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SQUIRE, PARSON, AND LABOURER.

(Daily Chronicle.) There was apparently a very strong flavour of Nonconformity about the meeting of the Rural Conference yesterday, but it would be foolish to infer from this that the demonstration was sectarian or not broadly representative. The fact js, that among the working classes in our country the spokesman of the different trades are usually Nonconformists. The Churoh of England does not encourage the dangerous art of oratory among its poorer adherents, nor does it stimulate them to independent thought. On the other hand, among Dissenters, the lay brother with rhetorical gifts has ample means of cultivating thein. Heuce in trade questions he naturally come* to the front among oomrudes who are inarticulate. It would therefore be rash to infer from the predominance of the Nonconformist element in the conference yesterday that the rural poor have deserted the Church en mime. If expressions hostile —in many instances bitterly hostile—to the Church were freely delivered yesterday and enthusiastically cheered, the cause is nol far to see If. It is to be found in the growing distaste of the agricultural labourer to be ''bossed" by the parson at every turn of his life. It is also to be traced to the still stronger distaste of his woman kind for what Dickens' bricklayer in "Bleak House" called the " poll-parrotting and " polprying " visitations of the parson's wife and daughters. "We don't want soup or blankets, but fair play," exclaimed one of the delegates yesterday amidst a spontaneous outbur.-t of applause, and that utterance struck the keynote of the meeting. Not a siogle speech was made that did not breathe hatred, openly or by innuendo, against the parson and the squire as the two great impenetrable obstaolss to the amelioration cf life among the rural poor. We are not goinir to discuss the point as to whether this feeling ought or ought not to exist. But it is our duty as critics of public afftirs to draw the attention of the governing classes to tie fact, and to remind them that the first sign of approaching revolution is the development of bitter personal animosity of this typo among the least sensitive and most conservative class in the country against their traditioml " pastors and masters." We confess the aspect of the conferenoe to which we are now alluding suggests grave doubts as to the political capacity and insight of tlie governing class to whom we have so long entrusted the management of rural England. For centuries the squire and the parsons have had ptaotically absolute oontrol over the English peasant from his cradle to his grave. They have stood to him in loeeo parentis, and the question the oountry will now ask is- '• What have they made of their opportunity and their stewardship f" The tale of grievances told at yesterday's oouferenoe, punctuated as it was with rancorous antipathy against parsons and squires as a class, supply what is to us an answer at once mournful and disappointing. The parson and the squire when they imagined that Hodge and his family have been these years adoriug them as a sort of bountiful Providence, have clearly been living in a fool's paradise. Whenever Hodge is free to speak through the ballot box, and when he plucks up enough oourage to give rent to his feelings in public conferences, we see bow completely Arcadia is honeycombed cinkering worm of social discontent and slass hatred, 'the conference will however do good if the solemn lossou it thus oouvoys is taken to heart in time by those whom it most closely concerns.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18920220.2.37.7

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3058, 20 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

Word count
Tapeke kupu
597

SQUIRE, PARSON, AND LABOURER. Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3058, 20 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

SQUIRE, PARSON, AND LABOURER. Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3058, 20 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

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