THE WEARING OF THE GREENS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3397, 30 January 1920, Page 7

THE WEARING OF THE GREENS.

In his -book “Irish impressions,” Mr G. K. C‘hestert.on suggests that for lthe future we should all joill in sing‘ing “The Wearing of the Greens.” He says “the whole miracle of modern Ireland might well be summed up in the simple change from the word ‘green’ to the word ‘greens.’ If anyone,(’ says Mr Chesterton, “were to ask me what was the sight that. struck m'e most in Ireland. both as strange and as significant, I should know what to reply_ I was moving in a hired motor do\\'11_:;.~1~oa(l in the northwest towards the iniddle 6i‘ that rainy autumn. It was not moving very fast, because the ‘p'rogl'esS‘dW€LS_ slowed down to a solemll .pl-ocession by crowds of families with their cattle, was safe was a string of small plots beyond; which things, also, are an allegory. But what struck my mind and stuck in it. was this: that all down one side of ‘(The road. as far as we went, the harvest. was gathered in neatly -and‘ safely, and all down the other side of the road it was} 1-otgfttig in the rain. Now the side where it was -safe was a strong 01’ small plots {worked by -peasant, proprietors. as petty by our standards as a row of the kcheapest villas. The land. on w"hi-ch tall the harvest was wasted was the land of a large modern estate. I asked why the landlord was later in h.arvesting than the peasants, and I was told rather vaguely that there had been strikes and similar labour trou-t ‘bles. I did not go into the rights of: the matter; but the point here is that, ‘ whatever they were, the moral is the same. You may curse the cruel cap-I italist lanlord, or you may rave at the ruflianly Bolshevik strikers; but you must admit that between them they had produced a stoppage which the peasant jiroprietorship a few yards off did not produce. . . . The peasant across the road !is both a capitialist and a labourer. He is several other curious «things, including the man who got .his crops, in first, who was literally first in the field_”