APPENDIX 465 



other forms of entertainment draw the young from dull country places, 

 which is doubtless true. 



Such are some of the reasons, but I maintain that the true first cause 

 of this emigration is purely economic : that the labourer leaves the 

 land because the land cannot pay sufficient wage to keep him upon it, 

 and that if it could pay him sufficient he would soon get over his longing 

 for the music halls, or his dislike of labour in the fields, or even the 

 insufficiency of house accommodation in his neighbourhood. This can 

 easily be proved ; if any one of us wants a groom, or a keeper, or an 

 under-gardener, there is no lack of applicants for the post, because the 

 work is comparatively light and the pay a few shillings a week better. 

 Again, you will find that gentlemen in business, such as maltsters, who 

 can afford to pay good wages, can find plenty of labour and of the very 

 best class. 



I think then that we may take it as a proposition beyond all reason- 

 able doubt that the labourer is leaving the land because in the present 

 depressed state of the great agricultural industry in our part of England 

 the cultivator of the land cannot by any possibility manage to pay him 

 a better wage and live himself. Into the vexed question of whether or 

 no the young fellow who thus departs to find employment elsewhere 

 really betters his position at ' the far end ' I have no time to enter at 

 length. Still it must be remembered that iSs. or il. a week always 

 sounds a good deal better than I2s. or 14^., and however the thing may 

 work out at last the young man who strives to secure the higher wage 

 is actuated by a very proper and laudable ambition. We cannot expect 

 him to stop here and turn himself into a ploughman if he thinks he can 

 do better elsewhere. He has his own interests to consult, like every 

 individual among us, and he must not be blamed for consulting them. 



Well, as this emigration is going on, and if some way is not found 

 to check it, is likely to go on, it may be worth while to glance at its 

 probable results. As regards the land they seem to be that within the 

 next twenty years or so a great deal of the poorer soil the very heavy and 

 the very light will go out of cultivation ; the grass area will be largely 

 increased, while such lands as remain for arable will have to be culti- 

 vated by machinery directed by a few highly paid mechanics. This 

 in its turn would mean that small fields must be done away with, since 

 steam ploughs, &c., cannot be used in them to advantage. You can 

 form your own opinion as to whether this prospect is pleasing to agri- 

 culturists, or advantageous to the villages and small country towns 

 which are in process of desertion. 



H H 



