330 Mr. H. Bicler Haggard [May 8, 



dug and the trees that he has planted — for the benefit of somebody- 

 else. 



For some years I employed upon my farm a curious old fellow 

 of the not uncommon name of Smith. The other day I met a funeral 

 and inquired whose it was, to be informed that Smith was inside the 

 coffin. I had seen him working away a few days before, but nobody 

 had taken the trouble to inform me that since then he had fallen sick 

 and died. Apparently it was not thought a matter worthy of notice, 

 and already somebody else occupied his place in the fields that he had 

 trod for sixty years. Thus exit Smith and all his class. 



Their lot sounds somewhat depressing, although of course it has 

 alleviations, especially that of the health with which an out-door life 

 endows them. Still it is not to be wondered at if, incited thereto 

 by a board-school education imparted to them by town-bred teachers, 

 they strive to escape from it to a town. There wages are higher for 

 the young and strong. There are music-halls, processions and other 

 glorious things, including water-taps, and pavements upon which the 

 children may walk dryshod to school, and there, as they think, they 

 may rise. Of course, in the majority of instances, they are dis- 

 aj^pointed ; they do not rise, they sink. 



Let those who doubt it consult Mr. Rowntree's study upon the 

 urban population of York, which is not a very large city. Even in 

 the case of the fortunate amongst these immigrants, the extra money 

 that they win is more than absorbed in the extra expenses of their 

 new life, while the cottage that they inhabited in their native village, 

 possibly tumbled-down enough — for the lack of good cottages is one 

 of the great causes of the rural exodus — proves to be a paradise when 

 compared to the one or two rooms in a London court for which they 

 pay three times the rent. 



These facts are generally recognised and need not be dwelt on — 

 or at least I have no space to dwell on them. So much is this so, 

 that before I read you this paper I had promised to consult with 

 the Committee of the Charity Organisation Society, as to what steps 

 can be taken to transport immigrants from the land — or their 

 children — back to the land. But such folk look at the beginning 

 and not at the end of things, as indeed all of us do in our degree, 

 leaving the future to Fate, an opportunity of which Fate generally 

 avails itself — to their disadvantage. 



So for various reasons they go, and of those reasons, the chief is, 

 in my opinion, a lack of prospects if they elect to stay at home. 



What is the prospect that they require ? 



I take it that of being able to lift themselves up in life, of being 

 able to farm land on their own account, upon however small a scale, 

 and of ending their days " living upright," as we say in Norfolk, 

 that is, living on their own means. 



Now is this an impossibility for the agricultural labourer ? 



At present, in most cases — yes ; but 1 hold that it should not be 

 so, and that it need not be so. The man who is hard-working, pro- 



