working for a weekly wage, who could put hand in pocket and buy their humble dwellings and the meadows that lie adjacent. There are tens of thousands who could buy similar properties provided that time were given to pay, and the purchase money spread over some years. The labourer will never make outcry enough to secure these benefits for himself. He is not of the blatant sort; he has never been used to adopt the "'Ercles' vein.' Political agitators gain no permanent hold over him. There is at heart no such thorough-going conservative as the man who lives on the land, whatever be his grade. He will, as I say, make no outcry that can be heard outside his own village; but, now that education is teaching him a little and travelling facilities are cheap, he will merely move on to a place which seems to him to promise more than the rural district in which he has hitherto lived. He will go to the town; it is by far the simplest way out of his difficulty. And we have no right to complain. We do nothing to keep him with us; or rather we do nothing that he wants us to do. He will come back to us quickly enough when he has something to come for. The thing he asks is a big thing with a very small name: its name is Hope. He thinks he can find it in the town, but he knows that in the country there is only Wanhope-Despair. And the irony of the thing is this, that the man who goes to the town is the man whom we should most desire to keep with us. He is the enterprising man, the industrious man, the independent spirit that should be the backbone of our agricultural districts. If he were not all these he would stay at home, content to live as his father lived, to lie close like pigs in a sty, to spend 30 per cent. of his earnings at the public-house.

Let us strain every nerve to undo the wrong we are doing him and the wrong we have done him, as well as the injury we inflict on ourselves in this matter. I do not contend that the remedies which I have to suggest are pleasant ones from our point of view. The salient fact is that they are demanded, whether tacitly or otherwise, by the person who is even more concerned than we are in the matter -by the labourer himself. We should not willingly choose selfeffacement; who would? But, regarding the position still from the same standpoint of selfishness which has undoubtedly been ours hitherto, we should hasten to make material concessions lest a worse thing befall us. We have, despite the bogies with which people try to frighten us, little to fear from the labourer through his becoming a landed proprietor. Was it not Pliny who cried, when pauperism was at its acme, and agriculture had declined in consequence of the overgrowth of great estates, Latifundia perdidere Italiam'? That the peasant proprietor is not necessarily a source of weakness the history of other lands than ours is capable of telling us. We are ready to acknowledge that something must be done to keep the labourer at home; why not give him the thing that he

wants, and the thing which we could so easily give him if we chose ? He will, as I have said, make mistakes, but they will not be so egregious as some that we could tell of, and they will have valuable formative elements in them. Let him have his playground, his free library, including books other than didactic, and his club-room. Let him have a large increase of educational privileges, not provided as now in the form of elementary night-schools, established and presided over by the parson and terminable at his will, but permanent institutions on a county basis, which he will recognise and profit by as soon as they are permanent. Let him have all these, and let him know that he is the actual owner of them, though they may be vested in his parish council as the acting trustees. And, above all, let him have the power both of renting and of buying land in his own parish, and, if possible, near his own door. The land hunger cannot be stayed by any cheaper food.

H. M. BATSON.

1899

TOWN AND COUNTRY LABOURERS

II

IN the June number of this Review Dr. Jessopp comments on the migration of the country labourer to towns.

He gives as a cause the fact that girls migrate first and that young men follow.

The conditions of the town and country labourer are often contrasted, generally with a view to prove how much better off the town labourer is as to the amount he earns in wages. The statement, however, that the high house rent in towns is compensated by superior accommodation receives doubtful acceptance; on the other hand, the extras earned by the ordinary country labourer in addition to his fixed wage are generally regarded as mythical, and incapable of intelligible statement in detail.

In inquiring as to the available income of these men I exclude the skilled mechanic, the shepherd, and the carter. My comparison is between the (so-called) unskilled labourer and the same man who prefers to sell his labour in a town.

In Cumberland a first-class labourer receives from 321. to 361. a year; a second-class, from 20l. to 24l.; and a third-class, generally a strong boy, from 12. to 16.

These men are hired by the half-year, and their wages are fixed on the basis that both board and lodging are found by the employer.

A married man who lives in his cottage and boards himself receives from 15s. to 16s. 6d. for thirty-six weeks in the year, increasing to 188. or 198. 6d. during the other thirteen.

He would pay for his cottage-according to its condition or distance from a town-18. 3d., 18. 9d., or 28. per week. He sometimes has a garden with it, but not so frequently as the labourer in the South and West; nor does the North-Countryman care for, or make as much out of, his garden as the Southerner. Assuming for the purpose of comparison that he works every working day in the year, his earnings would come to from 40l. 198. to 44l. 178. From these sums would be deducted one or other of the weekly rents cited above,

amounting severally to 5l. 48., 4l. 11s., and 3l. 48.; leaving for spending purposes from 35l. 158., 36l. 88., and 371. 148. to 391. 13s., 40l. 6s., and 41l. 128. For the purposes of comparison we must assume that the town labourer also works every day in the week. His earnings would then amount to 158. a week, in exceptional cases to as much as 188. or 1l. a week. A married man would not get a house in Carlisle at a rent under 5s. or 4s. 6d. a week. What he would have to spend, according to his earnings and house rent, would be one or other of the sums following: 26l., 28l. 6s., 33l. 16s., 35l. 28., 391., or 41l. 6s. per annum. In the matter of recreation the North-Country labourer, as compared to the town dweller, is perhaps better off than he of the South. Dancing and wrestling, the two favourite recreations of the North, can be practised anywhere in fine weather, and do not require special ground and the paraphernalia necessary for cricket. The labouring class of both sexes learn to dance from qualified professors of the art, and pay to acquire the accomplishment.

The only fixed holidays of the North-Country labourer are from two to three days at two out of the four terms or hirings: viz. Candlemas, Lammas, Whitsuntide, and Martinmas. These holidays are generally taken at the two last-named terms. Any other holiday-for an agricultural show, race meeting, or picnic-he would only get by permission. Speaking generally, the price of unskilled labour in towns is more a matter of individual bargaining than it is in country districts; from this the hiring of the agricultural labourer in the North is an exception. The hiring takes place at one of the statute fairs, and is for the half-year; and a strong, active, intelligent man might make better terms than one not so favourably endowed. Hence the classification of the labourer in the North apart from the shepherd and carter class. This is a state of affairs the employer of the South and West might envy. There a man gets a man's wage of the county, or district of the county, irrespective of his worth; the only classification being between men, boys, and men who on account of their advanced age receive a reduced wage. The fixed-wage system favours the less effective labourer, but is against the man whose intelligence and strength are above the average. The variation of wages in towns depends, as I have said, more on bargains between individuals. This remark applies to private employers of labour only. Urban Councils, railway companies, and private employers in a large way of business pay high wages on a uniform scale. In a town in the West, which is a large railway centre, the ordinary labourer employed at the railway works begins at a wage of 168. per week of fifty-four hours. The hours are from 6 A.M. to 5.30 P.M., with three-quarters of an hour allowed for breakfast, and one hour for dinner for five days in the week, and from 6 A.M. till 12 on Saturdays, three-quarters of an hour being allowed for breakfast.

This is the lowest wage paid to the ordinary labourer by the company. An active, intelligent man might soon at piece-work earn 208. a week. These men are allowed their coal at the price of 7d. per cwt.; this, with other privileges, is equal perhaps to 28. per week. They lose no time on account of bad weather, but lose quite three weeks in the year on account of the holidays. The Urban District Council pay their men 20s. a week of fifty-four hours. Builders' labourers are paid in proportion to their capability, at from 3d. up to 6d. per hour. In the neighbouring brick works a large number of labourers are employed during the summer months. The work is generally done by the piece, and is very heavy. During the summer a man might earn from 258. to 27s. 6d. per week of fifty-eight and a half hours. In the winter these men would be employed digging clay, and, if by day work, at the rate of 44d. an hour, or 208. 3d. per week of fiftyfour hours.

In this town a case came to my notice where an able-bodied man was employed in a large furniture shop in moving furniture and odd jobs at 10s. a week. The hours were from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M.-ninety hours, that is-from which would have to be deducted whatever time was allowed for meals. In considering the condition of agricultural labourers in the South and West, I have taken individual cases, but have not given names. The amounts I cite as paid for house rent in towns are rents paid for actual houses, although I do not give the numbers and streets. In taking 128. a week as the wage of the labourer in the South and West, I am not, I believe, exceeding the average. The Kent and Surrey wages are higher, and house rent, except when cottages are in the hands of small proprietors, is not higher than in Wilts, Hants, or Dorset. When a man is employed at harvest work or piece-work of any kind, he does not receive his fixed wage in addition. It is necessary therefore to take the number of days in the year on which he worked for 2s. as representing the fixed wage. As the comparison is between the country labourer with a garden and the town labourer without one, in each case the rent paid is regarded as being for the house only. I have had great difficulty in arriving at the value of a garden to a married man with a family-not, however, from want of information obtainable on the subject. Dr. A. H. Crespi, well known in the West as a writer on this and kindred subjects, puts the value of a garden of an eighth of an acre to a man and his family at 5s. per week. Dr. Crespi was, however, speaking of cottagers living close to the towns of Bournemouth and Poole. Under such favourable conditions, and when a pig is kept, the value may be more; and when the amount of land with the cottage is larger, and fowls are kept too, the weekly value runs to 7s. or 10s.

This, whether it be so or not, would not apply to the instances I have in my mind, where the produce of the garden is in most cases Q Q

VOL. XLVI -No. 272