216 POLAND 



for the previous owners thereof. These in- 

 dividuals consequently lost a good deal of the 

 cheap labour on which they had formerly relied, 

 the cost of production being thereby increased. 

 This did not matter very much so long as good 

 prices could be secured for the grain ; but a 

 serious position was reached when those prices 

 fell 40 per cent, as the combined result of 

 the great production in the United States 

 and of the tariff war between Russia and 

 Germany. 



Meanwhile the substantial expansion of in- 

 dustries, fostered by a high protective tariff, 

 had drawn off more and more of the rural 

 populations into the towns, thus further de- 

 creasing the supply, and increasing the cost, of 

 agricultural labour. Other causes tending to 

 the same result were the increasing stream of 

 emigration, the tendency for the labourers to 

 wander into Germany and Austria- Hungary in 

 harvest time, attracted by the higher wages paid 

 there than in Poland ; and the dividing up of 

 the large estates into small lots, which — with 

 the assistance of the (State) Peasants' Bank, 

 when necessary — were purchased by the peas- 

 ants, whose labour thus became still less avail- 

 able for the larger proprietors. 



One of the main objects sought by the co- 



