AGRICULTURAL WAGES. 225 



landlords are selling out their agricultural land 

 holdings for the reason that the present rents 

 are utterly unprofitable. 



But on this question of a possible increase in 

 the wage rate the best witness is the freehold 

 farmer cultivating his own area of a few hundred 

 acres. All of this class I asked were unanimous 

 that higher wages were impossible under Free 

 Trade conditions, and that the present margin 

 of profit was so small that any further inroad 

 into it would mean ruin. 



" Agricultural wages " and " agricultural earn- 

 ings " I found to be not at all the same thing in 

 England, the cash wage sometimes being as low as 

 12s. a week, the actual earning being rarely much 

 lower than 20s. a week. In the south and east 

 of England both wages and earnings were lower 

 than in the north and the west. The calcula- 

 tion of earnings is a matter of extreme difficulty, 

 there being in addition to the cash wage a 

 bewildering variety of " truck ' concessions.* 

 Free housing, free fuel or free carriage of fuel, 

 an allowance of potatoes or of land for growing 



* Since writing this there has been published (August 8, 1913) 

 an official return giving the earnings of agricultural labourers in 



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