Q. Of that which is thus useless now, what portion has been formerly under cultivation? --A. It would be impossible for any one to form an estimate, because it is so varied. Q. The amount of land that has been improved and which is now destroyed by reason of the overflow, you cannot state? --A. I cannot state it accurately; I will state it approximately; I should say at least one third. Q. One third of the entire amount that has been improved is now destroyed by reason of the overflow, resulting from imperfections in the levee system? --A. Yes, sir; that is what I mean to say. Q. And of that which has not been improved but might be improved, how much? --A. At least half. * * * * * As I have devoted some space to the general condition of labor in the whole country, and as some of my statements and conclusions may be looked upon as extravagant, I deem it very pertinent to add to the appendix a portion of the testimony of Dr. R. Heber Newton, given before Senator Blair's Committee on the "_Relations between Capital and Labor_," in New York City, September 18, 1883 (Vol. II., p. 535). Dr. Newton is recognized as a clear thinker and a ready writer not only on theological but on economic questions as well. His testimony on the points to which I have asked attention was as follows: A LABOR QUESTION COMING The broad fact that the United States census of 1870 estimated the average annual income of our wage-workers at a little over $400 per capita, and that the census of 1880 estimates it at a little over $300 per capita, is the quite sufficient evidence that there is a labor question coming upon us in this country. The average wages of 1870 indicated, after due allowance for the inclusion of women and children, a mass of miserably paid labor--that is, of impoverished and degraded labor. The average wages of 1880 indicated that this mass of semi-pauperized labor is rapidly increasing, and that its condition has become 25 per cent worse in ten years. The shadow of the old-world _proletariat_ is thus seen to be stealing upon our shores. It is for specialists in political economy to study this problem in the light of the large social forces that are working such an alarming change in our American society. In the consensus of their ripened judgment we must look for the authoritative solution of this problem. I am not here to assume that role. I have no pet hobby to propose, warranted to solve the whole problem without failure. I do not believe there is any such specific yet out. * * * I THE FAULTS OF LABOR Plainly, labor's fault must be found with itself.