The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-10 00:00:00

The-Labour Dispute in the Iron Trade.

WoLvEnriAmPTax, Saturday.
To-day a meeting of considerable importance, in con-
nexion with the present dispute in the iron trade of Staf-
fordshire, was held in this town. Before the lock-out was
withdrawn, the Wolverhampton puddlers determined that,
whatever might be the decision of the masters at their
recent meeting, they would not resume work until they had
held the meeting of to-day. The meeting was attended by
about 130 puddlers, all unionists, and it lasted nearly throe
hours.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the business, said that on
that day five weeks a gloom overhung them, because of the
commencement of the lock-out, but the cloud was now dis-
persed and sunshine was overhead and around. The termi-
nation of the lock-out found the men more united than
ever, but this could.not be said of the masters ; and he hoped
that all such counsels as those upon which the lock-out was
based would ever meet with similar failure. (Cheers.) But
as the men were to meet their inasters again face to face, he
trusted that all bad feelings would be annihilated—that
from their minds and hearts all bad thoughts and feelings
would bo driven into oblivion for ever. (Hear, hear.) Men
must move with the times, and no longer indulge those
thoughts and feelings, nor use those expressions relative to
their employers which were occasionally heard, but which
when they were indulged in were a serious reflection
upon not only the individual, but also the order to which
he belonged. (Hear.) The ironworkers must show them-
selves respectable men, and by their temperate words and
conduct exhibit their growth in intelligence and education.
(Cheers.) He now invited free expression of sentiment.
A PUDDLER said that the present time was a crisis in
their history. Tho masters locked them out because they
could not believe th3m ; and now that they found they
could not subdue than, they wished to extract from them
the promise which when they first made it they refused to
accept. The masters had, however, lost their opportunity.
They declined to take the pledge which their men gave,
and now the men cla.med to be absolved from that pledge.
(Cheers.) Their masters had shown a want of confidence
in them. Ho should now, therefore, desire to have matters
placed upon so sure a basis for the future that henceforth
neither master nor maa could have occasion to be led into
so serious a step as a strike or a lockout as the result of an
uncertainty in respect of the principles and regulations by
which both ought to bo guided. (Cheers.) He held in his
hand a code of rules vrhich had just been adopted between
the master builders of Wolverhampton and the joiners of
that town at a court of arbitration presided over by Mr.
Rupert Kettle, the Jute of the County court of 'Worcester,
Dudley, and Droitwich. By the adoption of those rules the
joiners had secured an increase of wages, their masters had
had certain rights secured to them, the necessity for future
strikes in that branch of trade no longer existed, and both
sides were not only satisfied, but were even gratified. Such
a happy result in reference to the ironworkers of Wolver-
hampton was, he thought, not unlikely to follow the xesent
disastrous dispute between their masters and themselves.
(Cheers.) Why shculd not a code of rules be drawn up be-
tween the ironworkers and their masters, with a competent
umpiro presiding, which should have the force of law in all
future disputes, and by the terms of which all ordinary
questions between them might be solved? (Cheers.)
Hitherto the contents had been decided, not by the great
principles of right and wrong, but by an appeal to mere
brute force, in which the stronger won the battle. So
unintellectual and so debasing a course ought no longer to
be practised—(hear)—and he for one was not prepared to
return to work until a repetition of such a state of things
was improbable in respect of the future relations of the
irohmasters and ironvorkers of Wolverhampton. (Hear.)
The puddler ought no longer to be compelled, when he
wanted any right conceded to him to have to "put on his
clothes." (Hear, hear.) If the joiners of Wolverhampton
and their masters could lay down their rules for preventing
such proceedings in their trade he thought the ironworkers
could do the same in reference to their calling. (A voice—
"So do I.") Further, he thought the ironworkers were
just now in that position by virtue of which they could re-
quire that their masters sh24d conagat to a court of .arbi-.
tration for the settlement of al/444nm disputes. (Cheers.)
And, as Lord Lichfield had made himself so useful and had
shown so great interest in trying by arbitration to bring
about a settlement of the dispute in the northern portion of
that county, might they not reasonably hope that the Lord
Lieutenant would afford his good offices in furtherance of
the establishment of a permanent court of arbitration ?

lie did not want to go to work until ho knew what
would be the conditions of labour to which he should be
subjected in the future. (Renewed cheers.) He wanted
something binding—a set of rules which could be enforced

in a court of justice. (Cheers.) When disputes arose now-
a-days if the men had the power they forced the masters to
yield ; but if their masters were most powerful then they
forced the men to yield. Away with such a state of things
for the future ! Henceforth the appeal should be "to the
law and to the testimony." (Cheers.) He should like to
propose that " the ironworkers of Wolverhampton do not
return to work until our masters understand what we re-

quire, and we understand how are masters intend to act."

(Loud cheers.) It was to him a great source of gratification
that the men had been firm to their principles—that all
through the struggle they had not shown the " white fea-
ther"—and that at tho end of a five weeks' lock-out they
were found more than ever united, and with a determina-
tion unprecedentedly strong to abide by their union.
(Cheers.) He begged to move that they should not return
to work until their masters had consented to a court of ar-
bitration for tho settlement of all disputes in the future.
(Cheers.)
Another PUDDLER said ho rose with great pleasure to
second the motion. (Hoar, hear.) They were living in an
age of reform and progress, and if they wore to keep pace
with the times they must be "up and doing." Their
masters had pledged themselves to support the North
Staffordshire masters. If the masters of South Stafford-
shire pledged themselves to support the masters of the
north of the county to keep them (the North Staf-
fordshire masters) up, was it not fair that the South
Staffordshire men should pledge themselves to support the
men who, in North Staffordshire, were tiring to keep them
(the men of South Staffordshire) up ? (Enthusiastic cheer-
ing.) The Wolverhampton puddlers had shown how much
they appreciated such views, for while men had gone to
work in some other districts he appealed to the meeting to
say if any puddling furnaces had been started in the Wol-
verhampton district ? (No.) On these grounds, then, he
seconded the motion. If the North Staffordshire men
should have to go in on masters' terms, there was every
probability that if work was resumed in South Staffordshire
without some understanding being come to, such as that
suggested in the motion, there would soon be anotherstrike.
(Hear.) Ile saw it stated that if it had not been for the
lock-out the price of iron would by this time have been
reduced. If the trade should not improve before another
quarter, and prices should be declared down, he supposed
that a notice would be given for the reduction of wages.
That notice, however, ho was quite sure would be resisted
(hear, hear)—and there would be another turn-out with all
its painful consequences. The lock-out was the best thing
that had ever occurred in England for the puddlers.
(Cheers.) It had greatly strengthened and it would tend
to extend and to perpetuate their union. Such a result it
had been shown had attended all such proceedings in refe-
rence to other trades in times past. After the opposition
to which they had been subjected the Amalgamated Engi-
neers had belted round the world with their union.
(Cheers.) And if the ironworkers could not get a court of
arbitration,
sh
with the ironworkers of Prance and Belgium, and
they should then have branches of their union in every
t asul
h
part of the world where iron was produced. (Cheers.) Ho
could not understand how it was that the continental iron-
masters could produee iron at so much lower a price than
it was sold in England, unless it was that they wore satisfied
with much less profit than would content the English iron-
masters. (Cheers.) Tho speaker then proceeded to combat
some statements that he said had been made by Messrs.
Knight and Udall, of North Staffordshire, to the effect that
puddling was not more laborious now than in years gone
by, and that it was not an unhealthy occupation. He con-
tended that it was now more than over laborious, and ad-
duced as a proof of its unhealthiness that throughout the
whole of South Staffordshire not 100 puddlers could be
found who were still following their occupation and were
above 50 years of ago. He and another of his fellows would
to etli ss sty
he occupation of the pud-
ceupation
platform upon these
two points.
pud-
dler prematurely disabled him, ought ho not to be (Cheers.)meer. K nigl t
fp on
then, a n
remune-
rated while he could work with that rate of wages which
would enable him to live during his disablement in a state
of comparative
' comfort ? (Cheers.) What, however, was 4
he now receiving ? Not the wages which, as given by the
gentlemen he had named, formed the exception, but,taking
the average of the last several years, were only a net £lss.
a week. (Cheers.) The men did not expect the masters to
employ their capital without deriving profit, and a good
profit too ; but they did say that the puddlers ought not to
be kept on such low wages when their masters were amass-

ing such immense fortunes as they saw were being accu-
mulated. Why, ten masters had been named to him who,