e at his disposal,
and he is helped to see, as it were from the outside, the general aspect
of questions which, but for the papers, he would only know by his
individual experience from the inside. To give one illustration: the
labourer out of work understands now more than his own particular
misfortunes from that cause. He is discovering that unemployment is a
world-wide evil, which spreads like an infectious disease, and may be
treated accordingly. It is no small change to note, for in such ways,
all unawares, the people fall into the momentous habit of thinking about
abstract ideas which would have been beyond the range of their
forefathers' intellectual power; and with the ideas, their sentiments
gain in dignity, because the newspapers, with whatever ulterior purpose,
still make their appeal to high motives of justice, or public spirit, or
public duty. Fed on this fare, a national or standardized sentiment is
growing amongst the villagers, in place of the local prejudices which,
in earlier times, varied from valley to valley and allowed the people of
one village occasionally to look upon those in the next as their natural
enemies.

3. Once or twice before I have mentioned, as characteristic of the
peasant outlook, the fatalism which allowed the poor to accept their
position as part of the unalterable scheme of the universe, and I
associated the attitude with their general failure to think in terms of
cause and effect. It would seem that this settled state of mind is
slowly giving way under the political excitement of the last ten years.
I cannot say, as yet, that anything worthy to be called hope has dawned
upon the cottagers; but an inclination to look into things for
themselves is discernible.

The change, such as it is, was begun--or, let us say, the ground was
prepared for its beginning--by the distress of unemployment which
followed the South African War; for then was bred that great discontent
which came to the surface at last in the General Election of 1906. I
well remember how, on the day when the Liberal victory in this division
was made known, the labouring men, standing about with nothing to do,
gladdened at the prospects of the relief which they supposed must at
once follow, and how their hungry eyes sparkled with excitement. "Time
there _was_ a change," one of them said to me, "with so many o' we poor
chaps out o' work." Then, as the months went by, and things worsened
rather than bettered, reaction