384 LAND REFORM 



Successive governments are indifferent to the state 

 of things as regards agriculture revealed by the Census 

 Reports, and they are equally careless of the findings 

 of Commissions specially appointed by themselves to 

 inquire into the subject. The Report of the last of 

 the Commissions so appointed may be said to contain 

 the latest official utterance on the effect of our fiscal 

 and agrarian policies on the rural population. At 

 the date of that Report (1897) the exodus from the 

 land of the old type of labourers was, as a class, well- 

 nigh completed, leaving few but middle-aged or old 

 men and casual labourers behind them. The Com- 

 missioners express alarm at the exodus, which, as they 

 state, has been going on for many years simultane- 

 ously with a rapid increase in population. They add : 

 " The total population of Great Britain rose from 

 26,072,284 in 1871 to 33,028,172 in 1891, and, as we 

 have shown, the number of the agricultural labourers 

 in Great Britain fell during those years from 1,161,738 

 to 919,685. In other words, while in twenty years the 

 British population increased by 6,955,888, the agricul- 

 tural labourers of Great Britain decreased by 242,053. 

 It is unnecessary for us to enlarge on the significance 

 of these figures from the point of view either of the 

 national physique or of the interests of the working 

 classes engaged in other than agricultural industries."^ 



he was getting continuous employment under the Corporation at 23s. per 

 week, and was " able to save a shilling or two for a rainy day." " But," 

 I said, "suppose you had five or six acres of land of your own, could 

 you manage it?" He replied that he should like to try, but " there was 

 no chance of that"; if there were he "could chuck this to-morrow." 

 Here was a skilled man who could plough, sow, reap, lay and mend 

 hedges — a skilled labourer, for whose services the land of this country 

 is "crying out," engaged in cleaning streets which any one of the 

 numerous unemployed could do as well as he could. 



^ " Final Report of the Royal Commission on Agricultural Depres- 

 sion" (C. 8540), issued in 1897. 



