The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-31 00:00:00

months, until it had'ruined no small proportion of
the less opulent employers, and driven hundreds
of the men and their families into the workhouse.
So far as we remember, the victory was upon this
occasion substantially with the employers. The
trades' unions had for ohce to succumb, in order to
avoid the threatened introduction of foreign labour
upon a large scale. As it was, we believe that
some hundreds of country workmen wereintro-
duced into the Loudon trade, in spite of every
effort of intimidation, and of course displaced
by their arrival a corresponding amount of the
labour which had been More available upon
the spot. There are instances, on the other hand,
where such a movement has terminated in favour
of the men. Within the last feW weeks a strike in
the iron districts has ended by the concession of the
prices demanded by the " puddlers," and a corres-
ponding rise in "pigs." Something of the same
kind-has also still more recently taken place among
the nailers, and we believe with a similar result.
But whatever may be the merits of the case as
between operatives and employer, inter se, the
public, who are in every sense of the word the in-
jured and innocent party, invariably go to the wall.
The gain of such a proceeding to any party con-
cerned mayindeed be problematical, but not so the
loss to the public. Their time, their money, and
their l atienca are periodically wasted ; while the
serious inconveniences which are thus occasioned
amount not unfrequently to a positive hardship.
It is therefore anything but satisfactory to be
told that discontent widely prevails just at the
present moment among the pitmen employed in
the 2!;forthumherland and Durham coal-field, and
that attempts are being made to revive a union
agitation just at a time when a steady supply
of our " black diamonds" becomes a question of
primary importance to every household. No
less than thirteen hundred men and bays
in the employment of a single firm are already
actually out on strike, and it is feared
that the example thus set is not unlikely to
be extensively followed. The cause of quarrel,
like most of its class, requires some explanation to
render it intelligible to the general reader. The
coal which has been " got" below by the " hewers
and putters" comes "to bank," or in other words
reaches the surface in " tubs," according to the
number of which the wages of the men employed
are calculated. Thus, as between them and their
immediate masters, the payment is by measure,
and not by weight, although, of course, between
the latter and the public weight forms the only
criterion in value. As a precaution, it would ap-
pear, against attempts to "scamp" work below, any
tub which comes short of measure to bank is con-
fiscated, as the men say, without any allowance, but,
as owners assert,with an allowance of 281 b. in the
men's favour, and with special checks to guard
against purely accidental deficiencies. It is evident
that, in the men's opinion, the owner has a direct
interest in condemning a tub as deficient, inasmuch
as he pays nothing for it, either in the shape of
wages to the men, or in that of royalty to the ground
landlord. This, again, is denied by the owners,
who maintain that under such circumstances the
landlord can demand, and actually does obtain, full
pay. The obvious and natural remedy for such a
state of things would seem to be that payment by
weight should be substituted for payment by mea-
sure. The men ask that two inspectors should be
appointed, one by themselves, and one by the o w n ers,
to superintend and check the weighing at the bank
top. This the masters are prepared to assent to,
but decline to submit to the price asked for their
labour by the men. What they offer is 91d. per
ton. What is asked varies in amount with the
different collieries, but is in no case below one shil-
ling. It is needless to point out how serious an
item a discrepancy which averages about 25 per
cent. must prove in the profits of any undertaking.
Neither are willing to make substantial concessions,
and the pits have stopped working accordingly. It
is just at this stage of the dispute that the trades'
unions have intervened. The owners have given
notice to the workmen who are no longer in their
employ to quit the cottages which they have
hitherto occupied at a weekly rent. The men are
prepared to yield up possession peaceably, but have
formed themselves, in the first place, as they had a
perfect legal right to do, into a trades union, and,
in the second, have proceeded to dictate terms to
others, which they have no right whatsoever to en-
force. Thus, although offering no illegal resistance
to the notices to quit, they are establishing them-
selves in tents in front of their cottage rows, with
the avowed intention of not leaving the spot in
case the owners should attempt to introduce
other men into the place." What this means we
unhappily understand but too well, and it prac-
tically amounts to a distinct announcement, upon
the part of the men, that they are about to have
resort to illegal intimidation. They are, of
course, quite at liberty if they choose to combine to
contribute towards the support of the turn outs, and
even to refuse to return to work, if they think fit to
do so, so long as the " sacrificed" men remain under
sentence of disr.nisaal. Whether such a line of
action be prudent or not is a question for them-
selves, but there is no doubt of its legality in tne
abstract. What they have no right to do is to en-
force upon others the contribution which.they have
agree to make themselves, or to prevent others from
accepting the terms which they have themselves
thought proper to decline. But this, we fear, is
precisely where they, like others of their class, are
not prepared to stop. They claim a right, which
can never be conceded, to legislate upon behalf of
their order, and to impose their own terms not on
the masters alone, but upon such of their own class
as do not see precisely with their eyes. It is just
hero that their logic breaks down. The true prin-
ciples of political economy teach us that no under-
taking can long be carried on where really remune-
rative wages are offered, and there is a brisk demand
for labour. In self-defence other masters will
always be ready to employ those who have left their
former employers on the ground of an inadequate
remuneration. Prices, in so open a competition as
the coal trade, must, within a very short space of
time, find their just level. Yorkshire, Lancashire,
Somersetshire, North and South Wales, and other
parts of the country have their coal-fields, which
wilt be but only too glad to supplant the northern
pits in the market if their owners underpay their
men. What the latter may fairly do, is to decline
the wages offered them. What they cannot be
allowed to do, is what trades' unions are too apt to
attempt, viz., to usurp the province of arbitrators,
and to fix, in the interest of their own members, the
balance of profits, which can only be accurately de-
termined ley the more equitable, and far more deli-
cate, test of comparative demand and supply.

BURIED HISTORY.—There are countless treasure
troves yet to be discovered. The Danes have left
innumerable marks of their invasion of the island ; not so
very long ago the skin of one of these sea•kings was to be
seen nailed to the door of the Jerusalem Chamber, West-
minster Abbey; and on some of the doors of the old Lin-
colnshire parish churches may yet be witnessed the spider-
mis of captured and flayed Vikings of old. But may we
not go back ages and ages, and yet find Mother Earth
preserving for us the story of the past was she not busy
in making the moulds, and taking off the delicate impres-
sions of a chain of life that was not destined to reach to
the period of man's appearance on this globe ? The many
pages of the great stone book preserved in the geological
department of the British Museum come to our recollection
as we write. What texture so delicate or perishable, the
impression of which she has not preserved to us by means
of the soft mud which afterwards gradually hardened into
stone ? The scales of fishes, the forms of the softest in-
sects, as well as the skeletons of the most tremendous crea-
tures that crawled, and swam, and walked the splashy
earth, ere yet it was fit for the foot of man, are to be found
in this museum, and may be dug out any day from the Has
of the Weald of Kent. —Once a T P eek.

PARLIAMENTARY DODGE.--The entire city is
convulsed to-day by a practical joke played last
night. Mr. Tom Ferguson had been speaking over an hour,
and was supposed good for two hours more, to the intense
disgust of members anxiously bent upon getting away,
when a letter was put into his hand, professedly written by
Mr. Brydges, managing director of the Grand Trunk Rail-
way, but probably not genuine, in these words :—" My
dear Ferguson, I want to see you in the ;library imme-
diately, to renew your usual pass on tht.Grand Trunk.—
Yours faithfully, C. J. Brydges." The bait took, to the
great delight of half the house. Thomas read the note,
closed his speech in the middle of a sentence, and rushed off
to the door in violent haste. The Attorney-General called
after him to stop a moment, for he wanted to reply to his
remarks; but Tom was off, declaring he had "a call," and
shaking the letter in his hand, Tom has been unmerci-
fully roasted since, and he keeps constantly exclaiming,
" how the deuce could they know I had a pass."—Queb ee
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