Welsh Journals

to extend their factories in order to supply the need. Tonnage is being used to supply the raw material, and coal to manufacture it into the roof commodity. Slate production does not need shipping or coal, and yet the quarries are standing prac- tically idle. A Welsh industry is being slowly strangled by a Government, the head of which is a representative of a slate-quarrying centre And the Welsh Members of Parliament stand calmly looking on Rural Some years ago as the result of Labourers the vigorous propaganda of the Movement late Mr. John Owen Jones (Ap Ffarmwr) in Anglesey, a trade union of farm labourers was established in that county. The movement, however, did not spread and trade union organizations for rural workers are, so far as we know, practically non-existent in other Welsh Counties. The conditions at present, how- ever, are favourable for a considerable advance in re- gard to rural labour organization and the National Agricultural Labourers' and Rural Workers' Union, assisted by other Labour bodies, for example in South Wales by the Miners' Federation, is hard at work organizing the men into Trade Union branches. A number of such branches have already been formed in Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, and Carnarvonshire, and farm labourers and other country workers are responding in large numbers to the invitation that is being extended to them to organize. Most enthusiastic meetings have been held in the open-air on Sunday afternoons at various centres in Monmouthshire, and hundreds of labourers have flocked to these meetings from re- mote villages and hamlets for miles around to hear the message of the trade union propagandists. In Pembrokeshire similar activity is being shown, and trade unionists from the dockyard towns are acting as emissaries for the Agricultural Labourers Union. The movement is spreading very fast, and it is not unlikely that during the next year the whole of Wales will be covered by a net-work of branches, including practically all the workers employed in agriculture and kindred industries. Minimum What is the particular condition Wages that has favoured this remarkable Boards extension of trade union activity into the secluded countryside? Undoubtedly the passing of the Corn Production Act. Part 2 of this measure provides for the estab- lishment of Wages Boards and District Committees for the regulation of wages of agricultural labourers, the minimum wage for able-bodied men being fixed at 25s. per week. Two Wages Boards are to be set up, one for England and Wales and one for Scotland. The Welsh Housing and Development Association strongly advocated that a separate Board should be established for Wales as for Scotland, but the matter apparently did not commend itself to Welsh Members of Parliament as being of sufficient importance to merit their taking any action, and no amendment to the Bill was proposed. Each Wages Board will consist as to one-fourth of its members of persons appointed by the Board of Agriculture, the remainder being composed in equal proportions of representa- tives of employers and men. The Wages Board will fix the rates of pay of various grades of workers, and will be assisted by District Wages Committees to act for such areas as the Boards may determine. The function of the Committees will be to advise the Boards as to the minimum rates which should be applicable in their districts. Neither the Wages Boards nor the District Committees have yet been formed, but the minimum wage of 25s. per week applies from August 17th last. The cash value of any allowances customarily made by farmers to their men may provisionally be settled by agreement; the difference between this agreed amount and the minimum wage of 25s. must be paid in cash. The fixing of the cash equivalents for allowances is obviously an important matter, it being to the ad- vantage of the men to minimise the value and of the employers to exaggerate it. In carrying out the negotiations, obviously, a Trade Union including all the labourers in a district will strengthen the men's position. The importance of the Union, however, will not be realized fully until the minimum wage machinery has been brought into existence, when the case of the men has to be presented before the District Committees and the Wages Boards. If the movement grows, as it seems at present likely to do, farm labourers as well as farmers, landowners and the Government will have a word to say as to the lines on which agricultural re-organization in this country shall proceed in the immediate future. Our Some very valuable experimental Illustrations work on Garden City lines is being carried on in various parts of Wales by the Welsh Town-Planning and Housing Trust, Ltd. Our illustrations show one of the streets in the Garden Village at Barry, and one of the streets at the Wrexham Garden Village. Officials and members of public bodies contemplating housing schemes should pay a visit of inspection to these villages.