Page:The farm labourer in 1872.djvu/20

 and co-operation, individualism and the workman's higher elevation, to be thought of, besides migration and the extinction of pauperism.

It is possible that the Co-operative movement, that "Spirit of the years to come," which threatens to absorb some day half the trade of the country will (if it come with Truth and Wisdom) correct these modern falsities and fallacies, and restore to us somewhat of the spirit and the work of those earlier Guilds. Meanwhile the occasion offers for the Land Industries to profit by the Trade errors, and to correct them. Here is an opportunity for landlords, farmers and labourers to form such associations (by farms, estates, districts, or counties), as shall correct the fallacies of the Present, and the mistakes and wrongs of the Past.

The good ship Agricola, with half the fortune of the State on board, is nearing narrow straits, through which she must surely pass: and where are the charts? where are the pilots? What wonder if when the captain and warrant officers hold back, the boatswain and ship's-carpenter take the helm? But we shall want something more than their skill and navigation to steer between the reefs and swirls ahead:—to tack and sail between those Rocks of Pauperism, Degradation and Despair, and escape that blind Charybdis of Communism!