WAGES PER ACRE 53 



The second point is the relation of wages 

 to the kind of cultivation. The rate of wages 

 paid per acre varies inversely with the rate 

 paid per man. Thus the lowest individual 

 wages are paid in the Eastern group of 

 counties — Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, 

 and Essex — where they range from 15s. 4d. 

 to i6s. 4d. But in these counties the average 

 wage per acre ranges from £1 ys. 6d. to £1 14s. 

 If we take, on the other hand, the high-wage 

 Northern group and Derbyshire, where indi- 

 vidual wages are over 19s. or 20s., there we 

 find the wage paid per acre is only from 

 IIS. yd. to 15s. 8d. That is to say, it is the 

 former group, which are mainly arable, that 

 maintain the largest agricultural population, 

 put most money into the soil, and take most 

 produce out. And it is these counties with 

 which it is proposed to interfere for the 

 purpose of bringing them up to the level of 

 the others. The course of agriculture in this 

 country and the standing facts all point to 

 the probability that the process of levelling 

 up these counties on the man wage will 

 entail levelling them down to the others on 

 the acre wage. 



