The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-07 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7.

ON Monday next tho members of the Employers'
Association in London once more throw open the
doors of their workshops to such operatives as will
undertake, for the future, to repudiate all undue in-
terference with the terms and hours of labour. In
thus adopting a course which wo ourselves have more
than once recommended to their sense of right and

humanity, the employers have acted well.
Retribution, it was easy to foresee from the be-
ginning, could not be long averted from the parties
implicated in that criminal blunder, the strike of the
engineering operatives. Not three weeks have elapsed
since the acts of the Amalgamated Society reached a
practical development, and already has the inevitable
punishment begun to fall, paying, of course, its
earliest visitation to the weakest and, unhappily, the
most innocent associates in the dispute. Mr. New-
ros's constituents, or dupes, we know not which to
call them, belonging to the society, may hold on the
war for some weeks, or it may be months longer.
Having been for years in the receipt of excellent
wages they are naturally possessed of larger indivi-
dual resources against temporary necessities. They
have, besides, access to a military chest stocked with
the produce of former savings, and form part of an
organisation by which idle and recusant members
are supported out of the earnings of the rest, so long
as these latter retain their employments. A secondary
class, called the " non-society men," and comprising
a largo number of skilled workmen, were also
tolerably well off in their individual fortunes, so long
as they continued at work, and are now admitted by
the executive council to a liberal share of the re-
sources possessed by the Amalgamated Society for
their maintenance during the " strike."
In paying 7s. or 10s. a week to many hundred
" non-society men," the council have sacrificed to the
necessity of widening the basis of their operations
against the employers. Too exclusive an appropri-
ation of the funds belonging to the society would
have utterly ruined their cause. The public would
have refused all aid or sympathy ; the operatives
themselves would have detected too surely the nar-
row selfishness that prompted their movements—if
they had denied all share in their stock of supplies to
the companions whom they had involved with them-
selves in an industrial paralysis. Formidable, in-
deed, as the organisation of the society looked when
directed against a few individual firms, we doubt
whether it would have had much power over the whole
mass of interests engaged in the engineering busi-
nem, if acting only by, and upon, its own members. The
masters might in that case have fallen back upon
the large numbers of uuaasociated and skilled hands
to be found in the workshops, and quietly allowed
the Amalgamated Society to issue its notices and
withdraw its members into unproductive idleness
whenever Mr. Newroe and his council might think
At to perpetrate so suicidal an act. By promises
Rest, and donations since, the society have avoided
this immediate danger. The "non-society men" are
is bet bought up out of the reach of the employers
Are the present. But this has been accomplished
through large drafts upon a limited and easily ex-
haustible fund. And the council, while preventing
theemployers from obtaining skilled operatives enough
todispense with the members of the society, are but
listening the day of destitution and surrender.
There is, however, a third class, who have
keen no active part in the strike, yet on
whom, as our columns daily show, the conse-
quent sufferings are falling with terrible seve-
aty. What are called engineers' " labourers"
ensive far less wages than naturally come to the
share of skilled operatives ; and being of little or no
seise to the Amalgamated Society in the present
to have received the barest possible pittance out
Elbe funds distributed by the executive council.
Illisepence a piece to more than a thousand labourers
thrown out of work in London alone was grudgingly
aided to as much mo e, collected from public sub-
esiptions, as the whole of a week's allowance.
liven this meagre donation was accompanied by a
warning that henceforth the labourers must expect
se farther aid—the Amalgamated Society having
more than enough to do with its funds, on other
den. At the same time we learn from the bitter com-
plaints urged at a recent labourers' meeting that
eller a fortnight's cessation of employment dis-
tress was already in their homes. Well might
, the labourers resist the desertion of their -fellows.
1" They were reduced to the utmost straits," said poor
Joins LLOYD, at the meeting, " but it was not their
fall: they had no hand in it and need not be
schussed of their distress. They trusted and hoped
that the public would understand the question, and
that the aristocratic workmen would not be supported
Y their endeavours at self-aggrandizement, to the
peat loss of every other class.
The judge of the Southwark County Court was,
Galled upon to reespissi in a very practical way the
maternity and the naleservedneas of the straits to
which the engiaesses labourers have been reduced.
Is adicerniag the giant against one of Meows.
Mesa .ay sad thein's late workmen, Mr. Bestial
ensi with esnensidable leniency. The defendant
add act per a farthing, being "only a labourer."
Wks YS engineers struck, he was thrown out of
iisek aim what little he had saved was gone, and he
was sempelled to sell his clothes to buy food. It
use a proof, es the judge allowed, that combination
nem workmen " not only ruined themselves but
awry person connected with them."
employers now propose to hasten the arrival
sf the tine when work shall be resumed. No
lON lest that we can discover has hitherto been
tried in seder to discover how far the " work-
mea's eseepiracy" has really spread. The
maters, ening the notices against °tertian
mad piesswork plaearded in the workshops,
summarily required their removal, and in default
closed their gates at once, without inquiring, as it
seems, how many of the hands owed submission to
the society, or how many looked upon its missives as
mere idlehravada Both aides, no doubt, have acted
rashly and angrily. If both had been stubborn
to the end, there was no solution to be
discovered for the difficulty until the weaker
party—of course the operatives—were forced to
give in by sheer starvation. But we rejoice to
Learn that no false pride has induced the employers
to posh Matters to this lamentable extremity. On
Mesa, the shops in London re-open to non-mem-
bers of the society. The interests of multitudes of
hmocent workmen were at stake, oven more then
their own. The moment that the resumption of
work was possible every consideration of justice
and prudence combined to urge them to lose no time
in doing so. Justice to the labourers and considera-
tions of self-interest equally called on them to seize
the first opportunity of setting their vast produc-
tive 'system in motion once more, and finding an
industrial subsistence for the thousands who are
now pining in want and idleness through no fault
of their own. Now that the workshops are once
more to be open, the return of nine-tenths of the
hands now on strike will not bo long delayed.
They will flock in hundreds to "welcome home
again discarded faith" under the flag of industry.

THE prompt declaration of the prom on the sub-
ject of the militia has not, it would seem, been with-
out its value, if we may judge by the statement of
Sir Cit:ottuE GREY in the House of Commons last
night. The government are evidently alive to the ,
difficulties of their position, and must (eel them still
more severely if they ask for army augmentation of
any kind, unless they couple with such require-
ments a pledge to carry out an efficient plan
of army and ordnance reform. If the country '
really wants additional protection, protection it must
have ; but no war-panic should be allowed to cajole
the members of the House of Commons into an in-
considerate vote upon the subject. Many of the
statements as to the likelihood of a hostile attempt
upon England are based upon very insaffieient
grounds. One of these may be instanced. It is
. urged that the French army us a body thirst for war.
As to the French soldier, there cannot be a greater

diffUeepie than between Trim of the empire, and him
of the present tune. Although torn from his home
by the conscription thin, u now, still ke left at
home merely its common enjoyments. In France at
I present there is money, industry, and the greatest
opening for the poorest man to rise and make himself
independent. The day-labourer in France—and
there are not many—can and does save; and, there-
fore, has • keen interest in being active and free.
In England nineteen-twentieths of the earners live
from hand to mouth, and from day to day. In France
the poorest peasant, when young, looks to better
himself, and the army offers no prospects. Those
who enter it aro either those who are unable to pay
for a substitute, or those, more lucky, who have re-
ceived some GU or tiOl. for acting as substitutes.
Both these parties are chiefly anxious for one thing,
the expiration of their term of service. Those who
have got nothing arc anxious to begin earning and
saving, and making a step towards settling. Those
who have a little sum in store, as the price of their
engagements, aro anxious to employ and turn it to
gat; d . Th,Ltoe nt n!I of
mth
ie. Frenchnmt armythus
ailm ue atot
Europe or at England, but to go hunt for gold and
ease at home,—everyFeenchman's village being a Ca-
lifornia to him in imagination.
Take such an army, composed of such officers
and soldiers. Bid them obey their government
and do their duty; and they will do it by
landing in England, or marching to the Rhine.
But tho French army is now a body of men
who will ask why they are put to do this. Water-
loo is too old a pretext. No doubt the resuscitation
of that defeat would augment anger and inveteracy,
were cause given for either. But what cause has
England given? Its public men and its press dis-
approve of the confiscation of French liberties. Is
that an utterable cause of invasion? NAPOLEON
himself never collected an army of invasion until he
had offered England terms of peace repeatedly, and
written to the King of ENGLAND personally to de-
sire it. It was because England would not make
peace, would not let Franco alone, would suborn and
subsidise enemies to her on the continent—these
were the fair, at least the plausible reasons, which
NAPOLEON gave for meditating and preparing inva-
sion, and for demanding of an army to undergo the
risks and undertake the horrors of such an enter-
prise.
If such precautions were necessary then, how
would a scheme of invasion and a war against Eng-
land without a cause be viewed in France now ?
French opinion is not so senseless, so rabid, or so
truculent. There may or may not be danger from
the present ruler of France,—but ministers and
people should first see the fleet home from the Tagus
before they think about turning useful traders into
bad militia-men. Let them call for volunteers if
they please— and plenty will offer themselves—but
to try conscription in England would bo to adopt one
of the worst of French fashions.