LABOUR. 311 



and other little adornments, raising vegetables in the garden 

 which are consumed with a special relish, and minding the 

 fowls which yield the eggs and chicks that bring in money, 

 it may be with a pig contentedly grunting in its sty close 

 by, promising luscious bacon — all these things cannot 

 fail to engender in the workman a feeling of satisfaction 

 and hope, which would more than reconcile him to his lot, 

 raise his intellectual aspirations, and make a better worker 

 of him. There must be a fulfilment of the biblical promise 

 of one's own " vine and fig tree," to which Henry of Navarre's 

 " poule-au-pot," as an occasional treat, would make a most 

 suitable complement. 



The war has taught us that we must have agricultural 

 labourers. We had long forgotten it. Other aspects of 

 life had to such an extent forced themselves upon our 

 notice that in the backward state of our rural hfe, during 

 the progress of that steady decline of our Agriculture which 

 the Food Committee have placed upon record and which 

 we all have lately seen reason seriously to deplore, " Hodge," 

 being out of sight had got " out of mind " too. However, 

 we know now that we must have him. 



Soil tot on tard, soil pres ou loin : 

 Le riche du pauvre auya besoin. 



Now times have changed. Like everything else, Labour 

 commands a different price now from what it did before 

 the war. We must give it that price as we give it for our 

 clothes, our food and other commodities. Give the labourer 

 recognition as a full citizen, as the useful member of civil 

 society that he is, give him recognition of his calling as an 

 honourable calling in which to make a^ career, give him the 

 " necessary liberties " — above all things give him a free 

 home to become his castle, with a little holding, in which, 

 Hke the heir of the legend, by digging deep he will be able 

 to find " a treasure," give him a chance corresponding in 

 civil life to " the marshal's baton in the knapsack " of the 

 Napoleonic soldier, that is, give him a prospect of social 

 and economic betterment, give him education appropriate 

 to his surroundings and his calhng, and you may rely upon 



