We must hope that the County Committees will seldom have
to be interfered with, for they will have full local knowledge, and if there is good will there ought also to be peace. But we are not quite sure whether Mr. Buxton means his County Committees to be elected or nominated. We feel strongly that they ought to be elected. Even then the Bill would still be a distinctly bureaucratic measure. We dislike a certain bias which appears in the provision for the infliction of penalties on farmers who do not pay the fixed wage, though nobody else is threatened. Yet the Bill provides for a minimum wage without giving the farmer any guarantee, such as was contained in the Corn Production Act, that he will be able to pay it. It is obvious that the farmer cannot pay more than he earns. And a contract, it should be remembered, may be broken by either side—not by one side only. Too many English farmers have been very unthinking and short-sighted in paying low wages, but as a class they are well known to be honest.
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