22 AGRICULTUEE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



imports, aucl, accordingly, it is evident that the 

 presence of so large a quantity of wool grown 

 abroad in our markets is a factor of some import- 

 ance in the determination of the demand for and 

 the value of the home product. The price, in- 

 deed, of the home-grown wool has corresponded 

 generally with the movement in the values of 

 imported wools. 



Increase in Cost of Labour. 



The Eoyal Commission on Agriculture found, 

 from the facts submitted to them in respect of 

 77 farms within recent years, that 31.4 per cent, 

 of the total expenditure, or £1 5s. 5d. per acre, 

 was for labour; and there can be no doubt 

 whatever that the item which gives the farmer 

 most concern, week in and week out all the year 

 round, is hov/ to rake in the money to pay his 

 men, to say nothing of the difficulty in many 

 districts of getting an adequate supply of labour 

 at all. It is not necessary to ask if the labourer 

 receives his fair proportion of the proceeds from, 

 or produce of, the land. What is necessary to 

 know is that such share on the whole is, fortun- 

 ately, greater than it used to be, but that the 

 farmer has not been able to increase his receipts 

 in proportion to, whilst the landlord, except in 

 favoured dairy-farming districts, is receiving a 

 much less rental than twenty, thirty, and fifty 

 years ago. 



