The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-06 00:00:00

STRIKES AND POOR LAWS.

In the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,
and, so long as he is willing to work, bread he may
claim as a right. This right we recognise by our Poor
Laws, and the amount of relief they are intended to
afford, whilst sufficient to preserve health, is less than
could be procured by the wages of labour. It is
only in periods of great distress, or when there is
something wrong in our social condition, 4that the
workhouse can be voluntarily resorted to by men able
to labour. In Lancashire the workmen out on strike
have, to some extent, applied for parochial relief, and
it has been granted, whilst threats have been uttered
that this is only a commencement, and that they will
enter the unions en, mane, for the double purpose of
sustaining themselves and of raising the rates. Now,
it may well be a question whether, under the circum-
stances, these weavers and mechanics can claim to be
maintained at the masters' expense if the masters
will not raise their wages. It is clear that if a per-
son chooses to live at another's cost, that other has a
right to require his services in return, and, if they are
not given, to withdraw the support granted ; therefore,
if the weavers execute their threat and resort to the
th lisioar-in-ousunds, the-least they can expeect is that
they should be compelled to work.
But suppose the work selected should be that in which
they are skilled—suppose it should be their own trade—
suppose they should be allotted or assigned in gangs to
the master manufacturers,—where would be their ten per
cent. then—where their weekly wages—where their honest
independence ? Nor is this supposition a vain assumption
without substance. To this it must come at last ; and
many of them must remember when it was a sys-
tem widely existing in England. Under the vicious
working of the old poor law, when a majority of the
labouring classes received parochial relief, wages were,
in effect, paid in rates. The evils of this system were
monstrous ; the men were idle and degraded ; gaining
little by their labour, they did not "work with a will,"
whilst the amount of rates exceeded what wages would
have been, because in the workhouses the waste was
universal. But bad as this system was, it is clearly bet-
ter thau to have high rates and no labour in return ; and
the men on strike may depend upon it that if they exe-
cute their threat the consequences we have indicated will
follow. We are not now expressing any opinion on the
main question, but only on one isolated act by which
the men may threaten to carry on the contest. But when
we read that one D. Nutter demanded an advance of
30/. per cent.,—"not because he thought the trade
" would allow it, but because he thought the state of
society wanted renovating,"— and when we further learn
that Mr. D. Nutter is one of the leaders of the move-
ment, we cannot but suspect the prudence of those who
act under such guidance. To renovate society by de-
manding an impossibility—why, what stuff is this ! In
Burnley and its neighbourhood are fifty-seven firms,
whose action on this question is united. The popula-
tion of this district is nearly 120,000, of whom at
least 60,000 heretofore found employment in the
mills. The number of looms is about 50,000, the
cotton consumed per week about 10,000 bags, and over
this mass of property and population influence is exer-
cised by such men as Mr. D. Nutter ! The time for the
strike could not, for the operatives, have been worse se-
lected—winter and war at hand, money dear, and foreign
markets glutted—just the very time when it would be
advisable to diminish the production. Accordingly we
find that, oven where the operatives had not struck,
their services are partially dispensed with. At Stock-
port 20,000 persons are employed in the mills, and there
the masters will only work four days a week. Under
these circumstances, it is obvious that the men are
fighting a losing game. Political events, the season of
the year, the state of the markets, all are in favour of
the masters. The trifle the operatives receive from their
toiling brethren will cease with mid-winter. The work-
house then may be a refuge from starvation : but not
unless their labour is not wanted. For, whilst our law
recognises the rights of poverty when it arises from mis-
fortune, it can never be tolerated that men who had
failed by abstaining from work, to reduce the masters to
their terms, should impoverish them by living in idle-
ness on those rates which are obtained from the master's
property.—Press.