【正文】 to prevent structural unemployment, . on the one hand, there is a surplus unskilled farming population, while on the other, there is a shortage of skilled technicians. The Cause of Surplus Agricultural Labour Surplus agricultural labour generally takes two forms. One is longterm or absolute surplus. In other words, the supply of labour surpasses the capacity of land and other means of production. The other is seasonal or relative surplus. The character of agricultural production is that the period of production is long and seasons are very important. There is a big difference in the demand for labour between busy and slack farming seasons. Generally speaking, there are two or three months per year of peak demand for labour. The other months are slack seasons. Consequently, a very flexible labour force is required. In slack seasons, there are remarkably large numbers of surplus workers. The following points are the major causes of surplus agricultural labour. （ 1） The root cause is the smallscale farming mode of production and the low level of productive technology formed through China39。s long history. China39。s agriculture has been in a backward state for so many hundreds of years that natural economy has occupied a dominant position. In order to withstand natural calamities, people always relied on more workers, instead of on the improvement of the tools of production. Heavy manual work was the chief mode of production in the old society, so the development of agricultural production was linked to massive employment of manpower. In this mode of production, people naturally did not know the exact economic ratio between the result of work and the consumption of labour. They did not grudge putting in large amounts of labour. In this way, more and more labourers were wanted, and in turn, more and more population was required. This is the tradition of Chinese agriculture. As early as the Western Zhou dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago, there existed largescale collective labour. The old tradition of farming, as recorded in Shijing (The Book of Songs), ten thousand people make a group, and a thousand groups can do farming, was passed on up to the present. It still influences modern agricultural production. This, then, is the historical cause. (2) The quantity and quality of workers directly affect family ines and standard of living. In the current socialist stage, workers have not pletely eliminated this vestige of the old society. They still take labour as a means of making a living, and cannot work wholly for society without being paid. A farmer, for one thing, is one of the members of the collective economy。 for another, he is a labourer in a private capacity. This dual position of farmers determines that they work not only for the needs of the collective production, but also directly for their ines corresponding to their labour. Thus, the material benefits of workers and the amount of labour they provide are directly proportional. If workers want to get more pay, they must put in more work. The quantity of labour usually has the dominant effect on both production and the living standard of families when tools and technology of production are less developed. On top of that, there exists a state of natural employment in the country, . when children are old enough to work, or even before that, they join in the collective production naturally. The fact objectively encourages people to have more children, which results in the increase of the birth rate in the country, and consequently contributes to the surplus labour. (3) The cost for agricultural labour reproduction is lower than that in the city. In general, the birth rate and the cost of bringing up children are inversely related. The lower the cost for labour reproduction, the higher the birth rate. In China, the cost of rearing a labourer to the age of 16 is roughly onethird of that in towns, and onequarter of that in medium and big cities. This makes it easier to rear children in the country. That is one of the reasons why, for over 30 years after liberation, the birth rate in the country has always been higher than in cities, 45 per cent higher in 1971 and still 35 per cent higher in 1978. The increase in the rural population must lead to an increase in the farming population. But when the land, the main means of production in the country, does not expand, or even decreases, the labour force per unit area obviously increases, and surplus occurs. (4) Agricultural machinery has replaced a certain amount of farm labour. In 1978, the total power of farm machines in China was about 150 million horsepower, or one horsepower for 10 mu on average. Machineploughed areas make up 46 per cent of the total farmland, and machinesown areas, 10 per cent. Though it is not highly mechanised, a certain amount of labour has already been displaced, which adds to surplus labour. (5) Agriculture has not developed to its full extent. Agricultural modity production has not developed enough, and management is underdeveloped. Too much attention has been given to planting, while a diversified and allround development has been ignored. Even in planting, undue emphasis has been put on grain crops, while economic crops have been ignored. Some areas of production still remain at an unrefined stage, lacking intensive and scientific farming. Therefore the efficient use of labour has not improved much. According to a typical case investigation in 1979, labour devoted to planting made up 80 per cent of the total farm labour. (6) The development of education in rural areas is not rapid enough and so some teenagers join the agricultural labour force too early, making the problem of surplus labour even more serious. (7) A retirement system is not generally available in the country. Actually, there are people who