AGRICULTURAL WAGES. The payment of wages for agricultural labour in England began with the disappearance of serfdom. The corning of the Black Death or plague in the middle of the i4th century hastened the growth of the wage system and stimylated a rise in wages. The Statute of Labourers was enacted in part to check this rise. The change to the wage system came much later in Eastern Europe. Even today most of the wages are paid in kind in some regions. The money wage system was carried into all of the English colonies, in many places in combination with a system of indentured servants and with slavery. When slavery was abolished in the United States, a wage system would seem logically to have followed. The Negroes, however, were not yet ready for this step and presently most of them were working under a cropper sys tem in which they lived on plantations in cottages furnished by the owner, used equipment furnished by the owner, and received their compensation in the form of a share of the crop. Those familiar with this system still look upon it as more nearly a wage relationship than a landlord-tenant relationship. The International Labour Office is making a serious effort to assemble data on agricultural wages and no doubt in a few decades will be able to trace the current changes in them in different countries and make significant comparisons in terms of real wages. The analysis following is based largely on the data this office has already collected. A major complication is that in all countries a good part of the actual compensation of the farm worker is in the form of board and lodging, in the case of single men, and food and of fuel for the use of the family and the use of a dwelling, in the case of married workers, plus perhaps the right to use a plot of land or to keep some livestock on the employer's land. In Central Europe these allowances are known by the term deputat; in the United States as perquisites. Where wages are regulated, official valuations may be placed upon these extras ; otherwise the wage reporting agency must make a rough estimate of their value. The basis of valuation is invariably what these allowances are worth in the immediate neighbourhood. Commonly they would cost very much more if they were being purchased by an industrial worker in the city. The listing of wages is also involved by the fact that the period of hiring may be the whole year, the summer or winter half-year, a few months during the spring and early summer, or from day to day. The day labourers may be casuals hired for a few days now and then or workers hired regularly by the day for a considerable period. The most numerous in the first group are the piece-rate workers, who help especially with harvesting. The year-round rates reported are commonly for more experienced workers carrying more responsibility. Many of them are part-managers of the farm enterprise, perhaps in some such capacity as herdsman or shepherd. The "farm servant" in Great Britain and several other countries, and the "deputatist" of Germany and other countries on the continent, are typically year round workers on a somewhat lower wage scale. From the point of view of income, only the data for the year-round workers are ade quate. One has no means of knowing how much of the rest of the year the seasonal workers and day hands are without employment. Converting the earnings of these groups to an annual basis is one of the major statistical tasks confronting the International Labour Office.
Wage Differences. The most useful body of data on wage differentials within countries and between countries is published in the International Labour Review for Nov. and Dec. 1934. This cov ers incompletely 27 countries for the period 1927-34. The compari sons following are for the relatively normal year of 1928 unless other wise indicated. The ratio of wages of female to male workers in these data is surprisingly uniform, averaging about 70, with all but a few coming within the range of 65 to 75. The higher ratios are in such countries as Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Canada, and the lower ratios in such countries as Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland.
In general, the wages of farm servants run from 7o to 90% of those of permanent workers such as cattlemen and ploughmen. Probably the farm servants have more security of employment. Winter wages are commonly lower than summer wages. In general, the haying and harvesting wages are higher than the wages of the planting season. Usually the day rates are higher proportionately than the year-round because the day labourers commonly do not have full year-round employment. In the United States, for example, a day labourer would need to work only 24o days to earn as much as a year-round labourer without board and lodging; in Japan, 200 days.
The wage differences between sections of any one country may be fully as large as those between whole countries. The range within France in 1928 was from 16 francs per day for regular day labourers in Dordogne to 27 francs per day in Loiret; in Italy, from o.66 lire in Calabria to 1.59 lire in Emilia. The total wages of the deputatists (men) in 1928 were 1,6,9 zlotys in south Poland and 2,263 in west Poland. In the United States the range in the period 1925-29 was from around $25 per month in the southern States (with board and lodging) to over $5o a month in some of the western States. The comparable wage in the north central States was around $4o a month. An analysis of these differences in the U.S. shows that they are closely correlated with such factors as natural resources and capital goods per worker, and in turn with the net farm income per worker. Thus in the east south central States of the U.S. each worker had about $2,00o in agricultural property associated with him, and the net farm income averaged around $5oo, and the monthly wage $24. Com parable figures for the west north central States were $1i,000, $1,360, and $41. Associated with these circumstances are such factors as density of population, type of agriculture, alternative employment and the like. The high wage rates reported in some of the eastern States are much affected by competition with city employments.
It is also significant that the average of the farm wage rate's for the half-dozen States first admitted to the Union was around $3o per month in 1925-29 ; for the half-dozen States last admitted, around $5o. Capital as well as labour is scarce in the newer States. Canada and Australia show similar effects. It may be confidently predicted that these differences will be less ioo years from now, but by no means entirely removed. Their persistence in the older countries indi cates a still higher degree of immobility of labour and capital there. In general, birthrates are higher in the densely populated low-wage areas than elsewhere, and the out-movement is commonly not large enough to offset the difference in birthrates.
The sectional differences in wages within countries partly arise from different values placed on perquisites. In the U.S. the reported difference between monthly wages of workers receiving and not re ceiving board and lodging was $12 in the east south central States and $26 in New England. The purchasing power of the southern work er's dollar thus estimated is significantly higher than that of the northern worker. One of the principal reasons for this is that labour itself is directly or indirectly a major factor in the prices of goods and services bought with workers' earnings.
Almost everywhere the level of agricultural wages appears to be lower than that of industrial workers, particularly than that of skilled industrial workers. The explanation commonly offered is that the surplus population of the farms does not move to the cities rapidly enough to equalize returns. Equally important may it be that the statistics compiled do not reflect differences in real income. The pur chasing power of the dollar of agricultural wages estimated by the usual methods is likely to be considerably higher than that of the industrial worker's dollar.
Wage differences between countries tend to be greater than within countries because of greater differences in the ratio of population to resources and other related factors, and they tend to persist longer because of immigration barriers and the greater disinclination of population to move to a new country and strange people. Given all the data as to budgets and purchasing power of money one would like, the 4.24 kroner received by the Swedish farm labourer for a day's work in 1928 cannot be validly compared with the 0.19 silver dollars received by the Chinese day labourer. Nevertheless, the differences between real wages in different countries are so large that the following data do have enough meaning to warrant including them in a discussion of agricultural wages. The wage taken as repre sentative in each case is the wage without board and lodging of an adult male ordinary day labourer. The conversion to shillings and pence is in terms of the average rate of exchange for the year 1928. The prices for wheat and other products are the internal wholesale prices at a principal market in the country.
Taken at their face value, the differences appearing are very large: from 4 pence in China to 16 shillings in Australia. They are in order with what we know about relative density of population and other significant factors in the various countries; but the range is no doubt exaggerated in terms of real wages. The number of yen equal to a shilling in the foreign exchange market buys much more in the way of food, clothing, and shelter in Japan than the number of kroner equivalent to a shilling in Sweden, and even more so than the number of cents equivalent to a shilling in the American market. The com parison in terms of quantities of wheat bought by a day's wage is subject to the serious objection that the price of even as staple a commodity as wheat is subject to special influences in each country ; for example, to very high tariffs in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Wheat prices in Canada, Australia, and the United States are on an export basis, which means that they are less than the world price by the amount of the cost of transportation.
History of terms of money, agricultural wages in England rose from 4 shillings per week in the i3th century to 46 shillings by i775, but in terms of wheat this represented an actual decline from 1261b. to 71 pounds. This is the reason for Thorold Rogers's statement in his Six Centuries of Work and Wages that the i5th century was "the golden age of the English labourer." By the end of the i9th century the purchasing power of wages for wheat had returned only to the isth century level. All through the t6th to the early igth century, weekly wages in wheat remained around.7i to 91 pounds. The course of agricultural wages in terfns of wheat in the 2oth century has been a rise during the World War and postwar years, followed by some slight recession in the later years of the depression in some countries. In many cases the price of wheat .de clined more than the wages of agricultural labour. In Great .Britain.a week's work bought 6.obu. of wheat in 1928 as compared with 4.2 in 1914. Comparable figures for Sweden are .88 and .67. It has been characteristic of recent history that real wages have not declined as much in a postwar period as they advanced in the World War years, and agricultural wages have shared in part in these gains..
The agricultural wage regulation in England from the i3th to the ath centuries was of course part of the pattern of local and State regulation of private affairs that characterized the Middle Ages and later the Mercantilistic period. Where serfdom had been abolished on the continent of Europe, agricultural wages were in the thrall of these same tendencies. The abandonment of control in 1835 in Eng land was merely a part of the general shift toward free enterprise that followed Mercantilism in England ; and the continental countries also presently, one after another, threw overboard the attempts at control of agricultural vvages. By the latter half of the r9th century agri cultural wages were determined nearly everywhere by individual bargaining between employer and worker.
The unionization of agricultural labourers in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere is almost altogether a development since the World War. The fixing of wages by public agencies began about the same time; for example, in England in 1917. In North America, the new Mexican constitution in 1917 provided that minimum wage rates should be fixed for all the workers. Estonia provided for fixing minimum wage rates in an act of 1921, and Hungary, Uruguay, and Argentina in acts of 1923. The present form of public wage fixing in England was pro vided in the Agricultural Wages Act of 1924. It can be said of the wage-fixing legislation enacted in the war and postwar years that its general purpose was to raise agricultural wages and improve the con dition of agricultural workers. But much of it was induced by pressure from agricultural unions. An immediate purpose was to remove the causes of disorder and conflict between the employer and worker groups. It is proper to state that in a number of the countries agri cultural wages are now adjusted mainly by collective bargaining. A large proportion of the labour may be outside the union, but the union dominates the scene. In the Netherlands, for example, collective agree ments increased from r covering 742 farms in 1918, to 326 covering 2o,7oo farms in 1936. By 1937 the wage rates of 3o,000 Swedish workers were covered by trade union agreements. Collective bargain ing is the device used for general wage adjustments also in Denmark, France, and Norway. This system was well developed in Germany in the postwar years under the republic and in Czechoslovakia and Poland before 1938.
In Scotland the Farm Servants Union insisted upon this method of wage adjustment until July 1937. It then secured the adoption of a plan of public wage fixing similar to that prevailing in England and Wales. As a matter of fact, wage determination by collective bargain ing and by public wage fixing are not as clearly distinct as the fore going statements indicate. The two methods are frequently made to supplement each other. Thus in Italy the wages are negotiated by collective agreements, but the Charter of Labour requires that the wages so determined apply to all workers whether organized or not. In the Netherlands the employers are required to negotiate wages with the workers' organizations, and if necessary an arbitrator makes a compulsory aw.ard. In Australia and New Zealand the process of public wage fixing takes the form of calling the workers' organization and the employers' organization before an arbitration court, holding a hearing, and then establishing a rate. Even the procedure of Eng larid and Wales, which is clearly designed as minimum wage fixing, sets up local wage-fixing boards upon which the workers' organization and the employers' organization constitute all the board except for a small number of outside members appointed by the Minister of Agri culture. The Central Agricultural Wages Board has no power to in fluence the level of wages fixed by the local wage boards. The Irish Agricultural Wages Act of 1936, in contrast, gives to the Central Wages Board the authority to fix the minimum wage rates, but only after consultation with the local wage committees upon which em ployers are represented.
The reason commonly advanced for having employer and employee organizations participate in the wage-making process is that the wages fixed are not likely to be accepted unless these groups help make them. The objection, of course, is that the unorganized employers and employees are required to abide by wage determinations made by organized groups that often are only a small minority. If, however, it is the policy of the country to encourage the unionization of agri cultural labour, such an arrangement may well have the effect of bringing most of the employers and workers into it.
A development since 193o in several countries is that minimum wage rates have been tied to arrangements for improving the prices of farm products. The sugar growers of the United States must pay certain rates to share in the benefits of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The New Zealand butter and cheese act of 1937 has a similar stipulation. Swedish sugar factories may conclude contracts only with farmers who agree to pay the wages named in the collective agreements in force. (J. D. BL.)