This latter class was more
difficult to define than the former--because it is more various within
itself. My French friends wanted to talk of the "Psychology of the
Rentier." I was for such untranslatable phrases as the "Genteel Whig,"
or the "Donnish Liberal." But I lit up an Italian--he is a Milanese
manufacturer--with "these Florentine English who would keep Italy in a
glass case." "I know," he said. Before I go on to expand this congenial
theme, let me deal first with the Resentful Employee, who is a much
more considerable, and to me a much more sympathetic, figure in European
affairs. I began life myself as a Resentful Employee. By the extremest
good luck I have got my mind and spirit out of the distortions of that
cramping beginning, but I can still recall even the anger of those old
days.
He becomes an employee between thirteen and fifteen; he is made to do
work he does not like for no other purpose that he can see except the
profit and glory of a fortunate person called his employer, behind whom
stand church and state blessing and upholding the relationship. He is
not allowed to feel that he has any share whatever in the employer's
business, or that any end is served but the employer's profit. He cannot
see that the employer acknowledges any duty to the state. Neither church
nor state seems to insist that the employer has any public function.
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