IMPROVEMENT IN THE LABOURER'S LOT.

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

IMPROVEMENT IN THE LABOURER'S LOT.

Addressing a gathering of rural delegates the other day Mr Gladstone in a faw well chosen words contrasted the former with the present condition of the rural labourers, and spoko as follows : —

" I am going only to read to you a few lines which are copied froiu a stone now existing in the p'irk at Hawarden. The immediate occasion of the curving: of this stone was the rebuilding of a mill; hut, for some reason or other, and I certainly can't regret it, there were inscribed upon the stone these remarkable words, which anyone may verify b5 reference to the stone any moment. The appearance of the stone" is just like the headstone of a grave, and the inscription begins, ' Trust in God for bread and to the king for protection and justico. This mill was built in the year 1707.' Then come the remarkable words, ' \\ heat was this year at 9s, a barley at os .6d bushel. Luxury was at a great height; and charity extensive, but the poor were starved, riotous and han<red.'—(Shame) Xow, pray bear in mind that is not meant, as an inflammatory condition. This mill is a mill to the house in which we live, belonging to the property. It was meant, I believe, as an honest description of the state of things ; and observe this, it is not speaking of what are called the dangerous classes, but speaks of the poor, Tlint meaut the mass of the people, and the description given to mo of them is that luxury above theui was at tt great height, that charity also was extensive ; bat. speaking of the body of them, the characteristises were three—that they were starving, that in consequents of their being starved, and no one c.-.n wonder at it, they were riotous, and that the only cure for rioting was that they were hung. (Shatne.) Well, I come down from 1767 to 1812. I was attending a dinner in 1850, privataly given to a body of miners who were about to open a colliery, and this dinner was attended by a very old man, s,nd a very remarkable old man who had worked in the collieries of the district 40 years before. The period to which be refers was the period of 1812. and that man made one of the most remarkable speeches I had ever heard. He described the changre which he had lived to see in the condition of the peopb, which in that district, I think, is rather favourable than otherwise ; and he described what it was in 1812. I believe ('hough it seems now almost incredible, 1 think I have seen it verified from public sources) wheat was at the enormous price of 20s a bushel ; five times over, gentlemen, what, not at the present moment, because it has risen a little, but what for several years you have paid for the staff of life : and potatoes —the other principal element of their subsistence—potatoes were at a corresponding price. At the same time the wages of miners were lis a week, and those of farm labourers 9s. Mr Gladstone stated that in 1856 he was travelling with the doctor of a parish iu Suffolk, who told him, " I assure you, sir, on the absolute ground of my medical experience, that of the whole labouring population of the parish there is not a man, a woman or a child who has food sufficient for the maintenance of full health." Mr Gladstone then admitted that there was a great improvement iu the position of the labourers of to-day, and ho believed that with their present political power they would attain all the objects they had in view.