By the time this week's issue of the _Weekly Leader_ appears the year 1895 will have passed away and 1896 will have been ushered in. It will do us no harm, especially the rural workers, to look at the condition of labour and ascertain, if possible, its true condition. We have constantly dinned into our ears that there has been such improvement made in the condition of the workers these last few years that there is nothing left to be done. We are told the life of the workers is all that can be desired. Now, in commencing to review the life of the toilers I have no wish to infer that there have been no improvements in the working classes; far from it, for the various political reforms that have been passed these last few years have had a tendency to give labour a stake in the country. But even these have not brought those unmixed blessings as many would have us believe they have. In fact, I think it can be shown that in some respects each political reform has had a tendency to fetter labour and somewhat enslave it, because these political reforms have left loopholes for the landlords and capitalist to tyrannize over them. With the enfranchisement came the system of letting the cottages to the labourers at a fortnight's notice, and by so doing instead of the enfranchisement of the people giving Labour a free hand, it bound Labour tighter; and the last great reform of 1894 has given the landlords and employers an opportunity of tyrannizing over the workers in such a way as was never dreamt of by the promoters of the Bill. Thus, instead of the government of our villages being in the hands of the people, it is in the hands of a wealthy clique--for the simple reason that the landlords are able to hold over the heads of the workers the threat of higher rents, and a few of the daring spirits who have come forward and voiced their fellows' wrongs have become marked birds for the aristocratic tyrants to shoot at. With these facts before us, I think it must be confessed that so far as the liberty and freedom of Labour is concerned, we have closed the year 1895 with Labour as fettered as ever, especially the unskilled portion of it.