The Wages of Agricultural Workers

In the January issue of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD we stated that “it has been estimated that as many as twenty-five per cent. of agricultural workers are being paid less than the minimum wage legally applicable to them.”

Mr. Andrews (Wickford, Essex) wrote, asking how this information was obtained. Unfortunately, we were at the moment unable to name the source of our information (See SOCIALIST STANDARD, April), but we can now give details.

The “sweating” of agricultural workers by farmers was dealt with in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD(July, 1931, p. 174, and October, 1934, p. 30).

From the earlier issue we quote the following:

“According to Reynolds’s Illustrated News (April 12th, 1931), in 1930, 4,523 farms were inspected, as a result of which there were 1,630 claims for arrears of wages. Reynolds’s Agricultural Correspondent estimates that ‘one farmer in four throughout the country is violating the law.’ This estimate is based on official inspections over a number of years in every part of the country.”

<(em>Socialist Standard, May 1939)