century men do not
care to be held on their good behaviour. A contract must be free and
equal on both sides to be respected. To illustrate the case, suppose
that some large banking institution in London gave out as a law that
all the employes must live in villas belonging to the bank, say at
Norwood. There they could have very good villas, and gardens
attached, and on payment even paddocks, and there they could dwell
so long as they remained in the office. But the instant any cause of
disagreement arose they must quit not only the office but their
homes. What an outcry would be raised against bank managers'
tyranny were such a custom to be introduced! The extreme hardship of
having to leave the house on which so much trouble had been
expended, the garden carefully kept up and planted, the paddock; to
leave the neighbourhood where friends had been found, and which
suited the constitution, and where the family were healthy. Fancy
the stir there would be, and the public meetings to denounce the
harsh interference with liberty! Yet, with the exception that the
clerk might have L300 a year, and the labourer 12s. or 14s. a week,
the cases would be exactly parallel. The labourer has no fixity of
tenure. He does not particularly care to lay himself out to do his
best in the field or for his master, because he is aware that
service is no inheritance, and at any moment circumstances may arise
which may lead to his eviction. For it is really eviction, though
unaccompanied by the suffering associated with the word--I was going
to write 'abroad' for in Ireland. So that all the sanitary cottages
erected at such expense, and all the large gardens and the
allotments offered, have failed to produce a contented and settled
working population. Most people are familiar by this time with the
demand of the tenant farmers for some exalted kind of compensation,
which in effect is equivalent to tenant-right, _i.e._, to fixity of
tenure. Without this, we have all been pretty well informed by now,
it is impossible for farmers to flourish, since they cannot expend
capital unless they feel certain of getting it back again. This is
precisely the case with the labourer. His labour is his capital,
and he cannot expend it in one district unless he is assured of his
cottage and garden--that is, of his homestead and farm. You cannot
have a fixed population unless it has a home, and the labouring
population is practically homeless. There appears no possi