The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-27 00:00:00

.11

" Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see Ourselves as others see us." (Cheers.)
Mr. LYNCH said that was the first time he had ever ap-
peared before a public meeting in his life, and it was a sense
of duty which induced him to come forward and contradict
some of the statements made at the late meeting of the
master shipwrights of Liverpool. He and his friends were
not altogether speech-makers, they were better ship-makers.
(Laughter and cheers.) But it required very little oratory
to tell the truth, and he thought it was a duty incumbent
upon every man to come forward upon an occasion like that
and express his indignation relative to that late meeting. of
masters. (Hear, hear.) One great question which involved
the interests and the rights of the working man was very
often lost sight of, that was the profit which he ought to
have out of his labour. Every body through whose hands
money passed had that profit, and the working man seldom or
never had it. The working man ought tobe in a positionthat
when he received his week's wages on the Saturday evening,
he could put a portion of it up and say, " that will keep
me comfortable for the week." That was what he called
the profit upon his labour. As to a fixed rate of wages he
had no objection, nor did he think any man in 'that place
had. Circumstances like the present did not often occur,
and where they did occur, a rise in wages would inevitably
take place, without the men asking for it. Some of the
merchants had been honorable enough to say—" We are
doing very well ourselves, and we don't care about giving
you a shilling or two more wages." (Hear, hear.) He
had a very painful duty to perform in referring to Mr.
Royden's statement. He said that half of them were in a
state of starvation at present. Now such language was very
unbecoming the character of a gpntleman and an employer.
(Hear, hear.) He could stand up there and boldly tell that
gentleman that the great majority of the shipwrights of that
town were not only comfortably circumstanced, but he did
not think they were at any period so comfortably circum-
stanced as at present; and the great majority of them had
a little money by them to add to their' comforts if required.
(Cheers.) Allusion had been made to the apprentices and
the men as being all one, which he should contradict plainly
as a falsehood. It was said that the apprentices had no
cause to form` 'associations. The apprentices belonging to
associations were in very few instances younger than 17 or
18, and they were moving on with the spirit of the age. He
said there was good cause for their forming associations.
(Hear, hear.) Accidents frequently occurred amongst them :
a journeyman shipwright might get his kg or his arm
broken, and many of the shipwrights wound- not have the
honor or the gentlemanly conduct to pay them their wages,
which showed the necessity of an association for apprentices.
Moreover they gained in these societies the knowledge how
to raise themselves in the world, and how the affairs of men
were conducted in an honest manner. They were only fol-
lowing in the steps of the masters, who formed themselves
into associations. (Hear, hear.) The masters only called
that body a club, but if the secretary had read the" report of
their last yearly proceedings, the meeting would see how
much sick "money and death money that society had paid,
which would be a credit to the Shipwrights of Liverpool.
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) He regretted much that.he could
not pass over without a remark the observations of Mr.
Fitzpatrick. That gentleman made such a rambling speech
that if he (the speaker) had not seen that it was applauded
he should have thought he was not in his senses. (Laughter.)
He *would pass him over as one of the enlightened members
of stupidity. (Cheers and laughter.)
Mr. QUINE said an opinion rested among the public of
Liverpool, that it was the high rate of wages paid in that
port that made the Dock Committee get other ports to have
vessels built. A particular allusion had been made to No. 2
pilot boat, which was built in Ipswich. An editor of a
newspaper stated that there was a difference of £5OO in its
cost from what it would be in that port. Now, suppose
that pilot boat was about 70 tons, and that £2 10s. per ton
was given for building the hull, while the highest rate of
wages ever paid in that port, the average being from £2
to £2 55., that would be, for building the hull, £175. For
finishing the decks, . say £25. Making and finishing the
masts, £1 14s ; bowsprit, £1 ss. ; boom, £l.3s. ; gaff, 14s ;
the square sail yard, 9s. 6d. That would give a total for
shipwright labour, of £205 ss. 6d. Now he had been credibly
informed that the boat built in Ipswich cost £1,200. That
would leave for the master ship builder £994 14s. 6d. That
he thought, was an extravagant and an extortionate price
for the master shipbuilders, and that it was which was draw-
ing away shipbuilding from the port, not the wages of the
artizan. (Hear, hear).
Mr. PHILIP KELLY called the attention of the meeting to
what had been the system of shipbuilding in the port of
Liverpool, and what was the present system carried out by
the master shipbuilders. He, for one, had a sympathy
with them, inasmuch as a few years ago they had to grapple
with very great disadvantages. For instance, they had to
remove from where the Brunswick Dock now is, at least a
great many of them,.. down to where the Albert lock now is.

- - WS/ la. AAA/ ..1.7•
From that they had to remove, some to the north end,TT
and
some elsewhere, and some nowhere. Some, he believed,
had not carried on the shipbuilding department from that
time to the present. The heads of the town, in his opinion,
did not encourage shipbuilding in that respeet. So far as
that 'went he deeply
sympathised with the shipbuilders of
Liverpool. But what had they done themselves of late to
shew to the public that they had been anxious themselves to
encourage shipbuilding in that port ? Where were their
cranes for lifting heavy:weights, such as placing booms in
ships, and other conveniences for building ships ? Would
any gentleman, any master shipwright, say that such a
thing was impossible to have sheds to build ships under,
and for men to work under, and thus prevent loss of time ?
Recollect that Liverpool was acknowledged to be the
greatest depot in the world, and he asked the meeting
should not the shipbuilding department be most flourishing
there ? There was a river near them, about 80 or 90 miles
'off, at Worrington, and in that little place there were sheds
which did not cost more than £250 for its erection, and let
them recollect that every shed was not simply for one ship,
but that each shed w ould last for many years. Now the
masters themselves, in Liverpool, had not manifested any
anxiety for encouraging shipbuilding in that port. There
were very few men at a time employed in each shipbuilding
yard. The system of the masters, to his own knowledge,
for the last fifteen years at least, had been that in the fram-
ing of a ship they had perhaps only from two to four men,
or six men, framing it, and perhaps they might have two
men or four men planking it. At the same time they might
have several hands working out. It was the very hard and
slavish work which kept men out of the yards, because as
soon as a ship was come to the heaviest work a few more
hands were brought in for the finishing, the squaring down
of the planking, and caulking. He would like to ask any
man if he would suffer to have a ruined constitution, and to
undergo such abject slavery, when he could go elsewhere

and get employment, and be allowed to work as a man
should work, that was comfortably. (Hear, hear.) Would
any man submit to it ? Would the masters, suppose they
were placed in the working man's shoes ? He thought,
verily, that it had been said that the builders ma-
nifested some anxiety to build ships, because they
wanted strange men to go into the yards. He thought
they must be very strange men indeed, to suit them or to suit
the work. (Hear, hear, cheers, and laughter.) Surely they
could not be men of flesh and blood, sinews and bones,
like the men there were. What were they ? They could
not be of steel, for that would be too brittle ; nor iron, for
that would be too stationary. (Cheers and laughter.)
They must be very strange. men indeed—so strange that they
could not be found in existence. (Hear, hear.) He was
fully persuaded in his own mind, that if the masters would
-do all they could towards lightening the labour, and letting
the men have an opportunity of doing a fair day's work for
them in their yards, they would get plenty of men, over and
above what they wanted ; but as it was, they kept the men
out of their yards, and the few who once got in there, were
fairly driven out. (Cries of hear, hear.) If there were any
master present, let him prove that he, as an individual, had
not acted in this manner. Was there any gentleman who
had done anything at all to lighten labour ? He thought
not ; and he believed it was only the very slovenly, unsyste-
matic way in which shipbuilding had been carried on up to
the present moment, by wh•loh tho troth d=ine. u ut. of
Liverpool. (Hear, hear.) The fault, he believed, in a great
measure rested with the masters, inasmuch as the head men
in the Town-Council had given some facilities recently,
which never were offered before, and of which the masters
had not availed themselves. The shipbuilders of Liverpool
were certainly not a numerous class. They were all called
shipbuilders who belonged to the association, but very few
of them were really so. If he did not mistake, there were
captains numbered amongst them, many of whom never served
a single hoUr to the trade, and did not know A from B. in
respect to the building of a ship. He was not there as an
advocate for men as mailers, but for both. An impression
had been on his mind for a length of time, that it was a pity
some one better able than he, did not bring these matters

prominently before the public and draw tlic masters out of
their slovenly way of doing the work. (Hear, hear). They
should avail themselves of the opportunities which had been
given to them to the best of their ability. As_ that was an
age of progress, the shipbuilding interest of Liverpool should
surely not be an exception to the rest of the world, and to
his knowledge, for fifteen or twenty years it had been at a
stand still. (Hear, hear), He was not tow speaking as re-
garded th 6 models of the ships, but the system of building
and carrying on the work of a building yard. (Hear,
hear). - - - -

Tile resolution was then passed and unanimously adopted.
Mr. HUGHES Foposed the third resolution, which was as
follows :

" That in consequence of the many attempted acts of op-
pression from time to time upon the part of our employers,
the members of this association pledge themselves to use
every legal means in their power to support the association."
(Hear, hear).
Mr. HironEs, in proposing the resolution, described the
many acts which had been done by the socie for the advan-
tage tits members. They paid each a halfpenny for every
day that theyp, were employed, and in the course of the last
five years tht had paid in sick money £4738 13s. 3d.
(Cheers). They had paid of death money, for the interment
of members and. their wives and widows' £1,680, mak-
ing a grand total of: £6;418 13s. 3d. (Louth cheers).
Mr. LINCERE, in seconding the resolution, mentioned an
instance of a man who had broke his arm in the service of
a shipbuilder in that town, and the shipbuilder, to avoid
-paying his wages, offered to send him to Australia, which
the man declined, saying, he might as well starve in Liver-
pool as there. (Cheers). Men had also been turned away
for refusing to do their work ill a hurried and gloyenly way,