LABOUR 275 



end. The hope aroused and the prospect opened are bound to make 

 our man willing to learn, to think, to study husbandry in its various 

 aspects. Then with certainty he ought to become useful material 

 for profit-sharing, for taking an active part as a responsible co- 

 worker with his employer. 



The evidence given before the Royal Commission by Mr. Falconer 

 J. Wallace, late Investigator of the Agricultural Wages Board, goes 

 far to bear this out. He instances as two counties in which agricul- 

 tural labour is best — not to mention Scotland, which, in the matter 

 of agricultural labour, with its " all-round " men, willing to work 

 long hours, and putting more " head," as well as more " back," into 

 their work, altogether surpasses England — Cumberland and Lin- 

 colnshire, and explains that in Lincolnshire among the labourers 

 there are a large percentage of men who are really at the same time 

 small holders. In Cumberland, where this is not so, labourers 

 naturally become good all-round workers because they are received 

 into the families of their employers, themselves small farmers, as 

 practically members of the family, and consequently given a turn 

 at all varieties of work. " They are splendid workers," says Mr. 

 Wallace. As a consequence, most of the farmers in the county are 

 men who have risen from labour ranks, the path of promotion 

 having been opened to them by the nature of their employment, 

 which fits them for good all-round farming. 



And think of the difference, under a profit-sharing aspect, between 

 them and the industrial workers — all of it in favour of profit- 

 sharing ! The industrial workman has no interest in his employ- 

 ment except his wage — which he might just as well earn elsewhere, 

 where, knowing his craft, he could drop into his place readily. His 

 work is just his work. He is not in a position to take a broad view 

 of the business and to calculate at all accurately what profit results. 

 Hence his often exaggerated notions of inexhaustible riches at his 

 employer's command. The agricultural labourer, as soon as he has 

 his own diminutive holding, or cherishes the prospect of securing 

 one, realises well that there are two sides to the problem, that you 

 cannot bale liquor indefinitely out of a cask without filling in again. 

 From his own little menage he secures some idea of the proportion 

 existing between incomings and outgoings. That in itself, of course, 

 is a pretty strong argument in favour of giving him land. 



There is also in agriculture so very much in which a workman's 



interest can show and actively exercise itself — very much more 



than in a factory or a counting-house. For the business is spread 



out over a fairly wide area — " vulnerable," as Prince Napoleon 



T 2 



