Points of Friction
But apart from the fact that the parable is meant to have a spiritual and not a material significance, there is nothing in the Gospel to indicate that the master considered that he owed the latecomers their day's wage. His comment upon his own action disclaims this assumption: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" And it is worthy of note that the protest against his liberality comes, not from other vine-growers objecting to a precedent, but from the labourers who cannot be brought to see that an hour's work done by their neighbours may be worth as much as twelve hours' work done by themselves. Human nature has not altered perceptibly in the course of two thousand years.
Great Britain's experiment in doling out "unemployment pay" was based on expediency, and on the generous hypothesis that men and women, outside of the professional pauper class, would
80
