14 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



that, our intended blending of classes must remain a source of 

 weakness like the toes of iron sandwiched between other toes of 

 " miry clay " in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The two classes 

 of fibre, to return to the simile of the " patch," want to be milled 

 together afresh into one cloth. 



And even that does not complete our problem. In the country 

 now, as long since in towns, labour has appeared on the scene as a 

 powerful factor, well equipped for asserting itself and claiming all 

 that is its own. Under such conditions ignoring it, as has been 

 our wont hitherto, is out of the question. It is there. It knows 

 its strength, and it knows its rights. As a productive factor it is 

 indispensable. We cannot do without it. The man who under- 

 farms in order to keep down his labour bill is wronging at once 

 himself and the country, bleeding the sap out of the tree that is 

 meant to grow into timber. And the country, wanting its modicum 

 of cultivable land to be turned to the most profitable account, will 

 not indefinitely stand this. Then what are we to do ? We have 

 raised wages. We could not avoid doing so. We are endeavouring 

 to provide houses — which, after excessively prolonged neglect, proves 

 a lengthy business. But these labours in truth only accentuate 

 the potentiality of coming danger, rather than avert it. For it 

 is the well-paid labourers, in a position approaching to independ- 

 ence, who brace themselves to a fight — not, indeed, in a Luddite 

 or rick-burners' way, but by a far more formidable sort of warfare, 

 such as we have had a specimen of recently in the threatened coal 

 strike, and in the long succession of strikes and labour disputes 

 preceding it, turning our national world topsy-turvy, and punishing 

 those most who have the least to do with the cause of the dispute, 

 the innocent and helpless and defenceless millions of people of 

 moderate, for the most part very moderate, means, who had not the 

 chance of granting to labour what it rightly or not rightly asked for, 

 and on the top of that, thoughtlessly endangering our national 

 industry and commerce. We are at the starting point of a new 

 course. In the past agricultural labour was a factor that might 

 be ignored with momentary impunity. Are we to see now the same 

 troubles that have so grievously disturbed our industrial life 

 and damaged it again and again very seriously — giving our 

 " enemies " that " opportunity " for cutting us out, as which a 

 familiar proverb describes dissensions — repeated on rural soil ? 

 Are we to invite strikes there, such as we have seen in Italy, where 

 the garnered produce was left to spoil on the lorries, and cows were 

 left unmilked and beasts unfed ? Or are we going to take steps 



