The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-11 00:00:00

WORK AND WAGES.

In London, on Saturday evening, the first of a series
of lectures on "Work and Wages" was delivered by
Professor Leoni Levi, at the Theatre of King's Col-
lege, to a large audience, composed chiefly of the mem-
bers of Metropolitan Working Men's Clubs.
Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., presided, and in opening
the proceedings explained the circumstances which had
led to the delivery of the lectures. He said that at the
recent meeting of the British Association at Bristol
there was presented to the members a very able re-
port on the relations between employers and employed.
Upon that report there was a discussion, in the course
of which it was suggested that an effort should be
made to supply a means by which the difficulties and
losses and bitterness that accompanied " strikes "
and " lock-outs " might be avoided, with a prope.: and
just regard for the rights of both parties. At that
time he felt that it would be worth any tiotible- if '
they could arrive at a condition of things under which
men employed and men who employ could meet and
determine in a friendly spirit how best to settle the
difficulties that might arise between them. He was
there that evening as an employer, exceedingly anxious
to avoid the losses always resulting from strikes, but
much more anxious to avoid the feelings of bitterness
that strikes caused to enter into a relationship which
ought to be one of friendship and confidence. So far
as he was himself concerned he always looked upon
his workmen as his benefactors. (Hear, hear.) In his
firm they had a large number of men who bad been up-
wards of fifty years in their service, and to his mind
such services had—he would not say endeared them
to his mind—but had brought them into such a re-
lationship with him that he did not look upon them
as servants, but as personal friends. (Hear, hear.) Ex-
cepting a very small matter, which did not extend
to more than one hundred workmen, they had not had
a strike in their establishment for the last twenty-five
years, but perhaps this was to some extent owing to
the fact that they had at Nottingham a Board of Arbi-
tration, to which any little differences that might arise
were at once referred. At this Board workmen and
manufacturers, meeting on opposite sides of the tables,
were able to come to a satisfactory agreement, and with
some slight interruptions this system had worked very
successfully in preventing the worst consequences of
dispute between employers and employed. Under
certain circumstances a strike may be an absolute ne-
cessity, and he fully admitted it; but it should not be
attempted except as a last resort. At the present
moment there were hundreds of families in North
Wales reduced to a state of utter destitution by
the recent strike and lock-out, and it seemed to him
to be a matter deeply to be deplored that some means
had not been found for the purpose of preventing the
ruinous consequences of disputes of that description.
In the interests of their cortimon country they ought
to try to find out some way by which working men
and their employers would be enabled to assert their
rights without the misery at present attendant upon
the conflicts between labour and capital. It was to
discuss this question—which was of such vital moment
to them all—that they were met that evening. He
thought they had been living in a "Fools' Paradise"
iti regard to this question. It was, therefore, time that
they did something in order to bring nearer together
persons whose relationship was so close. No strike of
any magnitude had occurred in this country in recent
years in reference to which he had not endeavoured
to ascertain the rights and the wrongs of the dis-
pute. Some years ago he was down in Darlington,
and he was shown a large number of cottages,
all well furnished, which he was told belonged to
the working men of the district but a strike
took plme, and what was the result? Every article of
furniture had disappeared, and honest working men
were compelled to lie on straw for the want of a bed.
No one interested in the well-being of his fellow-
creatures could feel otherwise than grieved at such a
state of things. It was a matter for great regret that
there should not be some means by which both parties
could arrive at a just conclusion as to matters upon
which they might be disagreed, and he had faith
enough in the growing intelligence of the working
classes, as he had in the right-Minded feeling of a large
prbportion of employers, to believe that if they only
put their heads and hearts and minds together they
would be able to chalk out for themselves a course that
would prove beneficial to all. In the hope that the
discussion of the subject would facilitate some such
arrangement they were assembled that evening, and
he felt that nothing but good came from the meeting.
Professor Leoni Levi then proceeded to deliver his
lecture, which dealt at Considerable 'length with the
question of "work," and the conditions under which
it was accomplished in this and other countries. He
enlarged first upon the dignity and importance of
labour, without which nothing was produced. Nature
lived by labour. Beast, bird, air, fire, the heavens,
and rolling world, all lived by action. Nothing lived
at rest but death and ruin. Such expressions as
"condemned to labour," the "task of labour," or the
calling of any labour servile, betokened simple ignor-
ance of its dignity and utility. Alluding to the preva-
lent custom of speaking of, the working classes as a
distinct body of persons upon whom mainly the work
and toil of life devolved, he said: We are all workers.
In the large mass of human beings to whose care and
activity the wide world had been entrusted, all of
us, from the Queen downwards, have our work to
do. Some are labouring in directing and adminis-
tering the affairs of State' some in appropriating,
adapting, converting, and shaping matter to the
general convenience; many are fulfilling various
offices for man in curing disease, teaching youth,
preserving peace, defending right, punishing wrong,
and in a thousand ways upholding the great structure
of human society. Some work in the field, B,ome in
the workshop, some in the mines, and some on the
sea. Some labour with the head, and son. with
both, and, strictly speaking, we may not be all pro-
ducers of wealth; but I cannot allow that no labour
is valuable which is not immediately employed in the
production of material riches. The genius which
enlightens, the religion which comforts, the justice
which preserves, the science and art which charm our
existence are as truly productive as commerce, agricul-
ture, or manufacture. It was ungenerous, he added, to
assume that the manual labourer employed no skill, for
there was no trade in which knowledge and judgment
were not required. After speaking of the importance of
energy and conscientiousness .on t‘he part of the
worker, and comparing the characters of the English
and foreign workmen, the lecturer said that to work
well men must be healthy and comfortable. In the
matter of dwellings which have a great deal to do
with health, working men laboured under great dis-
advantages. Rent absorbed a large proportion of
their wages; yet a high rent might be a good invest-
ment in preventing the deterioration of health result-
ing from overcrowding. Adverting next to matters of
food and drink he said the British labourer was better
off than those of any other country. Although meat
was dear bread was decidedly cheaper than in France
or the United States, and vegetables and fish were
plentiful. And the people were doing justice to such
bounties. As regards drink, he said the expenditure in
beer and spirits absorbed far too large a proportion of
the earnings of working men. On the question of the
duration of the hours of labour he said he had not much
sympathy with any excessive indulgence in rest. He
had worked himself for sixteen or eighteen hour% a.
day for many years, and he felt no inconve-
nience from it. Still, working men, unless they hus-
banded their strength, ran the risk of losing it alto-
gether, and he, therefore, fully approved of the legis-
lation respecting labour in factories, which limited the
hours of working women and children. Such legislation
should not, however, be carried too far. Alluding next
to the use of machinery in the work of production, he
denied that it had proved injurious to the interests of '
the working classes. No doubt it displaced labour in
one way, but only to replace it in a hundredfold in
another. It was the glory of machinery that it had
lightened human labour, and opened up to man the
widest field for the exercise of his intellectual faculties.
Never was the saying "knowledge is power" more
applicable than at present. It was no new discovery,
though it had of late acquired greater prominence, that in
the work of production some knowledge of science, with
a cultivated taste was required. Education and science
must no longer remain the oraments and the luxury of
the few. They must become thenecessaryendowmentof
the masses if this country meant to succeed in the great
arena of industrial competition. It was to science,
but especially to mechanical science, that England
owed her greatest achievements, and her only hope of
maintaining her Is/ esent position was to be found in
the diffusion of scientific knowledge amongst the great
body of labourers. Only very few workmen were
acquainted with the scientific principles of the trade
which they followed, and the need of technical educa-
tion was very great. Not the mind only, but the taste
and affections of the people, must be elevated if they
desired to realise true progress, and with such huge
conglomerations of people as were collected in the
Metropolis and large towns, shut in from a contempla-
tion of the beauties of nature, they must have
museums and art galleries to educate the sense of
the beautiful on the people. One important considera-
tion which would be enforced upon workmen was
steadiness of conduct, with conscientiousness in the
discharge of their duty—in short, an abiding sense of the
responsibility of their calling. As a field of human
labour England VMS highly favoured. Apart from her
natural advantages of climate and position, the poli-
tical organisation of the country was well-nigh perfect.
The economical policy was immensely superior to that
of other nations. Was it any wonder under these cir-
sumstances that the country was tranquil, that the
Queen reigned supreme in the hearts of the people,
and that wealth was increasing at an enormous rate?
In no other country was there to. be found a better
field of labour. In France there was no freedom of
action, whilst there was a constant dread of revolu-
tion ; in Russia despotism was rampant; in the
United States better wages were scarcely equivalent
to the higher cost of living. In fact, working in
England men might well say that their lot had fallen
in pleasant places, and that they had a goodly heri-
tage ; yet, beneath the glowing exterior there were
difficulties and evils which greatly disturbed the mind ,
of the nation. It could not be denied that the relations '
between employers and employed were not 'what they
ought to be. In the new organisation of labour incident
to population on a large scale there was. abundant
scope for thedisplay by both masters and men of those
qualities which promoted peace and concord. Let the
masters recognise the right of the workman to improve
his position, and see that labour was carried on under
conditions as favourable as possible to human health,
and they would witness amongst workmen increasing
earnestness and energy and a better disposition to
apply all their forces—physical, intellectual, and moral
—towards the surmounting of those obstacles which re-
tarded the economic progress of the nation. (Applause.)
A discussion followed, lasting an hour, in the course
of which Mr. H. J. Snell, Mr. Alsager Hill, Mr.
George Howell, Mr. Maltman Barry, and others
criticised the views of the lecturer. It was stated by
Mr. Howell that masters were the great opponents of
arbitration in labour disputes, and complaint was made
by other speakers that the lecturer said nothing on the
subject of wages."
In reply Professor Levi said wages would form' the
special subject of his second lecture, to be delivered at
the same place the following Saturday.
A vote of thanks to the chairman closed the proceed-
ings.

The streets of London have been plentifully
besprinkled with salt during the cold weather. As many as
fifteen cartioade were laid down in the N.W. district the
other morning.

FRUIT TREE HEDGES,__

A Correspondent, "H.," writes in The Garden:—ln
France and Belgium, more than elsewhere, have the
vacant spaces along the lines of railway been utilised
for growing fruits—principally Pears—and it is often
the case that, instead of the trees being in the forms of
standards, they are trained so as to form a hedge along both
sides of the line. Sometimes a cheap fence of galvanised
wire is used, and the trees are so trained so that the
branches cross each other • • . . and occasionallyacheap
and slender kind of wooden fence, common in France, is
substituted for the wire, and it is found that, by train-
ing them in a way to cross and support each other, be-
fore the fence decays the trees are perfectly self-sup-
porting, and form a very neat fence themselves. This
is a plan well worth adopting in many gardens where
neat dividing lines are desired. It is quite possible to
train espaliers of the choicest varieties of Pears so
that they shall, in time, be self -hUpporting.
Established trees crossed in this way should
not be allowed to get into a rough hpdge-like condi-
tion, but, on the contrary, should be trained as neatly
and perfectly as trees on a trellis or wall. No fraying
of the branches, resulting from their being interlaced,
need take place. A shot should be taken 'long the
top so as to act as a finish and tend to hold all tightly
together, and, thus constructed, the whole will look
much firmer and neater than the ill-trained espaliers
that one too often 'sees.