Note 1 — NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

“Dear Sir,—I have read with deep and earnest attention the last small tract of Girdlestone. I feel its tremendous truth, and have long done so too; but there is now a very pressing matter I would like to see gone into, and if possible some remedy proposed for it. It is one I have written many times to you about: I mean the rent question for the poor, the working people. At the present there is a sad depressing trade all over our country, and even in Europe. Yet, despite this awful depression, I note what is termed real estate is now going up gradually in value. I mean property and land. And that in the midst of this very depression and want of all kinds of labour by our workpeople and manufacturers, and in the midst of a tremendous opposition from our foreign competitors; yet nowhere do I see it named in any of our papers in the way I expected to see it treated of: they all seem quite elated with the great advance that has taken place, and the continued activity of all our building trades. Now, it seems to me, here is a question of vital importance that needs some sound information given on it, and some reasons assigned for this strange change in the value of all such property, in a time of such widespread depression of all trade. How are our people and our manufacturers to pay increased rents when there is a depressed trade, and no work for our workmen to do? Our town is now in a sad depressed state—work of all kinds very scarce; yet on all sides I learn the rents are being increased to workmen, manufacturers, and shopkeepers; and I note it also the case in other towns. I would like to see some good report as to the real extent of such advance of property in England. I find the advance in price of hotel, public-house, and such-like property has been something tremendous within these few years, since I wrote you my letters in ‘Time and Tide.’ To me it is something very sad to reflect upon this great change in the value or cost of a house to our workpeople. I find their food, such as butcher’s meat, potatoes, and vegetables, milk, and some other kinds of necessaries, are also increased in price, owing to this advance in rent. So that the outlook for our workpeople, despite all our wealth, is indeed not a very pleasant one, for how are they to tide over this storm with all these necessaries at such prices? I note in the papers the miners of the Forest of Dean in some places are starving. I send you a book:1 you can make any use of it you like. I have here and there marked its pages that I thought might serve in some measure to awaken an interest in this question of the workpeople, versus the rise in the value of their necessaries in dull times.