THE RURAL PROBLEM 



indifferent, as is the average town politician to-day, to the 

 enormous importance, racial and financial, of rural problems, 

 to the pitiful waste of life and wealth that is going on 

 unheeded all over the countryside. 



The main symptoms of this decline are twofold. In the 

 first place there has been an actual decrease in the number 

 of people engaged in agriculture. The report of the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries on this subject, published in 1906, 

 says : " The reduction in the number of persons returned as 

 enimf'cd in agriculture in Great Britain has been one of the 

 most prominent features of the Census returns for the past 

 50 years, and it has never been more apparent than in the 

 figures for 1901, when a decline of about 20 per cent, in the 

 number of agricultural labourers during the preceding decade 

 was indicated . . ." ; and it goes on to say " the tenour of 

 the majority of the reports indicates that since 1901 there has 

 been some further reduction in the number of men employed 

 in farms, but the diminution is proceeding at a slower rate 

 than during the 10 or 20 years preceding that date." * 



It is not possible to give exact comparative tables for the 

 past hundred years, because the Census returns before 1851 

 give the number oijamilies chiefly employed in agriculture, 

 whereas the more recent returns give the number of jiersons. 

 The following tables emphasise the extent of the actual 

 decline : 



Number engaged in Agriculture, United Kingdom, 1831-1901. t 

 Table 1 . — Agriculture (England and Wales) (p. 40). 



* Cd. 3273, 1906. 



f The Progress of the Nation, by (;. 

 up to date, by F. W. Hirst, 1912. 



11. Porter. New Edition, 



