NATIVES AND LABOUR 211 



definite amount of work for a definite amount 

 of pay, may appear to the native a system of 

 injustice, and not without reason ; for this system 

 ignores altogether the fact that both physically 

 and mentally we have been endowed unequally by 

 Nature. In Europe we know all about a man ; 

 how he works in the field, how he behaves himself 

 in the village ; but in Airica we knuw unij halt oi 

 him, as into the village life we cannot penetrate. 

 A man may have virtues and be highly esteemed 

 by his fellows and yet be an indifferent worker in 

 the field. By judging of the number of square 

 yards he can weed in a day, and measuring his 

 worth by a system of tallies and checks, we may 

 excite the resentment of his fellows. The Arab 

 was content to get his cloves picked, leaving it 

 more or less to the people themselves who should 

 pick them from day to day. His guiding maxim 

 with his people was tolerance, echoing the ways 

 of natives themselves. No one who has even 

 watched natives at work among themselves can 

 fail to have been struck by the apparent inequality 

 of the distribution of labour and the philosophic 

 resignation with which such is always accepted, 

 suggestive of an understanding between them ; of 

 which, however, they are always completely silent. 

 A skilful and experienced European labourer is 

 apt to cherish a sense of injustice if he receives 



