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while they do labor. The employers, from the exigency of their position 

 in the busy season, are, in turn, compelled to comply with this demand. 

 Thus it turns out, that for the year's operations the farmers themselves 

 realize but about half what they should realize, and the labor they 

 employ, though receiving double price for the time actually engaged, is 

 but poorly paid. Hence, too, we find all these same laborers, during the 

 balance of the year, running up and down through the State, with no 

 money in their pockets, looking for employment. Such is their condi- 

 tion at this present time, as every farmer and every hotel-keeper in the 

 country can testify. 



Again, frankness compels us to take another and still worse view of 

 this ugly subject. Idleness is the mother of crime ; hence we see so 

 many persons of dissipated habits in oar land ; hence we hear of so 

 many l-obberies on our public highways and in the streets of our cities; 

 hence so many burglaries and petty thefts during the fall and winter 

 months — the idle season in the agricultural districts. This picture is not 

 overdrawn. As unpleasant as it is to be compelled to publish it, as 

 damaging to the fair fame of our State as are its ugly features, still it 

 does not even present the wretchedness of the reality. 



It becomes us, then, as the representatives of the industrial classes, as 

 the friends of the laborers and employers of our State, to inquire into 

 and suggest the remedies for the evils as they exist. These remedies do 

 not lie in any eight-hour laws, or any other laws restricting the hours 

 for a day's labor. Nor are the remedies to be found in laws excluding 

 labor of any kind from the State, or in placing burdens of any kind upon 

 that labor. Neither will it remedj T the evil by attempting to legislate 

 for the protection of white or black, or any other colored labor. 



In this report we wish to be understood that we represent no political 

 party, being of all parties, and that we favor no political ideas whatever, 

 except those suggested by 'true political economy and the best interests 

 of the State. Weighed in this balance, the laws above referred to, and 

 all legislation of that character, will only make the matter worse, as 

 they can have no other effect than to create ill will and ill feeling 

 between the different classes of laborers, and suspicion and distrust 

 between laborers and employers. Such laws do not recognize, and con- 

 sequently do not aim, at the real cause of the trouble. 



This cause, as we have shown, affects the employer as much as the 

 employed, and the remedy must be one that will reach and mutually 

 benefit both. We have a plenty of work in our State for all the labor 

 there is here, and a hundred times as much more. We have resources 

 here sufficient for the profitable occupation of all the master farmers 

 and mechanics there are here, with all the capital the} T can employ, and 

 would have, if there were a hundred times as many, commanding a 

 thousand times as much capital. 



To admit any other propositien would be, indirectly, to assert that we 

 want no more population — that we want no more immigration ; in short, 

 that our resources are already being developed as fast as they can be 

 rendered remunerative. These positions are too absurd to require a 

 moment's consideration ; and yet all laws of the character above referred 

 to are founded upon these positions as their basis, and, if spread upon our 

 statute books, will have a tendency to place us before the world in this 

 extremely absurd and false position. What we want, abo% T e all things, to 

 give us universal prosperity and constant and remunerative employment 

 for all classes, is a diversified agriculture; an agriculture so varied in its 

 products and so constant in its operations that it will require about an 



