All this unrest, if it can be so called, is due to the shortage of men. The entire debate in the House of Commons yesterday war devoted to the problem of agricul: tural Isbour, as*the farmers are now asking that some of the older boys should be employed on the Innd. The critics of this sueeeetion fall back on the admitted truth that agricultural labour is very badly paid and suggest that more men could be obtained. if it the authorities to try all other noeans of chiaming labour before falling back on boys. No doubt the farmers are face to face with a very serious problem. Recruiting has swept the country-side, since it pays an agricultural labourer far better to serve in the Army than to work on the land; his family absence may get 10/- more than if he was working at home.
Then everyone is urging—the farmer to cow more spring what, and yet he is face to face with the appalling condition of the land which is so waterlogged that any agricultural operations of any sort are practically imp lo for the moment, and it is just now these operations on the land should start. No wonder he feels himself in a rather desperate position, and willing to accept almost any ax sistance he can get to help him to carry cut the work on his farm.
People, however, seem to forget that feod prices nearly always respond to the rise in wages; if the ter go up, the former will rise in sympathy. The problem, therefore, we shall have to face will be to what extent wages can go up without causing a general and serious embarrassment. Certainly in this war fewest sacrifices of all *|have been made by the working classes. They have never had such times of prosperity and employment. It is the lower middle classes which are being hit, and if they can weather the storm, they deserve all the credit to which they are entitled.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.