The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-09 00:00:00

(Prom the Morning Post.)

Before the Anti Corn-Law League was taken in hand
and fully organised by those gentlemen whose names are
now identified with it, smaller associations, out of which
the larger one sprung, had been formed in Manchester,
and some of the neighbouring towns, for the same object.
The leaders of these associations were sharp and discon-
tented men of low rank, who drove a flourishing trade
at that time, and afterwards, as anti-corn law agitators
and lecturers.• When the corn laws were repealed their
vocation was gone ; but they have since found means to
resume their old trade of agitation in the factory dis-
tricts ; for it is reported in South Lancashire that the
men who are at the bottom of the present strike, who
planned the scheme of demanding an increase of wages
in the different mills in succession, whilst the operatives
who remained at work in the other mills were, in case
of a strike, to support the turn-outs by their subscrip-
tivs, are, many of them, the same men who planned
the League, and lived for many a day on the wages of
anti-corn law agitation. It is this interference of stran-
gers between master and man, which at once shows the
present strike to be no legitimate demand for increased
wages, but a conspiracy of the employed, under self-
elected leaders, against their employers. At the com-
mencement of the strike, when the masters sought
interviews with their workmen, and offered them terms,
the men in the several mills could give no answer
without consulting a body of delegates from other towns,
with whom the masters naturally refused to treat.
The disappearance of these delegates, and the absence of
any reference to them, is one of the good signs to be ob-
served in some of the towns where the workmen have
struck. At Wigan, for example, we find that the
" overlookers," men who are regularly employed in the
mills, who are no strangers to either party in the dis-
pute, no delegates from other towns, have originated a
movement amongst themselves which will tend to recon-
cile the two parties. They have appointed deputations
to wait upon the masters, to ascertain the terms upon
which they will re-open their mills, each deputation
consisting of an overlooker in each department of the
mill belonging to the employer waited on. At one of
their meetings, the overlookers decided on presenting
a memorial to their employers, requesting them to call
a meeting of the Master's Association, to consider and
decide when they would open their mills if the hands
consented to return to work on their terms. All this
shows that the operatives are beginning to find out
that professional agitators are not the best advisers, and
that a strike is a losing game.

Amongst those who feel the effects of the strike most
severely, and gladly hail the prospect of its termination,
are the retail dealers and small shopkeepers, who sell a
large number of articles which may be considered as the
workman's luxuries. When wages are low, or when, by
a strike, a large sum of money is withdrawn from circu-
lation amongst the workmen, the means of their cus-
tomers are reduced, perhaps barely sufficing for the pur-
chase of the mere necessaries of life, so that nothing re-
mains to spend on any other articles, and those who
supply them lose all their trade as long as the strike con-
tinues. When the workman is unwilling to discontinue
the use of articles to which he has become accustomed,
but can no longer afford to pay for, and can only pro-
cure on credit, the small shopkeeper is placed in a very
unpleasant position ; if he refuses to allow his former
customers to have what they require on credit, he runs
a great risk of losing their custom afterwards when they
are able to pay—of incurring present odium and dislike,
with the chance of being mobbed and maltreated—a
thing not unlikely to happen when large numbers of
men with uncontrolled passions sympathise with each
other, and suppose they have a just ground of complaint.
If, on the other hand, through fear of these results, he
sells them on credit, some time must elapse before he
can get his money, and he cannot turn over his capital
in so short a time as before ; and, as strikes are usually
failures, and the workmen seldom gain their ends, their
wages, after the strike is over, are seldom higher than
they were before, their wants and requirements remain
the same, so that the small shopkeeper has often great
difficulty in obtaining payment for the articles sold to
them on credit during the continuance of the strike.
The very fact, also, of the workman's obtaining the same
comforts when he has turned out, as he enjoyed when
in the receipt of wages, prevents him from seeing the
actual state of the case, and feeling the misery of his
condition ; and, if he ever gives a thought to the debt
which is daily increasing, the expectation which, in
nine cases out of ten, is never fulfilled—effectually soothes
any qualms of conscience.
In a strike, the money which the operative actually
pays down at once goes in a worse channel than at other
times. The man on strike becomes in many cases a
public-house frequenter and a tap-room politician ; he
sheers glib and sophistical speakers, smashes short clay
pipes is rapping the tab e to the tune of " Ten per cent.
and no surrender," and totters home late at night to his
wife and children, reeking with the fumes of tobacco and
intoxicating liquors. More money is spent in ale and
tobacco every day during a strike than at any other
time, except an election. The beer-sellers are the only
class in the community who profit by a strike, and they
certainly reap a rich harvest whilst the workman is un-
derming his physical strength—which is of the first im-
portance to those who work mainly with their hands
—and is becoming debased both in mind and body.