The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1888.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5145, 15 February 1888, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1888.

The cry of tbo unemployed m largo cities is ever going upwards, and their sufferings are constantly being brought before the public. Thoy have also the assistance of professional agitators who make use of the condition of the poor to advocate doctrines subversive of law and order. The unemployed are never likely to drop out of sight or mind in the big "centres of population, but there is another class out of work whose wants are less known, and who submit to poverty and distress in silence. Want of employment is not confined to the towns. This is well enough known in the country districts of this colony. A fall in the value of colonial products, when long continued, invariably throws a host of men out of work, because as yet produce market values do not as a rale control the rates of wages'. All through the years of depression wages havo not been affected to any appreciable extent, and it is a common complaint ir tiio country amongst employers that gooi! men are as scarce and wages as high as when wool growing appeared a certain road to fortune. The result has been that land occupiers have had to reduce the number of their working hands, and hundreds of men have been thrown out of employment through the inability of employers to pay the wages demanded. And so it is in the agricultural districts in England. Owing to the fierce competition English farmers arc subjected to by the importations of colonial and American products, it pays no longer to till the earth. Innumerable farms havo been thrown up by the tenants, and land in many counties" is going begging. This, of course, lessens the incomes of tho landlords, who, having less to spend, increase the depression in the condition of those who earn their livimr by providing for the wants and luxuries of tho wealthy. Thus tho circle of misery goes on widening. The Loudou Times quotes from a Somerset pap_r a recent instate, of what is going on, which is very significant, not only as an instance of the facts themselves, but in the remarkable course taken by tho landowner affected. Mr AY. J. Harris, of Halwill Manor, became the owner of a farm of 400 acres several years ago, and the departure of his tenant in 1879 threw the farm on his hands, and forced him to-" consider how he could profitably work it. Mr Harris devoted a portion of his farm to tillage; and would havo been content with a very small profit upon the money he had expended iv purchase money and improvements. But although the crops have been good, in only one year has thero been a small profit. Mr Harris accordingly collected his men in the kitchen of tho farmhouse, and made them a speech. Ho said he could not go on ; they could not expect him to work at a loss in order to provide them with wages. "Tho economists." be continued, "who come and preach to yon from tho Freetrado school of the Cobden Club, will tell you that/ you only have to seek labor In some other locality, and in some other-business. 1 sincor.lv trust you may succeed in this, but I cannot imagine that a system which obliges workmen constantly to be changing their occupations and their homes can be acceptable to them in the end, and that is what the policy of England is now bringing i about. I intend to mako tho change as .easy as I can for you. Thoso who are without any tie to this placo must shift for themselves, or apply to the Cobden Club of London to advise them. For those who are moro tied to tlie place I will endeavor to find some winter piece-work, which will help them to tide through tho cold weather, and will complete the improvement of tbo estate, but it cannot go on for long." MiHarris went on cynically to observe that, as Parliament had placed political power in tho hands of the -workmen, it was for them to bring about a better state of things. " We are "already," he said, "going down the "hill." Tho state of things which is producing _mch scenes as this—though it maybo suppose- that not many landowners go into things with their workpeople as Mr Harris has done—is becoming distinctly worse, aud it is, if anything, of moro serious import than the presence of a mob of unemployed in London. Agricultural distress goes to tho root of the country's prosperity, and, as wo know by bitter experience, is the hardest of all distress to cure. The report says that, after listening in silenco to Mr Hams, the men left without a word ; and agricultural laborers are certainly not trained, as a rule, to discuss economic questions that baffle the leading men of tho country; and tho reference to the political power now enjoyed by the laborers could only be taken as a grim satire on the wisdom of Parliament—in the opinion of Mr Harris —in granting it.