THE RURAL PROBLEM 13 



cultural labourer is often receiving his maximum wage as 

 early as twenty tends to make early marriage popular, and 

 this, combined with the steady emigration of the younger 

 men to the towns, decreases the importance of the help which 

 the family can expect from their sons. 



The girls and their mothers, if in the neighbourhood of a 

 town, may both earn something at laundry work, and the 

 girls often go into service in the neighbourhood and send 

 their wages home. But agriculture affords little opening for 

 women at the present time.* 



It may therefore safely be assumed that in the majority 

 of cases the whole of the family income comes from the one 

 wage-earner, Avho is generally the father. How small that 

 income is has already been shown ; how inadequate to the 

 needs of those dependent upon it can only be judged by a 

 consideration of the cost of living. 



§4. The Cost of Living in Agricultural Districts. 



The best way of estimating the cost of living will perhaps 

 be the quotation of weekly budgets of agricultural workers in 

 a state of comparative comfort. Unfortunately such budgets 

 are extremely rare. Few efforts have been made to tabulate 

 definitely the expenditure of rural labourers, and such as 

 havebeen made have generally been published to illustrate 

 the e'xpenses of the badly paid labourer, and are therefore 

 useless for the present purpose of finding out what the 

 labourer ought to be able to spend rather than what he does 

 spend. The best authorities are again Miss M. H. Davies and 

 Mr. Mann.f 



* Official information fails us on this point, and it is imperative 

 that the Board of Agriculture should furnish proper statistics con- 

 cerning the employment of women. But, according to the Census 

 Reports, female labourers and farm servants numbered in 1851, 

 143,475 ; 1861, 90,525 ; 1871, 5N,112 ; and women employed in agricul- 

 ture numbered in 1881, 40,346 ; 1891, 24,150. See also Hasbach, 

 The History of the Agricultural Labourer, King & Son, 1908 ; and the 

 E)iglisfncoman' 's Yearbook. 



t Since writing the above has appeared Hoiv the Labourer Lives, by 

 B. SeebohM Rowntbek (Nelson, 1918), which is now the main 

 authority. 



