At this, moment the attention of the colonies is turned from the worry of domestic politics to the in dustrial agitation now taking place in England. The great strike which began in the clocks of London is assuming gigantic dimensions, para lysing the shipping trade, and dis turbing many other branches of commerce. The movement touches us in New Zealand, as, indeed, it will almost all parts of the globe, since the mighty emporium is the heart whose pulsations are felt in every corner of the world. Ship ments of frozen meat from this colony, which have arrived in Lon don, could not be landed and were actually rotting or in clanger of being ruined in the refrigerating chambers when the ships' supply of coal were exhausted. The price of New Zealand frozen mutton is stated to have risen in consequence. The dispute between the clock labour ers and the shipping companies ap pears to be, as usual, a question of wages, of which tho paymonfc for overtime is, no doubt, a prorninont feature. But, one of tho chief causes leading up to the outbreak scorns to be that social octopus — tho middleman, who has sprung up in all the avenues of trade be tween producer and consumor and crosses the path between Capital and Labour, principal and servant. Wherever they have planted themselves they havo spread rapidly and aro liko an army of devouring locusts. Labour however, has rebelled, and is making an effort to shake off the shackles of a tyranny which has grown beyond all patient endurance. The extor tions of middlemen are of a rapacious kind, and they fatten on the necessi ties and toil of the real workers. In the case of the labourers who are on strike the middlemen, whose exis tence they seek to abolish, are rep resented by labour agencies, and these, by the gradual encroachment of years, have become recognised as an institution through whose means, only, men are engaged for the docks and other great fields of labour. The charges they make are very extor tionate, and a tax on the earnings of the labourers. Tho evil is found in large cities in the colonies in the shape of labour agencies, touts or crimps, but, very small, indeed, in comparison with what it is in Great Britain. 