THE SITUATION IN 1908 315 



through England. He considered that, after foreign competi- 

 tion, the great danger to English farming was the lack of 

 labour,^ for young men and women were everywhere leaving 

 the country for the towns, attracted by the nominally high 

 wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the pavement. 

 Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of the 

 last generation than either landowner or farmer : he is better 

 housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with 

 discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems 

 to be a reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the 

 townward movement, and in most places the supply of labour 

 is sufficient. The quality, however, is almost universally 

 described as inferior ; the labourer takes no pride in his work, 

 and good hedgers, thatchers, milkers, and men who understand 

 live stock are hard to obtain-; and the reason for this is in 

 large measure due to the modern system of education which 

 keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to take to it. 

 His wages to-day in most parts are good ; near manufacturing 

 towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from iSs. to 20s. a week 

 with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from 

 13J. to 15J. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower 

 figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large 

 estates, though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent 

 usually paid is £4 or £^ a year, rising to ^7 and ;^8 near large 

 towns. The wise custom of giving him a garden has spread, 

 and is nearly always found to be much more helpful than an 

 allotment. The superior or more skilled workmen,^ such as 



^ Rural England, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881, and 

 1 891 gave no support to the idea ^ki^t young men were leaving agriculture 

 for the towns. See Pari. Reports (1893), xxxviii. (2) n. 



* The author speaks from information derived from answers to ques- 

 tions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts of 

 England, to whom he is greatly indebted. 



' It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done, that the 

 ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is unskilled. A good 

 man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and do the innumerable 

 tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much more skilled worker than 

 many who are so called in the towns. 



