THE ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER 



By Sir Rider Haggard 



(Reprinted from " Rural England." Longmans, Green, & Co., 1906) 



THE second great danger that threatens EngHsh husbandry is 

 the lack of labour, with the comparatively high price and 

 indifferent quality of what remains. As to the conditions of the 

 supply in those counties of which these volumes treat, I must re- 

 fer the reader to what I have already written. Generally, however, 

 it may be said that the question is most pressing in the south of 

 England, or near to seaport and manufacturing towns, and least so 

 in some of the eastern and more northerly counties. In certain 

 districts, also, labour has been much more, plentiful of late owing to 

 the slackness of trade, which has thrown a number of loose hands 

 out of work in the towns or in brick works and building centres. 

 The real peril both to agriculture and, what is even more 

 important, to the country at large lies, however, in the fact that 

 the supply is being cut at its source. The results of my inquiries 

 on this point are even worse than -I feared. Everywhere the 

 young men and women are leaving the villages where they were 

 born and flocking into the towns. As has here been shown again 

 and again, it is now common for only the dullards, the vicious, or 

 the wastrels to stay upon the land, because they are unfitted for 

 any other life ; and it is this indifferent remnant who will be the 

 parents of the next generation of rural Englishmen. It must be 

 remembered that the census returns do not tell the whole truth 

 of this matter, since very often rural districts include large town- 

 ships. Also the elderly folk and many young children still remain 

 in the villages, the latter to be reared up at the expense of the 

 agricultural community for the service of the cities. As they 

 mature into the fulness of manhood or womanhood they leave the 

 home and are seen no more. 



558 



