Ffynh 5F

Agricultural workers, by reason of the scattered and dispersed nature of their industry, have never succeeded in forming, or at least in keeping for long in effective existence, any trade unions for the purpose of securing a fair share in the profits of the industry. This seems to be the sole reason why they did not get a larger share in the good times during the thirty years before 1880. As it was they worked then and afterwards during the next thirty years of depression, for very long hours at very low wages. The workers had their full share in the good times, so far as concerns money wages. Indeed the bad times were best for them, because, while their wages remained about the same or were, if anything, rather higher, the cost of their articles of consumption went down, so that their real wages were higher than they had been before 1880.

(Commission on Wages and Conditions of Employment in Agriculture, 1919, General Report, para. 527 [Tip: daliwch Ctrl a chliciwch dolen i'w agor mewn tab newydd. (Cuddio tip)] )