The Evening Star TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2483, 31 January 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1871.

An able American writer says : I suppose nobody rises from the consideration of the social and political condition of the world in our day, without asking himself with more or less misgiving—even the most hopeful feel it at times —what, even after we have done everything we can do to make progress healthful, are we coming to ? Where and when are the bad tendencies which we all see so thickly around us to be arrested, and by what agencies ? These are the questions that present themselves to his mind after a clear and impartial consideration of the legislative institutions of the woidd. Comparing the past with the present, monarchical rule with democratic institutions, he .remarks that the latter are—

Tokens that the people are really managing their own affairs, and that their will, be it well or ill expressed, is the law of the land. But, nevertheless, it is clearer every day—all thoughtful men acknowledge it with alarm and anxiety—that they are proving more and more unequal to the burdens society now lays on them. Their task in simple agricultural communities such as all communities were down to the beginning of this century, was simple enough. They had to keep things as they were, and they did it. They have now to make things go, and they do not do it. What with ignorance, haste, want of training, and the distraction of an infinite variety of details and of multifarious conflicting- interests, legislation in every legislative body in the world is rather a hindrance than a help to healthy progress, and a sapper rather than a strengthener of public morals.

If this writer, instead of taking a general -v iew of democratic legislation, had set himself critically to comment upon the progress of the elections in Otago, he could not better have expressed the nature of the crisis we have reached. The struggle, just now, is not the squatter against the agriculturist. This is to a great extent settled. Had no other interests been involved in the electoral contest going on, little harm could have resulted, whichever had the ascendancy. Stripped of all the imagery with which each invests the attempts of the other, and accepting the bare tendency of the measures propounded for the settlement of the country as charged by each upon the other, were legislation left to them, Otago would be either

the abode of patriarchs subsisting on the produce of their flocks and herds, or of pauper farmers raising produce they could not sell. Every attempt to raise the agricultural laboring class above this helot condition is resisted by them. If a man offers himself for election whose education and habits have taught him to look beyond the boundaries of a corn field or a potato plot, they reject him. And unfortunately there is a set of men, who ought to have knowledge enough and honesty enough to act differently, who pander to this gross ignorance of our political requirements, and contrive to use it as a stepping stone to their ambition. Dunedin set the example of rejecting a really able man, in favor of a visionary ; and at Roslyn the anti-progres-sive tendency was strongly manifested yesterday. The contest is not now between squatter and farmer, hut between those who wish for progress and those who Jo not. The strangest feature in the case is that men who live by labor cannot see this. That the electors of the Clutha should choose Mr Thomson, is not more than we expected. Men who are capable of such undisguised selfishness as was exhibited in the Clutha petition, ■were sure to elect a man whoso whole political career has been marked by political bigotry and intolerance. This class, by some means or other, want to persuade the world they are friends to the working classes. We do not know how Mr Reid’s ideal of “ a pig in a 11 stye, and cows grazing on the natural “ herbage,” commends itself to the agricultural mind. It is a picture of lazy nnthriftiness too nearly resembling the sensuality of the savage to have charms for those who have even the slightest glimmering of material, intellectual, or moral advancement. But what faith can be placed in the professions of a class whose selfish -arrangements tend to prevent the attainment of even this questionable animal happiness 1 It can only be done by hard work and saving. Mr Reid represents the settlers who claim to be friends to ibo working classes. We have time after time urged the necessity of preparation for giving them employment during winter. Mr Macandhew proposed a plan which was laughed at by the Reid party. With what reason ■will bo seen by the following verbatim report of what took place at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. From it the working men may learn what real sympathy the settlers haye with them and their welfare. ' A very respectable farm laborer sued a T; fieri farmer for wages. There had been no dispute between them—no definite arrange- 1 ment. The workman was paid by the week, and the refusal to pay him the wages due appeared to be because he had endeavored to make the most of

his time by taking advantage of the demand for labor during harvest. That he was justified in so doing, is apparent from the statement of the employer, who, in answer to. the Magistrate, said when he engaged him—

I told him prof>fit>h/ I would give him service all winter, if wan a iiiui/rrii/r whiter, but if it was such a winter as hist winter I could not give him work. He could leave at any time. Tins young mm came to me, and said he did not think he would stop over five or six weeks. I said I could tliis young man (alluding to another) for a pound a week, or pci haps less ; hut if he liked the place be could stop on. He said, “ All right; I have no fault to find with y ,l u” There were other points of difference, one of which was trying to charge for chaff to make a bed of) but what we want chiefly to draw attention to is that this class—the settlor class—are trying to secure themselves against employing labor during the winter, and setting themselves against any plan that would find employment for working men when they will not give it. They want their men to be in such a position as to be their seifs. In the face of this one-sided arrangement, the settler thought himself badly used because the man would not work at a pound a Aveek during harvest.