22 THE POLICY OF THE PLOUGH 



various schemes for building new cottages.* The 

 intention of what has just been written is only to insist 

 upon the importance of giving its full value to the 

 housing question in any consideration of rural dis- 

 content. It would scarcely be possible to overstate the 

 retarding effect upon rural progress of the inadequate 

 supply of cottages . Capable and hardworking labourers 

 are often condemned to live in cramped, leaky, and 

 rickety hovels, which seem designed to forbid a man's 

 family to maintain, or even to conceive, a respect for 

 themselves. The labour of a man who lives under 

 such conditions can never rise to its full efficiency. 



VI 



AGRICULTURE A SKILLED TRADE 



Mr. a. D. Hall has said that the wages of agricultural 

 labourers have been permanently lower than in any 

 industry employing comparatively skilled labour. 

 " Comparatively " understates the case. Factory work, 

 being highly organised, has become a kind of aristocracy 

 of labour, and there is now a great deal of work exalted 

 to the title of " skilled " which requires no more in- 

 telhgence than is needed to turn a handle or pull a lever. 

 Association with machinery confers the title. There 

 is no need to quarrel with this ; it is one of the con- 

 quests of Labour. It is mentioned here only to point 

 out that by comparison much work of the agricultural 

 labourer, which by a stupid or ignorant convention has 

 come to be regarded as fit only for human clods, is not 

 merely skilled, but highly skilled. Hedging, ditching, 

 i Vide '* Housing " in the Addenda to the Minority Report, p. 1 57. 



