The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-02-01 00:00:00

TM! STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

told me thet on Saturday night that the up train was
0.0 full of them that he had to cram ell or so in his can.
state this fact because it has been denied thst eni
I considerable number of the cameo on Strike km .1 gir
employment elsewhere though days ago, from Attu
olmereation, I knew elsewhere,
to be one of the numeroes
I delusions which are entertained in reference tie
I the Strike and its results by per one one wont]
suppose ought to know better, and might, too, if thee
would orily take a little pains for themselves instea 1
lof Limiting to hearsay. But it is not until you have
I ascended the Rhondha Valley from Pontypridd, and
passe 1 the bituminous pit in the neighbourhood of
'Hebei and Pettit, that you come to the great territnr
of steam-coal collierie a. As the train approached this
country, marvellous in natural grandeur, and rear .ely
lees wonderful in gigantic memorials of human skill
and industry, a discussion was going on among the
posing re by whom I was surrounded on the merits f
the "double shift." It had its einsporte rs, but I sib.
eerved that it was etnoisly condemned by one or two
persons who presumed to speak their sentiments on
the steam cold . . . Coaunenciog at the
bead of the Rhouillia Valley and coining down by the
various works and though mortal of the villa-es, on
the way back to Pontypridd, owing to the introductiou
of One who was freely welcome in all their places el
resort, I enjoyed ass excellent opportunity of hearing
the outspoken opinion of not fewer than 200 of the
most powerful linioniet body in South Wales. Al
the great pits in which those colliers worked are
enclosed by lofty mountains, whose green elopes
slant down to either bank of the River Rhondda and
form the valley to which the river gives its name. Di-
rectly at the other end of the vale, Pen Peak stands
completely out in bold relief from the bills on either
side, and looks like a great lesalland towering ovet the
Rea. But for the tall and smoking chimneys and
grimylookiug mills and Neck "tiles," with all the
hideous surroundings of a mire or so of collieries, it
woull he held to find more attractive scenery even
in Wales than that loin Pen Peak to 'rreorky.
Treherbert is a village of considerable size, and
there is nr t more than • mile between it and Treosky,
which is almost if not quite as large. In both
there a, long lie, s of cern re houses of clean
and sublantial appearance, hut they are not euffi-
ciently nurnerolll4 for the population Between
the two virage“, but acre., IL stream, which you
have to ford because there is no li Lire, are the col-
lieries of David Davies and Co., and a little further
inward are Coomilare pits, belonging to the same pm-
prietary. From Co imilare pits no fewer than 600 tons
of coal per week wire raised. Glom to the mouth of
the pit is a publiehouse, lighted with gas which escapes
from the pit them gh a crevice in the rick sin which the
foundations of the hones are laid, and, Tieing caught in
pipes, its c inveyed upstairs and burnt night and day in
its nnpuritied state'. I don't think it can be wholeisome,
for it burns with a very blue and thick flame. Public.
houses there are in abuedance in all those
The drinking that gem on in them is beyond anything
that could be conceived by ordinary imagination. In
one of them I found the whole of a considerable
epace in front of the bar filled, a room behind the
bar packed, a tap parlour on the opposite eide of the
entrance-hall crowded, and a sort of back kitchen
occupied to the full extent of its sitting accommoda-
tion. There the colliers' drink is served in deli mugs
holding a pint. A pint is but a small potation for one
man, but the one meamire makes the round of perhaps
half a dozen pairs of black lips, and if a half
gallon is called for, it is drunk out of the pint mugs.
L vieited some 14 or 15 publiehouees on a line of about
a mile and a half of road, before half past one in the
afternoon, mei in every one of them there was a
shrinking party more or less numerous. The Petty
Seseions Court of Treherbert was eitting, and on going
in I learnt that Mr. Bruce's Bill has had no effect
in reducing the number of charges of drnekenness.
But while I WAR in the court a publican was fined for
having allowed drunken colliers to remain on his
premises. The house is a small one in the valley, and
yet, on the evidence of two policemen there were •
hundred men drinking in different peels of it at the
moment they entered it on the night of the offence for
which the publican was fined. It was only due to the
publicans to say that, as far as I could observe, they
endeaviiitred to conduct their businees in as orderly a
manner to possible. Several of them are men who
have raised themselves from collier life, and in the
nousee of some of them are evidences of aspirations but
little ire keeping with a publican's calling in so rude a
country. In a house called the " Treorky " Hotel,
Mr. Griffith Junes, who, under the name of Canute&
conducted "the Welsh choir" at the Crystal Palace
in such a manner as to elicit the erconiums of Sir Jules
Benedict, stood behind this bar, in his shiet-sleeree,
rviug colliers with their pinto of beer as fast as he
could work at the syphon. Mr. Jones commenced life
as a blacksmith his portrait has been published down
Fr, re at a guinea for a proof impression, and the well-
erople are all proud or him. A piano or a harp is to
be found in the par!our of almost every publichouse,
and the great taste for instrumental music uaanifeeteol
by even the lower classes leads one to think that if
there was any other resource for the colliers than the
pnblichouse they would be more provident heads of
families and more constant workmen.

There is no Strike in the steam c sal collieries now,
and so plentiful is the work in them that they have
been able to absorb large numbers of the men out on
Stnike from the ironmaaters' pits. How came it, then,
that such crowds of nnen were in the pnblichonaes to.
? There WAA a big p iynlay in one of the great
collieries last week, and it is fair to MU that a number
of the colliers who had migrated from here helped
to swell the number of beer drinkers. I have said
that even with the lines of 11.01.18.31 in the two villages
there are not enough for the workmen. What was
the canoe of much mortality du:n:llg the visitation
of smallpox in occurring again at Treorky now.
The Flame room, and not only the same room.
but the Fame bed. ii let to two different parties. One
Fet await the rising of the other who may be strangers
to them. The work of cutting coal is not dnsneat night,
but that of propping and road repairing is; go that there
are men all night in the pits. In many cases they and
tine 0.111.8 Feint tine same lien!', which are never without
occupants. When there is cinch overcrowding in the
cottages can one much wander that thereto overcrowd-
ing in the publichouses, aud that the lint reFsious left
on one'e mind after a visit to this vale of industry
are, on the whole, wry painful? Over their beer
the steam-coal colliers discussed the double shift. . .
Almost invariably I found it alleged that the double
shift would be an advantage to the masters and no
gain to the men. One large group of colliers declared
they would strike if it were introduced ; another
declared that it could only be submitted to on an un-
derstanding from the masters to raise wages 20 per
cent. above the present standard. Again, it was
urged by some of the colliers that with the double
shift the masters would be enabled to do with fewer
horses and less propping than at present. It is
certainly rather hard on the masters to have an
improvement objected to on the ground that it will
save them money, but all such objections show how
deeply the question of the master's profit has entered
Into the calculation:no of the men. It is but evenhanded
jnsti :e to mention that one objection to the double shift
which I heard urged by many of the colliers, including
one old man who has been fifty-three years "under-
ground," was that the colliers could not trust one
smother. They said four men would be required to
work each stall on the double shift, two on and two
off; and that four colliers could not work together
without two, or one of them, at least, proving dis-
honest towards the others. I have learnt a fact
which I do not think has appeared in print. At a
meeting of the Associated Owners of Steam Collieries,
held at Cardiff on the 18th inst., twenty-five delegates,
representing all the steam-coal collieries, being present,
the masters, while considering rules for working their
collieries under the new Act, proposed the double
shift to the delegates. The latter having heard the
reasons adduced by the masters in its favour did not
urge anything against them, but said they could not
reply without consulting the men An adjoutwed
meeting is to be held at Cardiff on the 14th of February
to hear the opinion of the men. Is the Strike not to
be closed before then?

A corrtspondent under the signature "Hard Hit,"
writes to The Times:—

' Your correspondent mentions the Ebbw Vale Company.
Will it help to form iipinion if you print the dividends paid
by the company for the last half-dozon years on a £27 10s.
paid-op share for each 12 months ending the 31st of
March
Year. Dividend. Year. Dividend.
March 31, 1867 .. None. March 31, 1870 .. £1 10 0
1864 .. LO 6 0 „ 1871 1 10 0
1860 .. 017 6 1872 .. 110 0
—haling an average of 185. 9.1. per share for six years on
£27 lOs. paid, or .83 "p. ad. per cent, per annum. Slur last
half year was 12a. 6.1. only, and now the Ironworks are
stopped. Who hais most cause to complain. owners or men t
I now buy American railway bonds paying fully 6 per cent.
In gold punctually. No more Ebbw Vale shares for me."

Another c,rrespondent writes :
As a large coneumer of coal, permit me to thank you for
sending • commissioner to the Welsh coalfields. Ills report
In Th, Times of the 42ful inst la of great value It directs
atttntioo to the question which demands consideration if
labour and capital are to be reconciled. Your correspon-
dent says—
. . . . .

"They make np their dare work of three tons. They
could to more, each man, with hie boy: but thy are not
skilled in political economy, and they like to stop at three
tons because they imagine that by working leas they keep
up the price of coal, and by this means maintain the stun-
daril ol Click own aegis ; and, wretched :4 their elide.* Is
In the dark depths of the earth, to hint at the possibility of
a coal cutting machine is to make them regard you at their
mortal enemy."
- - - - • • -• • -• • -

I know the universal opinion of workmen is that the less
time they work, and the less work they can do in the time,
tire better for them. This is the whole secret of the short-
time agitatien. The feeling is that the fewer hours wrought,
the more workmen will be required, and, of course, that the
price of labour will Ilse. This notion Influences all classes
of workmen, wet since II most districts colliers are paid in
proportion to the price of coal they study to diminish the
output. This is the whole secret of the rhe In the price of
coal and of many other things The coalmasters find It to
answer them, too; for, coal being made very source? they
rnmnonend the market. Ihe workmen seem to forget that
they arc buyers of labour us well as sellers of it.
I dare not, however, trespass on your space by attempting
to show how false this notion, which so mightily influences
workmen it all our Industries, is. But I pray you to
press on the attention of all who have the oar of the working
classes how needful ills that every man should do his best
and his most. If the Idea that workmen should do as little
as possible while they work, and that as few hours as possible
should be wronght, and that "to hint at the possibility of •
coal-cutting machine is to make them your mortal enemy"—
if this notion prevail, and your own correspondent, in words
which deserve attention from every tholightful man in Eng-
land, states that it does prevail, then farewell tithe power of
England!
It meet be the Interest, as t • the duty, of every man, to
do his hest and his most, In consistency, of course, with the
laws of his nature, physical and moral. Ide wish that lie
Timeg and the Press generally would try and convince the
working classes that Mist so. That the working classes very
geheraily believe that labour.savinr, machinery is designed
anti likely to Injure them is a universal heresy; wpile the
fact is that where labour saving Machinery is most in use the
condition of the workman is always highest. That working
men thick the less they do, and the fewer hours they work,
the more men will be re 4ulred, .cl the higher the price of
labour will be, to an opinion, I may say, uhiversal.
lam also permuted that, owing very much to regulations
of Unions, skill in the introduction of labour-saving ma-
chinery is discouraged, and skilful ana good werknien are
prevented from earning the wages to which they are en.
titled. I beg of you to guard the liberty of the workman
who refuses to submit to the dictation of a Union, and who
is wishful to do his very best and to da his most, and so to
secure for himself as much as ever he can earn
Yee whole question requires attention from the Indepen-
dent Press of the country, as well as from the Legislature, so
that the interests of the workmen may not be sacrificed by
lll.informed men, and that the capital which La sunk In the