72 
The Labour Bill in Fanniuf/. 
what may fairly be included in the " Labour Bill " in farming. 
The nominal rate of wages paid in a given district, as even the 
most superficial readers of newspapers now know, represents as 
a rule neither the labourer's full gain nor the farmer's entire 
outlay in this branch of expenditure. The items which really 
contribute to this expenditure may be classed as follow : — 
1. Weekly wages for manual labour. 
2. Labourers' extra earnings from piece-work, not including 
harvest. 
3. Extra wages at harvest, whether paid by the week or in a 
lump sum for the job. 
4. Horse labour, including risk and depreciation. 
5. Difference in the value of cottage and garden, where these 
are let by the farmer or his landlord to the labourer rent-free, or 
at rentals below actual value. 
6. Perquisites given directly or indirectly as a supplement to 
wages. 
7. Wages knowingly paid by the farmer in excess of the value 
of the labour given in return, as in the case of old or infirm 
hands. 
8. The farmer's contribution in rates to the relief of the poor. 
1. " The price of labour," writes one of my correspondents, " as 
well as the rent of land, must be governed by this fact — whether 
the farmer's capital is profitably or unprofitably invested." The 
truth of the proposition may be admitted ; but then the farmer 
must move with the times, and use the means which experience 
and necessity from time to time suggest for adapting his mode 
of husbandry and employment of labour to the social or econo- 
mical changes which occur around him. In the end, self-interest 
will lead him to do what he finds it is necessary he should do for 
the purpose of insuring a profit on his capital ; but it is well 
that no time should be lost in getting into the right groove. Let 
us now see what the cost of labour is and has been in farming 
during recent years, and what seems to have been the influence 
of machinery upon the charge for manual labour. 
The old-fashioned way of estimating the cost of manual labour 
was to take it as about equal to rent and tithes. Now, however, 
the cost of labour is regulated by the system of farming pursued 
upon the various occupations. Some forty years ago, before arti- 
ficial manures came into use, a farmer depended almost entirely 
upon such manure as he could produce at home. This, again, 
ruled the number of acres under crop, and the bulk of each crop, 
and it ruled also the demand for labour. The use of artificial 
manures greatly increased the number of hands employed. The 
introduction of machinery set free some hands, but generally to 
