INFORMATION RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 1 25 



The high wages seem to be due to three causes : 



(i) The absence of a real labouring class. — This is due to the circum- 

 stances that the peasants were, even before 18^8, free from all subjection ; 

 that the Southern Slav institution of the " Hauskommission ", partially 

 preserved, ensures to each man a share, however small, of landed property ; 

 and that the extent of the common lands — pasturage and heath — 

 provides even the poorest with the minimum indispensable to life. Further 

 the nearness of the sea affords various sources of profit. 



In the time of Venetian rule the noble landowners already complained 

 of the high wages, which, they alleged, made the profitable cultivation of 

 vines impossible. This is the reason for the extraordinary extension of 

 metayage in Dalmatia. That land should be farmed by the holder's family 

 is the rule ; and holders who are not farmers, or who cannot cultivate their 

 lands through the members of their f amihes, usually grant them on lease to 

 metayers. In these conditions there is only a limited demand for wage-earn- 

 ing labour. 



(2) The technical character of the agriculture. —- Dalmatia has always 

 been a ^ine country, that is a country of intensive agriculture in which 

 secondary crops are insignificant and most frequently much neglected, 

 and live stock has little importance. The result has been an unscientific 

 distribution of labour which entails sometimes unemployment, sometimes 

 high wages, without relation to the conditions of life among the rural 

 population in the seasons of their principal labours — those of the vintage 

 and of weeding. The vintage can employ women and children, but 

 weeding needs the strength of a grown man, and it is in the period in 

 which it is practised that the highest wages are paid. When this season 

 is past the need for labour is less, and wages sink to some extent, chiefly as 

 regards the part of them paid in kind. 



3) The emigration to America, Australia and New Zealand- which is 

 principally caused by the crisis in viticulture. — The desire to emigrate has 

 taken deep root and become inherent in the Dalmatian mentality. 



It ma3' be affirmed that ten per cent, of the agricultural population, 

 that is some 50,000 persons who include the best elements of the Dalmatian 

 people, are employed in foreign countries. The resultant and constant lack 

 of labour cannot be counterbalanced by the use of machinery, for machines 

 are not to be thought of in cultivating vines. The same limitation applies, 

 except in a few districts, to the other crops, a fact sufiiciently explained by 

 the configuration of the soil of Dalmatia. 



An occasional fall in the price of wines, such as occurred some ^-ears 

 ago, was not followed by a noticeable fall in wages. Its only marked result 

 was a recrudescence of emigration to America and an aggravation of the 

 scarcity of labour. Mticulture depends on a permanent investment of 

 capital and allows small scope to the adjustment of labour according to 

 the probable yield. Therefore wages must be looked upon not as costs of 

 production, properly so called, but rather as costs of upkeep for which 

 there should be compensation in good years. 



The present war has caused on the whole an important rise in wages. 



