1 68 RURAL EMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS [CH

chefs d'exploitation, agricultural entrepreneurs large and small, actually grew. It is most unfortunate that similar figures are notavailable for every decade. But non-statistical information confirmstheimpressionwhich these figures give

—

^namelythat

when

the rural population began to decline absolutely, about the year 1875, the declinetooktheformofamigrationfromthe daylabouringand farm servantclassintothe towns.

The

^class,

itwillberemembered,has alwaysbeenrecruited,first,fromthe small sections of absolutely landless people in the country districts; second, from the holders of scraps of land

by

which they cannot live; third, from peasants' sons

who

see no immediateprospect of

coming

intoproperty.

These

groupsare

composed

of

men,

all of

whom,

since the introduction of uni- versalmilitary serviceby theThird Republic, havelearnt

what town

life islike

—

^{atleastasseenfrom}thebarracks.

The

modest prospects for

them

on the land fail to satisfy. Moreover, in spite of the natural outcry of employers against the rural exodus,andthefatal

charm

ofthecity, it is ofcourse true that with

modern

mechanical developments in agriculture less labour is required to the acre, for arable farming, than was required in the years before agricultural machinery began to tell.

And

the

economy

ofmachinery is not confined to arable farming. But either the exodus

went beyond

the point of

maximum economy

ⁱⁿthe substitution ofmachineryfor

human

labour, or employers, finding that an alternative and cheaper labour supply was available,did nottrouble to

push

_{the use of} machinery to the point of

maximum economy;

for towards the endofthenineteenthcentury, before the fallhad gonefar, these absconding

Frenchmen

began to be replaced

on

a large scale

by

immigrantaliens.

^Belgian labourers had for a long time been in the habit of tramping into the north French departments, particularly for gang

work

in the fields of sugar beet. Their

numbers

grew.

Spaniards tramped roimd the Pyrenees for the vintage of the soilth. Italianshelped to get inthe harvestsof the south-east, or were hired as covraien and cheesemakers

by

the well-to-do French peasantry of Savoy.

A

few Swiss and

Germans

also came, and latterly,in thepresent century, therebeganto arrive

viii]

RURAL _EMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS

169 inthe north-east,

and

_evenintheneighbourhood ofParis,

some

of those Polish harvesters

on whose

assistance

Germany

had rehed for

many

years. This last is an extraordinary develop- ment.

The

^"child-rich " Slav, asthe

Germans

callhim, reaches right across

Germany

tospillhissurplus childreninMalthusian France.

As

vs^ith the Belgian, the Italian and the Spaniard, earnings

and

conditions of w^ork, which had

made

the

more

prosperous

Frenchman

rebeland goto town,were anattraction drawing

him from

afar.

These

agriculturalimmigrants weremostly birds of passage.

They came

for harvest, vintage,or beetlifting,madetheirmoney,

and

returned.

Some

of theItalians,however, andaconsiderable

number

of Spaniards,

came

withintention tostay,andapplied for naturalisation.

No

estimate of their numbers, as dis- tinguished

from

the total

number

of aliens engaged on

work

ofall kindsin France, has been put forward; butit

must

have been

many

scores of thousands.

It is quite impossible to determine whether or not the agricultureofFrance,

from

1875 onwards, did or did not "need^"

so

many human

hands as it

had

once employed.

As

has been already pointed out, the rural population fell in the thirty years

from

₁₈₇₆ to 1906

by

2,200,000 or 9 per^cent. But

some

ofthis fall

was

in the lower age groups

—

^{fewer children.}

^And

some

of thefallinadultswas

made

good

by

aliens.

The

^{decline*^}

in the working force

was

therefore small. If France had all

beenrearrangedintomethodicalandeconomicalholdings,

many

fewer hands

would

^certainly have been required.

The

small holding system,

and

especiallythesystemof small"dispersed"

holdings, is obviously in a sense -yvasteful oflabour. But, as^^

suming

that the small holding system is worth preserving for socialreasons,and thatdispersedholdings,asthingsare,cannot be abolished, it is impossible to determine whether in fact employers, including

some

peasants, might have used

more

machinery but preferred to hire cheap ^aliens, or whether

—

and

this is the critical point

—

^the development of forms of agriculture

which

require

more human

^{labour very} nearly balancedthe

economy

of labourdueto machinery. Leavingthe question unsettled, the

two

lines of agricultural evolution.

lyo

MACHINERY

^[ch.

economy

of labour

by

the use of machinery, and

demand

for labour by the growth of intensive and specialised forms of cultivation,

may

be^followed.

§44.

Up

tothesixties,theonlyformof agriculturalmachinery which had

come

into at all generaluse in France,

was

theold- fashioned type of threshingmachine,usually

worked by

ahorse sor mule. Itsusewasalmost confinedtothe north,and

was

not universal there. But

by

curtailing thebusiness of

hand

threshing in winter, it had already

made

an important inroad

on

the century-old routine of agricultural work,and reducedthe need for day labourers on the larger holdings.

The

agricultural statistics of 1862 reported 101,000 threshing machines. (Note that France then contained 790,000 holdings ^of

more

than 25 ^acres and 3,200,000 ploughs.)

They

also

showed

that ex- periments were being

made

on the really large holdings with othermachines,

some

ofrecentlyinventedtypes,

some

^oftypes

known

in England since the eighteenth century.

There

were said to be 26,000 horse hoes; 11,000 drilling machines; of

mowers

forhay

and

reapers for corn,9000^{each; ofhorserakes} and haymaking machines, together 6000.

By

comparing these figures with the 154,000 holdings of

more

than 100 acres in France, a precise notion can be gained of the tinypart then played

by

machinery.

Not

quite7 per^cent,of these big holdings

owned

drillingmachines. Less than4^percent,of

them had

any kindofhay

making

machine.

And

these are classesofmachines

known

in England quite early in the century.

/

Thirty years laterthe pictureis different, but the difference is less than might perhaps have been expected.

By

the early nineties agriculturalmachineryhad

won

thedayinallcountries

^wherelargefarmingwas therule. Constantly beingimproved, especially inAmerica andEngland,itwasundertaking

new

tasks and doing the old ones faster and on a greater scale.

The

big power-driven threshing machine had driven out the smaller types.

The

American reaping machine had

become

a reaper and binder inthe seventies.

And

so on.

The

French agricul- tural statistics of 1892, while not telling nearly all that could bedesired, yetthrowvaluablelightontheprogress ofmachinery in alandwherethe typical holdingwas smalland"dispersed."

vni]

MACHINERY

₁₇₁

Putting

on

one sidethe very small holdings (under ₂J acres), asquite unsuitedtomachinery_ofanykind, therewere_3,467,000 holdings in France in 1892.

There

were said to be 3,669,000 ploughsofallsorts.

No

doubt

many

of the smallerholdings at the

bottom

of the scale

would

_{have no plough oftheir own,} while allfair sized arableholdings requiredseveral. Apartfrom ploughs, harrows,

and

so on, machinery could hardly be ex- pected

on

the holdingsbelow25acres.

Take

then, inconnection withthe other types of machinery, the holdingsabovethatline.

There

were, as

shown

in the table in _§ 42, 746,000 between 25

and

100 acres,and 147,000 over 100 acres.

And

there

was

only a Httle

more

than one drilling machine and one hay-

making machine

forevery three holdings of 100acres ormore.

(Drilling machines, _52,000; haymaking machines, 51,000.)

That

^is to say,

hand

sowing and

hand

haymaking dominated even

on

the larger holdings.

There

were 29,000 holdings over 250^acres

and

only 23,000 reaping machines;so thatthe largest type of holdings did not average onereaper each.

There

were 252,000 horse hoes, a class of machine which

was

evidently

coming

into use

on some

holdings under 100 acres, and there

were

234,000 threshing machines.

The

^{last figure is} vague;

for

we do

not

know how many

of thesewerethebig migratory machines,

which do

nearly all the

work

in England, and

how many

small fixed machines of the earlier types. But ^there cannotbe

much

doubtthatthelatterpredominated. Injudging the otherimplements

and

machinestoo,it

must

be

remembered

that a

name

tells little.

How

often

was

the plough just the ancient araire,the

bough

of a tree shodwith metal,which

was

still to be seen in corners ofFrance in 1913^?

No

^{doubt very}

often.

Were

the reapers, reapers

and

binders, or

some

earlier type? Probablyalmostwithoutexception thelatter. ^{-^}

The

conclusion

from

these figuresisclear.

Those

machines,

which

^are the typicalproducts of the applicationof nineteenth century metallurgyandengineeringto agriculture,hadnoteven conquered the larger French holdings in 1892, ^if thestatistics are at all trustworthy.

And

they

must

be trustworthy enough' to bear the weightofthis simple conclusion.

There

canhardly

be

a50 percent, error intheenumerationofreapers.