• Mr. Bruce, last Friday, received a large deputation of
work- men who came to protest against the high price of provisions. Their ideas were that the land was in too few hands, 150 persons owning half the country, and 30,000 the whole of it—a mistake, as Mr. Bruce pointed out—that foreign cattle were shut out too rigorously, that land used for game preserving might grow food, that deer forests endangered social order, and that the coal- owners' monopoly raised the prioe of coal. Mr. Bruce, after ex- pressing his admiration of the conduct of the working classes under great privation, said Government would take off more taxes on food when practicable, that "Government hoped soon to relieve some of the evils relating to land," that the feeling of Parliament about the Game Laws was improving, that the price of coal would cure itself, and that he was much impressed by the views urged upon him by the workmen. Considering how erroneous some of these views are, that bit of soft-sawder might have been spared, but the sentence about the land is unmistakable.
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