291) 



On this occasion there were no dresses, scarves, or regaha, 

 but there was an elaborate formahty and an ancient Uturgy which 

 were scrupulously observed. One juror told me that he had 

 attended this Court for forty years without a break and that as 

 long as he could drag one leg after the other he should not 

 think of missing it. And yet there are people who would ask you 

 to believe that tradition and conservatism of personal habits are 

 intellectual funguses, which cling only to the superannuated 

 squire or farmer and which are unknown to the up-to-date trades 

 unionist agricultural labourer ! What nonsense some people who 

 live in towns, do talk about us, who live in the country 1 



Among the jurors of these courts and other inhabitants of 

 these two small villages, whom I met later, were four farm(>rs. 

 all of whom had started life as agricultural labourers. One of 

 these, a man of not more than 50 years of age, occupied 1.000 

 acres, of which half was down and the other half meadow^ and 

 arable. The other three occupied farms of 50 to 150 acres. 

 This experience quite confirmed all my previous experience. I 

 have never known a country district or anything definite about 

 a country district without meeting case after case of the farmer 

 who began life as an agricultural labourer; and, if this is true 

 to-day, is it not probable that it was true yesterday and there- 

 fore that some of the farmers I see and meet are the sons of men 

 who began life as agricultural labourers, and so back generation 

 after generation. And if this is true of those parts of England, 

 of which I know something definite or which I know intimately, 

 surely it would be strange if it were not true of the other parts 

 of England also, which I do not know! 



The truth is that the agricultural labourer is not born in a 

 cul-de-sac, as some people contend, and never has been. 

 There never has been a time, T suspect, since all Englishmen 

 became free men in the full sense of that term, when an agri- 

 cultural labourer of marked character and ability could not 

 rise to become a farmer, and T suspect that the cases in which 

 he has done so within the last century have been much more 

 numerous than is generally supposed. Tbis is not an argument 

 for not making the path easier for the agricultural labourer to 

 become an occupier and ov^ner of land by every sensible means 

 in our power — on the contrary, it is a very strong argument 

 in favour of the wisdom of such a course. But it is an equally 

 clear disproof of the statement often made that the agricultural 

 labourer was reduced to such a position in the IRth century 

 that it was impossible for him to rise out of it except by 



