67 



to keep yourself and your family by working all day, and our remedy 

 for the situation is to offer you the opportunity of working half the 

 night." 



What, then, would be the position of the labourer in the large-scale 

 enterprise ? In the first place he could specialise ; instead of being 

 a Jack-of -all-trades and moving from one job to another he could 

 attach himself to one department and stay there. As a specialist 

 he would be able to command a better salary. .It is a common ex- 

 perience in these days to see a small engine installed for working the 

 barn machinery of the farm. It probably runs only for a few hours 

 a week, and the man in charge can hardly expect to be remunerated 

 as an engineer ; on the large farm one man, or possibly more, would 

 be employed continuously with the machinery, and would earn the 

 pay of a mechanic. This opportunity to specialise would further provide 

 the labourer with the chance, almost unknown at present, of rising 

 in his profession, for there would always be a demand for foremen 

 and even managers at the heads of departments, and these would be 

 recruited from the ranks of the workers just as in any other industry. 

 In this way the economic independence of the farm worker would be 

 assured. On the big farm, too, combination for social advancement 

 would be possible, and in the stir and bustle of a great enterprise 

 much of the monotony of rural life would vanish. 



A confirmation of the suggestion that large-scale production would 

 increase the output of food per man, and would thus allow of higher 

 wages, is to be found in the interesting paper by Mr. T. H. Middleton. 

 C.B., on ",The Recent Development of German Agriculture." In this 

 article it is shown that the production of food per hundred acres in 

 Germany is much greater than in England ; on the other hand, if the 

 number of workers be brought into the account, it appears that the 

 production per man is fully twenty per cent, higher in this country. Now 

 in England less than 16 per cent, of the land consists of holdings under 

 fifty acres, whereas in Germany nearly one-half of the total cultivated 

 area (48.5 per cent.) is made up of these units of production. It is 

 fair to assume that the greater opportunity for the employment of 

 horse labour and machinery on the larger holdings in this country 

 contribute to make the English farm labourer a more efficient workman 

 than his German equivalent, and that any development which will 

 increase still further the opportunities for using machinery will make 

 the labourer's toil still more productive. The comparative rates of 

 wages in the two countries provide further proof, unless, of course, 

 the German farmer is able to retain a greater share of the profits of 

 agriculture. With the increase in the efficiency of labour, and the 

 consequent rise in wages, would come the solution of the housing 

 problem without resort to uneconomic means, for so soon as the farm 

 labourer can offer a commercial rent for his house, the small investor 

 will not be backward in supplying the demand. 



The objections to the factory principle from the point of view of the 

 social and intellectual well-being of the worker will at once occur in 



