386 LAND REFORM 



lessness generated by pressure against the conditions 

 of existence perpetually prompt the desire to try a 

 new position."^ 



For the unmarried labourer there is no inducement 

 whatever to remain on the land, while there is every 

 motive for a change. Transit is easy ; he has only 

 to throw his little fardel on his back, and in an hour, 

 for a few pence, he is in a large town with all its 

 novelties and attractions. But there is no comparison 

 whatever between the migration in England and that 

 in other countries. First of all, the migration in other 

 countries is comparatively small — in some cases in- 

 significant — and is satisfactorily accounted for. In 

 Germany, for instance, the enormous increase in 

 manufacturing industries has caused a natural demand 

 for workers from the — if anything — over-populated 

 rural districts. There is all the difference in the 

 world between mioration in countries whose rural 

 population is from 40 to 60 per cent of the whole, 

 and whose commercial prosperity is increasing, and 

 migration in a country whose rural population is 

 already depleted, and whose town industries are 

 practically at a standstill. But in other countries this 

 migration, however small, is regarded as a misfortune 

 to be actively counteracted as much as possible. In 

 England, on the contrary, we do little but talk 

 about it. 



In the new German Tariff Bill the interests of agri- 

 culture are intentionally safeguarded on the grounds 

 that " agriculture is the sheet-anchor of the ship of 

 state." In his speech on that Bill the German Home 

 Secretary said : " Police measures would be of no 

 avail to keep the rural population attached to the 



' Introduclioa to "A Pica for Liberty," Herbert Spencer. 



