eriments were
being tried on an extended scale in the field: such as draining,
the enlargement of fields by removing hedges, the formation of
private roads, the buildings already mentioned, and new systems of
agriculture, so that there was a general stir and bustle which
meant not only better wages but wages for more persons. The latter
is of the utmost importance to the tenant-labourer, by which I mean
a man who is settled, because it keeps his sons at home. Common
experience all over the world has always shown that three or four
or more people can mess together, as in camps, at a cheaper rate
than they can live separately. If the father of the family can find
work for his boys within a reasonable distance of home, with their
united contributions they can furnish a very comfortable table, one
to which no one could object to sit down, and then still have a sum
over and above with which to purchase clothes, and even to indulge
personal fancies. Such a pleasant state of things requires that
work should be plentiful in the neighbourhood. Work at that time
was plentiful, and contented and even prosperous homes of this kind
could be found. Here is just where the difficulty arises. From a
variety of causes the work has subsided. The father of the
family--the settled man, the tenant-labourer--keeps on as of yore,
but the boys cannot get employment near home. They have to seek it
afar, one here, one yonder--all apart, and the wages each
separately receives do but just keep them in food among strangers.
It is this scarcity of work which in part seems to have
counterbalanced the improvements which promised so well. Instead of
the progress naturally to be expected you find the same insolvency,
the same wearisome monotony of existence in debt, the same hopeless
countenances and conversation.

[4] Written in 1887.

There has been a contraction of enterprise everywhere, and a
consequent diminution of employment. When a factory shuts its
doors, the fact is patent to all who pass. The hum of machinery is
stopped, and smoke no longer floats from the chimney; the building
itself, large and regular--a sort of emphasized plainness of
architecture--cannot be overlooked. It is evident to everyone that
work has ceased, and the least reflection shows that hundreds of
men, perhaps hundreds of families, are reduced from former
comparative prosperity. But when ten thousand acres of land fall
out of cultivation, the fact is scarcely noticed.