LABOUR. 279 



went on swimmingly. While the depression lasted, without 

 any regard paid to further consequences, land was laid down 

 to grass by the million of acres, for the avowed purpose 

 of avoiding payment for labour, until we arrived at that 

 noil plus ultra of Sharsted Court, where even good grass 

 was deliberately allowed to rot on the stem, in order to 

 test to what extent the manurial value of the rotting crop 

 would in the next crop make up for the present sacrifice, 

 set off by a saving in labour. 



People who are disposed to find fault with the labourer 

 for running away from the station to which he seemed born 

 would do well to consider this. A false inference has been 

 drawn from it, that he objects to country life and agricul- 

 tural work. That is a great mistake, as also is that ascribing 

 the loss of public consideration and comparative indepen- 

 dence to those frequently remarked upon defects in the 

 labourer's present condition, which, as Mr. Prothero has 

 shown, are not the cause, but the effect of his social and 

 economic degradation.^ Our man did not by any means 

 go willingly, we may be sure. There is no one more conser- 

 vative in his habits and his attachment to his native clod 

 of ground than the agricultural labourer. The blame for 

 deserted " Auburn," for the abandoned countryside, with 

 its reduced production and profits resulting from such 

 desertion, falls almost entirely to the account of those who 

 drove the labourer away, however much they might after 

 the event, with an Esau-like repentance, regret their own 

 foolish action. 



The war has shown us how serious is the mistake that 

 has been made, and has happily knocked a good many old 

 prejudices and misconceptions out of people's heads. The 

 mistake made was all the more serious since it is by no means 

 difficult to manufacture an industrial labourer out of an 

 agricultural, but extremely difficult to reverse the process 

 and manufacture an agricultural labourer out of an industrial 

 — as a soldier not to the manner born. The war has taught 

 us that in stinting labour we have starved Agriculture itself, 

 kilHng the goose for the sake of a poor addle egg. It ought 

 1 " English Farming, Past and Present," page 307. 



