228 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



liness and respect. I have seen a nobleman of, 

 I suppose, about the usual average of English 

 pride rebuked very strongly indeed, almost 

 rated, by one of his agricultural labourers in a 

 matter of pigs. It was the labourer's business 

 to know about the pigs, and he resented his 

 master's ignorant interference. He was not 

 haled away to a subterranean dungeon in the 

 moated grange. 



In truth, there is a vast amount of nonsense 

 talked of the landlords and their " serfs." The 

 Briton succeeds so admirably as a colonizer and 

 a governor of coloured races mainly because he 

 is just, good-humoured, tolerant. He is not 

 the sort of man to " rub it in " to an inferior, 

 or to display haughtiness. Once upon a time, 

 before ever I had seen England, trying to 

 diagnose the Englishman from experience of 

 him in the Antipodes, I wrote : — 



" The Englishman — the superbly arrogant 

 Englishman . . . desires none of the acci- 

 dental and external signs of greatness. It 

 for him suffices if he has the real power. 

 And he worships the work rather than the 

 glory of the work. In ruling the blind 



