A NOTABLE GATHERING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1871, 17 February 1892, Page 5

A NOTABLE GATHERING.

A conference of rural delegates was held in London on December 10 to consider what ameliorations are necessary in the condition of the rural population. A large number of M.P.s and others, including Lord Carrington watched the proceedings. The ' Chronicle,' in a general description of the Conference, says it was a very great success. There were among the delegates several men who were well known as organisers, but the majority were the other factors in the rural economy, farmers and small holders, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, postmen, dressed in plain black or grey suits, with here and there a gleam of corduroys, the eyes keen and clear, the complexion a healthy brickred, the manner quiet, self-possessed, selfconfident, the bearing that of free men who had worked their way to independence. " We are the backbone of the nation," said one of these men— a Bucks freeholder of fourteen acres, who would have been an Ironside in Cromwellian days — and he looked it. The speeches were as independent as the appearance of the orators. " This meeting has got to mean business," said one black-haired laborer in corduroys. Aa at the Trades Union Congress, the speeches were all limited to five minutes. There was no rhetoric, and with the exception of half a dozen speeches every utterance had some fresh fact or shrewdly-pressed argument to commend. As a rule the speaker stuck to his village, and told his plain tale — the story of a successful struggle on a small holding, the brief abstract and chronicle of a laborer's life, some droll anecdote of which a bigoted " parson" was usually the hero— with no ornament, but with a gift for the picturesque which many a cultured speaker must have envied. Through it all the spiritual influence of Noncomformity was singularly strong. The "Noncon." worthies, who looked down from their frames on the bulwarks of rural dissent in the hall below, could not have wished for a sturdier offspring. The fluency, the easy turn of the sentences, the power of graphic narrative, the touch of human pathos, the religious note, were all eloquent of the village chapel, the struggle for spiritual liberty, which had become subtly interwoven with the fight for social and economic independence. These men unfit for self-goverment ! Stuff and nonsense ! They will run rural England to morrow if they get the chance. Two notes were struck out keenly and strongly from the rest. The first was the hatred of the " parson." It would have done the Primate good to be present at the Rural Conference and observe how completely the people are lost to the Established Church. The unhappy parson's sins were rehearsed in every variety of the English tongue. Suffolk sang them, Kent and Norfolk drawled them, Cornwall rehearsed them in sharp staccato. A humorous Baptist, who began his speech with the announcement that his wife had had thirteen confinements, told in dry humor pa-a-rson's attempt to get his children baptised. John Brown "not believin' in infant sprinklin' himself," "pa-a-rson" naturally did not succeed. " Pa-a-rson's " rule at the vestry, "pa-a-rson's" objections to Nonconformist burials, " pa-a-rson's tyranny (secular and religious) — all came in for their turn. Yet the proposals were singularly moderate. Let the "pa-a-rson" have his rights, and no more. Nor was there a touch of religious bigotry. " All religions should be equal," was the notion, but on the whole the clergyman was regarded not so much as the representative of a privileged sect as an engine of social despotism. "We want to be free men in our own place," cried the sturdy freeholder to whom I have referred. The second note of the Conference was the practical unanimity on the land policy. As to parish councils there was ' more difference of opinion, and it was noteworthy that the balance inclined to moderation. The general view seemed to be in favor of grouping all but the larger parishes ; against giving the councils the control of the poor law ; for giving them control of the land and the school charities, on which the meeting was very strong ; for electing the councils by ballot, and on one man one vote ; for abolishing the vicar's official chairmanship of the vestry. On the land question, however, to which the meetings settled after the social tea, there was practically one opinion. Only one speaker— a village postman— asked for land nationalisation, though several declared that the land must be for the people. On the other hand, the word peasant proprietary was not heard ; nor, apart from the speeches of the few freeholders, was the thing asked for. The line of the speakers was clear. They wanted their three F.'s— first, the land at a fair rent ; secondly, land and cottages with a fixed tenure ; thirdly, compensation for improvements. The first point was perhaps the strongest. "We don't want the land for nothing," said one fine yeoman. " A fair market rent," was another expression. Speaker after speaker told the story of prohibitive rents — to begin, L 2 10s to L 3 an acre; of attempts to confiscate improvements by resuming the land after the expiry of the leasing terms ; of cruelly enhanced rents. The farmers joined equally in this cry. " Good culture is penal ; it is only bad culture that is lawful in England," was one sharp epigram, rung out with brilliant emphasis in a much -applauded speech by a Cornish tenant farmer. Equally strong was the demand for better cottages and an application of the Artisans' Dwellings Act to the rural districts. The meeting has, therefore, crystallised in the plainest fashion the demand for a new Local Government Act and for a new Agricultural Holdings Act. And the meeting very plainly indicated that it expected to get what it asked for. "Early in the next Parliament," "Concurrently with Home Rule," were phrases that, as they were dealt out in the steady, even, rural speech, must have been an awakening to some politicians who hardly expected that "Giles's trip to London" would have resulted in the enunciation of a new system of rural economics. Throughout the meeting, indeed, the Liberal members and candidates acted— and very wisely acted — the part of Fritz in 'The Grand Duchess,' who explains why he was made schoolmaster. " (Jest pour apprendre," he says. Let us hope that the "pour apprendre" will bear fruit. Certain it is that the Conference created the greatest impression on the listeners on the platform and among the sprinkling of rural political members and candidates in the audience. Still more curious, the best and the most practical speeches were made by the laborers. Some of the farmers went a little wide. One gentleman wanted the i Government to test agricultural manures and to stamp every piece of foreign meat. Another, an occupying owner, suggested that the land paid too much in rates, and should be relieved at the expense of personalty. But none of these things " caught on." By far the greater effect was created by the steady, patient hammering of the peasant statesmen, as they unfolded, scene by scene, the drama of their daily life.

Gentleman (who has engaged aged colored hackman to drive him from the station to the hotel) : " Say. uncle, what's your name ?" Driver : "My name, sah, is George Washington." Gentleman: "George Washington ! Why, that name seems familiar." Driver: "Well, fo' de Lawd's sake, I should think it ought. Here I been drivin' to this station fo' 'bout 20 years, sab."

The greatest cold ever recorded in London was 16deg below zero, Christmas, 1706.