A Poor Creature!

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 437, 3 April 1890, Page 3

A Poor Creature!

It is said that Australians arc always fond of snobs, but this touching appeal, which appears in the Sydney Telegraph, ought surely to move the Australians to compassion : —Sir,—May I, as a visitor to Australia, beg of your people not to render monetary assistance to tbe English colliers uow out on strike, as they did to the dock laborers some months ago. These persons, I can assure you, are unworthy objects of sympathy; but there is a class in England who are really deserving of pity yet are shamefully neglected. I refgr to the landlords, the owners of the soil in which tbe coalpits are sunk. When a strike occurs the capitalist who leases the mine is either very remiss in paying hia rent or is unable to pay it at all. Thus the landlord is deprived of his income and has to stint himself of many luxuries to which he has been accustomed. Take my case for example. My father, Lord Voleur, owns some of the richest colleries in tbe North of England. He inherited them from Sir Artouie de Faineant, to whom they were granted by the lamented Charles I. for services rendered to his Majesty. During all these years my ancestors have provided these coalmines, which have fur nished so many people with work. We have, in fact, created the collieries, and but for us where would the output of coal have been ? But so ungrateful are the miners that they think of nothing but iucreasiug their own wages, and never concern themselves as to how the owners of tbe mine shall find a means of living if the rent is not paid. It is really not of much moment that they should suffer a loss of wages during the strike, as in the best of times we landlords can spare them only a mere pittance after deducting our rent. They are so used to bard living that unfortunately a strike cannot make their lot much worse, or they would the sooner listen to reason and pay more respect to the rights of tbe landlord. They are most degraded creatures. I once ventured down one of the pits and I actually saw men with only their trousers on lying on their naked backs in a drive picking down the coal while their wives were engaged in wheeling out tbe trucks of coal. Juet imagine such sights as these in Christian England. Amd yet these are the horrible beings who receive Australian sympathy, while we, the owners of the mines, reared in luxury and refinement, are wronged out of our livelihood and abused as well by wicked Radicals.—Yours, &c., Reginald Labbon.