TEADITION AND HEEEDITY 467 



the multiplication of conventions which are neither useful nor 

 harmful, being mere matters of form. The wage-earning class, 

 on the other hand, has neither the time nor the means to elaborate 

 any code of manners. Working long hours for what amounts to 

 little more than a bare subsistence, they could not have evolved 

 such a code of manners nor have they absorbed any considerable 

 part of it. There was no room for it as their lives were lived. 

 Other consequences follow from property-owning. Property- 

 owning is power ; in the property-owning class there arises a 

 tradition of self-assertion, a habit of command, whereas in the 

 wage-earning class there arises a tradition of self-abasement and 

 a habit of subservience, traditions and habits so strong as largely 

 to obscure natively given characters. We may note with interest, 

 therefore, that it is on these lines, and not on a theory of germinal 

 differences, that an eminent historian answers the question why 

 military history shows that men of greater age and wider ex- 

 perience will on the field of battle follow to the death a boy of 

 the upper class when they will not follow one of their own 

 class. It may be objected that what has been said scarcely applies 

 to the conditions of the present day and that subservience of the 

 wage-earning class is not very marked at the moment. This is 

 true, but it is a recent change. The reason why the change has 

 come about is surely that the wage-earning class has obtained 

 power and knows it. The change is an illustration of the power 

 of tradition to dominate the outward expression of such important 

 characteristics as assertion or subservience. No one can attribute 

 the difference to germinal change. The wage-earning class has 

 not absorbed the manners and customs of the property-owning 

 class at the same time for a variety of reasons ; for one thing they 

 have still little place for such conventions in their lives, and for 

 another thing they tend to regard everything connected with the 

 property-owning class as hostile, while we may also remember 

 that many elements in the upper-class tradition depend for their 

 existence upon the presence of servants. 



An insight into the nature of these traditional differences may 

 be gained in rather a different way. Many members of the upper 

 class have attempted to interest themselves in the conditions of 

 life among the less fortunate classes. It is doubtful how far the 

 experience gained in the majority of cases is of value in throw- 

 ing light upon the problems under consideration. But let any 



