LABOUR. 



297 



And see how this arrangement natural!}^ regulates pro- 

 blems about which intending reformers now bootlessly 

 rack their brains ! The man— and probably his lads and 

 girls, when they are sufficiently grown up — will want to go 

 to the farm for employment, for subsistence's sake. It 

 is not supposed that his diminutive holding will be sufficient 

 to support him and his family. If it should be capable of 

 doing so, he would have taken a second step already on the 

 social and economic ladder that we keep talking of setting 

 up, without ever arriving even at the setting up of the lowest 

 rung. But that cannot in the first stage be general. Making 

 the most of his holding, our man may have become only a 

 casual labourer. As such he will still be a distinct asset 

 to the rural community and also to his casual employer. 

 There will be times when his work will be greatly appreciated. 

 However, we are here in the first instance thinking of a man 

 to whom paid labour is a regular occupation, and cultivation 

 of his own land merely by-employment. There is room, 

 time and strength for both. 



We must not allow ourselves to be frightened by the 

 apprehensions of narrow-minded employers, who contend 

 that the man could not possibly cultivate land of his own 

 except at a loss to his employer, with strength and time of 

 which his employer is robbed. That assumption presupposes 

 the recognition of a principle abhorrent to the sense of 

 the present generation, namely, that the labourer, in engag- 

 ing himself to work for his employer, contracts — thus far 

 it has been at a miserable wage — for absolutely his whole 

 time and for every atom of strength that is in him, by a 

 sort of labour rackrent. Whoever would think of propound- 

 ing such a theory to an industrial labourer ? The industrial 

 labourer knows — and his employer knows it likewise — 

 that he contracts for a certain quantity of work, which, 

 being honestly yielded, he is free to do with what remains 

 of his time and of his strength whatever he pleases. And 

 it is the opportunity for such by-employment — additional 

 earning, cultivation of an allotment, study, intercourse 

 with others better skilled in social, political, technical or 

 general knowledge — ^which, so far as it has gone, has enabled 



