Excerpt from What We Did in Australia: Being the Practical Experience of Three Clerks, in the Stock-Yard and at the Gold Fields It has been a mistake in this country to suppose that labour was other than slightly superfluous, and especially in agricultural districts, the harvests of which would with difilculty be housed, were it not for the swarms of Irish labourers who make their periodic descent on England. The fact is that the agricultural labourer has been told by his employer that there were too many of his class, and his mind being by no means of the highest order, has believed it, in defiance of his senses, which should have j showed him; that at no time was there sufficient Of his class to gather the harvest. He has simply believed his Degreesmaster's interest in preference to his own eyesight. What real superfluity of hands there may have been is in our C huge wen Of a metropolis, and in large menuise turing towns, where the abundance of labour has brought wages down to starvation point. In' towns the superfluity of labour was at one time real, ahdv' still partially continues so. In the country it has been for the most part imaginary. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.