Politics and the Land 



of their employers, and would welcome a 

 change. 



It was a labourer who first made it clear to 

 me that the interests of the three sections were 

 so largely identical. 



I also base my conclusions upon facts gathered 

 during several years spent in organising work 

 among all classes of agriculturists in nearly 

 every county in England. Judging from that 

 experience I am not surprised at Mr. Rider 

 Haggard holding the opinions he gave expression 

 to in the Times last December. But Mr. Hag- 

 gard judges from his own experience in North 

 Norfolk ; and in that particular district I found 

 the feeling of antipathy between the different 

 classes far more pronounced than (with one 

 exception) in any other part of England. Mr. 

 Haggard argues from the particular to the 

 general. This is not fair to the labourers. 

 Their interest in the welfare of agriculture is 

 just as great to them as to the farmer or land- 

 owner ; it is only a question of degree. They 

 are not the ignorant louts that comic and some 

 other papers pretend to think them, and if 

 treated reasonably will act as reasonably as 

 other people. I admit that this is the most 

 difficult point to argue upon in the whole of this 

 question ; no less difiicult for our opponents 

 than for us, because their main contention is 

 based on wrong conclusions, or, at best, on a 



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