84 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



of niagnificeut land of this country will be converted into pro- 

 ducers of wealth and employers of labour, and not remain, as 

 now, sterile wastes, or, at the best, producing nothing but a 

 few sheep and cattle, and providing little or nothing for the 

 people. 



For the moment, it must be confessed that the present state 

 of affairs gives that large vagabond class, which clings to the 

 skirts of honest labour as the foul ocean growth clings to the 

 sides of the great ship, the opportunity it requires to maintain 

 it in all its native impurity. " You give us work," say they, 

 " It's our right to work," and the rest of it ; but they have no 

 more intention of doing an honest day's work than has the 

 familiar " Weary Willy " of our country highways. 



They swell the ranks of the honest unemployed in their 

 labour demonstrations merely for what they can get out of it, 

 but they have no intention of doing any harder work. 



Nevertheless, as the real unemployed have a sore griev- 

 ance against the present economical system because of lack of 

 work, it serves the purpose of this wastrel class to make 

 common cause with them, at least in clamouring for employ- 

 ment, and in this way they are entirely serving the mammon 

 of unrighteousness. 



Let employment for all be forthcoming for the asking, and 

 there would at once be an automatic separation of the goats from 

 the sheep, when the State would find no difficulty in apportion- 

 ing to this human scum their due reward. 



These reasonable conclusions are, it should be borne in 

 mind, not suggested by Free-trade economists, but by the 

 doctrines of anti-Free-traders ; and it seems as though they are 

 likely to appeal with considerable force to that vast body of 

 Englishmen who are now disposed to look at this matter from a 

 broad, rational, common-sense point of view, rather than from 

 the narrow standpoint of any of the existing political parties. 



