The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-20 00:00:00

STATE OF THE LABOUR-MARKET.

The Evening Post calls attention to a remarkable
circumstance which has marked the progress of this
year's harvest—namely, an equality of wages for
labour in England and in this portion of the
United Kingdom. After a brief reference to this
strange feature of the social revolution the Post
proceeds as follows :

" Some days since we copied a paragraph, mention-
ing that hundreds of labourers bad returned to Dun-
dalk, after failing in their attempts to obtain employment
in England. While they had been away there had been
complait is of the want of labourers at home, and wages
advanced considerably in most parts of Ireland. From
2s. to 3s. per day were usually paid in those districts
from which we have obtained reports ; and, in some
cases—probably few in number—food was given with 3-.
per day. This, we believe, is fully as high a rate of
remuneration, if not higher, than the rate ordinarily
paid for fieldwork in England during the present har-
vest. We know that there has been within the last
few years a tendency to increase of wages in this country
from the miserable rates which had prevailed in former
years, and when the late Duke of Wellington proposed,
by legislation, to provide for the payment of wages to
agricultural labourers in money. We rememer a
case that was heard not very long ago, at Macroom
Sessions, where a labourer who had been for several
weeks employed by a farmer, sought to recover a sum
equal to ld. per day for his time and labour ! This
might have been a merely exceptional case ; but there
can be no doubt that wages, for many years
before the famine, seldom were up to ls. a-day, and
were generally not more than half that amount. Very
often money was not paid at all, a small portion of po-
Woe land forming the remuneration for labour. This
system was at the very root of the social evils of the
ucuntry, and had been productive of the worst possible
consequences. Fortunately a great change has occurred
since the famine in everything connected with Irish agri-
culture ; the condition of the labourer has been steadily
improving, and it will not, we believe, be materially af-
fected by the introduction of reaping-machines or other
substitutes for human labour, because there will be
ample means of profitable employment in branches •F
husbandry in which machinery cannot be made avail.
able. A correspondent of this journal, thoroughly ac-
quainted with farming, and who has long taken the
deepest interest in the welfare of the labouring classes,
has called our attention to the fact that labourers have
been during this harvest so scarce in some parts of Meath
that women had to be employed as reapers. In a com-
munication received yesterday from this gentleman he
says, Last Thursday, near Duleek, nearly 30 women
were reaping a field of oats, and one man, probably the
bailiff, was euperintendiog the work.' Altogether the
Irish labourers, as well as the farmers, have had a good
return from the present harvest ; and, for this reason, the
state of affairs is sound. There can be no real pros-
perity in which the labouring classes do not adequately
participate. When those clan-es have their toil fairly
rewarded, aid trade and agriculture are in as wholesome
a state as we believe thorn to be at this moment in Ire-
land, it may truly be said that the country is tending to
a flourishing condition, likely, according to all human
calculations, to continue."