70 FRANCE - AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



gration abroad or to the. department of Seine or a town in another depart- 

 ment. From this point of view Region VI is the home of the most intense 

 emigration ~ 273 per 10,000 inhabitants. Emigration works its ra- 

 vages principally in the mountain villages ; in some districts of the plain, 

 where the fertility of the soil allows the development of stock farming and 

 horticulture, it seems to have been partially arrested. Most of the emigrants 

 go to Paris, whence, when they have got together a little nest-egg, they re- 

 turn to their native soil and buy land. Region V (South-West) stands 

 second, especially the department of Basse-Pyrenees which is an important 

 centre for the emigration of men to South America (138 per 10,000 inhabi- 

 tants). Next to this comes Region III (Alps and South-East) in which the 

 anondissement of Barcelonette supplies emigrants to Mexico (109 per 10,000 

 inhabitants). Emigration is of about equal importance in Regions II, 

 IV, VII and VIII (respectively 87, 85, 75 and 85 per 10,000 inhabitants) ; 

 and is feebler in Region I (North) — 54 per 10,000 inhabitants. We should 

 add that in the north and Brittany a higher proportion of emigrants of 

 all trades move from one commune to another than in the other regions. 

 In Brittany these emigrants comprise a sufficintly high proportion of agri- 

 cultural labourers who settle in another rural commune without changing 

 their trade. It is noted in particular that a large share of those who go 

 annually to Normandy or Beauce for the harvest do not return. 



c) Causes of Rural Emigration. 



In order to establish with certainty the chief causes of migratory move 

 ments it would be necessary to analyse in detail the position of emigrants 

 in every region. The too restricted number of observations has not al- 

 lowed this to be done in a way which is very instructive. The following 

 are however the principal conclusions of the investigators on the subject. 



If the determining cause of a rural exodus be taken to be a general de- 

 sire for greater wellbeing, we have still to discover the various reasons which 

 persuade emigrants that this desire cannot be realized in their own villages. 

 We should first recall that it is not the agricultiiral callings which furnish 

 the largest contingent of emigrants, but the trades connected with industry 

 and commerce. The exodus of rural artisans is explained by the progressive 

 disappearance of the small peasant industries, and. this exodus represents 

 a loss of labour to agriculture because a large part of the emigrating popula- 

 tion alternated agricultural with industrial work. 



As regards the purely agricultural population, a distinction should be 

 made among the wage-earning labourers and the metayers and tenant and 

 landowning farmers. The first of these categories furnishes by far the lar-. 

 gest number of emigrants. It is the lack of hired labour which is everj'- 

 where the chief complaint of agriculture. Agricultural labourers transfer 

 themselves for the sake of the higher wages paid in industry, the convenien- 

 ces of town life, and the shorter working-days, passed under shelter. Farm 

 servants, engaged by the year, do not suffer from unemployment, but on 

 the whole their position on a farm is sufficiently miserable. They are in the 



