se it has its drawbacks; but they
suppose that it takes all sorts to make a world, and since they are of
the labouring sort they must make the best of it. With this simple
philosophy they have contrived hitherto to meet their troubles calmly,
not blaming other people for them, unless in individual cases, and
hardly dreaming of translating them into social injustice. They have no
sense of oppression to poison their lives. The truth which economists
begin to recognize, that where there are wealthy and idle classes there
must as an inevitable result be classes who are impoverished and
overworked, has not found its way into the villager's head.

So, supported by an instinctive fatalism, the people have taken their
plight for granted, without harbouring resentment against the more
fortunate. It may be added that most of them are convinced believers in
those fallacies which cluster around the phrase "making work." It were
strange if they were not. The labourer lives by being employed at work;
and, knowing his employer personally--this or that farmer or tradesman
or villa-resident--he sees the work he lives by actually being "made."
Only very rarely does it occur to him that when he goes to the shop he,
too, makes work. In bad times, perhaps, he gets an inkling of it; and
then, when wages are scarce, and the public-house landlord grumbles,
old-fashioned villagers will say, "Ah, they misses the poor man, ye
see!" But the idea is too abstract to be followed to its logical
conclusion. The people do not see the multitudes at work for them in
other counties, making their boots and ready-made clothes, getting their
coal, importing their cheap provisions; but they do see, and know by
name, the well-to-do of the neighbourhood, who have new houses built and
new gardens laid out; and they naturally enough infer that labour would
perish if there were no well-to-do people to be supplied.

Against the rich man, therefore, the labourers have no sort of
animosity. If he will spend money freely, the richer he is the better.
Throughout the south of England this is the common attitude. I remember,
not long ago, on a holiday, coming to a village which looked rarely
prosperous for its county, owing, I was told, to the fact that the
county lunatic asylum near by caused money to be spent there. In the
next village, which was in a deplorable state, and had no asylum, the
people were looking enviously towards this one, and wishing that at
least thei