CHAPTER 12—MINIMUM WAGE IN
AGRICULTURE

7 [YRADE-UNION organization is less developed in the agriculture
of most countries than in their industries. Agriculture, therefore,
 is in some respects like those unorganized or insufficiently organized
 trades for which legal fixation of minimum wage has been
proposed as a substitute for regulation of wages by collective agreements
 between associations of employers and of employees, or for
‘ndustrial strikes. This is particularly true of large-scale agriculture
where the semipatriarchial customs of small farms have given way
to more impersonal relations. Most countries on the European
Continent, with their preponderance of small peasant holdings, do
Dot attempt to regulate the wages of farm labor. Italy and Mexico
include agricultural laborers in their general systems of wage regulation,
 Australia does so only partially, and South Africa excludes
them entirely. But in three other countries with large-scale agriculture
 and many agricultural laborers—Great Britain, Uruguay,
and Hungary—specific minimum wage laws have been passed for
these agricultural laborers.
GREAT BRITAIN

SINCE 1917 Great Britain has experimented with regulation of
agricultural wages—first by minimum wage, and later by conciliation.
 A definite step back to minimum wage was taken when a
new minimum wage act became law on August 7, 1924.) The law
provides for a central board and regional committees (art. 1), both
composed of representatives of employers and of workers and members
 appointed by the Government. The regional committees are
called upon to fix the rates. (Art. 2.) The central board reviews the
decisions and intervenes if the committees have not done their duty
under the act. (Arts. 3, 5.) In the course of the parliamentary debate,
 the point was urged that the bill itself prescribe figures below
which no county should go, but such a provision was not included in
the bill. The committecs, therefore, have an entirely free hand.?
Principle of Wage Fixation

(,OMMITTEES shall, so far as practicable, secure for able-bodied
. men wages “ adequate to promote efficiency and to enable a man
In an ordinary case to maintain himself and his family in accordance
with such standard of comfort as may be reasonable in relation to
the nature of his occupation.” (Art. 2, sec. 4.) The “livine-waoe ?

! Great Britain. Pub. Gen. Stats. 14 and 15, Geo. V, 1924, vol. 62, ch. 37, p. 268:
Agricultural wages (regulation) act, 1924,
2 Monthly Labor Review, October, 1924. p. 90.