ADVANCE IN LABOURER'S CONDITION.

65

of bread.

sixfold, while the price of bread has only the price doubled. Two centuries later, in 1770, the farm-labourer's wages was Is. 2d. a day, when the price of wheat was 46s. a quarter. In 1846, immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws, wages were Is. 7d., when wheat was 53s. At the present time wages have risen 60 per cent., while wheat has diminished in price. In other words, the labourer's earning power in procuring the staff of life cost him five days work to pay for a bushel of wheat in 1770, four days in 1840, and two and a half days in 1880. He is better lodged than he ever was before; though, in many parts of the country, there is still much room for improvement in that respect. Compared with the labourer in towns, his position is one of greater comfort; he lives in a better atmosphere, he is more free from anxiety, and has a closer and more friendly relation with his employers, and with the schoolmaster and clergyman of his parish. He is kind to animals, understands how to manage them, and in his family shows a good example, on the whole, of sobriety and industry.

F

Each of the three classes constantly recruited by changes

To these three classes are committed the agricultural interest and industry of the king

dom. The two first have duties entrusted to

of property them by the constitution, for the management

and em

ployment. of the public and local interests of their counties and parishes, in addition to their special business as landowners and agriculturists. Each of the three classes is constantly being altered and recruited by changes and additions. Landed property of the value of several millions sterling a year changes hands, and as there is necessarily a larger body of persons capable of competing for small properties, there is a certain inducement to offer it for subdivision on sale. In every county many farms change their tenants at Lady Day or Michaelmas, new men with new ideas. being substituted for the old, some of whom have died, some retired from business, and some moved elsewhere. Labourers move about more than they used to do, and learn something useful in each change, and large drafts of them pass off to the other industrial pursuits of the country, and to the colonies. The feeling of being bound to the soil or the parish of his birth

has lost much of its strength, and every facility is now presented to the unmarried agricultural labourer for improving his position if he desires to alter it.

In short, our system is that of large capitalists owning the land; of smaller capitalists, each cultivating five times more of it than they would have means to do if they owned their farms; and of labourers free to carry their labour to any market which they consider most remunerative. It has been the gradual growth of experience in a country of moderate extent, where the land is all occupied; where capital is abundant and constantly seeking investment in land; and where other industries than agriculture are always demanding recruits from the children of the agricultural labourer, who find, besides, a ready outlet in those British colonies where the soil and climate are not much different from that which they leave, and where their own language is spoken. And doubtless this facility of language has greatly helped the people of this country in encountering the trials. and difficulties of emigration. But the want of

The result

of the system compared with that

of other

countries shows

larger

it may be successfully overcome, as the example of Germany has proved in the tens of thousands of her people who have gone to the United States. There, and in North-West Canada, and in the vast continent of Australia, there is room enough to take, with advantage, the surplus population of every country in Europe for many generations. Instead of struggling at home as labourers or cultivators of small patches of land where nothing but the most sparing frugality enables them to live, the working-men of all countries are invited by Australia and North America to take a share on equal terms with our own people in the great enterprise of colonising new fields of labour, where liberty, order, and remunerative employment are offered to all comers; where the climate is pure and healthy for Europeans, and where every industry, agricultural, manufacturing, or mining, affords a field for enterprise.

A system is best tested by its fruits. Compared with all other countries, our threefold plan of landlord, farmer, and labourer appears

to yield larger returns, with fewer labourers, and

from an equal extent of land. Our average

COMPARISON WITH OTHER Countries. 69

less cost.

produce of wheat is 28 bushels an acre, as returns at against 16 in France, 16 in Germany, 13 in Russia, and 12 in the United States. We show a similar advantage in live-stock, both in quantity and quality. We have far more horses, cattle, and sheep in proportion to acreage than any other country, and in all these kinds there is a general superiority. Our most famous breeders of live-stock are the tenant-farmers. The best examples of farming are found in the same class. The improved breeds of cattle, the Leicester and Southdown sheep, and the extended use of machinery, manures, and artificial foods is chiefly due to them. And the neatness of the cultivation, the straight furrow, and the beautiful lines of drilled corn, the well-built ricks and docile horses, exhibit at once the strength and skill of the labourers. If that mode of husbandry which lessens the exchangeable value of bread and meat by an increase of production and supply is the best for the community, from whom a smaller proportion of their labour is required for the purchase of their food, then our system of subdivision of labour