CHAP, 12.—MINIMUM WAGE IN AGRICULTURE 99

mainly on an hourly basis, at rates from 414d. to 6d. for adults. On
September 30, 1926, there were in force 10,454 permits to work below
the minimum rates. During the year 1,626 complaints had been received.
 About 800 of them were dealt with by inspectors, and £6,150
recovered for the workers. The minister sfates it as his opinion
that in some districts, particularly those near industrial centers, the
average weekly wages somewhat exceeded the minimum wages, while
In a large part of the country the minimum wages only were paid.
The minimum wage thus tended to become the standard wages for
ordinary work. Extra remuneration was received for employment
With animals and for harvest and other seasonal work.
Results

SIR HENRY REW, deputy chairman of the Agricultural Wages
Board,!® established under the law preceding the present one,
8xpressed the opinion that the working hours of agricultural laborers
had been reduced in consequence of the board’s activity, although
Done of its regulations directly ordered a change in the hours of labor.
The committee simply stated when overtime work was to begin, leav-Ing
 the employer free to have the workers toil as long as they might
agree, he always to pay them for overtime. Nevertheless, this stipulation
 had influenced both parties. The employers hesitated to pay
overtime, and the employees, which is characteristic, hesitated to
work overtime notwithstanding the increased payments they might
receive. The wages fixed had been criticized from the employers’
side as being higher than those which would have resulted from the
free play of economic forces. Workers’ representatives had claimed
that they might have obtained higher wages by trade-union action.
Sir Henry Rew, however, finds that the increase in agricultural
Wages proceeded in an equitable way, parallel with the increase in
Industrial wages. As the old law was similar to the new one, that
statement holds to a certain extent its significance. The average
wage of agricultural workers was 18s. in 1914.2 Up to 1917 it had
Increased 39 per cent, while the cost of living had increased 80 per
¢ent—a decrease in real wages. During the first wage-board period,
from 1918 to 1921, the real wages increased. At the end of the
period the wages had risen 135 per cent and the cost of living 120
ber cent. During the period from 1921 to 1924, the increase in wages
compared with 1914 was lower than the increase in the cost of living,
At the end of 1924 it was only 56 per cent as compared with an increase
 in the cost of living of 81 per cent. The real wages were lower
than before the war.
During the second wage-board period the nominal wages rose in the
Summer of 1925 to a figure 75 per cent ** over that of 1914, while the
cost of living was 73 per cent over pre-war figures. The real wages
were again at the same level as before the war. They were distinctly
920. AE Britain. Agricultural Wages Board. Wages Board Gazette, London, Dec. 1,
nL Great Britain, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Report on proceedings under
{33 qericuttural wages (regulation) act, 1924, for the year ending Sept. 30, 1925. London,
R 2 Seventy-six per cent in 1926—Great Britain. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
eport of proceedings under the agricultural wages (regulation) act, 1924, for the year
ending Sept. 30. 1056, a” Spe