A meeting was held on Tuesday in St. Pancras Vestry
Hall which on the Continent would be regarded with grave alarm. It was intended to advocate State aid to the emi- gration of the London poor, who, according to Canon Spence, cannot -find houses, there being fifty applicants for every vacant T00111. Mr. Torrens, Member for Finsbury, and Mr. H. Hnleatt, Vicar of St. John's, Bethnal Green, strongly supported the pro- ject ; but the room was filled with members of the Democratic Federation, who shouted that the capitalists ought to emigrate, and that their fathers had been plundered of the land, and they meant to have it again. They moved and carried an amendment in favour of " a reasonable scheme of home colonisation, and State employment of labour 14 home." None of the speakers on this side defined what they meant by State employment at home, or whether they intended to buy or to confiscate the land. If the former, rent must be paid, and the Democratic Federation is only seeking to turn town labourers into agricultural labourers ; bat if the latter, credit would receive a shock which would empty the wage-paying fund. We do not suppose that many hold these extreme Alas, but it seems clear either that there is an unusual amount of able-bodied dis- tress in London, or that the distressed are more conscious of suffering.
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