To the Editor of the Norta-Ciixa Darty News."
_Sin,—I have noticed in the Recollections of a Chinese Official just published in sour columns a phrase which I wish to point out. 3 operating in the North in 1900.
1 of the expedition sent to Kal-"the Italian soldiers peditionary force vere tive in robbing everyone they ould."
This is throughly untrue, not only i Kalgan. but in any other place in which the Italian Contingent had the apportunity to be present. In Paotingfu, the Ttalian troops received a liberal acknosled; the Chinese local an thorities, for the fair way the portion of Sin.~-[ think it may interest some of your readers to know how the ery, which will he the chief ery at the next election england, "ne tax on the will really affect the people The cry, if 1 mistake not, will be sounded specially in the vats of the agricultural labourers. who are supposed to be the poorest of the poor; and whose votes will strongly influence the county elections.
impression is that the pinch will with much severer pain on the much enduring lower middle-class electors, just: touched by the income tax, just clutched yy the rates "But see how labourers in the south-west of Enzland stand now; sadly notorious as they were according to 8. G. O. thirty ago for poverty. ignorance and de-not high 5 but the: are three bread winners in a family, father and two strong sons in the farmer's employ, th y can cam between them £80 or £85 per annum; and with the wife's washes and help at the m, and special gratuities at harvest ime, they can command £100 a year.
Their cottages, kept in repair by the squire, who is landlord, they hold rent free.
Their fuel is brought to their doors, in the farmer's own wagons, addition to wages. Coal to a tain and that a liberal amount! is ought from the nearest depot, and de-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.