JANUARY 73 



pays away several hundreds per annum in wages as a mere amuse- 

 ment for long, or if * nobody ' is a large term, very few do so. In 

 short, the labourer is paid according to the value of his labour, and 

 owing to the dreadful depression in farming, and the nominal 

 price of produce, its value is not great. I hope to see his wage 

 rise, but it cannot rise appreciably unless the price of produce 

 rises also. Meanwhile he is taking the matter into his own hands, 

 and deserting the land. 



If you argue this question of the labourer's lot with farmers, 

 who, as a class, are very severe critics of the actual tillers of 

 the soil, they will point out that, owing to the fall in the price 

 of provisions, although wages are so low, his circumstances are 

 better than they were fifty or a hundred years ago. This is 

 doubtless true, but they neglect to explain what his position was 

 at the beginning of the century. Those interested in the question 

 can easily study it in the pages of various writers, but to my mind 

 the marvel is that when wheat was selling for 5/. or 6/. a quarter, 

 and cottages were mere mud-hovels, the race continued to exist. 

 On this property, not a quarter of a mile from my house, there 

 stands a shed built of clay-lump, and roofed, I think, with faggots ; 

 it may measure sixteen feet in length by about ten in breadth, and 

 inside is divided into two parts, now tenanted by calves. In that 

 shed an old lady not of the poorest, for she planted a large 

 orchard reared a numerous family, one of whom was for many 

 years my groom. Nowadays the cottage which I provide upon 

 the holding contains two sitting and several bed rooms, with ample 

 offices an instance that shows how in this respect things have 

 changed for the better. 



Sometimes I wonder whether any labourers will be content to 

 stick to the soil at the present scale of remuneration. Doubtless the 

 older men at present employed upon it will do so because they must, 

 but how about their sons ? The education which they receive at 

 the schools teaches them, that there are places in the world 

 besides their own Little Pedlington, with the result that already 

 there is an enormous influx into the towns, where wages are highei 

 for those who can get them and life is more lively. 



