SOME OTHER REMEDIES 219 



cases the ministers of religion draw him to 

 church or chapel, if at all, by means of social 

 and other attractions. Shopkeepers and 

 publicans get him into their power by the use 

 of credit. Farmers denounce his inefficiency, 

 while they dread his disappearance. He, for 

 his part, can make little or no attempt to stand 

 up against the influences that are brought to 

 bear upon him from all sides. 



The labourer's individualism, his failure to 

 combine with his fellows for the common 

 good, is an almost inevitable outcome of his 

 age-long environment. The broad vista of 

 the open fields, the long distances, the solitary 

 work, the sense of lonely remoteness when he 

 is " left to darkness and himself " all such 

 influences tend to soothe discontent and 

 deaden suffering. A sense of helplessness is 

 engendered by the social surroundings of the 

 village and his crippling povery ; and so he 

 endures his lot with that amazing patience 

 which is his mental heritage from centuries of 

 neglect and oppression. 



The spirit of combination which animated 

 the labourer of the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries was gradually crushed out by the 

 enactment and re-enactment of prohibitive 

 laws, and not even the triumphant advance 

 of Trades Unionism in other departments of 



