RURAI, EXODUS lOI 



ain extent to give up the improvement of horses and cattle, on account of 

 their difficulty in obtaining men and women farm servants. This state 

 of things is nothing new. It would be well, we read in the Expose de 

 la situation administrative de la province de Liege (Report on the Adminis- 

 trative Situation of the Province of Liege) for 1861, to get good mowing 

 machines, for labourers are becoming very scarce, above all in the vicinity of 

 the town of Liege, as they are attracted away by the higher wages the fac- 

 tories offer for less fatiguing work. The high rents and the rise in wages 

 for every kind of work, render the position of the tenant farmer very difficult, 

 intelligent labourers abandon the farms and, if this goes on, there will only 

 remain the unskilful, which would damage agriculture very considerably. 

 Maid servants and dairy maids are even fewer ; they prefer to go to Liege 

 where they easity find engagements as domestic servants. 



Much complaint has been made in agricultural circles against the grant 

 of tickets for labourers at reduced rates on the State railways and these 

 complaints found expression at one of the meetings of the National Congress 

 of Agriculture held at Namur in 1901. We are convinced, as we said above, 

 that the daih^ or weekly migrations have many disadvantages for the 

 labourers, but we have to recognise the fact that rural exodus reaches its 

 height at the moment when agriculture employs the smallest number of 

 hired labourers possible. Were it not for these facilities for travelling, 

 our labourers would have no food or our country districts would be depopul- 

 ated, the labourers establishing themselves permanently, as the French 

 labourers have done, in industrial districts, to their very great physical 

 and moral detriment. The facilitation of travelling has been an advantage 

 both for those who remove to a distance and for those who remain working 

 on the farms. In order to keep their labourers, those farmers who were 

 in a position to do so have raised their wages and, it must be recognised, 

 there was certainly no harm in this. 



There can be no question of suppressing the labourers' season tickets, 

 when the labourers cannot find work in the countrj^ under favourable con- 

 ditions. If the reduced railway rates have facilitated rural exodus, they have 

 not caused it ; the fact that countries, which have not, like ours, pro\4ded 

 railway tickets at reduced rates, have all the same suffered more from the 

 desertion of the country, amply proves this ; and in addition these re- 

 duced tickets are now a recognised institution with us. But investigations 

 might be made to see if it would not be possible to restrict the application 

 of the reduced rates to journeys of a certain number of kilometres and if 

 it were not better for workmen who live too far from their work to come 

 nearer to it, establishing themselves either in the town or in a suburban 

 neighbourhood, rather than to go on making these exhausting journeys. 

 In fact there are many of these migratory labourers who no longer live the 

 life of men ;not only is their work hard, but they are materially unable to 

 enjoy more than three or four hours sleep. 



