56 



Causes of (3) The pressure of adverse times on farmers, necessitating 

 Decline, economy in labour. 



Mr. Moifat considers that the children of farm 'servants are 

 too well educated for agricultural work, and are trained for 

 and desire a more congenial employment with more leisure. 



Dr. Gillespie refers, for his opinion as to certain causes of 

 the depletion of the rural districts, to part of an address 

 delivered by him as Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 

 May, 1903. The following is abridged from the remarks he 

 then made : 



" That migration should have taken place to some extent is 

 almost inevitable. Work is not so plentiful in the country as 

 was formerly the case. Some improvements requiring manual 

 labour, such as land drainage, have been to a large extent 

 carried out, and, therefore, regular steady employment, espe- 

 cially for ordinary labourers not engaged by the year, has been 

 curtailed. The introduction of labour-saving machinery on 

 farms on an extensive scale has materially lessened the number 

 of hands constantly required. But that the depletion has 

 been carried to a point far beyond their influence is shown by 

 the fact that there is a positive scarcity in the hands available, 

 and that, too, at a scale of remuneration at least equal, when 

 all things are taken into account, to what is paid in the cities 

 and towns. There is a popular feeling that the lot of the rural 

 labourer is less favourable than in point of fact it is. I can 

 testify from an extensive and minute observation, extending 

 over something like three score years, that, so far as Scotland 

 is concerned, there is no class of the community whose general 

 circumstances have undergone so much improvement as the 

 farm labourer. In respect of the reduction of the hours of 

 labour, lightening the burden of work, wages, food, clothing, 

 and general comfort the condition of the agricultural labourers 

 has undergone a greater advance and improvement than that 

 of the corresponding class in the larger centres of population. 

 The restless spirit of the age is, in my opinion, one of 

 the most powerful factors in depleting the country districts. 

 Nowhere is this more prevalent and visible than in purely rural 

 localities among farm servants. The frequent Sittings from 

 farm to farm and from one district to another evidence of 

 which is seen in the large increase in the number of disjunction 

 certificates now issued year by year are at once a proof and 

 a result of this restlessness. There are not a few districts and 

 estates where the cottage accommodation is insufficient in 

 extent or defective in quality, or where the shortcoming is 

 in both respects." Great improvement has taken place, Dr. 

 Gillespie states, since the passing of the Local Government 

 Act of 1889. " One of the regrettable and disquieting 

 features of the situation, however, is that rural depopulation has 

 been going on where cottages are plentiful and good. But there 

 are not a few districts where there are insufficient cottages, 

 as for example where the bothy system extensively prevails." 



