force, I hoped that new life would rise amongst you, and that you would endeavour to make the most of the opportunities that presented themselves to you, and that by this time you would have been in a much better position. But my hopes have been blighted and now I despair of you. All hopes that you as a class will make any effort to lift yourselves from your down-trodden state have vanished. Such being so, many of us are seriously considering whether the time has not come for us to step out of the field and leave you to fight your way the best you can. Now, so far as the actual state of Labour is concerned, your outlook for the future is most gloomy for reasons already stated, and at present the condition of labour is not very much improved. At the commencement of this year your wages as agricultural labourers were 10s. per week; flour was 11d. and 1s. per stone. At present your wages are 10s. per week, and flour 1s. 2d. and 1s. 3d. per stone, and thus with a family using five stones of flour per week, as hundreds of you do, your purchasing power is reduced 1s. 3d. per week. You were told in July last that it would be otherwise; you were led to believe that if there was a change of Government, and the farmers made more of their produce, you would get higher wages. No other evidence is needed of the foolishness of your conduct, as your past experience ought to have told you. It is only by having a good organization at your back that the farmers will ever pay you a higher wage, and there is nothing unnatural in that. The farmer is a merchant: he has your labour to buy, and he will always buy it as cheaply as he can. That is so long as our present individualistic system remains, and labour is used for the sake of profit-making.