260 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



fight again — though in a less sanguinary way — other supposed 

 adversaries, and in fact looks for adversaries with whom to continue 

 his fighting. We had become fairly used to this contentious exist- 

 ence in the world of industry. But now the turmoil and spirit of 

 contention has penetrated also into the erstwhile peaceful realm of 

 rural employment, previously the sanctuary of contented sub- 

 mission. Agricultural labour has done splendidly during the war. 

 It has come forward freely to serve the country, shirking no sacrifice 

 and no self-denial, scorning to take advantage of the country's 

 temporary embarrassment in order to exact selfish gain for itself. 

 Under such circumstances we have learnt to estimate its value at 

 its true price, and it has itself mastered the same lesson and learnt 

 to feel that it constitutes an important factor in the nation's economic 

 life. There are, as it happens, old scores to settle, old debts to wipe 

 out. And now that labour has come into its own, these accounts 

 are to be squared. For a long time rural labour had failed to 

 receive what every one now admits to be its fair due. There is no 

 difference of opinion on that point. In one respect even those who 

 suffer by the advent of a more equitable regime, that is, the employers, 

 concede it readily. Wages have indeed for a long time been out of 

 all proportion to the calls which modern life makes upon even a poor 

 man's purse. Industrial labour, which has its own aims, and its 

 own game to play, and which knows how to play it, has not been 

 slow to take advantage of the discontent now reigning in the ranks 

 of its rural sister service. Like William II. in his warlike plottings, 

 it has sought f or a " brilliant second " to support it, pointing to the 

 glorious prize of a free Saturday afternoon, shortened hours of 

 labour and higher wages, to be gained by combining with itself and 

 showing fight. Under such stimulus, that which in earlier days, 

 even after Joseph Arch's brief and only temporarily successful 

 struggle, was pronounced " impossible," has proved not possible 

 only, but a realised fact ; rural labour now has combined and 

 organised itself on trade union lines in what the Italians not inaptly 

 term leghe di resistenza, determined to gain its point by sturdy 

 resistance. All this is plain as day. However, there are other reasons, 

 more deep-seated, which are apt to escape casual glances. We 

 have " educated our masters," and now our erstwhile " pupils," 

 become our " masters " in their turn, not unnaturally ask for the 

 scholar's prize. 



There are two kinds of grievances, of which those who winced 

 under them, naturally enough, are eager to have all traces effaced, 

 striving for this under favouring circumstances with a degree of energy 



