"HOME SETTLEMENT "
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The most serious aspect of the land question in Great Britain as regards home food production is the dearth of skilled labour, the supply of which is steadily diminishing.
Since about eighty years ago, when Great Britain concen- trated on industrialism at the expense of agriculture, there has been a constant migration of able-bodied men to the urban districts. As an instance of this I know three villages in Somerset (a strictly rural county) which in 1868 had
populations of 1,300, 1,000 and 260. At the Census of 1921 they only returned 900, 800 and 167 respectively. All purely
agricultural districts tell the same depressing story. For the greater part of this period the' wage of the farm worker was about 9s. to 10s. per week. A cottage was sometimes thrown in, but as rents up till 1914 ranged from ls. 6d. to
2s. weekly, this did not amount to much, apart from profit from garden produce, which sometimes enabled the occupier to keep a pig. One cannot be surprised, therefore, at the drift to the towns, where up till 1914 an unskilled operative could earn about 25s. weekly.
The War placed quite a different complexion on the wage question both in town' and country. Between 1914 and 1920
the farmer experienced a boom, rents not having been raised, while prices of farm produce rose to extravagant heights, e.g., barley at one time was selling at 140s. a quarter, as against a normal 40s. Livestock, milk, and butter rose in proportion. Wages also went up to 46s. weekly, as against a normal 12s. to 15s. The boom was of short duration, however, and wages
fell in 1922 to 30s. As an unskilled urban operative could command 50s., the migration to the towns continued.
Cultivators of the soil in Great Britain or:y amount to 800,000 out of a total population of 45,000,000, so one can see that our 30 million acres are dangerously understaffed. Unless some action is taken soon to retain these 800,000 on the land we shall soon be minus skilled labour, as they cannot be replaced from the urban districts—a town-reared man being physically unfit for farm work in all weathers.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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