176 Rents, Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



more enterprising farmers are adapting 

 themselves to the new conditions if agri- 

 culture again becomes prosperous we may 

 expect that the labourer will share much 

 more than ever before in that prosperity. 

 And under the new conditions it will pay 

 the farmer to have labourers of a higher 

 standard. On the whole, the skilled 

 artisan in the towns is much better off 

 than his prototype, the independent small 

 master, who employed himself and his 

 family in domestic industry ; and even 

 under present conditions, it is probable 

 that the agricultural labourer in England is 

 much better off than the peasant owner in 

 any continental country. If, in the course 

 of economic progress, his position should 

 be still further improved, the English 

 system of landlord, tenant, and labourer 

 would be far better, from the social and 

 national point of view, than any system of 

 occupying ownership on a small scale. 



