520 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION V. 



1,500,000, owning barely an acre each, support their families 

 by the wages they earn as day labourers. He states more 

 and more the subdivision of the land has already begun to 

 bring about its own remedy, the agricultural population 

 having diminished 3,500,000 since 1851. This decline is in 

 a measure due to the introduction of machinery, in which 

 respect wonderful progress has been made in our time. 

 Forty years ago it was not uncommon to see horses treading 

 out grain as we used to do in England in the days of King 

 John. 



In Germany agriculture is most advanced in those States 

 where the average size of the farms is not below 40 acres. 

 There is, unhappily, a large number of cottier farms, as in 

 France, so small and confused that it sometimes happens a 

 man ploughs his neighbour's patch for his own. The condition 

 of the rural population is, on the whole, very prosperous ; but 

 the German can neither raise so much graiu nor show the 

 same results for the labour of the individual as in the 

 United Kingdom. 



In Austria the feudal system was only abolished in 1849, 

 and in some of the provinces the land belongs for the most 

 part to the peasant proprietors. 



Italy has only recently entered upon an industrial progress 

 similar to that of other countries only within the last thirty 

 years, and the land is not as well cultivated. 



In Russia 86 per cent, are on the side of the primary 

 workers and only 14 on the other, and of the 86, 81 per cent, 

 are agricultural ; but then, as Mulhall tells us, previous to 

 1861, 80 per cent, of the population were serfs, who were 

 bought and sold on the estates like cattle. Since the eman- 

 cipation they are hopelessly plunged in debt. Many of 

 the peasants are poorer than before, and their stock and 

 cattle show a falhng off of 50 per cent, in the last ten years. 



3.— THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION ON THE 

 IMPORTS OF AUSTRALIA. 



By ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, M.A. 



The object of Protection is to cause work to be done in 

 the colony that would otherwise be done outside of it. The 

 idea is that if £20,000,000 worth of articles are imported from 

 abroad then the workers of this country are debarred to that 



