44 WAGES AND E:\IPIRE 



inferiority determined by the extent of the pressure 

 of population on the land. His returns will be low 

 and he cannot demand any higher wages than he could 

 make for himself. In this case therefore the wages of 

 agricultural labour must be less than in the former 

 case, and how much less will depend exactl}^ on the 

 degree to which the margin of cultivation has been 

 lowered. The plenty and the shortage of land account 

 for the high wages of agricultural labour in the new 

 continents and their low state in the old. These 

 circumstances also explain why progress has so much 

 more benefited labour overseas than in Europe. In 

 America and Australasia the workman in default of 

 satisfactory wages can use science upon selected por- 

 tions of land, inexpensive to work, and therefore is 

 able to make correspondingly good terms with his 

 employer. In the old countries, however, with the same 

 extent of science at his command the labourer will find 

 only inferior qualities of land left upon which to use 

 it. His returns therefore will be less, and his power of 

 bargaining for employment is therefore reduced and he 

 is obliged to accept the equivalent of what with all the 

 uses of science the infertile land left over will yield him. 

 The low agricultural wages of Europe obtain despite the 

 aids of science because the land left and at the disposal 

 of the workmen is not of the high quality which it is 

 on the other side of the hemisphere. 



It is often suggested that the difference in wages 

 on the two sides of the world is due to a difference in 

 the quality of the labour. But this is not the case. 

 The agricultural wages in the Anglo-Saxon countries 

 overseas are (or were before the war) 36s. a week to 

 the 17s. of Europe (see Table No. IX). But the 

 labourer of Europe on transferring himself overseas 

 receives the higher rate of pay. Similarly, if the over- 

 seas agricultural labourer came to Europe he would 



