourers were 10s. per week; flour was 11d. and 1s. per stone. At present your wages are 10s. per week, and flour 1s. 2d. and 1s. 3d. per stone, and thus with a family using five stones of flour per week, as hundreds of you do, your purchasing power is reduced 1s. 3d. per week. You were told in July last that it would be otherwise; you were led to believe that if there was a change of Government, and the farmers made more of their produce, you would get higher wages. No other evidence is needed of the foolishness of your conduct, as your past experience ought to have told you. It is only by having a good organization at your back that the farmers will ever pay you a higher wage, and there is nothing unnatural in that. The farmer is a merchant: he has your labour to buy, and he will always buy it as cheaply as he can. That is so long as our present individualistic system remains, and labour is used for the sake of profit-making.
Mr. Rew, the Assistant Commissioner on Agricultural Depression, said in his report, that if the labourers had never heard of a Union they would have had to put up with a less wage than 9s. or 10s. per week; but fortunately or unfortunately, Mr. Rew has not lived as long as some of us have; neither has he had the same experience as we have. There is abundant evidence that when the men in Norfolk were well organized they received a much higher wage, and that they did not get it until they did organize; and the fact does not indicate that economic forces rule the labourers wages. The facts are, then, that so far as the condition of the labourer is concerned, they will close the year 1895 worse than they began, that is to say so far as wages and their purchasing power is concerned; and Heaven only knows it was bad enough before. It is not many weeks since a labourer's wife told me that after she had bought flour and coal she had only sixpence left. I should like those who are constantly harping upon the comfortable conditions of the labourers to take a round with me once a week and get a glimpse into the labourer's cottage. They would be able to detect at a glance the amount of poverty which exists amongst the working classes. They would soon see there was not much waste in the labourer's kitchen. They would see that so far as the labourers having the best end of the stick their share in the business is very small. It is to be hoped that the working men will seriously consider the position, and endeavour in the near future to better it. I have spoken out the plain, cruel, honest truth; I hope it will have the desired effect.
Arch's Union was by now completely gone. My Executive was seriously considering winding up the whole thing. The funds of both districts had become exhausted, as also had the central fund, hence the Union existed only on paper. They decided to let the matter remain a few weeks more, and commence another year if only on paper, and in the last issue of the Leader for 1895 appeared the following article by me:—
By the time this week's issue of the Weekly Leader appears the year 1895 will have passed away and 1896 will have been ushered in. It will do us no harm, especially the rural workers, to look at the condition of labour and ascertain, if possible, its true condition. We have constantly dinned into our ears that there has been such improvement made in the condition of the workers these last few years that there is nothing left to be done. We are told the life of the workers is all that can be desired. Now, in commencing to review the life of the toilers I have no wish to infer that there have been no improvements in the working classes; far from it, for the various political reforms that have been passed these last few years have had a tendency to give labour a stake in the country. But even these have not brought those unmixed blessings as many would have us believe they have. In fact, I think it can be shown that in some respects each political reform has had a tendency to fetter labour and somewhat enslave it, because these political reforms have left loopholes for the landlords and capitalist to tyrannize over them. With the enfranchisement came the system of letting the cottages to the labourers at a fortnight's notice, and by so doing instead of the enfranchisement of the people giving Labour a free hand, it bound Labour tighter; and the last great reform of 1894 has given the landlords and employers an opportunity of tyrannizing over the workers in such a way as was never dreamt of by the promoters of the Bill. Thus, instead of the government of our villages being in the hands of the people, it is in the hands of a wealthy clique—for the simple reason that the landlords are able to hold over the heads of the workers the threat of higher rents, and a few of the daring spirits who have come forward and voiced their fellows' wrongs have become marked birds for the aristocratic tyrants to shoot at. With these facts before us, I think it must be confessed that so far as the liberty and freedom of Labour is concerned, we have closed the year 1895 with Labour as fettered as ever, especially the unskilled portion of it.
There is much being said to-day in reference to the wages of the workers, and an attempt is made to prove that Labour is receiving far the largest share of the reward of human industry, and that their poverty is due to the drinking and improvident habits of the workers. That statement I do not accept. Those who prefer that charge against the workers spend more money in gambling and drink in one day than the workers with large families have to live upon in a week. The wage of the agricultural labourers is at the rate of 10s. per week, and unskilled labourers in the town about 16s. 3d. This is far below a fair living wage. The conditions under which the workers live will not bear very close inspection; some of the hovels in which they live are not fit for human habitation. Scores of the hovels in which the workers live they are compelled to nail up sacks to keep the wind and water out. A poor women told me a few days ago that she had to set bowls all over the bedroom when it rained. Another told me during the sharp weather, when the family woke up in the morning, their beds were all covered with snow; yet those poor creatures dare not complain for fear they would have nowhere to hide their heads; and if we turn our attention to the towns we find the workers in just as bad a condition, if not a little worse. Their living is of the coarsest kind, in fact it is a marvel how they exist at all. These comments are not for the purpose of disheartening anyone, but to show our critics that the condition of the workers is far from what it ought to be. They are intended further to arouse, if possible, the workers from their apathy, and to make a strenuous effort in the new year to better their position, which can only be done by combination. There is I still a remnant of the once strong Unions left; these have done I their work for you labourers in the past. If, however, you think a better system can be found, then by all means adopt it and get organized. Your opponents are getting more desperate every day; capital is becoming more organized for the purpose of resisting the just demands of labour.