VILLAGE POLITICS 107 



countryman, if unaffected by any special 

 inducements or menaces, tends naturally to 

 pursue the even tenour of his way in political 

 as well as social life. The whole history of 

 his harried and neglected class has produced 

 in his temperament a vein of caution and 

 suspicion and a mistrust of changes proposed 

 by his " betters." 



Even amongst his own neighbours the 

 labourer preserves the same attitude of 

 cautious reserve. One of the minor difficulties 

 experienced in the administration of the Small 

 Holdings Act was caused by the labourers' 

 unwillingness even under the seal of official 

 silence to declare the amount of their savings 

 and resources. Before the advent of the rail- 

 way and the bicycle 1 our English villages, in 

 the remoter districts, formed tiny communities, 

 which resembled the Greek II6Xei<; in their 

 mutual mistrust and aloofness. Such village 

 antagonisms are still met with here and there 

 in the country, based on nothing else save the 

 exclusive traditions of earlier centuries. The 

 natural corollary of such a mental attitude 

 is Conservatism, and side by side with this 



1 A friend of mine on a recent visit to William Morris's 

 hamlet of Kelmscott was greatly impressed by the immense 

 improvement in the outlook and attitude of the younger 

 men, which he attributed very largely to the civilizing 

 use of bicycles. 



