CONCLUSION. 477 



of its organic structure and increased economic well-being 

 and social happiness for the Nation. 



Quite half our much-complained-of social troubles may be 

 said to arise from a forcible divorce of our working popula- 

 tion from the land. The complaint is often heard, on the 

 one hand, of the incompetency of our present rural 

 labourers ; and, on the other, of the revolutionary tendencies 

 revealing themselves among our industrial workmen in 

 over-filled towns, more particularly at times when employ- 

 ment is either scarce, and out-of-works are plentiful, or 

 else, when employment is excessive and increased demand 

 leads Labour to make its own terms rather inconsiderately. 

 These complaints indicate, as Mr. Pro thero has rightly pointed 

 out, not a cause, but a result of a faulty condition of things. 



For generations the labourer has been denied access to 

 the land, compelled thereby either to take refuge in over- 

 filled industries in towns, where natural discontent as a 

 matter of course has bred revolutionary aspirations, or else 

 to allow himself to be put to one and the same occupation 

 in the country, in a wearying and monotonous round of 

 work, without anything to give a zest to life, anything to 

 look forward to, under conditions necessarily dulling his 

 intellect and depressing his spirits. The consequence 

 is that our society is altogether " out of joint," without its 

 desirable equilibrium or balance. Industrial employment 

 if over-filled, and so are consequently our towns ; and the 

 country is depleted. And our people generally have " loved 

 to have it so." The land was supposed to be for the big 

 man, who could fix his own terms for the admission of 

 others to its use, as a matter of grace. The ideal of farming 

 was large wheat breaks, facilitating calculation of rent. It 

 required a farmer with a well-filled purse to hold his own 

 against the landlord and obtain comparative freedom from 

 restrictions ; and he must in the bargain be possessed of 

 " nous " and skill to succeed. The moderately endowed 

 tenant must bow to covenants and restrictions and take 

 his chance. The man who had only his labour to depend 

 upon must, dispossessed as he was of his Common rights 

 — the loss of which doomed his cottage to abandonment 



