NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Ai-R. ARCH and his colleagues addressed a very large meeting, - JL which would, no doubt, have been crowded, but for the horrible weather—at Exeter Hall, on Tuesday, on the question of the Agri- cultural Labourers, with a power and success which we have attempted to describe elsewhere. During Archbishop Manning's speech, it became obvious, on his reference to the Prince Consort t..s a social reformer in this region, that the meeting was composed partly of Mr. Bradlaugh's supporters, and partly of those who came solely to hear the delegates of the Agricultural Labourers' Union, and the struggle was resumed when Mr. Bradlaugh proposed to add to one of the resolutions a clause demanding a repeal of the laws which make an artificial monopoly in land, — an amendment subsequently carried, though not without evident distrust of the speaker who
proposed it. Mr. Samuel Morley was a very inefficient chairman of the meeting ; but, fortunately, the only important business of the day was over when the first division in its ranks manifested itself. The agricultural labourers are quite aware that some of the existing land laws cause a great restriction on the adequate payment of agricultural labour ; but they see also that this corollary of their movement may be safely left to external allies, and that they themselves may gain most by not directly in- volving themselves in these difficult discussions, but by confining themselves to insisting boldly on the moral evils and iniquities of the existing rates of wages.
