Dr. Rhodes, at the Demographic Congress, called attention to
"the migration which was going on from the English agricultural districts. In Lancashire and other manufacturing districts 35 per cent. of the population were over 60 years of age, but in agricultural districts they would have over 60 per cent. Many of the cottages were so abominable that they could not call them houses, and the people so deteriorated in physique that they were not able to do the amount of work which able-bodied persons should do. Unless something was done to make the lot of the agricultural labourer better, the exodus would go on, with what results in the future he dared not say."—Times, 15th August, 1891.
The Press, Liberal, Radical, and Conservative, views this grave symptom of the time with the same alarm. The St. James's Gazette, on June 6, 1892, remarks:
"How best to provide the proper antidote against the greatest danger of modern existence is a question of no mean significance."
The Star, 9th October, 1891, says:
"How to stem the drift from the country is one of the main problems of the day. The labourer may perhaps be restored to the land, but how will the country industries be restored to rural England?"
The Daily News, a few years ago, published a series of articles, "Life in our Villages," dealing with the same problem.
Trade Unionist leaders utter the same note of warning. Mr. Ben Tillet says:
"Hands are hungry for toil, and lands are starving for labour."
