THE FARM LABORERS OF ENGLAND. 57 



rates, and taxes, oppressed by that vexatious and iniquitous 

 remnant of feudalism, the game laws, and dictated to by 

 their landlords at elections and elsewhere, their position is 

 by no means enviable. Nor, as a class, do they now make 

 a profit out of their business. There are many wealthy 

 tradesmen and retired manufacturers who want a farm for 

 purposes of pastime, and who care but little how much they 

 lay out upon their hobby. The consequent competition for 

 farms runs rents up to a figure that makes it impossible 

 to obtain a living and fair interest for the capital invested. 

 As a proof of the wide-spread discontent existing among 

 English farmers, may be mentioned the immense and increas 

 ing numbers who annually expatriate themselves, and in the 

 United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South 

 America, seek that subsistence which unjust laws and extor 

 tionate landlords deny them at home. 



With unlimited capital, a long lease of a good farm 

 (which is not frequently obtainable), and a situation adapted 

 for all modern appliances and improvements, a man of energy 

 and education can still make farming pay in England ; but 

 so far as the mass of small farmers is concerned, the ten 

 dency of the age is to drive them to the wall and improve 

 them out of existence. Small farms, as the tenancies expire, 

 are lumped together and let to some pushing man of capital, 

 to the exclusion of that class of tenant farmers who have 

 heretofore been England s boast. 



THF FARM LABORERS OF ENGLAND. 



The condition of the farm laborers in England has for 



ages been a burning scandal. It is a natural consequence 



of the land laws of that country, that the village Squire 



and the parson (whose income is mainly derived from the 



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