MIGRATION OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 65 



higher, or nearly 12s. Next, the West and South-west of 

 England— the traditional region of low weekly wages — starting 

 from the lowest point of all, 9s. 10^., has, after a rise of nearly 

 30 per cent., seen wages fall certainly, but only by about 12 per 

 cent. Lastly, in the very opposite region of the high-waged 

 North, the process has been somewhat akin to this — a consider- 

 ably greater rise in the periods 1860-80 than has since been 

 lost, and a wage level now perhaps 12 per cent, below the ante- 

 depression figure, or 15s. per week. A more considerable drop 

 would seem to have taken place close to the manufacturing 

 towns of the North, round which, when business was good some 

 years ago, it was occasionally hard to get men. 



Assuming these figures to hold good now, we have to 

 admit that during the past decade the wages of agricultural 

 labourers have fallen to an extent which, for the whole 

 country, may be put at about 14 per cent. But if the 

 remuneration of the labourer has diminished during the 

 past ten years, the farmer's profits have not only decreased, 

 but, in too many cases, practically vanished. It is obvious, 

 too, that even the same number of shillings per week would 

 represent — both to the employer and to the labourer — 

 something very different now to that which it did in 

 i860 ; to the former, because his margin of profit has been 

 so greatly cut down, and to the latter because the price of 

 all the necessaries of life has so much decreased. 



It is almost superfluous to refer to the truism that the 

 quoted weekly wage is misleading as to the actual amount 

 of the remuneration of an agricultural labourer. Mr. 

 W. E. Bear has recently protested (in the Nineteenth 

 Century) against the customary misrepresentation of the 

 amount which farm labourers earn. He remarks — very 

 forcibly—" Thousands of labourers and their children 

 living at home together earn more than half the curates 

 in the country." In this connection I would only observe 

 that it seems highly desirable that employers of labour on 

 the farm should remunerate their employes on as strict a 

 cash basis as do employers of labour in a factory. 



In comparing rates of wages at different periods it 

 should be borne in mind that they may not represent the 



A.F. f 



