(FROM THE TIMES, JUNE 22 1860)
The social miseries consequent upon this continuous ill-weather have, indeed, been hard enough to bear, but they have been as nothing in comparison with tho injury inflicted upon tho substantial resources of the nation. The herbage has been drowned, or scorched up under keen winds. The younglings of the flocks and herds have perished for want of food. Lambs, which in ordinary seasons produce wealth in abundance to the stockgrowers, have been given away freely to anybody who would accept them as a gift. The price of meat has flown up to a point at which it is placed almost beyond tho reach of any save the comfortable classes. We hear of leagues formed in this or that district or town for tho purpose of uniting to give up the use of butchers' meat until the butchers consent to reduce their prices. Under the usual condition of affairs Scotland, with its long ranges of sheep-walk, exports mutton to England. England is now exporting mutton to Scotland. The evil is. unhappily, far indeed from being a sentimental one. People who are engaged in agricultural operations will tell you that, unless tho weather mends, and that speedily, the year's harvest will be in the most imminent peril. We all know the meaning of a deficient harvest. Irreparable mischief is not yet done : but an eleventh month of bad weather superadded to the ten which have preceded it would probably be sufficient to place the grain crops in jeopardy. Under these circumstances we have at least the comfort of thinking that in our own islands the legislative folly of man is not acting in harmony with the inclemency of the elements. The farmer on the banks of the Ohio and the Belgian grower of stock are working for the British markets. Not many years ago a few months of rain, a spoilt harvest, and a rejected Reform Bill would have represented, in the hands of a skilful agitator, tho groundwork of a formidable agitation. Now at least the humblest mechanic or peasant who may be suffering distress in consequence of the hardness of the times is well aware that the Government of the country has nothing to do with bis misfortune. His indignation may be directed, probably without cause, against the corn-dealers, or millers, or butchers, or bakers ; but there the quarrel ends. As to the weather, the common sense of the matter, according to the observation of ordinary men who make no pretension to the prophetic character, would seem to be that good years and bad years, wet years and dry years, go in cycles. We, have bad for some years past series of dry years, and now we must apparently make up our minds to see the wheel for a while in revolution the other way. Let us hope that the worst is past, and that henceforth matters may begin to mend, although tho amendment will in all likelihood be gradual,