TARIFF REFORM AND ITS EFFECTS. 95 



improvement iu other directions, and it does not 

 need a genius to predict or to perceive, tliat if 

 the farmer is, on the one hand, improving his 

 position, and a very large number of labourers in 

 each county are, on the other hand, obtaining 

 higher wages, the local tradesmen of every 

 description will receive their share in the in- 

 ceased prosperity of their customers. The 

 " general " agricultural labourer will be drawn 

 upon for this better-paid work ; and will mani- 

 festly be in a position sooner to avail himself of 

 those Acts of Parliament passed for his benefit, 

 Acts which enable working-men to get upon the 

 soil on their own account, and in connection with 

 which Mr. Chamberlain and the politicians with 

 whom he is connected did so much to promote. 

 It is the intention of those same politicians to 

 still further assist the agricultural classes of this 

 ' 'untry, and not least, the agricultural labourers ; 

 and, as a testimony on this point, we need only 

 mention the three Bills of the Right Honourable 

 Jesse Collings, 31. P., namely, a Bill to amend the 

 Small Holdings Act, so as to make the Act more 

 advantageous ; a Bill to enable those farm tenants 

 who desire to do so to purchase their holdings, 

 on a much similar system to that which has 

 already been created for and adopted by the Irish 

 farm tenants ; and a Bill enabling the children of 

 labourers and those of other cultivators of the 

 soil to secure a better education in those rural 

 subjects with v.hich in after life they are, as we 

 all hope, to be more and more identified. 



