£3 AS YEAR'S PAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 199, 17 May 1919, Page 12

£3 AS YEAR'S PAY

THE LOT OF THE POLISH LAND WORKER APPALLING CONDITIONS ("Daily News" Special Correspondent.) Warsaw, March 21. About 15,000 agricultural .labourers aro on strike in the country round Lublin, and their numbers aro likely to increase, since it is possible that tho movement will spread to other parts of tho country. Tho strike is neither surprising nor regrettable.. It is tlie causo which is deplorable. It has been caused by tho inability of tho farm hands to live on the pittnnco paid by the landowners, and by. their determination to tolerato no longer tho miserable conditions of lifo imposed upon them by- their employers. Before tho war labourers were paid a yearly wage of 30 roubles (£3) in tho Lublin district. Under pressure the lato Government of 11. Jloraczowski 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 havi> to share with another family, a certain quantity of corn and fuel, and a plot ot ground for tho growing of potatoes. Twenty-one in One Room. A peasant in tho district of Lovza, where conditions aro worse than in Lublin, told mo: "Before the war we could manage, becauso then a pair ol boots for a man cost four roubles and for a woman two roubles." This man and his family shared a room with- two other families, and each of tho three contains fivo children. "Tho labourer in our parts is now getting 100 marks. How can ho livo when boots cost 500?" He mentioned that the landowner pastured a cow; that tho fuel to warm tho homo consisted of fallon branches ana brushwood which tho children collcctod 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 pnying the rate of wages imposed by tho Morsczewsky Government. Tho strikers demand 000 marks yearly, a larger supply of corn, a larger plot of potatoes, and, above all,. tho abolition of the custom requiring each labourer to providb an'nssistant whom tho labourer is usually obliged to pay more than tho amount allowed for this purpose by .the landowner. A Moving Document. I have in iny possession the demands of Lomza farm-hands, given me by tlie labourer already mentioned. It is one of tho most' touching documents I have ever read, a cry from the tillers of the earth not only for better material conditions of life, but for enlightenment anil for the things of tho spirit. Besides asking COO marks yearly, thoso' labourers demand that tho landowner shall provido a school for their 1 children when one does not exist, ask for two days' holiday every quarter, to arrange their private affairs, and stipulate that 110 work shall bo required of them 011 Sundays or festivals of the Church, except the work of feeding horses, "in order that we may attend our religious duties." It is, indeed, a document which, lo employ the phrase of Balzac, is parfumo do prieres champotres. The landowners declare that it is impossible to meet the labourers' demands and at tho samo time make a profit; In ■reply to which tho labourers say: "Very well. Hand us over the farms; wo ore prepared to -work them and give you good rent." A remedy will bo applied. For there is a democratic Parliament at Warsaw.