DISTRESS IN ENGLAND.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 120, 12 February 1879, Page 3

DISTRESS IN ENGLAND.

The Dunedin ‘ Morning- Herald’s ’ London letter of a late date contains the following paragraph ; There is a dispute between the farmers and agricultural labourers in Kent, consequent on a reduction of wages which the farmers wish to make, the present wages of the labou ers being only 16s or 17s weekly. In East Kent alone there are between 300 and -100 labourers locked out. The locked out have had a procession through the streets of London, displaying banners with mottoes to the effect that those who grow the wheat may not eat the broad. A great meeting in Exeter Hall lias also bebn held, ! the idea being to procure sympathy and ! assistance for the labourers, but, as the . proceeds only amounted to LnO. and the

le I expenses were very heavy, in fact, severa in i hundreds of pounds, the demonstration i can hardly he called a success, especial! 1,1 j as it has brought into existence a herd of impostors, who are going about dressei '•s labourers, making the streets intoler h ‘‘ -nth their wretched songs of woe :s il'' e ’m real sufferers have obtaine l a luanv ol ii,„ , i , . ■'■owns, and some hav 3 employment m 7 , .. « „ , 1 , 1 , , reduction ot on 11 to their work at a . ~ , i i < uc north c filing per week. In . _ , . siu. -d no less than seventy C o[i : P 1 Knglaim l osed during the last have been Cm ’ham there is a cottor months. At Olcm. more extender strike which becomes strike a' every day, the number 0,. present being 15,000, whicli is exp*, to increase. Only 5000 of those, men belong to any association, so that the distress threatens to be very great. At Sheffield thousands of houses stand empty, the tenants who occupied them being unable to pay rent, and being crowded many families into one house. And so I could go on enumerating places through the land, from Cornwall to Caithness, where the distress is equally great. There is surely in those circumstances no very bright prospect for a financier intent on laying on war taxes. The British camel would seem to be tolerably well laden already without adding to the burden such a very substantial straw as the Afghan campaign. By taxes or loans there must be millions provided ; so the poor will he made poorer and the struggling crushed out of their last hope. These facts have a peculiar significance now that men are asking how much the nation will have to pay for Lord Eeaconsfichl’s latest speculations in foreign policy.