A LABOURER'S BUDGET.
Let me give the figures of the general budget of a particular group, who work under a system that is more or less common, though the details vary considerably. First the labourers receive the amount of the minimum wage prevailing in the district, which is 32s. a week. They receive a free cottage, and most of the cottages have good little gardens, which produce much good food for the family. The employer further provides the labourer with "twenty yards of potato ground," and cultivates it on his behalf. He further provides for each labourer 200 faggots of what they call in the Midlands kindling, most of it cut from hedges. These extras are doubtless small. The total wealth when all is added up comes to a sum which may seem petty in comparison with many industrial and urban budgets. The sum indicates a high level of well-being nevertheless. Many of the Danish and Swedish small farmers, whose success on the land we are never allowed to forget—and indeed it is remarkable enough to excuse many reminders—would, I am confident, rejoice if they were in essentials as well off as some of these Cornishmen. And their contentment and prosperity are finely expressed in their bearing and mien.
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