24 THE POLICY OF THE PLOUGH 



huge unwieldy cart-horses down the diagonal line from 

 point to point. It is this manifold direction of effort, 

 this many-sidedness of his calling, solitary with nature 

 and under the wide skies, that rouses all the dormant 

 possibilities in his slow nature, and makes the really 

 observant farm labourer the most interesting creature 

 of the peasant class to talk to in his own age."* 



The wages of agricultural labourers in many districts 

 are purely arbitrary. Such-and-such wages are paid 

 for no better reason than that they were paid last year 

 or the year before. Each farmer would think it a 

 kind of treachery to his neighbours to pay more. If 

 one chooses to pay more — chooses to relate wages to 

 profits — he does so almost on the sly, and knowing that 

 he exposes himself to attack. Some budding economist 

 among such farmers m.ay have guessed that low wages 

 produce on the average poor labour, but if so he keeps 

 the revelation to himself. Naturally there are excep- 

 tions. Large farms worked on industrial principles 

 pay good wages. And small farmers who have moved 

 from one county to another have often been heard to 

 say that they would rather pay the high wages of the 

 county where the labour was good than the low wages 

 where the labour is bad. Thus they show the begin- 

 nings of enlightenment. 



But on the whole it is true that the wages of agri- 

 cultural labourers are quite disproportionate to the 

 value of their services. The intelligent farmers who 

 give their men a direct interest in their work by a 

 profit-sharing scheme, or a system of bonuses according 

 to results, are few. Is it to be expected that men who 

 1 Charlotte Fall Smith Ia The I^and, Magazine, 1898, 



