The Organisation oj the Industry. 29 



from the land ag^ainst their will. It may be that my 

 outlook is coloured by an intimate knowledge of the Scots 

 farm worker who is given to seeking his fortune in the 

 ends of the earth, and who is never sentimental about his 

 birthplace until he is safely settled many miles away from 

 it, but I fail to find any evidence of this attachment to the 

 land, and I would point for confirmation of my belief to 

 the fact that the problem of maintaining a rural population 

 is common to every settled land, and is appearing in the 

 New World, and in our colonies. It is a tendency every 

 civilised community endeavours to counteract by legislation. 

 Man is a gregarious animal ; he wants to be where the 

 pulse of life beats most rapidly, where there are more 

 prizes in life, even if the chances of gaining them are very 

 remote. Against this tendency agriculture will always 

 have to struggle, and the best it can hope to do will be 

 to reduce the handicap under which it labours at present. 



In this country the conditions of the agricultural 

 workers have been such as to force the pace of rural 

 depopulation. Wages have been so low in some districts 

 as to constitute a grave social danger ; in the better-paid 

 districts they have been less than would induce the more 

 vigorous and enterprising workers to remain in the 

 industry. But wages were only one of the factors, and in 

 many districts not the most important factor. Housing 

 conditions contributed their share to the exodus from the 

 land. The number of houses available fell far short of 

 the requirements of the industry in many districts, while 

 the condition of the houses in existence was in the majority 

 of cases below any reasonable standard of human 

 habitation. 



