The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

TO TIII IWITOI 01P TUN LITILBI.

Sta,—Tho extraordinary, and, as it appears to me,
wh illy *nestled for, announcement of the committee of the
newly constituted association of thilled workmen —the
Amalgamated Society of Engineer', Millwrights, and
Mechanics has again brought prominently before the
metslic the question of strikes. l'robably no subject is
more fraught with difficulty, 001.0 itia understood, sad
few so little cared tor, except by the parties immediately
laterestere Yet it is one of immense, nay of vital, im-
portance, whether regarded in its direct consequences to
the workmen themselves sod their employer, or the in-
direct but equally c,rtain insults nu the commercial, and
in the mid the political, position of the empire at large.
When parliament attempts to deal with it, as it occasionally
don, it merely exhibita its own glom incapacity to the
task, or its grower partiality in favour of wealth-pro-
duced, as against the great wealth-eroducing power. In
nothing perhaps is the defective state of our representa-
tive system more apparent in regard to its being the
expreuimon of the feelings and interests of all classes
of tie, cononuoity than in its worse than futile
laws fur regulating the relations between master, and
workmen. We have combination laws to punish the em-
ployed for comltining to raise wages, while the equally
powerful and more frequently successful unions ot em-
ployers to reduce them are net only allowed but enema-
aged. And when such lecislation begins to re-act ms
society in the discontent, the aginvion, and the violence.
too often, of the maesee, sail in the consequent insecurity of
property, then we have applied in the most objectionable
and degrading shape of charity the nostrum. of
well-
intwtioncd, but mistaken, philanthropists, like my Lord
Shaftesbury. The whole course and object of parliamentary
interference would seem to be to destroy in the working
classes the spirit of independence and self-reliance—to
induce them to lone on the sympathy and charitable feeling
of their employer' for those hen, his which their own in-
dsstry and their own exertions should command.
Few greater evils can be inflicted on • nation them the
eseeMion of labour even for a short time by its wed*.
population. The moment that cessation begins, the proles-
tiveneas of the coumry is, to that extent, suspended ; and
were such suspension anything like general, and of Wag
continuance, the very existence of the trauma as an ands•
pendent state would be in peril. Could the actual nary
loss this country has sustained by the numerous strikes
which have occurred during the last 3i years be accurately
competed, it would be found to exceed the cost of the
eaponsive war we ever waged. I:nhappily, the recur-
rence of these costly contests is on the increase. Scarcely
is • difference between the masters and men in one
branch of our manufacturing industry settled, after
the sacrifice of thousands of pounds, than they are threat-
ened with another in • still more numerous, and, nationally
considered, a far more important clams of manufactures—
one in which skilled labour es more highly valued and paid
than any other. It were useless to try to conceal the that,
that these repeated acts of hostility on the part of large
bodies of our skilled workmen, bet-peat a wide-spread or-
ganisation of labour as opposed tee capital, which, if not
spesdily and effetively checked, must end in the
serious injury of our manufacturing, and, possibly, of our
commercial superiority. The question is, how to
meet the evil ? Certainly not by one-sided acid
ignorant legislation, and, as certainly, not b the
masters uniting to close their works altogether, and thus
punish themselves and the able, industrious, and contented
workman foe the fault of the incompetent, the idler, and
the grumbler. Than this, which is the plan involved in
the resolutions passed at the meeting of London masters
es Wednesday lest, uo more unjust, absurd, and suicidal':
idea surely ever emanated from the minds of educated and
sane men. lam aware that a somewhat similar resolve,
eons- to the other day by the calico and shawl printers in
the neighbourhood of the Clyde, has been attended with at
least temporary success. But the circumstances in that
ease were very different from those which our great en-
gineering firms have now to meet. There, all the work-
men without exception were engaged in a combination to
compel a certain master to employ, or not employing to pay,
certain refractory or incompetent hands—their mode or
operation being to withdraw all the other men in
the event of non-compliance with their demands,
sail thus leave the master without the nlealls of carrying
on his works, the men an withdrawn to be supported out of
Us' earnings of the whole body of operatives engaged else-
where. The strike was thus eonased to the hands of one
firm, but the gross tyranny exhibited in the whole proceed-
ing was so Obvious, and the extent to which it might
be tarried under ouch • system of crushing in de-
tail, so hopelessly ruinous, that the masters were fully
instill al in meeting it by a counter union, sod a refusal to
ups their works until the obnoxious demand should be
withdrawn. Without doubt, the requirements of the
"Amalgamated Society of Engineers," ke., though
more generally directed and more openly put for-
ward, are equally tyrannous in their character with
thew of the Scotch printers. But ono of their priF
cipal otejects is to prevent the employment of a
elms of industrious and deserving lohoun,rs; sad Ikls
the step eontemplated by the masters will facilitate. Again,
Mr dueltua Field, the chairman of the meeting, tells
as that " he has great reason to believe that the Se requisi-
tions (those of the Amalgamated Society) are not approved
of by the steady and industrious workmen. It is doubtful
whether they are even sanctioned by a majority of the mem-
ls of the society Irons which they profess to emanate."
Why then resort to a step which, in addition to the imme-
diate distress end tuffering it must occasion to thousands of
deserving men and their Wadies, may entail ruin on many
of the Isis wealthy of the masters, drive away the wor-
thiest, the steadiest. and the most talented artisans to other
countries—(for these are not the men to remain lung un-
employed)—and divert capital into other and less profitable
channels ?

The only effectire way to deal with the question is to
establish confidence between the employer and the em-
ployed. To make the identity of interests, which the
workmen bear so niuch about, something real and tangible
to their sense, and not • mere empty sound, as, except in
a tow honourable eases, it is at present, they must be
tan:rtit to know by expellent., that if, through their extra
labour, the master it obtaining • larger rate of profit, some
shire of that additional gain will reward them, and above
all they must not be allowed to believe that reductions
of 'sages submitted to in times of adversity sill, unless
prevented by the fear of combination, be continued when
the tide of prosperity returns. As we have said, this is not
to be achieved by the interference of parliament ; but we
thuik it just poribis that • body might be cumin.
toted, composed of a certain number of masters and
sa..l from every mechanical trade, each class sleet-
tag the represeatatires of its own interests, to whom all
qe thous of wager, time, apprenticeship, and other matters
which are from time to time the subject of difference,
shield be referred, and whose decisions should have the
farce of law. Of course • legislative sanction to the op-
poistaaint of such a body would be nessmary, and to that
and the rescinding of the laws now at the statute-book, I
relating to the employment of workmen, the intervention
of parliament should be confined. We throw this out os a
suggestion. There are many details which, were it adopted,
woald require to be considered and determined, as roe in-'
Mawr the proportion of members to the numbers ems-
pkyed on the one hind, and the capital embarked on the
other. With se we hose nut now to deal. Oar preorst
ottir;t will hare teen iscrompli•hell if we succeed in di-
,eseting the thoughts of the parties interested to the caul-
dilation of 121,31111 for establishing between them relations
permanent and profitable peace, instead of how to carry
as a system of rilibr..:l antagonism. r.

DRAM Or ADMIRAL GEORGE BARKER —This
gallant Aker. on the reserved list, died on the 2.lth instant,
M e.pring-vale. Ink of N Wit, in the P2nd tear of his age.
Admiral Harker eaL rcd the service in 17, I, and wre pre-
sent in eternal actions.

FIVE DEATUS OF CHILDRM DT FlRE.—Yeater-
ay Mr. Bedford held an tannest at Charing-wow Hospital,
cm the body of Masi' Louisa Schoonsert, aged four years,
the daughter of Albert &boatmen, a Freud' bootmaker,
living at No. 19, Ryder's-wont, Leicester•Nuare. De-
eresid's father, who was a widower, and sbe his only ilia&
kat her mow in the room for a quarter of an hour on w,d-
sesday afternoon Last, there bring at the time a small fir,
the grate, and on his return be found her lying on the
flt.m, her clothes near:- burnt from of her body. Haviug
raised an alarm, de rased was immediately conveyed to the
hospital, whirr, notwithstanding that she received every
assist.ince, she rapidly sank, and died at Bre o'clock the
same afternoon without having been able to give an et.
coant of the accident, although, no doubt, it occurred
through her playing with the tire. The coroner said the
tionduct of permits lcariug children alone where there was
a tre was wry reprehensible. At that time there were
bur children lying dead in St. George's Hospital who were
bared to death under precisely similar circumstances.
Verdict "Accidental Beath."