The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-18 00:00:00

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LONDON, 13ATURDAY. MARCH 18.

Tax great contest between labour and capital
now going on in the iron trade deserve. all the at-
tention it can receive from the disinterested portion
of the public. Nothing more serious has presented
itself in the social history of our times. Writing
while the breach is not irreparable we shall hope
for the best, but it is clear that if something is not
done speedily to bring the ironworkers and the
ironmasters together, we shall witness a war of
classes terrible to think of. To that result events
seem too sorely tending. What we witness now
is but the developed form of a movement which
began about the time when the working classes,
disgusted with the rejection of their petitions for
the Charter, renounced politics and turned their
attention to their social position. Those who hold
forth the prospect that the present look-oat will
break up and destroy the union of the men and
put an end to strikes, can have paid very little
attention to what has been passing before
their eyes. What we now see is only
a beginning of the application of the power
of combination by the mass of the people. They
have proved the efficacy of that principle and
found that it is real, 'and he must know little of
human nature who imagines that they will ever
renounce it. The care of all well-wishers to our
composite and artificial society should be, that both
masters and men may learn to understand their
interests, and be more solicitous to prevent needless
suffering than to vindicate a dangerous privilege.
We have repeatedly expressed the conviction
that the North Staffordshire ironworkers acted
very foolishly in striking against their employers
when it was proposed to make a necessary reduc-
tion in their wages. The paddlers' union was
equally wrong in assisting them with funds, as it
did, until a fortnight ago. At that time it was
evidently the intention of the general body of pad-
dlers to follow • course of action which they had
formerly found successful, and to beat the masters
in district after district, striking first in one
locality and then in another, and supporting the
men who were " out " by contributions
from those who were "in." It will be
generally allowed that the masters had a
perfect right to combine for the purpose of neu-
tralizing this policy. But how were they to do it
It is said that the masters are only now pursuing
against the men the very tactics which the latter
have employed with effect against them. But it
is not so. In the case of former local strikes the
workmen not on strike have employed their wages
to aid the men out of work. Corresponding action
of the general body of masters would consist,
under these circumstances, in assisting the master.
whose business had been interrupted by this strike.
But another course has now been taken, and the
men's counterpart of the present action of the
masters in locking out the ironworkers all over
England, although they are ready to take the
masters' wages, would consist in their striking
work all over the kingdom because the masters
of • limited district had locked out their men.
But this is a course they have never yet taken.
It is this locking out of workmen who have
no quarrel with their masters, but are ready to
work on terms approved by their employers, which
constitutes the novelty of the present case, and
strikes impartial observers with astoniahment.
The great qqestion now is how the general body
of working men of all trades throughout the
country will regard this attack on their class. If
they act on the maxim "every one for himself,"
it is probable that, after • period of suspense
during which much suffering will be borne, and
many industrious men will leave their native land,
and large openings will have been made for the
advantage of the foreigner, those ironworkers
who remain will go in at the reduced wages. But
if the trades generally act according to their
known habits and sentiments ; if they stand by the
ironworkers, as the meeting on Wednesday night
pledged them to do—then should the masters per-
sist in their present resolution, there is only one
possible issue. In that case the Masters' Union
must break down. The Ironmasters' Union
may be stronger than the Ironworkers' Union,
but it will be weaker than that Union aided
by all the other Unions. The assistance which
the ironworkers may receive from the general
body of working men is practically unlimited,
whereas the ironmastera have done their utmost
when they have closed the works. While the
masters claimed to fix the wages payable in their
establishments, public opinion was unanimously on
their side ; but since they have assumed the right
of prescribing to the men, not only how their
wages shall be earned, but how they shall
be spent, and of punishing the contented
workers for the fault of men on strike, they
have rapidly lost ground, and are consolidating
the ranks of their opponents. The masters are in
danger of deceiving themselves when they attempt
to compute how much suffering an Englishman
will endure rather than submit to treatment which
he believes to be unjust, or the extent to which