The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-16 00:00:00

SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE.

In South Staffordshire the belief is prevalent that
the masters in the north of England will not long
keep their works closed. The workmen who pro-
mulgate statements to that effect allege that they
have received communications from certain of their
fellows who are now employed in the Newcastle dis-
trict, encouraging them to entertain this view. Upon
certain of the works, it is alleged, the operations of
important shipbuilding-yards depend, and that so
pressing were the necessities of some of those yards
before the lock-out took place, that, in the words of
the writers, " the iron was being dragged out of the
works nearly redhot." But the ironmasters in South
Staffordshire have perfect confidence in the good
faith of the masters in the north of England,and do
not believe that the arrangement come to at the last
great meeting of the trade
in Birmingham will be
departed from on either side. By that arrangement
north and south became one in enforcing the uni-
versal observance by their men of any determination
in respect of wages, upon which the masters gene-
rally should resolve. The good feeling between the
masters in these two divisions of the kingdom is
exemplary. Greater unanimity than was displayed,
as well at the meeting at which the reduction was
determined upon as at the meeting when it was re-
solved to lock-out the majority because of their prac-
tical sympathy with that minority who refused to ac-
cept the reduction, could not have been possible, and
since that meeting the ironmasters of the north of
England have manifested the strongest desire that
their brethren in the south should not allow any
rumours circulated by interested parties to weaken
their confidence in the continuance of that unanimity.
Of all the different suggestions which have been
made with the view of devising some means whereby
the lock-out may be terminated, before it has con-
tinued till one or other side has been compelled to
give in from sheer exhaustion and permanent heart-
burnings have been evoked, no one suggestion has
received so much approval as that thrown out at the
meeting of millmen at West Bromwich on Monday.
The more it is discussed the more practical it ap-
pears. At the same time the masters have a con-
tinued cause of complaint against certain portions of
the union of the men, and might therefore deem
themselves called upon to adhere to the letter of the
condition upon which they have made the period of
the lock-out to depend. They have obtained infor-
mation which satisfies them that subscriptions are
still being:sent into North Staffordshire from mem-
bers of the Union. In Shropshire, in particular,
they say, the unionists at work there are subscribing
for their brethren in North Staffordshire. Hitherto,
however, the help afforded out of the North Staf-
fordshire district does not appear to have occasioned
any very considerable increase in the funds avail-
able for distribution among their men by the
officers of that district. Before the executive
ceased to forward moneys raised by a levy made
throughout the Union, the North Staffordshire men
who belong to the executive of the South received
10s. a week from their executive, and 3s. a week
from the, district exchequer. Last Saturday the
relief dispensed amounted to 4s. per member
for the week. How long the district officers may be
able to continue such a distribution is not clear ; for
although the North Staffordshire men enjoy the
practical sympathy of their fellows in Shropshire,
where all the finished ironworks are fully on ; yet, in
other cases, such as Manchester—where there are
nearly as many members still at work as there are
locked out—the men refuse aid toNorth Staffordshire.
If the delegates, who are the final supreme authority
in. the Union, should enforce the conditions which
they declared would follow upon the supporting of
the refractory men in North Staffordshire in any
way, the conduct of the Shropshire members will
occasion some difficulty, for it had been understood
that contributing would subject them to excommu-
nication. Then the fact of the Shropshire works
being carried on and the men employed there being
thereby enabled to send funds to protect the lock-
out, cannot but act unfavourably in any. move-
ment which contemplates the concentration of
the masters of all the districts in one powerful body.
It was not generally expected that the Shropshire
masters would lock-out. Nevertheless the notice was
posted at one works, but was afterwards taken down
by the proprietors when they learnt that they were
alone in giving the notice, and they are understood
to have expressed not a little chagrin that the notice
should have been sent to them by a firm who did
not themselves adopt it.

The masters do not see any means of terminating
the lock-out by any rearrangement of the wages
scale. They say that the men are now and have for
some time past been receiving a much higher rate of
wages than the price of bar-iron, by which price that
rate has always been understood to be regulated, and"
that, therefore, they would be unwilling to submit to
any alteration the effect of which would be to reduce
the amount of remuneration which they are now re-
ceiving. Therefore they believe that to commence
any negotiations with a view to a settlement on a
wages basis which would be satisfactory toboth sides
would be only to complicate matters. We have
reason to know that, so far as the supposition of the
masters relative to the disfavour which any propo-
sition contemplating an alteration against the men
in the amount of tEe present remuneration is con-
' cerned, the masters are quite right. The men gene-
rally, it is now known by the Executive, are not
prepared to work on a lower rate than that which
now prevails.

As a body the men believe that they- ought not to
be paid less than 10s. a ton for puddling, whatever
may be the price of iron ; and they have confidence
in the power of their Union to help them to secure
this rate, or certainly to prevent much of decrease
upon the present scale, which is at the rate of Os. 6d„
a rate, as compared with past years, which is' regarded
by the masters as very high, and ls. higher than the
scale by which wages are usually regulated. Reduc-
tions, the men say, would have been effected in their
wages by their masters, which would have reduced
their remuneration very much below the present
standard had it not been for the power to resist
such a step which the men possess in their Union.
Further, the men know how short is the supply- of
labour in the market for puddlers as compared with
the demand ; and this, which many masters adduce
as the reason of the advantage which men now pos-
sess, also encourages the men in the hope that they
will be able to prevent any further decline. Hope,
also, in this direction is buoyed up by the confi-
dence which is widely entertained that the trade
societies will afford them all the help in their power
to maintain the strength of their Union, and thereby
keep up the scale of wages.
Yesterday there was the usual weekly gathering
in Wolverhampton of the ironmasters of the West-
midland district on 'Change in that town.
In the interim between the quarterly preliminary
meetings of the trade, when the members of the
Iron
masters' Association assemble and discuss the
question of future
prices and other matters which
may be regarded as the legislation of the trade, the
affairs of the association are managed by the chair-
man for the year, now Mr. W. 0. Foster, M.P.,
and a commitee of gentlemen who have been nomi-
nated to fill the office of chairman
aius l
succession
one
lillim
one of them, now Mr. Walter
n., acting
as the hon. secretary, assisted by a
Paid secretary.
As may be imagined, these gentlemen are virtually
the government of the trade ; and their proceedings
at this time are regarded by their constituents as of
the greatest moment. But they enjoy the fullest
confidence of the whole of the association ; no mis-
trust whatever is felt in their wisdom and their

esprit de corps. All official correspondence between
the ironmasters of the North of England or any
other part of the kingdom and those of the West-
midland is carried on by those gentlemen.
Yesterday they had received a communication
from the hon. secretary of the Association of the
North of England Ironmasters, communicating the

-
result of the meeting between the committee of that
body and the memhers of the Gateshead Executive
of the men on the previous day in New stle-on-
Tyne. It was to the effect that the Non hof Eng-
land masters had promised the Executive of
Gateshead that a general meeting ld be called
to consider the present condition of affairs, and it
desired that a general meeting of the masters of the
South should be called, to be held at York on Fri-
day next. The communication said nothing what-
ever as to what would be discussed at the meeting,
but a statement had appeared to the effect that the
North of England masters were prepared to send
puddled bars to North Staffordshire to enable the
masters there to re-start their works. This state-
ment, the committee believed, had emanated from
the men, as they did not think that the mas-
ters would conceive that the scheme was practicable.
It was certainly not thought to be so by the com-
mittee. The scheme, it was shown, was tried in
South Staffordshire by a section of the masters there
during the last strike of the puddlers, and it failed.
Many more difficulties, it was felt, would lie in the
way of such an arrangement in which the masters
of different districts might combine to assist each
other in this way. If the masters in the north of
England should really contemplate such a step, it
was thought that so soon as they knew the result
of such a measure when it was tried in the south of
Stafford they would see its impracticability. It was,
however, the opinion of the committee that the
strike of the men in North Staffordshire would ter-
minate within a fortnight if at the meeting of the
trade societies in London on that (Wednesday)
night it should not be resolved to support the North
Staffordshire men very liberally. Intimation is under-
stood to have been conveyed to South Staffordshire
from certain of the men to this effect—The puddlers
in North Staffordshire will not remain out on 4s aweek,
it is asserted ; but it is added they will not go to
work as long as they can obtain 15s or 20s a week.
As the probabilities are against such liberal relief
being forthcoming, the committee feel pretty con-
fident that cause for the lock-out will soon termi-
nate. If the decision of the meeting in London
should be to support the North Staffordshire men
to a large extent, then the committee see no prospect
of an early termination, except by men going into
North Staffordshire and starting the furnaces which
the puddlers there refuse to work on 'the masters'
terms. It was finally resolved that three of the
committee should go as a deputation to York, and
a statement, comprising a history of the lock-out,
was drawn up and signed by the hon. secretary, to
be forwarded for publication in the London papers.
With the facts contained in that statement the public
are familiar.