Chapter X 

 LABOUK 



The creation of a large peasant population, composed of small 

 folk cultivating land with their own hands, for their own profit, 

 such as we are now as a nation making the aim of our policy, is, 

 under one aspect, the apotheosis of agricultural labour. Once this 

 desired object is brought about, the vexed question between employer 

 and employed appears to the sanguine happily settled — or else 

 evaded. There will be no less labour employed. Quite the reverse ; 

 the same breadth of land is certain to employ an even larger number 

 of men, women and children than it would do in the occupation of 

 large farmers sending their squads of wage paid labourers out into 

 the fields to work for them. And the labour of those who actually 

 work promises to be more ample and more strenuous, as well as more 

 productive. The man labouring for himself, so it is found every- 

 where — now even among the negro settlers in the United States, 

 who, for a time after their emancipation, practised the dolcefar niente 

 with rare devotion — puts both more " back " and more " brains " 

 into his work than the paid labourer, labours longer hours, and 

 thinks more, so overcoming the effect of the curse pronounced 

 in Eden, which still lies heavily upon the earth's crust : " Thorns 

 and thistles shall it bring forth " — in our country also " kelk " and 

 couch ; and " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." 

 The free cultivator's gains depend upon his labour. But, on the 

 other hand, the later biblical promise is likewise fulfilled — " thou 

 shalt not plant and another eat " ; and " thou shalt eat the 

 labour of thy hands ; ah, well is thee and happy shalt thou be." 

 Pro tanto, therefore, with the substitution of peasant cultivation 

 for paid labour, there ceases to be a labour question. There is 

 no more employer nor employed. There is no more room, accord- 

 ingly, for labour disputes, for strikes, for unions. " Social peace " 

 seems on this ground assured. 



However, even that solution of the labour question must neces- 

 sarily be only partial. It cannot do away altogether — indeed, not 

 by a long way — with remunerated employment in another's service, 

 even in rural districts. 



For, to begin with, we can never expect — nor could we desire — 

 to see such solution applied wholesale, all over the surface of our 



