THK CONDITIONS OK RURAI, I.IFK IN IOI3-914 7I 



first place completely dependent on a master, and they cannot hope to have 

 a family ; too often they are ill fed and above all ill lodged. In many Bre- 

 ton farms, for example, it is customary to make the farm servants sleep 

 in shakedowns in the stables, near the beasts. 



The class of small landowning farmers also furnishes an appreciable 

 if a far less contingent to rural emigration. In their case the movement, 

 which was principally encouraged by the viticultural crisis and the bad 

 prices generally obtained for products about 1900, seems to have been 

 partly counteracted. According to declarations obtained from districts in 

 various regions, it is to be concluded that hired agricultural labour conti- 

 nues to disappear, but that the emigration of those who can till the soil and 

 remain independent has been to some extent arrested. In this connection 

 an investigator of C6tes-du-Nord writes, " It is difficult to find tenants 

 for large farms but there is a demand for small farms in excess of the supply. 

 In this region several young farmers cannot find farms in which to estab- 

 lish themselves. It is the land which is lacking to labour willing to cul- 

 tivate it, so long as the cultivation is done on the labourer's own behalf ". 



Although moral and social causes noticeably influence rural emigra- 

 tion to towns, especially where women, who feel most strongly the attrac- 

 tions of urban life, are concerned, the economic causes for it predominate. 

 So true is this that factories in country districts attract labour as much as 

 those in large centres. Starting from this fact, the decentralization of the 

 great industries has been advised with a view to lessening congestion in the 

 large towns. It has also been recommended that agricultural credit be 

 more widely afforded, especially to young married people who own land but 

 lack capital with which to farm it. Redistribution with a view to a more 

 profitable employment of machinery wotdd also be most useful, as would 

 the development of co-operation, not only in purchasing manures and im- 

 plements, but also in using in common certain machinery and in selling pro- 

 duce. Finally a movement which has been evident for some years, and 

 which the investigators notice everywhere to some extent, should be encou- 

 raged, the movement towards the intensive production of meat, milk and its 

 derivatives, early vegetables and fruit. 



d) Reduction of Large Families. 



The rural exodus is really itself a natural consequence of the trans- 

 formation of economic life. The persistently falling birth-rate of France 

 has given to it a certain character of gravity. 



The enquiry extended only to households the heads of which had beeu 

 married for at least fifteen years when it was made. It discovered that of 

 2,128 of such famiUes only fifty-eight or 2.7 per cent, were childless. The 

 total number of children born to them was 10,752 or slightly more than 

 five a family, and the number of children alive when the enquiry was made 

 was slightly more than four a family. These figures are considerably higher 

 than those referring to all French families. 



Almost all the investigators declare the disappearance of large fami- 



