I've
listened, as a boy, while the old men told of it to one another, in thin,
piping voices, round the fireside; how the labourers were flung eight-and-
sixpence a week to die on, and the men starved in the towns; while the
farmers kept their hunters, and got drunk each night on fine old crusted
port. Do you know what their toast was in the big hotels on market day,
with the windows open to the street: 'To a long war and a bloody one.' It
would be their toast to-morrow, if they had their way. Does he think I
am going to be a party to the putting of the people's neck again under
their pitiless yoke?"
"But the people are more powerful now," argued Joan. "If the farmer
demanded higher prices, they could demand higher wages."
"They would never overtake the farmer," he answered, with a laugh. "And
the last word would always be with him. I am out to get rid of the
landlords," he continued, "not to establish them as the permanent rulers
of the country, as they are in Germany. The people are more
powerful--just a little, because they are no longer dependent on the
land.
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