CHAPTER IV. 



THE MIGRATION OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 1 



Having briefly considered the bare facts of the case, 2 and 

 having indicated that though there is a migration of 

 agricultural labourers to the towns it is no novel or sudden 

 movement, and, so far as we can see, is not at present 

 proceeding at any exceptional rate as compared with 

 previous years, or with other countries, I may call your 

 attention to a few of the causes which have been alleged 

 and the remedies which have been proposed for it. 



To no class in the community can the question of retain- 

 ing the agricultural labourer on the land be of more direct 

 interest than to farmers. It must be obvious that, even 

 on the narrow grounds of self-interest, they have every 

 incentive to favour any practical means of improving the 

 lot and of brightening the prospects of the agricultural 

 labourer. I venture to say that the agricultural labourer 

 will receive in all fair and legitimate aspirations more 

 real sympathy from the farmers of the country, who know 

 him well, than from many of those new-found friends 

 whose affection for him has curiously coincided with 

 political exigencies. 



Perhaps the commonest reason for labourers leaving the 

 land is the prospect of higher wages in the towns. No 

 doubt the wages even of unskilled labour are, and must 

 inevitably be, nominally higher in the towns than in the 

 country, but the question is whether they have a relatively 

 greater purchasing power. The net monetary difference 

 is in reality very much less than it appears to the eyes of 



1 Read before the Farmers' Club, February, 1892. 



2 The earlier part of the paper dealt with the statistics of 

 rural migration at that period. 



