£3 AS YEAR'S PAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17630, 21 May 1919, Page 8

£3 AS YEAR'S PAY

THE LOT OF THE POLISH LAND . ' WORKER.

APPALLING CONDITIONS. (Daily News Special Correspondent). , cflM WARSAW, March 21. 15,000 agricultural labourers are on stake m the country round Lublin, and their numbers are likely to increase, since it js possible that the movement will spread to other parts of the country. The strike is neither surprising nor regrettable.l , It is the cause which is deplor-It'-MS, been caused by the inability of the farm hands to live on the pittanoe paid by the landowners, and by their determination to tolerate no longer the miserable conditions of life imposed upon them by their employers. Before the war labourers were paid a yearly wage of 30 roubles (£3) in the Lublin district. Under pressure the late Government of M. Moraczeski raised it to 300 marks, equal at the present time to less than £6. The labourer receives from the landowner a. home, consisting of one room, which the family may have to share with another family, a certain quantity of corn and fuel, and a .plot of ground for the growifig of potatoes. 1 TWENTY-ONE IN ONE ROOM.

A peasant in the district of Lovza, where' conditions are worse than in Lublin, told to®: "Before the. war we could manage, ■ becaiuse then a pair of boots for a man cost four roubles, and for a woman two roubles." This man and his family Glared a room with two other families, and each of the three contains five children. "The labourer m our parts is now getting 100 marks. How can he live when boots cost 500?" He mentioned that the landowner pastured a cow; that the fuel to warm the home consisted of fallen brandies and , brushwood which the children collected in the forest. "We eat meat on Easter Day, not always at' Christmas." Labourers in the Lublin district state that the majority of the landowners are not paying the rate of wages imposed by the Morsczewsky Government. The strikers I demand 600 marks yearly, a larger supply of corn, a larger plot of potatoes, and, above all, tho abolition of the custom of requiring (Midi labourer to provide an assistant whom the labourer ia usually obliged to pay more than tte amount allcrwed for "this purpose by the landowner. . .. A MOVING DOCUMENT.

I have in my possession the demands of Lomza farm hands, given me by the labourer already mentioned. It is one of the most touching documents I hare ever read, a cry from the tillers of the earth not only for better material conditions of life, but for enlightenment and for the things of the spirit. Besides asking- &X> marks yearly, these labourers demand that the landowner shall provide a school for their children when one does not exist, ask for two days' holiday every quarter to arrange tlieir private affairs, and stipulate that no work shall be required of them on Sundays or festivals of the Church, exccpt the work of feeding horses, "in order that wo may attend our religious duties." Jt is, indoed, a document which, to employ the phrase of Balzac, is parfume de prieres champetres. The landowners declare that it is impossible to meet the labourers' demands, and at the same time make a profit In reply to which the labourers say: "Very well. Hand us over the farm; we are prepared to work them and give you good rent." A remedy will be applied. For there is a democratic Parliament at Warsaw.