most important sections of society under its care? There were still means in hand to do this, and when these ran out, more could be levied from the ample resources of the whole society. The government of the place and the day were in dire perplexity; for while they felt that such a directly class demand must be resisted, the unions in question, with their great numerical power in the franchise, threatened a successful political opposition if their demands were not satisfied.
At this time our illustrious Yellowly, the great trade union reconstructor, was still alive, and, notwithstanding advanced years, still busy in completing his reformatory work. He still was, as he had long previously been, the honoured president of that great representative body, the United National Trades Union, which he himself had instituted as the kind of Upper House, or High Court of Appeal, of union life. Yellowly, as head of the home unions, on this serious and compromising occasion, had at once telegraphed to those at the antipodes, in entire disapproval of this demand. While exhorting the colonial Government to make no surrender whatever, he promised a prompt support from the great body of which he was head, and of whose decided mind on the subject he entertained not a doubt. Such crises, he said, were the liability indiscriminately of all classes, and the Government could not help any one in particular except at the cost of the others. Hosts of clerks and other employees were ever being thrown out by such crises, and legions of sewing-women were in crises more or less every day of the year, and yet never dreamt of appeal to Government. And were our
