THE YEOMAN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 30, 29 July 1867, Page 3

THE YEOMAN.

The following- questions at the present moment ara worth considering-. Ist. Is it an advantage to the laboring classes to obtain exorbitant wages and secure only occasional employment, or to obtain

moderate wages and secure constant employment? Sad. Are high wages and dear living-, or moderate wages and cheap living most beneficial to the laboringclasses ? Whatever may be the nature of the replies given to these questions, this is certain, that the present low price of agricultural produce will be the cause first of throwing hundreds out employment, and, if no disturbing cause should interpose, will occasion in the the second place a gradual but general reduction in tho rate of wages. To cultivate any but the richest lands at present wages and prices will not pay. We are not supporting a theory but stating a fact. It is an advantage to tho laborer to he the recipient of high wages, if they are not too high to prevent him from obtaining employment. It is only an advantage to official locusts and fixed annuitants for the producer to receive a low price for his produce. When the Australian Gold Fields were discovered a general rise in tho rate of wages and tho price of living tool: place. At that time it was only proper that official salaries should be raised in proportion. It is no w equally proper, and for the same reason, that they should he greatly reduced. Is there any one of the members of the General Assembly who is aware of tho circumstance, and of the inference to he drawn from it ? Seven hundred working men in Canterbury the other day memoralized the Superintendent for employment. They want work from the Government, as farmers cannot employ them at present wages and present prices. We are inclined to think that laborers, as a class, are not injured by the maintenance of high prices. When prices rule high it is certain that the Agricultural ' community arc always in tho most flourishing condition. But prices are ruinously low, and we cannot see how, under these circumstances, the present high rate of wages can be maintained. A reduction in the rate of wages, if accompanied by a more equitable apportionment of taxation would, by ensuring more certain and constant employment, prove beneficial to laborers themselves, and it would prove more especially advantageous to agriculturists whether employers of labour or peasant proprietors. In the construction of roads a reduction of twenty-five percent in the rate of wages would be tantamount to an increase of that amount in the fund now available for that purpose. But even with that reduction, if accompanied by a corresponding reduction in the average price of farm produce, agriculture, in this colony cannot be profitably carried on exclusively by hired laborers ; but to be successful tho laborer must be the owner of the land ho cultivates. It is to this circumstance that a great deal that is said and written on the subject of ag-rlculture in Great Britain is not applicable to this colony, and consequently would ho out of place in the Yeoman column of the Mercury. We bear tho fact in mind when making our selections.

The following remarks from an America n journal intittled “Poor Practices for Farmers” are worth remembering*:— “ It is very poor practice for a former to dig and delve, tug* and grufo.and clear up fifty acres of fond at a cost of £4OO, and then in the third year surrender about a fifth of it to. brier?,' brambles, and ox-eye daisies.”

“ Poor practice to half-cultivatca field and then harvest from it less than half a crop.” “ To keep two inferior, scrawnj', scrub c ows, for dairy purposes, that give? less milk than one good one, and consume more food than three.”

“To purchase in town five hundred loads of livery-stable manure, and suffer six hundred of better home-made material to run to waste.

“To attempt to fatten three hogs info twelve hundred pounds of pork on just so much feed as would keep two nicely growing. _ “ To estimate agricultural affairs arrant humbugs, ami spend three days every month saving the country at political meetings.” “To depend on borrowing yoar neighbour’s rakes, reapers, mowers, and all sorts of implements in haying and harvest time,”

“To house up a thousand bushels of grain, waiting for a rite, till one-tenth has gone to food rats and mice, and the remainder smells like the essence of rat, and the price is down forty per cent.” “/To plant out a big orchard of choice fruit trees with the first thought of money making, and leave them to do or die.” “To keep two fancy hundred-guinea carriage-horses, anil pay twenty-five shillings a, day for a team to plough.” “It is positively poor practice to call “ book learning-,” all bosh, to ignore news and agricultural papers, and attempt to keep up an oven yoke with your progressive neighbours by main strength and stupidness.”