AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEES 113 



bullocks in yards, and yet many an English 

 flock master has earned an international reputa- 

 tion through the skill of his head shepherd, and 

 many an English breeder of Shorthorns owes 

 his fame to the patience and the eye for points 

 of some stockman whose genius has benefited 

 the whole nation. They are often men of few 

 words — 



" For words are but under-agents in their soul ; 

 When they are grasping with their greatest strength 

 They do not breathe among them." 



Nationally we make poor use of the skill of 

 these men. I have known farm labourers of 

 great intelligence who have married young, and 

 becoming fettered by a large family, reared on 

 low wages, have had to remain wage-slaves all 

 their lives in positions which have never given 

 them scope for their striking abilities. The first 

 rung- on the ladder — the small holding; — has been 

 denied them through the lack of capital — the 

 poverty that has always dogged their heels. 

 And these are the men we ought to be utilising 

 nationally. 



If we only had a system of measuring in- 

 telligence, such as the Americans instituted 

 when they passed men into their army, I wonder 

 what we should discover ? We suffer the 

 squire to remain in power as a destructive 

 economic force if he chooses to be a bad land- 

 lord or employs a bad agent. Even if he be an 

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