170 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



Is it surprising that if his small boy could earn an odd shilling he 

 took him away from school and was glad to have the shilling 

 to help pay the housekeeping bill ? I do not think that we 

 can blame those men if they are suspicious of everything, 

 and more than suspicious of the profits they think the farmer 

 is making out of their labour, and of which they think they do 

 not get a fair share. 



The ensuing discussion was chiefly concerned with the 

 remainder of Mr. Wrey's paper, which dealt with education 

 and has already been referred to. One or two speakers, 

 however, alluded to the subject of suspicion Mr. W. R. 

 Smith observing that, although it was not confined to 

 Agriculture, it was perhaps more developed there than 

 elsewhere. He attributed this largely to the isolation of the 

 work. Mr. George Dallas remarked that the Agricultural 

 Wages Board had been a great factor in breaking down the 

 barriers of suspicion. Mr. R. V. Lennard pointed out that 

 suspicion existed not only between different classes but 

 between members of the same class. Mr. T. Henderson, 

 a visitor from Scotland, had found other people just as 

 suspicious as farm workers. 



It is easy to be beguiled by generalities, and it is doubtful 

 whether any particular trait can be said to be peculiar to 

 country folk. Certain idiosyncrasies or habits of mind 

 may no doubt be fostered by environment, but they arise 

 rather from conditions of life than from any inherent 

 differentiation. Indeed, there are stronger influences affect- 

 ing mentality, such as heredity and tradition, than any 

 induced by the circumstances of avocation. As I have 

 already indicated, the main impression an observer would 

 have obtained from regular attendance at the Club meetings 

 was one of the uniformity rather than of the divergence of 

 mental outlook. The point of view from which every 

 subject was regarded was distinctively English. The innate 

 love of personal liberty, the tolerance born of centuries of 

 free discussion, the acceptance of the right of the majority 

 to rule, the insistence on orderliness these were always 

 evident and were implicit in the utterances of every one, even 

 if the thoughts expressed appeared superficially to conflict 

 with one or other of these fundamental concepts. In brief 



