xc 



The wages of unskilled labour other than agricultural have 

 advanced about 25 per cent, during the past twenty years, but the 

 price of food has gone up in proportion. It is not, therefore, to this 

 that we must look for the cause of the undoubted amelioration in the 

 condition of this class of the population evinced by their dwelling 

 in better bouses, eating moi'e animal food, and indulging in other 

 luxuries (drinking, I am afraid, amongst the number) to a greater 

 extent than formerly. It is due mainly, I think, to the steady and 

 ever-increasing demand for labour throughout the year, so that the 

 man or woman who is willing to work need never want. This is 

 caused partly by the area of cultivation extending year by year, the 

 development of trade and by public and private works of utility 

 being carried out on a large scale throughout the country. In thia 

 respect the expenditure of Local Funds plays no unimportant part, 

 and those who contribute them are repaid with interest in an indirect 

 manner. In former days, within my own recollection, it was a very 

 difficult matter for the labouring classes to tide over those months of 

 the year during which agricultural operations were at a standstill. 

 Public works were few and far between, and those who wished to 

 obtain employment on them had often to travel and encamp many 

 miles away from their homes to earn sufficient to save themselves 

 from starvation. Now the work is brought up to their doors, and 

 when the demand for agricultural labour is slack, employment is 

 always to be obtained on imperial or local works. I believe this 

 Presidency to be at present in the most hopeful condition, and no 

 better evidence can, I think, be adduced in support of the position 

 than the undoubted fact that the labouring classes, by whose aid the 

 bulk of the revenue of the State is produced, are in a happy and 

 prosperous condition, although, as before observed, the figures above 

 quoted might provoke an opposite conclusion. 



