n meets with a cold rebuff. No
eloquence, persuasion, personal influence even, can produce more than a
passing impression. But here again, perhaps, his practical activity may
bring about its reaction. In time the cottager will be compelled to admit
that, at least, coal club, benefit society, cricket, allotment, &c., have
done him no harm. In time he may even see that property and authority are
not always entirely selfish--that they may do good, and be worthy, at all
events, of courteous acknowledgment.

These two characteristics, moral apathy and contempt of property--i.e., of
social order--are probably exercising considerable influence in shaping
the labourer's future. Free of mental restraint, his own will must work
its way for good or evil. It is true that the rise or fall of wages may
check or hasten the development of that future. In either case it is not,
however, probable that he will return to the old grooves; indeed, the
grooves themselves are gone, and the logic of events must force him to
move onwards. That motion, in its turn, must affect the rest of the
community. Let the mind's eye glance for a moment over the country at
large. The villages among the hills, the villages on the plains, in the
valleys, and beside the streams represent in the aggregate an enormous
power. Separately such hamlets seem small and feeble--unable to impress
their will upon the world. But together they contain a vast crowd, which,
united, may shoulder itself an irresistible course, pushing aside all
obstacles by mere physical weight.

The effect of education has been, and seems likely to be, to supply a
certain unity of thought, if not of action, among these people. The solid
common sense--the law-abiding character of the majority--is sufficient
security against any violent movement. But how important it becomes that
that common sense should be strengthened against the assaults of an
insidious Socialism! A man's education does not come to an end when he
leaves school. He then just begins to form his opinions, and in nine cases
out of ten thinks what he hears and what he reads. Here, in the
agricultural labourer class, are many hundred thousand young men exactly
in this stage, educating themselves in moral, social, and political
opinion.

In short, the future literature of the labourer becomes a serious
question. He will think what he reads; and what he reads at the present
moment is of anything but an elevating character. He will