18 OCTOBER 1873, Page 3

Will somebody tell us what American hours for agricultural labour

really are? Mr. Arch seems to think Canadian hours in- tolerable, and all our reading points to the same evil as existing in the United States. The truth seems to be that in a country like Lower Canada, for instance, where most men own thirty acres, and cultivate them themselves, excessive hours are very general, the farmer being unwilling to lose a moment's time, and exacting the same of his hired man. It is so in Belgium, in Switzerland, and in Bengal, and in all for the same reason. A sort of madness of industry seems to pos Bess little owners, and even M. Emile de Lavaleye seems to admit that too -much labour is put into the soil. Mr. Arch may depend upon it his emigrants, once settled; will manifest the same tendency, which, we are bound to say, with all our hopes for them, is not their especial foible here.