have never regarded Mr. Arch's lead with much confidence, and the latter has not failed to reciprocate this sentiment of distrust. The reason, I think, is that Mr. Arch is a thorough agricultural laborer, with all the virtues and some of the failings of his class. He has seen so little real generosity exhibited towards the serfs of the soil, that he is somewhat over-suspicious on their account. He fears the Greeks, even when they bring gifts to his clients; and this attitude, I am bound to say, has not always been without justification. It served him notably in Canada when he came to negotiate with the unscrupulous ring of emigration crimps who, in the fall of 1873, formed the Macdonald Cabinet. Canada is, in truth, a country where it is difficult to say whether the rigor of the climate or the corruption of the Government is the more unendurable. If he had listened to the warbling of the official sirens, and deported large numbers of English laborers to the inclement shores of Canada, it would have been enough to wreck the union forever.
Mr. Arch's sojourn in the United States was less satisfactory. The New York working-men, intending nothing uncomplimentary, had advertised him to speak at the Cooper Institute without his consent,—more Americano. He declined with quite unnecessary bluntness. He did not proceed far enough west; for there, if anywhere, is it possible to find the promised land of the English agricultural laborer. On a future torn* of inspection it is to be hoped he will repair so great an oversight, inasmuch as it is pretty certain that emigration has all along been the sheet-anchor of the union. Under the auspices of the National Agricultural Laborers' Union, and partly aided by its funds, some seven
