74 A FARMER'S YEAR 



That the people go somewhere is proved by the fact that, in 

 spite of its great increase throughout England, the population of 

 our villages is rapidly waning, and that really skilled farm hands, 

 men who can plough, thatch, drain, and milk, are becoming 

 more and more difficult to find. At present, however, I do not 

 think that the surplus gets much further than the cities. In the 

 future, as their minds become accustomed to the idea, and they 

 grow to understand how great are the opportunities of the British 

 Colonies, perhaps the young men will drift thither. At present 

 bricklayers in Bulawayo are being paid a pound and an ordinary 

 labouring man ten shillings a day, and were he less stay-at-home 

 these are prices that might tempt Mr. Hodge to travel, especially as 

 in those lands Jack is as good — or rather better — than his master. 



Up till now, if the inhabitant of a Norfolk village emigrates, it 

 is generally to America, and very often he does not like America 

 when he gets there. I remember a blacksmith with whom I was 

 well acquainted going to the States, but in a couple of years he 

 was to be seen working at the old forge in his native village. I 

 asked him why he had come back, and he told me that he earned 

 plenty of money out there, but he ' didn't like it.' When I was 

 in New York a tailor came to see me who had been an apprentice 

 here in Bungay. He told me the same story. Plenty of money, 

 especially at times, but he ' meant to get back as soon as he 

 could.' Also I had a conversation with an English coachman, 

 whose tale was much the same. His wages were large, but * there 

 weren't no society for such as him ' ; in the States they were all 

 ' gents or niggers.' 



When the labouring classes come to know it, circumstances 

 are different in the British Colonies, where a hard-working, 

 respectable man still has a chance of rising to almost any position, 

 and of seeing his sons and daughters in the same social station as 

 the gentry of the country parish which he has left at home. Of 

 course, however, these lands will fill up, and such opportunities 

 become rare. In the meanwhile two potent considerations above 

 all others prevent the young men of our villages from availing 



