Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-05 00:00:00

WORKING CLASSES.

(Addressed to th

PART THIRD

CHAPTER SECOND

THE EVILS ATTENDING COMBINATIONS AND

STRIKES : CONTINUED,

In referring as I did in my last chapter to Trade
Unions, I do not wish to be understood to say that
their object is not laudable—namely, that of keeping
up the price of labour ' • but then it can only be
considered as such so long as, this is sought to be
obtained by unobjectionable means. Combinations,
I believe,
.may sometimes be necessary to obtain
for workmen concessions which would otherwise
be successfully withheld from them. But it should
be properly understood that no class of workmen
isjustifiable in the adoption of measures for the
advancement of its interests which involve an
invasion of the rights of others. Taking this view
some trade unions appear of questionable utility.
For -instance, how is the employment of non-
associated workmen to be prevented 9 Refusing to
work with them by. members of the union is as
great a power of coercion as such a combination
ought to exercise, and I doubt. not much greater
than would be found legal, 'provided such refusal
could be proved a concerted act of resistance.
Waiving this, however, there can be no question,
if they resort to violence—if they intimidate, or,
as has sometimes been the case, maltreat, what has
been termed a recusant workman—then they are
guilty of an injustice punishable by law and
indefensible in reason : for surely no one will
question that every individual ought to be
protected in the uncontrolled disposal of his labour,

independent of the dictation of any club or society.
Again, the proposition which Certain of these unions
entertain for regulating wages by ' the profit the
employer may derive from improvements in
machinery is hardly tenable. Is there no allow-
ance to be made for the loss and interruption
employers sustain by the introduction of mecha-
nical improvements On the same principle, it
would. be quite as reasonable to assume for the
standard of wages the master's skill, capital,
industry, or enterprise. The principle, as has been
remarked, is not less objectionable than that of
the tithe system, under which' those reap who
—participate in the gains, but not
the losses' of industry.

lot sown

Let me instance one or two more examples of
the evils produced by these unions resolving them-
selves into strikes. They are not quite new, but
they are familiar and well-anthenticated examples
natter' undeir'rev iew _ .

In the renowned _strike of the Glasgow Cotton
Spinners (1), the amount lost in direct wages
during the seventeen,weeksi and five days to which
it extended were :

'es lost by 800 spinners for 17, weeks, at

IV a,
30A ch
Lost b

£20,400

2,400 piecers, at 83 each,
2,406 k card and piek4ug-room hands

16.320

ers, colliers', Sc., thrown idle by th

s there were added, as:thq supposed losses
of tradesmen and shopkeepers with whom the
factory operatives dealt, £34,000. These were
distinct from a calculation of the losses•occasioned
to capitalists, importers, machine-makers, and
other people, whom it was the main object of the
strike to injure. In another instance, which
occurred at Preston, it was calculated that, when•
660 spinners struck work in that town, they threw
out of occupation 1,320 piecers, 6,100 card-room
hands, rulers, and powerloom weavers, and 420
miscellaneous workers, packers, engineers, &c. ;
making, in all, 7,840 who suffered by the
remorseless tyranny of 660. The 800 Glasgow
spinners above referred to were supposed to have
driven into idleness 6,800 people, over whom their
peculiar position gave them control.
It may readily be conceived, says a writer in-
the Edinburgh Review, what must have been the
couselnence of six or seven thousand women being
kept in a state of destitution and idleness for four
months, especially when in close proximity to
equal numbers of the other sex, also trained to
disorderly habits by the habitual receipt of high
wages and the practice of frequent intemperance.
The necessary consequence was, that crime and
immorality increased to a fearful degree ; and the
rapid progress of fever, as well as the great
increase' in the rate of mortality, evinced in an
appalling manner how fatal such strikes are to the
labouring- classes.

A favourite juncture for a strike is the time
when an employer has some great order to com-
plete, or heavy obligation to meet. The men think
that he must then listen to their terms, or meet
ruin as an alternative. Sometimes this is not,
strictly speaking, an alternative, but an inevitable
result either of yielding or holding out. When
the master is in the Gazette, the workmen are of
course successful, and many rejoice after the
fashion of the Irish mob who tried to ruin a
banker by burning such of his notes as were in
their possesOon. A gentleman who had acquired
much practical information on this subject, as an
active magistrate in district liable to combina-
tions and strikes, giQl the following result, of one
of these movements, which had been effective in
rendering. one of the employers bankrupt. The
example is full of instruction to those to whom I
address myself :

"Two thousand persons, he says, were immedia-
tely thrown idle by this calamity (alludinc, to the
strike). They immediately made the most piteous
complaints to the magistrates of the county, who,
however, had no public funds out of which to
afford them any relief; and the helpless multitude

funds, or reduced to utter despair

—by the conse-

of their own acts ; while tl

thriving branch of trade altogether extinguished.
One of the ringleaders who had been imprisoned,
on his liberation found the works in which he had
been earning his 30s to 35s a week deserted, and the

building
effects

lilt np or in
sold off by

ruins. His furniture and
his landlord for rent ; and

he is at this moment, when burdened with a wife
and eight children, breaking stones upon the public
road for eight shillings a week !"