A Look Round. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Louis A. Hill, to whose utterances I have previously referred in these columns, continues his advocacy of an Eight Hours Act for bakers and continues to make unprovable statements in connection therewith.

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In communications to the Dally News and the Daily Express recently, he stated that the passing of the bill would “find work for practically every unemployed baker in London” and “would find employment in London alone for some 4,000 or 5,000 extra hands.” Now in my humble opinion Mr. Hill knows he cannot justify these statements, hence his refusal to debate the matter with a member of the S.P.G.B., when asked to do so at the meeting of bakers held at Canning Town on February 9th.

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In the February issue of the Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine, Mr. Jenkins, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, reported that during the Labour Conference at Belfast he visited one of the largest and most up-to-date bakeries in the city, and “had special facilities offered me to examine the newest machinery that had been introduced from a labour-saving point of view, and found, as I had expected, that every development of machinery was throwing men out of work, the result being that 102 men were on the out-of-work list, so that with a 700 membership, one out of every seven were out of work, which represents a very serious state of things ; up to now they have been able to deal with this small army of unemployed, but from all appearances they may be eventually hard pushed to provide for them unless by a serious increase of contributions, notwithstanding they are working under a 48 hour week.”

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According to the British Baker for April 19 last, Mr. Jenkins attended the Annual Dinner of the Portsmouth Branch of the A.U.O.B. & C. on April 10 and in replying to the toast of “The Amalgamated Union,” laid special stress on the Eight Hours Day Bill for the Baking Trade now before Parliament, which had, he said, been rendered necessary by the excessive labour forced on those who could find employment, the result, in connection with modern improvement, being an ever-increasing army of unemployed bakers, which the proposed Bill would practically eliminate. Where ten or fifteen years since ten or eleven sacks was considered a fair output per man, now double that amount was the output in many of the factories, and it was evident that something to alter the conditions of the workers was an absolute necessity.

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Once again I ask Mr. Hill, and also Mr. Jenkins, to reconcile their extravagant statements with the actual facts as admitted by, at any rate, the last-named.

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That “Radical of Radicals,” Mr. Horatio Bottomley, has made Mr. Featherstone Asquith a present of a suggestion, but does not for a moment suppose that Mr. Asquith will adopt it. He says : “An Old Age Pension of 5s. per week for every law-abiding citizen—whether otherwise “deserving” or not—of the age of seventy years and upwards, who cares to claim it. That will exactly fit the case—and Mr. Asquith’s name will go down to posterity as that of the great Chancellor who, out of the country’s wealth, fed and clothed the aged when their powers of contributing to it were exhausted. No man could seek a higher reputation than this.”

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Oh! that will be joyful. Most members of the working class are “too old at forty.” The great friendly societies, who take care only to enrol “good lives,” show in their statistics the number of middle-aged members who, mainly because of unemployment, lapse. And if they can only manage to “hang on” until they are 70, and never break the law, Horatio would give them five shillings per week !

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This, in Mr. Bottomley’s opinion, will enable them to feed and clothe themselves. I should like to see Bottomley, Asquith & Co. doing it at the price. And what about rent ?

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In the following year Mr. Bottomley would extend the pensions to those of 65 years of age, thus bringing himself into line with those other advocates of “justice” for the squeezed-out workers, the Labour Party, who through Mr. G. N. Barnes, urged this proposal in the House of Commons in February, 1906.

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In sending stamps for twelve months’ subscription to THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, “Wrong Fount” expresses his appreciation of our efforts to produce an interesting and instructive journal, the reading of which has greatly strengthened him. He is a member of the S.D.F., and has been recently a municipal candidate for that body. He does not wish his name and town to be mentioned, as “the time has not yet arrived,” whatever that may mean. He adds:—”You have a good work ahead ; it is good if only for what the ‘S.S.’ has taught me, although I am still ashamed of my ignorance. Go on, Lads!”

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Well, we cannot expect to dispel ignorance all at once. It took many years for some of us who were in the S.D.F. to arrive at the stage of entirely breaking away from the reform and palliative mongering of that body. But at last “the time arrived,” and we formed the S.P.G.B.

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One paragraph in “Wrong Fount’s” letter is undoubtedly based upon an insufficient knowledge of the facts, and may also be due to some prejudice on his part against us. He says: “might I suggest that there is a vast difference between criticism and vilification—although I must confess that the latter weapon is not used so much now as it was formerly by you. That is good, too.”

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Now, I do not think it can be charged against us that we have ever vilified anyone in the columns of this journal. To vilify means to degrade by slander and a slander is a false or malicious report. So far as we know, no “slanders” have ever appeared and every effort will be made to keep them out. Upon reconsideration “Wrong Fount” will no doubt withdraw his remark.

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On Wednesday, September 6th, 1905 (one year and eight months ago), whilst the Trade Union Congress was sitting at Hanley, over a hundred people were evicted during a heavy downpour of rain from their homes at New Hemsworth, near Barnsley, at the instance of the Colliery Company, with whom they were in dispute. Other evictions followed later. The dispute is not yet settled, and the evicted ones have not yet returned to “their” homes. They are endeavouring to subsist on the few shillings that can be raised by making charitable appeals to their fellow members of the working class, who have not sufficient for themselves.

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For fourteen months out of the twenty there has been a “Labour” Party in the House of Commons, specially claiming to represent the Trade Unionists, of whom the Hemsworth colliers form a part. While the colliers and their wives and children have been suffering and starving, the “Labour” Party have been earning the encomiums of the capitalist party, and boasting of their “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability.” One of them (Ramsay MacDonald) moved the adjournment of the House to discuss the shooting of natives in Natal, but none (not even W. Thorne, S.D.F.) has risked his reputation for “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability” by denouncing the damnable system which produces such outrages as the Hemsworth evictions.

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“Wrong Fount” may accuse me of vilification, but can he deny that what I have written is true and justifiable ?

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Of course one can quite understand the reluctance of Keir Hardie and his friends to take action concerning such a glaring illustration of that class war which they declare is only a “shibboleth” and “a reactionary and whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real aims of Socialism.”

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A formal report has been issued by the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the “probable economic effect of a limit of eight hours to the working day of coal mines.” Some interesting evidence has been given, particularly as to the effect of a reduction in other industries. Mr. H. F. Donaldson, M.I.C.E., chief superintendent of the Ordnance Factories, Woolwich, detailed how the hours in the factories had been reduced from 54 to 48. Their method of work was really piecework, and the production had been approximately the same as under the old regime. The attendance of the men had been more regular since the shortening of the hours. He did not think that the reduction had meant an increased intensity of labour, but it did mean “hustle,”

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Mr. J. Lowrie, manager of the Royal Army Clothing Factory, Grosvenor Road, also gave evidence. He said that at his establishment there were employed 1,532 women and girls, of whom 1,385 were on piece work. Until 1894 they were working 55 hours per week, after which year they were reduced to 48. He did not think this reduction of seven hours had made any difference in the output: there was the same efficiency in the shorter hours. He considered it had been an economic success.

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And there are some folks who talk of dealing with the unemployed problem by enacting an Eight Hours Day !

J. Kay

The Abolition of Tied Cottages (1975)

From the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The government has promised legislation in the near future to end the tied cottage system in farm employment. A report on it was published on 11th June by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, supported by the Minister of Agriculture. Last year the Shelter organization produced a report condemning the system.

The promise has a long history. Tied cottages have been a grievance of farm workers throughout the century, and their abolition was part of the Labour Party’s programme in the nineteen-twenties. In Sharpen the Sickle! The History of the Farm Workers’ Union, 1948 (pages 215-220) Reg Groves describes the expectations that the second Labour Government in 1929 would legislate on the lines of statements and pledges made; and the great bitterness when it failed to do so.

The number of farm workers is smaller today than ever before, of course. The total number was 1,591,300 in 1881 and 1,198,000 in 1931 (Astor and Rowntree, British Agriculture, 1939). In 1951 it had fallen to 882,000 and was only 352,000 by 1970, including seasonal and part-time workers (Agricultural Statistics, MAFF). Thus, it can be said of the tied cottage — as of many another social problem — that the reformers step in valiantly when the high tide has gone, forty or fifty years late.

Poverty the Problem

According to the Tavistock Institute report, about 90,000 farm workers live in tied cottages today. The official term is “service tenancy”, and it should be pointed out at once that agricultural tenancies of this kind are part of a much larger member covering various occupations and circumstances. The provision of a dwelling subject to remaining in a job applies to tenant licensees of public houses policemen, many shop workers, caretakers, country teachers, and others.

When the employment ceases so does the right to the dwelling. The worker may have bad health, or be sacked, or choose another job; in the end anyway he must retire; and in all these circumstances he can be and generally is told to go. Though a court order is required to evict him, there is no case he can present against it. The NUAAW reports about 300 farm-cottage evictions a year, but these are the cases reported to it and the true number is estimated to be three times greater. If a worker dies, his widow and children may be evicted.

A large number of workers in service tenancies make early applications for council houses, and this is where reformers have always sought the remedy. In 1925 Noel Buxton, Minister of Agriculture in the first Labour Government and a former President of the farm workers’ union, wrote:

The tied cottage is an almost equally serious grievance suffered by the farm-worker. Adequate provision by local authority of cottages in or near villages is the solution best calculated to deal with this evil.

(The Book of the Labour Party, Vol. 2)

The deputy director of Shelter says the same thing in 1975: ‘“That is where the problem must be tackled — by ensuring that adequate housing is made available in the rural areas,’ he said,” (Guardian, 11th June.) This well-established “answer” contains its own implication that it is addressed to the wrong question. The tied cottage system is an effect, not the cause, of farm workers’ miserable situation. Adequate housing is available — see the property advertisements in any local paper, or Country Life; but poverty makes it inaccessible and makes them mendicants to employers and local councils (the same people, quite likely).

Past and Present

Despite its promises, the Labour Party in office was no more likely than any other government to abolish tied cottages in the past. In the nineteen-twenties farm workers’ wages fell from a national minimum of 46s. in 1920 to an average of about 28s. in 1924 and in 1938 were about 35s. Agriculture was depressed, with bankruptcies common and land going out of cultivation. According to sources quoted by Groves, one reason for farm wage cuts in 1923 was “a hope that a big upheaval might bring Government action to help farmers”.

Tied cottages (together with living-in by unmarried farm hands and domestics) helped keep wages down, and legislation which would have tended to raise them was therefore impossible. It can be added that the standard of accommodation was rock-bottom. Rural areas were almost universally without piped water, electricity or drainage, and the maintenance of cottages cost practically nothing.

The position today is much different. Farming is supported by subsidies; not only does it employ only a quarter of its pre-war numbers, but there is now a high proportion of skilled workers. The dissolution of small farms has meant a further reduction in the dwellings required, and in the last ten or fifteen years large numbers of cottages and farmhouses have been sold as private houses. In many cases they are certified as unfit for habitation, but this makes them eligible for the high-priced market in which they are renovated to become "period cottages" and "houses of character”.

A further consideration from the Government viewpoint is that maintaining evicted families in public institutions, as well as intensifying a grievance, is costly. This is the "practical" case urged by the reformers; since the families have to be housed by local authorities in the end, why not recognize that and do it in the beginning? Along with this goes the fact that farm wages are now rising. In the opinion of many farmers there is an imminent shortage of skilled labour and wages must rise higher. In that case, the farm operative may pay a council-house rent or have a mortgage like any other worker: the problems of the tied cottage are redundant.

Reform leading Where ?

At any rate, farmers are not strongly opposed to the idea of abolition. The Guardian report on 11th June said that 46 per cent. of them claimed tied cottages to be necessary; which, put the other way round, means that more than 50 per cent. apparently do not mind.

There is a special reason why many should not. Between 30 and 40 per cent. of farmers in Britain are tenants (figures given in Farming in Britain Today, J. G. S. and F. Donaldson, 1972) and are themselves required to move out on retirement or in difficulty. Though the majority would not have to fall back on council housing, legislation which protected them from the demands of takeovers, for instance, would be very acceptable.

One other motive which should not be overlooked is the Labour Party’s hopes of winning votes in rural constituencies which are mostly Conservative. Only about 30 per cent. of farm workers belong to the NUAAW and about 5 per cent. to the Transport and General Workers’ Union. This is largely due to the difficulty of organizing workers who are scattered over wide areas; but it also represents disappointment with the unions’ inability to extract the fulfilment of Labour promises in bygone years.

The tied cottage system as it has always existed is a crude example of what the working class gets from capitalism — cheap maintenance, and out on the scrap-heap after use. If an end to it is made, we shall have the familiar situation over reforms: a grievance remedied when it has diminished, not for humane reasons but to suit the needs of capitalism, and with other beneficiaries than those named.

Of course nobody would wish a system which permits summary evictions to continue. However, if the proposed legislation is to aim at farm cottages only, the facility for evictions from other service tenancies can still remain. Certainly farm workers will find that when bad old days have gone things will have altered less than they may have thought, and their basic position not at all. That will happen only when they and other workers decide to change to Socialism.

Robert Barltrop