SPECIMEN DAYS
[The title which we .have borrowed from Walt Whitman. to stand at the head of these articles well enough expressei their purpose. They are simple accounts of the daily life of certain wage-earners, and of an elementary schoolmaster who began life as a hand-worker, written by themselves. Beyond the very rare correction of a phrase which Made it difficult to follow the sense no attempt has been Made to " edit " the articles: Their interest and attractiveness would .disappear- iv we tried to turn them into something other than they- are—spontaneous descriptions of life as seen by the workers themselves. The series front Which this article and the preceding five articles have been takek for publication in the SPECTATOR will shortly be published by Messrs. Jonathan Cape in a volume entitled " Working Pays."—ED
Spectator.] " • . . .
VI.—A FARM WAGGONER.
[The writer of this article, G.L., was born in 1892, the eldest of eight children. His father was a waggoner on a larm, whose wages were only 14s. a week. The • boy's mother therefore had a lard struggle to keep the family. G.L. left school at fourteen and went to work on a farm at 2s. 6d. a week, " living in." After !being there a year or two he went as a waggoner's lad on another farm at 7s. 6d. a week. As time went on he rose. to be under. waggoner, his wages being 168. a week.' Later, as less labour was warited, he was obliged to leave and he joined-the 'Navy as a stoker en 1911. He -took part in the Dogger Bank and. Jutland battles. At Jutland the destroyer in which he was serving was sunk. After the-War he returned to-a farm as a waggonerl- I-HEREBY come to the conclusion that agricultural workers are in a desperate position, being myselfa • , , - . • - -• Waggoner.., I work from 6 O'clock in the morning Until. pat night.... Sometimes you've got to stop to suit the boss, and _if .yoii doift . like it you can soon go ; they're not particular nowadays. The least bit that goes wrong, if they are dissatisfied with one man, they are in with the other one,: Ah ! don't talk about houses. You don't knov which is the window and which is the door for there is as much draught comes from.the window as there is from the door. There are seven windows in our .house, and out of the seven there is only one good window. I haVe even had to tell the missus to send for boxes to board them up for I cannot get them to repair them up, and if you tell the boss'about them he says, " Be satisfied you've got a house." He says,- " I've been offered seven shillings a week now,- and the folks said they would do their own repairs, on purpose to get the house," and he has taken part of the garden off me now and let it for £1 a year.
The conditions are something scandalous. A man cannot afford to buy a load of coal right out. He has to have one, and pay 2s. a week out of his money. The wages are 28s. a week with 5d. insurance stopped out of it, and very often we have burnt our coal before we have paid for it. There is five of us in family, three children, me and the wife, and a job I've got to keep them'all. Well, it's not keeping them, it's mere existence. We can't send our shoes to the cobbler. We've either got to depend on Woolworth's for sixpennyworth of leather and nails, or if anybody happens to throw some old shoes away we have to cut a bit of them to mend ours. We don't know what new shoes are. My missus has not had a new pair this last eight years, only what she has had given her.
All the overtime money that I earned in the harvest• was £1, and with that I bought the kiddies one pair of shoes apiece. I don't know when they will get any more, and for that El. I worked hard until 11 o'clock at night in the hay. We don't get any extra pay for heavier manual labour in the harvest. We are only paid for night work.
Now you talk about keeping a pig. It takes us all our time to keep- us nowadays. But if we do have a chance to-get a pig; it-will have to come out of the overtime money in the harvest. Then When you've-kept a pig until it's something like half on, it's got to go, or at least a couple of the hams, to pay for the meal and get another little one. Of course a man whose family has grown up has got a bit of- a chance. You see, when they throw all the wages in together, if it isn't much it helps better than a man with all little ones. He has to scrape to keep them on thirty bob a week.
Well, and what about threshing ? See what a dirty, filthy job that is and you don't get a blessed copper more for that than if it was the cleanest job on a farm.
. Well, I was in the field the other day and it was tumb- ling down with rain and they expect you to go on. So when I was like a drowned rat, I said to the gaffer " I'd better go in, hadn't I ? Can't you find us something to do in the dry ? " He said, " No. If you can't stick it out you'll have to go home. Who's going to pay you to stop in the building ? What about my horses standing in the stable doing nothing ? "
I think a farm man's wages should be nothing under 35s. standing ; not to have to pay his rent out and his insurance stopped and have his half day on a Saturday. When I've worked from Monday until Sunday I've only got thirty shillings clear. We've got a job to live on this money. Nearly every Friday and „Saturday it's either dry bread or no bread at all.
(Concluded.)
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