The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-06-02 00:00:00

THE RATIONALE OF STRIKES.

STRIKES among workmen for an increase of wages
or a decrease of the hours of labour, have long
been a favourite subject for disquisition among
newspaper writers, debating society orators,
itinerant lecturers, mercenary demagogues, and
ether equally disinterested and well qualified
inculcators of political and social economy. We
know few popular subjects of more vital impor-
tance to the community, or on which more has
been written and spoken with so little practical
good effect. If amid so great a heap of chaff there
be hid a few grains of wheat, the difficulty of dis-
covering them is more than enough to cause any
ordinary mind to shrink from the task in despair. '
In spite of the most learned parade of a species
of logic intended to demonstrate their absurdity,
the most eloquent descriptions of their ruinous
consequences, the sagest harangues, and solemn
exhortations, sprinkled with coaxing flatteries
to seduce the simple,—in spite of alternat-
ing admonitions, threats, and wheedlings,
the working classes still resolutely maintain the
justifiableness of strikes as a last resort in defence
of the rights of labour;, and practically prove the
sincerity of their views, by braving the worst con-
sequences to themselves and their families, in the
maintenance of this social " institution." The
efforts of those interested in the suppression of
strikes, have not been confined to moral suasion
or cajolery. The law has been appealed to, but
in vain ; for the highest authorities have pro-
claimed that combinations among workmen for
the purpose of mutual regulation as to hours,
wages, &c., are competent and allowable. More
elaborate and rather less direct methods of frus-
trating the objects of the strikers—such as that
of " the document" or declaration, among the
London builders—have been equally fruitless ;
or rather, we might say, have tended to aggravate
instead of alleviating the evils arising from these
unfortunate contests between labour and capital.

" The Strike," then, is a great fact which is
neither to be written nor spoken down ; out of
which men will neither he bullied nor coaxed ;
which the law permits ; and to which we must
submit, so long as the British workman continues
to be what he now is. In short, under present
circumstances, strikes seem to be unavoidable. Be
they the best or the worst things for those who
produce them,—there they are, undeniable facts ;
and what has been, may be again, until the
producing cause shall he removed, and a better
state of things superinduced.
Are not strikes then a real evil, and as such
ought they not to be got rid of by some process ?
Has reason and law become powerless, and must
we tamely submit to their infliction without an
effort to convince and convert the working classes ;
or if they will not listen to fair arguments, ought
we not to tell them, at the point of the policeman's
baton, that such things are not to be tolerated ;
that if they will not peaceably walk into their
workshops on the terms offered to them, they
must be walked off to a cell to expiate their offence
to society ? Or is the admitted evil to be cured
by an opposite treatment ? Must capitalists, and
employers of labour, become the slaves of those
whom they feed and clothe, and gratefully accept
the services of their einploy,''s upon whatever
terms the latter may condescend to be engaged ?
If capital will not give way before the demands'
of labour, must not the labourers, in the
strength of their numbers, assert the supremter:
of their muscles over those of their m
hands
and, taking the whole matter into theiruoni v n ,
ersally,
revolutionise society, and establish,
shall
a happy millenium in
`wage
every man '
receive a fair day's
asg afor whatever may,
fair day's work ?
by him, be consideredv
cesses, by which physical force
Either of these pro
• b t be applied to cut the Gordian knot, would
an apparent triumph to the
o
nm doubt givt-
asters or to the menthis were all, the
contest need not be a lengthened one. If the
question is one merely of might, we should say
the sooner it is settled the better for all parties.
What although it should involve a revolution,
anarchy, and, for a time, general ruin ? The
pries once paid, and the question Fettled for ever,