This accident in Oxfordshire is most unfortunate. The Duke 'of
Marlborough has there taken the lead against the men ; the nen very wrongly used the harvest as a weapon to gain a sudden increase of 50 per cent., the farmers are intensely exasperated, and Mr. Cardwell has defeated the Union by using the soldiers in the harvest-field. We do not suppose the Secretary at War intended anything of the kind. The soldiers are not ordered to reap, but only allowed to reap, as they have been every i'ear for many years past ; but the labourers, expecting to find all dignitaries hostile, firmly believe that Government sent the soldiers on purpose to ruin them. The workmen of the city have taken up the matter, and pledge themselves to deprive Mr. -Cardwell of his seat ; but it is in the villages that the effect is most serious. The labourers are most unreasonable about the patter, as the harvest is matter of national concern, and soldiers have as much right to work voluntarily as anybody else ; but the truth is, the men are getting ulcerated by the injustice of the attacks made Upon their freedom. If the clergy in particular do utt speak oat quickly—their organ, the Guardian, bas done so in a most wise and Christian-like spirit—they will lose hold of the labourers altogether. The attacks at the meetings on "these black-coats who grab our puddens out of Christian love,"—vide Mr. Arch's last .speech,—are becoming as savage as they must be unjust.
