THE CALL FOR RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 13 



than newcomers, new to the habits and customs of the country, 

 new to its life and its occupations, could do. By all means allow 

 new blood to filter in, but above all things keep that in your veins 

 which Providence has placed there. 



Now that involves a new problem — the problem, as Mr. Roosevelt 

 has termed it, of " country life." People will not stay where they 

 are not comfortable and happy, sufficiently housed, sufficiently fed, 

 comfortably " neighboured " — to coin a new word — and given a 

 prospect of getting on — getting on without submission to such 

 severe hardships as the few, who by a stroke of luck have managed 

 to rise, have invariably had to put up with. A man — and still more 

 a woman, on whose action in this matter really more depends than 

 upon the action of the man — to care to stay on a given spot, wants 

 to be comfortable, not only with a home of his or her own, constituting 

 the proverbial " Englishman's castle," and that " plenty of beef 

 and mutton, with potatoes, vegetables and pudding to match," 

 which, according to Sydney Smith's definition, constitutes " good 

 government," but also with other men and women close by with 

 whom to associate and exchange thoughts. 



We have brought about a notable change in the matter of wages — 

 a change which has terrified not a few of our farmers, and is leading 

 them rather to neglect their duty to themselves and to the country 

 — the duty of " producing " — than bow to the spirit of modern time 

 and pay their labourers the full hire according to present estimate — 

 though the majority of farmers do not in the least grudge " Hodge '' 

 his better remuneration. However, wages are not all. And a 

 weekly half holiday — wrongly identified with Saturday as a necessity 

 — is not all either. And even the agrements just spoken of, and all 

 of which have not yet been provided, are not all. Man wants 

 surroundings also. We are doing a little now to " brighten " 

 country life and make it more entertaining. But, like other work 

 of ours in the same direction, what we do in this respect suffers 

 under the effect of that damnosa haereditas of strict division of our 

 rural population into classes, which has been handed down to us 

 from feudal times. Good people are kind — meaning thoroughly 

 well — but the brew resulting from the intermingling of distinct 

 constituents turns out not a clear liquid, but a cloudy, turbid 

 emulsion with particles that will not mix, swimming side by side, 

 in close touch, but keeping separate all the same. If real country 

 life is to be brought about, further assimilation is needed, and that 

 is to be effected only by means different from those applied at 

 present, of putting new patches on old cloth. If we cannot do 



