impoverishment of the small man. And
between the two there grew up a class of farmers, separate from the
labourers, whose outlook on the whole did not make for those relations
of neighbourliness and even kinship which had been among the fine
characteristics of the ancient village.

Nor is this the end of the story, for the distinction between the
"haves" and the "have nots" was still further accentuated, and the two
classes driven still further apart, by the far-reaching Industrial
Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century.

The alienation between the farmer and the labourer was exactly
paralleled by the alienation which gradually crept in between the
manufacturer and the workers. The growth of the factory system was
indeed so rapid that only the keenest foresight could have provided
against these evils. The same may be said of the amazing development of
the towns, particularly in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire,
which quickly gathered round the new hives of industry. Unfortunately
that foresight was lacking. On the one hand the science of town-planning
had hardly been born, on the other hand a lightning accumulation of
large fortunes turned the heads of the commercial magnates, dehumanised
industry, and broke up the fellowship which in older and simpler days
had obtained between the employer and his men.

It is a charge which we frequently bring against the enemy in these
days, a charge only too well founded, that they are expert in everything
except understanding human nature. The same may be said of those who
were concerned in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. The
growing wealth of the country which should have united masters and men
in a truer comradeship, and a richer life, achieved results which were
precisely the opposite. It developed a greed of cash which we have not
yet shaken off, and money was accumulated in the pockets of men who had
had neither aptitude nor training in the art of spending it. The workers
were reduced to a state not far removed from a salaried slavery, and the
difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" was perhaps more
acute than at any other time in our history. The causes of this were
many and complex. Not the least of them was the fact that the masters of
industry were captured by a false theory of economics according to which
the fund which was available for the remuneration of labour could not at
any given time be greater or less than it was