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New Zealand Tablet, 11 October 1917, Page 5

laughed, at, to think, indeed, that Ireland should have any claim on the exchequer. It is no wonder that English journals bantered us. To keep us from grumbling, we got coercion bills and arms acts, ad infinitum. The next famous engine of destruction was “the Labor-rate Act.” This was an Act to enable the Treasury to advance money, to be repaid by ratepayers, to carry on public works sanctioned by the Government. This impost impoverished the rich without benefiting the poor, for it was wasted on unproductive works. It discouraged private enterprise, and dragged landlords, farmers, and laborers to one common ruin. Next came the out-door relief system, with its quarter-acre clause; so that any poor wretch holding a quarter of an acre was disqualified from relief unless he gave up his little farm. # . Had these various sums of money been spent in some useful, reproductive employment, they might have effected a vast amount of good. Had they been employed in tilling and seeding the poor man’s farm, they would indeed do a deal towards benefiting the country; but, no, they were spent in testing political economy and practical philosophy in building soup-houses and erecting boilers; in levelling hills; and in extending government patronage by employing commissioners, inspectors, clerks, overseers, and the like, of whom there were no less than 10,000 salaried out of money given as loans and grants for the poor. This is the way the money went, and the poor were left to starve! Landlords, too, through a selfish and narrow spirit of self interest, oppressed'the farmers, and thus hurried their properties into the Incumbered Estates Courts. They acted like the members of ?: the body when they rose in war against the stomach—jthey did not see that their well-doing was mutual.— Axithob. PI