CONCLUSION 337 



giving to the labourers the Archimedean " standing ground," can be 

 satisfactorily solved by the provision of untied cottages, we shall 

 be able to congratulate ourselves upon so far having disposed of a 

 very troublesome question and having, to the point required under 

 present conditions, provided for that " better living " which 

 President Roosevelt made the third point in his seasonable demand 

 for improved " country life." 



That free house-room indeed wants, now that it is being given, to 

 be constituted a veritable " home," and towards that aim legislation 

 can really do nothing, except it be to provide the means, in the shape, 

 once more, of education, to enable people to do it for themselves. 

 For that is a task altogether for the hitherto too much neglected, 

 and indeed sometimes despised, power of self-help. 



Employment, under fair and equitable conditions, is good. 

 There are millions of people for whom it is an indispensable condition 

 of life. It is not every one that can fend for himself ; and if it only 

 leaves a door open for a rise, a rise to better things, an ascent up 

 the much talked-of " ladder," it represents the best provision that 

 can be made for the support of people, men and women, who are 

 dependent upon the labour of their hands. However, on the face 

 of it, it is plain that self-employment must be more satisfactory — 

 more satisfactory, certainly, to the person employed. No one, 

 surely, will employ another at the wage that he pays him, unless 

 he stands to gain more out of that labour than that labour costs 

 him. Accordingly, a man labouring for another will not receive 

 in return the full equivalent for the labour, whether of hand or head, 

 that he bestows. If he has the opportunity of labouring for himself, 

 and has the stuff in him to do so, he will come out of the process 

 better remunerated, in addition to freely maintaining the happy 

 position of full personal independence. The community also stands 

 to be benefited by his self-employment, since there is no work as 

 productive as that which is given for one's own profit; and in 

 the cultivation of the land certainly it is production which serves 

 as the standard measure to estimate the value of labour to the 

 community. We have not in this country the institution of 

 " managers " and " under-managers " that Sir Th. Middleton 

 speaks of in his report of one species of foreign agriculture. But I 

 have witnessed the satisfaction which such " managers " or " under- 

 managers " felt — have their position as employees been ever so 

 pleasant — on becoming their own masters, with risk an'l chance 

 equally open to them. And we have the same thing enacted before 

 our eyes continually on an individually smaller, but collectively 



R. R. r ' 



