112 Rents, Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



scarcit}^, in a great measure, that the lise 

 in real wages is due, as will appear more 

 clearly when we proceed to trace the 

 general course of agricultural wages, com- 

 pared with that of other employments. The 

 bearing on rural depopulation is discussed 

 in the next chapter, and here it is only 

 necessary to emphasise one point. Since 

 1850 the number of male agricultural 

 labourers has diminished by some 40 per 

 cent — and women and young children are 

 practically no longer employed. At first 

 sight this falling off in the numbers 

 employed on the land seems a matter for 

 national regret. But a good deal of this 

 regret is based on sentimental, a priori 

 considerations, of what agricultural labour 

 ought to be, and not on the actual facts 

 of history. Between the twenties and 

 fifties, except in the Northern counties, 

 where there were other fields of employment 



