FARM v. FACTORY: THE RURAL EXODUS 47 



farmer's own sons and daughters, and in some cases 

 as regards the farmer himself. The men of energy 

 and enterprise have left the plough for the pick, the 

 loom, the lathe, and other industrial tools. In short, 

 since the time when England began to concentrate 

 on her industrial supremacy and concomitantly to 

 neglect her agriculture (meaning by the term indus- 

 trial, all industrial and manufacturing industries) the 

 farm and the factory have been in direct competition 

 for both brain and labour. 



To present the case in another fashion, it should 

 be remembered that the rate of wages on the 

 farms has not been controlled by the wage rate on 

 the adjoining farms, but by the wages paid by the 

 colliery owner, the iron master, the ship builder, 

 and the factory owner. The development of indus- 

 trial life should have fostered agricultural activity, 

 but, in practice, it has had the opposite effect. 

 Whilst for years we have been complacently paying 

 the foreign farmer approximately £350,000,000 for 

 food for ourselves and even our flocks and herds, 

 our own soil has been allowed to tumble down to 

 grass, to produce the minimum, and to return in 

 fact to its prairie value. 



HOW THE FARM SUFFERS 



In this contest between the farm and the factory, 

 the former has suffered from the very severe han- 

 dicap of adverse climatic conditions. In the factory, 

 or other industrial occupation, it does not matter 

 much what weather conditions prevail. It may rain, 

 snow, or hail, — none of these climatic conditions 

 cause one yard less cloth to be manufactured in the 

 mill, one ton less coal to be brought to the pit mouth, 



