INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 213 



of hired agricultural laborers of the country is composed of 

 the tramps, outcasts of the large cities, and other representa- 

 tives of the lowest industrial strata of the modern American 

 commonwealth. This permanency of the farmer's job is, how- 

 ever, delusive to a considerable extent, as the uncertainty sur- 

 rounding agriculture, combined with fluctuations of prices, 

 threaten too often to sweep away all the results of his labor, 

 representing besides many other items the wages of himself, 

 his wife and his babes. Thus it can be seen quite clearly that 

 the farmers of the United States constitute one homogenous 

 body of skilled agricultural laborers, just of little different 

 calibre and consequently of little different economic standing. 

 This we find also in all other trades and industries of the 

 country. Their wages, however, as we have proven already, 

 are the lowest known to the world of labor and make them 

 real proletarians of the land. 



Thus we see that on the productive side of American agri- 

 culture are grouped the workers exclusively and on its dis- 

 tributive side the capitalists exclusively, while the mortgage 

 holders constitute a particular class by themselves, which does 

 not belong either to the productive or distributive side of ag- 

 ricultural industry of the United States. They are invariably 

 bankers, stock-brokers and professional money-lenders, and 

 usually residents of a few of the largest cities of the country. 



Turning our eyes to Europe, we find there a similar condi- 

 tion of agricultural industry and a similar grouping of con- 

 tending economic forces on its productive and distributive 

 sides. Everywhere, even in England, the classical and tradi- 

 tional realm of primogeniture and landlordism, large landed 

 estates are at present breaking up, much slower, of course, 

 than the American "bonanza farms," gradually dissolving in 

 small holdings passing into the hands of peasants and agricul- 

 tural laborers of various names. Thus the average size of 

 European farms is decreasing just the same as in the United 

 States, the number of small farms gradually increasing and 

 the army of tenants permanently growing. Tn a similar man- 

 ner the character of agricultural wage-workers of the Old 

 World is gradually deteriorating, while the agricultural in- 

 dustry there, just the same as in this country, demands mor; 



