SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1894. THE OUTLOOK IN THE COUNTRY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4898, 10 December 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1894. THE OUTLOOK IN THE COUNTRY.

We have been unpleasantly struck for some time past when listening to tho conversation, or whilst reading the letters of thoughtful and practical men, by the gloomy tone which pervades their spokon or written opinions. All, with one consent, predict that there is a very bad time before us in the immediate future. Some of the more serious factors in tho sum total are the heavy glut of the frozen meat market at Home; the unsatisfactory state of the wool market; the serious, perhaps very serious, deficiency in the yield of wool on many stations, which loss is intensified by indifferent or positively inferior quality; the low price of stock; the highly probable consequent necessity for modificationof some heavy existing contracts. These are some of the causes of uneasiness, Then, again, tho season has been, in many districts, all against the proper fattening and good condition of stock. The small fanner, too, will havo a bad time of it this year. We hear good accounts of the hops in the Middle Island, although onr information is as yet only partial, but the price is sure to bo low, as the market is of late years always overstocked, and many of tin) hops placed in the market do not deserve to fetch a good price: The dairy industry seems fairly sound. As regards the unemployed in the Wairarapa we aro informed that the number of swaggers has greatly diminished, although thoro are still a few; these few consisting almost entirely of old or obviously undesirable men, or men who prefer to be tramps. The harvest in many places will be poor, aud this means widespread trouble—poverty, debt, entanglement and ruin. Even the richer men will, in common prudence, begin to "out their coat according to their cloth." Work will be rearranged or left undone, and only the most efficient and trustworthy men will bo retained. We will not moralize at any length, but we arc persuaded that working men do not in their political economy attach nearly its due weight to tho value of trustworthiness and steadiness. We believe in cause and effect. We cau say, from personal knowledge that it is enough to make any thoughtful man sick at heart to see the utterly insane and reckless way in which cheques in this district, as well as' elsewhere, iare too often "knocked down" in a few hours, or days at most j sonio l of them beiiig for sums which would keep a mail in comfort through months of idleness if it wore unhappily forced upon him,.