rs.
There were no independent builders; I mean the cottages were not
built by the labouring class. They are let by farmers to those
labourers who engage for the year, and if they quit this employment
they quit their houses. Hence it is that even the labourers who have
families are not settled men in the full sense, but are liable to be
ordered on if they do not give satisfaction, or if cause of quarrel
arises. The only settled men--the only fixed population in villages
and hamlets at the present day--are that small proportion who
possess cottages of their own. This proportion varies, of course,
but it is always small. Of old times, when it was the custom for men
to stay all their lives in one district, and to work for one farmer
quite as much for payment in kind as for the actual wages, this made
little difference. Very few men once settled in regular employment
moved again; they and their families remained for many years as
stationary as if the cottage was their property, and frequently
their sons succeeded to the place and work. Now in these days the
custom of long service has rapidly disappeared. There are many
reasons, the most potent, perhaps, the altered tone of the entire
country. It boots little to inquire into the causes. The fact is,
then, that no men, not even with families, will endure what once
they did. If the conditions are arbitrary, or they consider they are
not well used, or they hear of better terms elsewhere, they will
risk it and go. So, too, farmers are more given to changing their
men than was once the case, and no longer retain the hereditary
faces about them. The result is that the fixed population may be
said to decline every year. The total population is probably the
same, but half of it is nomad. It is nomad for two reasons--because
it has no home, and because it must find wages.

Farmers can only pay so much in wages and no more; they are at the
present moment really giving higher wages than previously, though
nominally the same in amount. The wages are higher judged in
relation to the price of wheat; that is, to their profits. If coal
falls in price, the wages of coal-miners are reduced. Now, wheat has
fallen heavily in price, but the wages of the labourer remain the
same, so that he is, individually, when he has employment, receiving
a larger sum. Probably, if farming accounts were strictly balanced,
and farming like any other business, that sum would be found to be
more than the busines