154 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



in which there is not some token of remembrance of those 

 who lie in corners of foreign fields " that are for ever Eng- 

 land." There are numberless cottages and mansions too 

 where remembrance will endure ; but of the nation's 

 remembrance, of the people's vows, what remains ? 



" If ye break faith with us who die 

 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

 In Flanders fields." 



It was under the influence of the emotion of profound 

 gratitude to the men of the villages that the earlier discus- 

 sions at the Club took place. There was very little direct 

 allusion, but there was a tangible atmosphere of common 

 sentiment. 



Once or twice the sense of obligation found expression. 

 " The men now fighting would expect a very different life 

 on their return, and it was only natural they should," 

 declared a well-known landowner at one of the early meet- 

 ings. " The men would come back from the front with 

 more independent views," said a farmer, and another 

 remarked that they would have " a broader outlook." Still 

 another farmer observed that " something must be done to 

 make the young men contented." " The boys now fighting 

 would never be content to come back to their former life," 

 declared Mr. George Edwards. 



There was tacit agreement that the lot of the agricultural 

 labourer before the war had been unduly hard, and not a 

 dissentient voice was raised from any quarter to the declara- 

 tion repeatedly made that never again must he be allowed to 

 sink to the same level. Confident belief in the sincerity of 

 these declarations was expressed on behalf of the workers, 

 and " the better times coming " cheered many a village 

 home. The rural worker had no faith in Governments or 

 even in Parliament. It was ingrained in his mind that they 

 are always against him, and even if they offer him gifts he is 

 still distrustful. But at long last he became almost con- 

 vinced that the Government wished him well, and that 

 Parliament intended to help him, when the legal minimum 

 wage was enacted and he found that it was not a mere scrap 



