The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

-4-

TIMES.—The present week may possibly be as
memorable in the annals of British industry as that
which witnessed the outbreak of the American war
and the paralysis of the great cotton trade. Next to
cotton stuffs, one of the chief manufactures of this
country is iron, and the manufacturers of iron, mas-
ters and men together; are deliberately combining
to suspend their trade, and create by their own pro-
ceedings a distress scarcely less serious than was in-
flicted on Lancashire by the quarrels of Federals
and Confederates. We couple the workmen with
their employers in these remarks, because both par-
ties are answerable for the consequences impending.

The proceeding immediately before us is iermeda
" lock-out"—that is to say, an act of the masters ;

but this " lock-out" originated in a " strike," or an
act of the men. The whole case, indeed, derives its
importance from the fact that though its proportions
are alarming in the extreme they do but express the
condition to which Trade Unions and trade conflicts
have at length brought the industry of the kingdom.
Some time ago the Staffordshire ironmasters re-
solved upon reducing the wages of the men in their
employ. The North Staffordshire men struck against
this reduction and refused to accept it ; the men of
South Staffordshire consented to the abatement, and
were willing to continue their work, but at the same
time they agreed to support the malcontents' in
North Staffordshire by contributions from their
earnings. At this the masters took alarm, and rea-
sonably enough, for it was plain that if the Northern
men could carry their point against their employers
by the aid of the South, they would afterwards
enable the Southern men to accomplish the same
object in a similar fashion. These have been the
tactics of Trade Unions for some time past. A
general " strike," by impoverishing every district at
once, would put the men at a disadvantage, and
leave them without the means of sustaining the
contest. A local " strike," supported from earn-
ings in other districts where work was continued,
might be conducted with far better prospect of
success, and might eventually be repeated on the
same favourable conditions in one district after
another. In former times this strategy would have
been formidable, but the masters have now learnt
organisation from the men, and encounter them
with their own weapons. Trade unions are now
maintained in duplicate. Each district has its
Union of masters as well as its Union of men, and
one side is as well disciplined as the other. So,
when the masters' Union in South Staffordshire dis-
cerned the designs of their men in supporting out of
their earnings a strike-in North Staffordshire, they
at once resolved to stop these earnings, and to de-
prive their adversaries of the sinews of war. They
gave notice that unless the North Staffordshire men
came in and resumed work they would " lock-out"
even the Southern men who were willing to go on,
and thus the conflict has commenced. Where it will
end no one can tell, for the iron trade of the whole
kingdom is, as regards this double organisation, one
industry. Already the ironmasters in Northumber-
land and Durham are opening the question with
their men, and asking whether they intend to sup-
port the Staffordshire workmen or not. If they con-
sent to stand aloof, the masters will keep their works
open • if not, they will adopt the tactics of their
brethren' in South Staffordshire and " lock-out" the
hands in their employ. The reader will now ap-
preciate the character of the impending struggle. Its
importance is due solely to the organisation and
concert which incessant quarrels and long experience
have produced in all our principal trades. The ori-
ginal dispute was nothing but an ordinary squabble
about the rate of wage, but no sooner is it taken up
than one " Union" after another, of masters as well
as men, finds itself called upon to adopt a side. If
the masters prevail in Northumberland and Wales
by the threat of a " lock-out," the men in Stafford-
shire will infallibly have to succumb ; their sur-
reiader would entail other surrenders, and there-
fore the Trade Unions of the men may naturally be
reluctant to forsake them. On the other hand, un-
less the masters act thus in concert and intercept
the supplies, the Staffordshire masters would be
beaten, and the turn of all other masters would
come. We confess, therefore, that we are not in
the least surprised to see it conjectured that before
the end of this week the principal ironworks in the
North of England and Wales will be closed. The
only gleam of hope that we can discern in this de-
plorable strife is suggested by the very magnitude
of the calamity. When things have come to such
a pass they must surely mend, for the result is abso-
lutely unendurable. The great " lock-out" is no-
thing in the world but the natural and inevitable
result of a system. To this end, sooner or later,
strikes must come. The men were the first to dis-
cover the advantages of combination, and they
brought their Trade Unions to such a pitch of
organisation that the operatives of a trade con-
stituted one great body, movable by one impulse
and on one plan. They could never, however, ex-
pect that the masters would forego the use of these
weapons, or allow themselves to be beaten in
detail year after year. Both sides, like armies
in the field, learnt war from campaigning, and the
masters are now as well organised and disciplined
as the men. Twenty years ago this strife would
never have been heard of out of Staffordshire. Now
the whole iron trade is formed into two great groups
of Unions, the masters on one side and the men on
the other, and so a local " strike" becomes a national
calamity. It is said that wages to the amount of
£120,000 a week are stopped. already, and. what
the state of things may be a few days hence it is
impossible to calculate. In the Trade Returns of
last year our mere exports of iron manufactures
were valued at upwards of £13,000,000, and this
estimate took no account of machinery. We have
said nothing about the merits of the original
quarrel, because; as the public will see, the import-
ance of the case before us depends on other con.
siderations. The fact is that in the state to whicl
trade has now been brought by these hostile
Unions, every quarrel, however insignificant, between
masters and men, may produce as complete a paralysis
of a great national industry as was occasioned in the
cotton trade by the American war. Nor can it be
otherwise so long as the system continues of deciding
the differences by " strikes" and Unions on one side,
and " lock-outs" and Unions on the other. It is
perfectly natural that the men of every Union should
wish to support the North Staffordshire men, and
equally so that the masters of every Union should
resolve to support the Staffordshire masters. But in

the meantime, while the whole trade is thus made a
party to every local squabble, and a machinery so
ruinously extravagant is brought into play, our fo-
reign rivals will improve the opportunity to get the
business out of our hands. They are running us close
already, and we have but little margin of advantage
to spare. We do trust, therefore, that the alternative
which found favour with the building trades a short
time ago may not be forgotten in the case before us.
The master builders and their men did agree with
tardy wisdom that it was better to submit a dispute
to arbitration than to settle a commercial question
by endeavouring to starve each other out. Whether
the ironmasters or their workmen were right in
their estimates of the wages which the trade could
afford we cannot say, but we can say, and the pub-
lic will say too, that it is the very height of folly to
bring such a controversy to an issue by suspending
the trade throughout the whole kingdom and
jeopardizing its existence altogether.
HERALD.—Next to having a good cause the best
thing is to have a good advocate. Many a doubtful
suit has been won by clever counsel, and many a
verdict had been recorded against the merits
through an able lawyer's skill in putting a harm-
less aspect on an ugly set of facts or explaining
away an obvious but unfavourable inference. And if
there be any man who should know this maxim
thoroughly we should surely expect to find the pre-
sent occupant of the woolsack more conscious of its
practical importance than any other person living.
Skilled in all the arts by which a man of consider-
able, but by no means commanding, ability can rise
over the heads of his competitors to the highest legal
honours ; having used his talents at the bar and in
the senate with extraordinary success ; having for
many years practised side by side with the leading
members of his profession, and having had ample
opportunity of observing the tactics of those who
endeavour to win a popular vote or to sway a po-
pular assembly, we are sure Lord Westbury would
never willingly rely upon an advocate wanting in so
commonplace a quality as ordinary discretion. And,
perhaps, if his lordship had the power of choosing,
he would take care that no one who had the conduct
of his cause should be wanting in this particular.
Unfortunately, however, the practice of public jour-
nalists is not regulated by forensic etiquette. A big
brief and a heavy fee are not the only requisites to
ensure an able and influential pleader at the bar of
public opinion ; and so it comes to pass that Lord
Westbury, like other men, must bear the burden of
his mistakes, and endure the animadversions of ad-
verse critics as best he may. When he mixes himself
up in matters such as are now engrossing public at-
tention he must rely for his defence on such journals
as choose to espouse his cause or deprecate the cen-
sures of his assailants, and he must trust to the merits
of the one for any effective qualification of the bitter-
ness of the other. We are sorry to say that we cannot
congratulate Lord Westbury on his good fortune in
this particular. For a vindication or palliation of
- is share in the Patent Office scandal he has had to

trust to his old friends in Printing-house-square.
The Times, which lauded the Bankruptcy Act long
after it had hopelessly broken down, which puffed
his proposal for confiscating small debts, when all
the traders in the country were loud in its condem-
nation, which has extolied him to the skies as our
heaven-sent law reformer,- and which is ever ready
to act as his lordship's fugleman at all times and on
all occasions, has once more come forward to do
battle on his beliolf. And so far as putting a bold
front on the affair goes, it must be confessed that
the leading journal has shown itself an apt scholar of
the legal dignitary. When the rumours about Mr.
Edmund's resignation became too loud to be disre-
garded the Lord Chancellor came forward with his
proposal for inquiry, and when the news it had so stu-
diously ignored was in everybody's mouth his most
faithful adherent in the daily press began to give
tongue. It is wonderful, however, to see how diffe-
rently different people may look at the same transac-
tion. In the simplicity of our hearts we had imagined
that it is ill for the slightest imputation to rest
upon the wearer of the ermine. On this account we
felt it our duty to dwell upon the circumstances of
Mr. Edmunds's resignation • upon the admitted de-
falcations at the Patent Office • the reported pres-
sure by which he was compelled to resign his ap-
pointment in the House of Lords ; on the Chancel-
lor's extraordinary reticence when introducing the
matter to the Lords' committee, and the tacit
assistance he afforded to a grant of a pension for
faithful service to a public servant who, after hold-
ing sundry lucrative offices for several years, is as
yet uncleared from the imputation of being a de-
faulter to a very serious extent. Of course we sus-
pend our judgment on this last point until Mr.
Edmunds's defence has been made public,
and the statements on both sides are be-
fore the world. But our concern just now is
not with Mr. Edmunds, but with Lord West-
bury—not with the clerk in the Patent Office,
but with the Chancellor on the woolsack. We
say, and we know that the public feeling of the
entire country is with us in saying, that the
Chancellor's silence when introducing the matter
to the Lords' committee was an act for which he
is highly censurable. Such members of the com-
mittee as spoke on Tuesday night expressed them-
selves with the warmth of honourable men who felt
that they had been to some extent imposed upon.
They had been invited to consider their officer's
petition for a pension, without a word being
breathed to them as to anything that officer had
done to render him unworthy of the boon he
sought, and the matter was introduced to them
by the keeper of her Majesty's conscience, who
excused himself for this flagrant instance of the
suppressio yen by saying that Mr. Edmunds had
not rendered himself liable to criminal proceed-
ings. We should like to know how any mer-
cantile company or trading firm would deal with
their confidential clerk, who recommended his em-
ployer to pension off an underling in whose accounts
there was a possibility of serious deficiency, because
he thought it would not be advisable to prosecute
the offender. Yet this is exactly what the Lord
Chancellor has done, and for the credit of our order
we should have thought that for this he would be
condemned by every journalist of reputation. It
appears,lowever, thatwewere mistaken. The Times
feels bound to say that the Lord Chancellor seems
to them blameless. The circumstances are singular,
but the Mr. Edmunds of the Patent Office was an
entirely different person from the Mr. Edmunds at
the House of Peers. If the one dealt improperly
with the public money there was no complaint of
the sort against the other. Like the fighting bishop
who played mad pranks as a soldier, the Times can
understand how a man can deserve a public pension
for being honest in one place who has been charged
with grave irregularities in another, though whether
he had the opportunity for improperly dealing
with money as reading clerk we are not as yet in-
formed. In permitting an officer to resign against
whom grave charges had been made, our contem-
porary can see only a laudable anxiety " to relieve
the public service of a person whose conduct had
been faulty," and this " fault," we are left to sup-
pose, was condoned by the delinquent's paying over
£7,872, and disputing the balance of £9,000 and
odd, which his superiors still assert to be due from
him. As for hoodwinking the committee, that is a
question, as the Times with charming naivete re-
marks, " on which very different opinions may be
very legitimately held." The Chancellor may well
have been surprised that Mr. Edmunds was willing
to pay part of his balances and to relinquish all
his appointments. The Lord Chancellor did not
think fit "to pursue" a fallen man, and the com-
mittee, " who had ample opportunities of becoming
acquainted with the whole case, at once granted
the pension, probably thinking that Mr. Ed-
munds's faults in another department ought not
to preclude him from receiving the reward of his
long labours in the house !" We leave our contem-
porary's apology-for Lord Westbury to speak for
itself. " Save me from my friends," the Chancellor
may well exclaim, when he peruses the wretchedly
weak and flimsy excuses put forth on his behalf in
an article devoted to his defence by a journal which
has always been his unreasoning partisan. But as
the Peers protested against the silence of the Chan-
cellor, so must the press protest against the conclud-
ing paragraph of the Times leader. The writer of
the sentences we have quoted is perfectly well aware
that the committee knew nothing, and could know
nothing, of the charges against Mr. Edmunds; that
it was not until after they had made their report
that they heard anything of the matter, save by
vague, uncertain rumour—rumour which they were
not only at liberty, but were bound to disregard,
when the proposal for Mr. Edmunds's pension was
introduced to them by that gentleman's highest offi-
cial superior. Of the disingenuous concealment of
which Lord Westbury was guilty we have already
spoken, but we know not whether even his lordship's
silence be a graver offence than our contemporary's
deliberate endeavour to transfer the blame from the
Chancellor to the committee. Nepotism and job-
bery on the woolsack are offensive enough, but we
are inclined to think that the journalist who excuses
them by perverting the facts of a perfectly notorious
case may fairly be charged with acting in a manner
even more reprehensible than the official he vainly
i endeavours to defend.

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