The Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1879.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 254, 6 November 1879, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1879.

Readers of the English papers by the last ma 1 or two cannot fail to have been struck with the depressing accounts of the late harvest, but few of these have placed before us a more vivid picture of the weather against which the farmers have had to contend, and its results, than that contained In the following brief extract from a recent issue of the London Standard :— " In the Tham s Valley," says that paper, "the fields are a broad expanse of water, in which the crops are rotting as they stand, while the hay, cut but not yet carried, is floating about on the service. In low-lyiog ground large pools of stagnant rain and soukage have formed themselves. The hay is beyond all hope. The wheat and barley here and there, in a few favored places, put on a deceptive appearance of good condition, but, as a rule, there is no ripening, aud it must be the fate of many an acre to be ploughed in ungathered. The hops are thin and weak The potatoes aud roots are mildewed and ruined. To add to all, during the last week the rainfall was far beyond the average, approaching very closely to five inches, or at the rate of five hundred tons of water to the acre. Against such a combination of the elements science is powerless. No drainage can carry off such a downpour. The soaked land discharges it in flood, aud all produce is literally washed away. No more significant fact is needed than the abandonment of the annual Oxford race meeting; boats are sailing to and fro over the racecourse itself. It is impossible at present to estimate exactly the loss that a season so unprecedented will cause to.the nation. We may be certain however that it cannot fall short of many millious, and that distress will be largely and widely felt. A bad harvest affects all classes of the community alike, and when coupled, as in the present case, with general commercial depression, amounts to a national < alami y. Farmers, to pay their reuts, will have to apply to their bankers, or, in other words, to hypothecate next year's crops. Laborers, thrown out of employment, and with no money laid by from harvesting, must fall back upon the rates ; and local burdens will thus be increased at a time when they will be most felt, while the prices of the ordinary necessaries of life will rise. It is a gloomy prospect, and it can onl be s*id that We have to face it as weli as we can." A more melancholy picture than this it is difficult to conceive, and when it is remembered that the scene presented tothet-ye in theTnamesValley was repeated a hundred times over in various parts of England, especially in the midland and south-eastern counties, no great imaginative powers are needed to enable the mind to re Use the fearful distress that is now prevailing in the agricultural districts of the old country. Tde result of the almost complete failure of the English crops, disastrous as it must prove to those at home, cannot fail to benefit the farmers in Australia aud New Zealand, as the quantity of grain that England will require to import during the next twelve months will be largely in excess of what it baa been in ordinary years, and a consequent rise in the price may be looked for. But an ther and more lasting benefit which it is likely to confer upon thiscouutry will be in the shape of the migration to our shores of a class of settlers of which we are just now greatly in need, that is, the small capitalist who has been brought up as a farmer, and will be willing to settle on and cultivate the land. Already is there a move in this direction, special reference having been made by the chairman at the late meeting of the Bank of New Zealand shareholders to the fact that delegates were now on tucir way out to the colony to examine and report upon the country as a field for farmers of the class referred to, and upon that report, which cau scarcely fail to prove favorable, will depend the movements of several nun dreds of those who are giving up all hope of ever being able to make a living in Englaud, and are looking with lougiug eyeß to the facilities for acquiring a homestead of their own, and the means of bringing up their families in comfort which are afforded in the colonies. For a long time this desire to emigrate has existed among the small farmer class, but the strong and very natural dislike to breaking up the old home with the view of forming a new one elsewhere has prevented that desire being put into practice, but now that stern necessity has rendered it compulsory we may soon look to having the population of the colony materially increased by the very stamp of men whom we are anxious to welcome to our shores.