SPORT: ITS RELATION TO THE STATE 351 



Fox, Assistant Commissioner for Labour, which 

 was pubHshed in August, was universally admitted 

 to be concise and intelligible, so far as the statistics 

 connected therewith were concerned. Unfortunately, 

 these statistics only deal with a small section of the 

 rural population, so that the summary of the main 

 conclusions is inadequate. Mr. Fox considers the 

 agricultural wage only in reference to unskilled 

 labour, and seems to forget that in these days of 

 machinery, artificial manures, wire fencing, and an 

 improved system of drainage, unskilled labour is 

 at a discount. The migration from country districts 

 into towns and cities is not a sign of agricultural 

 depression, but a different distribution of the 

 industrial population. We are told that agriculture 

 offers less encouragement to the rural labourer 

 now than ever it did, but we have no concise defini- 

 tion either of agriculture or of the rural labourer. 

 If agriculture is limited to the tillage of arable 

 land, I admit at once that the soil has lost its 

 attractiveness ; but if agriculture embraces all rural 

 industries, I contend that a healthy man can earn 

 a better wage in the country than he can earn in 

 a town. One critic of Mr. Fox's report asks, " Why 

 should a strong and healthy young agricultural 

 labourer remain on an eastern county farm at a 

 wage of fourteen shillings a week if he can go into 

 the towns or on railway works and earn twenty- 

 five ? " The inference derived from the question 

 is that the man who is only worth fourteen shillings 



