There are, however, a few considerations on the other side.  The question arises whether our labourers would enjoy a plump rat for supper?  The question also arises why the Six Companies are engaged in transhipping Chinese labour from China to America?  In California the Chinese work at a rate of wages absolutely impossible to the white man—­hence the Chinese difficulty there.  In Queensland a similar thing is going on.  Crowds of Chinese enter, or have entered, the country eager for work.  If the agriculture of China is so perfect; if the sewage is utilised; if every man has his plot; if the population cannot possibly become too great, why on earth are the Chinese labourers so anxious to get to America or Australia, and to take the white man’s wages?  And is that system of agriculture so perfect?  It is not long since the Chinese Ambassador formally conveyed the thanks of his countrymen for the generous assistance forwarded from England during the late fearful famine in China.  The starvation of multitudes of wretched human beings is a ghastly comment upon this ideal agriculture.  The Chinese yellow spectre has even threatened England; hints have been heard of importing Chinese into this country to take that silver and gold which our own men disdained.  Those who desire to destroy our land system should look round them for a more palatable illustration than is afforded by the great Chinese problem.

The truth in the matter seems to be this.  A labourer does very well with a garden; he can do very well, too, if he has an allotment in addition, provided it be not too far from home.  Up to a quarter of an acre—­in some cases half an acre—­it answers, because he can cultivate it at odd times, and so receive his weekly wages without interruption.  But when the plot exceeds what he can cultivate in this way—­when he has to give whole weeks to it—­then, of course, he forfeits the cash every Saturday night, and soon begins to lose ground.  The original garden of moderate size yielded very highly in proportion to its extent, because of the amount of labour expended on it, and because it was well manured.  But three or four acres, to yield in like degree, require an amount of manure which it is quite out of a labourer’s power to purchase; and he cannot keep live stock to produce it.  Neither can he pay men to work for him consequently, instead of being more highly cultivated than the large farms, such plots would not be kept so clean and free from weeds, or be so well manured and deeply ploughed as the fields of the regular agriculturist.

CHAPTER XXV

LANDLORDS’ DIFFICULTIES.  THE LABOURER AS A POWER.  MODERN CLERGY