CONTINENTAL NOTES GERMANY. 2 I I 



it is, doubtless, due to improvements in agricultural imple- 

 ments, the use of artificial manures, a better knowledge of 

 the requirements in each case, the temporary importation 

 of foreign labour, etc. ; but the one outstanding fact cannot 

 be gainsaid, that the women of the country are replacing, 

 to an ever-increasing extent, in agricultural work, the men 

 who leave the land. This is not a healthy state of things. 

 It is possible, even probable, that, with an extension of the 

 policy of small holdings, many men may return to the land 

 in the hope of eventually acquiring a small freehold property, 

 or they may not leave it to the same extent ; but, however 

 satisfactory this may be from a general political point of 

 view, it will not materially aid the Forest Department, nor the 

 larger proprietors of land, in obtaining the necessary manual 

 labour. 



The question of the labour scarcity in the open country 

 naturally excites the most vital and general interest. The main 

 reason of the emigration of labour from the land, doubtless, 

 is that labour in the country is, with few exceptions, not so 

 continuous throughout the year as it is in towns, but numerous 

 other more or less tenable reasons are brought forward. 



The Forest Department more especially, it is argued, neglect 

 their duties in not insuring their workmen against illness and 

 accidents, in not providing sufficient shelter near the works, nor 

 the most improved implements for contract work. To some 

 extent this may be true, but the gradual disappearance and 

 present scarcity of labourers' cottages within reasonable distance 

 of the work, plays a much more important part in the labour 

 question, and one which cannot be obviated by a mere rise 

 in the scale of wages. 



It is now generally agreed that, if not the only, certainly the 

 most feasible, remedy must be found in the formation of labour 

 colonies, with due consideration of local conditions. 



The country labourers, even those who can still find shelter 

 in the vicinity of forest or other suitable work, require, never- 

 theless, a modicum of cultivable land to enable them to eke 

 out, with the assistance of their families, the income derived 

 from intermittent wages. Formerly such lands could be rented 

 by the labourers at rates which enabled them to exist ; but of 

 late years the rents have risen to an extent which has rendered 

 their profitable cultivation impossible by men of the labouring 



