The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-26 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 26, 1853.

THE PRESTON STRIKE.

( From the Times.)
On Monday morning last the unemployed opera-
tives assembled at Preston to the number of several
thousands, and passed certain resolutions respect-
ing their position and duties. Most readers are
probably aware that these, in common with many
other workmen, have " turned out," or, in other
words, have ceased to labour, with the view of thus
coercing their masters into the payment of wages
greater by 10 per cent. than those heretofore re-
ceived. Their presumption is that employers,
rather than forego the entire profits of business,
will come into the terms of the operatives, but as
the operatives also must be foregoing at the same
time the profits of their labour, it is obvious that
the trial of endurance must be the same to both
parties. The workpeople having all made common
cause, are aiding each other to subsist by common
contributions. The masters have likewise made
common cause, and will, no doubt, play as far as
possible into each other's hands. The two parties
are thus fairly pitted. In the end either one of
them must give way from sheer pressure, or they
must come to some better understanding by mutual
agreement. We acknowledge that we should be
sorry to see the former result, whichever might be
the successful party. Neither masters nor men,
we fear, would be altogether likely to use their
victory temperately, and, as the contest, while it
lasts, is not only oppressive to both, but prejudi-
cial to the interests of the country at large, we
should be glad to contribute towards its settle-
ment.

We admit, to begin with, that the workmen are
awfully competent,, not only to ask for higher
wages, but to ask in a body, and to make their
return to work contingent on the satisfaction of
their demands. In other words, they have a fair
right to " strike" if they please. The only insuf-
ferable feature about these transactions is the
coercion generally put upon many members of the
trade who would work if they were permitted. As
to demagogues and agitators, no doubt they are at
work in their usual way, and with their usual false
and selfish spirit, but this cannot be helped. Bodies
of men must have leaders, and if these leaders think
more of themselves and their gains than of their fol-
lowers and their cause, it is no more than may be said
of higher classes than Preston weavers. But the
rights thus acknowledged are indisputably common
to masters as well as workpeople ; nor should we
think, indeed, of asserting so self-evident a fact
had we not observed a disposition among the men
to question it. They speak of the Masters' Union
as something ill-meant, overbearing, and tyranni-
cal, forgetting that it is only a counterpart of their
own, and caused, in fact, by their own example.
The scheme of the operatives, like that of the amal-
gamated engineers some time ago, was to " strike"
by piecemeal—that is to say, to " strike" in one
establishment only a time, so that the workpeople
of all the other establishments, being in full em-
ploy, might be able to sustain the " strikers"
against their own particular employers until the
day was gained, after which the same operation
would be conducted against another firm, until all
had been conquered in succession. To encounter
such plans as these the masters were evidently
compelled to unite themselves, and to close their
mills at one and the same time until the dispute
was ended.
We need not say that we have no ill-will to the
operatives, and that we do not speak with any par-
tiality to the employers. We take a fair position
between the two, but we are compelled to add that
the workpeople have hitherto failed in the very first
point we have a right to look for. They demand an ad-
vance oflo percent. in their wages—on what ground ?
We have read manyspeeches and handbills of the
" turnouts," but we have never seen this important
fact stated at all. No doubt, it would be very
convenient and agreeable to them to get lls. in-
stead of 10s. So it would to us. So it would to
most people living by their labour, or, indeed, by
any other means. But where is the extra money
to come from ? If it is not fairly provided for by
some extraordinary source of profit it is not only
not fairly due, but can never long continue to be
paid. The only ground on which the workpeople
can justify their demand is such a change in the
state of trade as to warrant the payment of 11s.
now where 10s. were paid at the beginning of the
year. Possibly this change has occurred, but it
has never been proved or shown. If the work-
people are not convinced of the fact, they are not
justified in " striking ;" if they are, they should
give a plain account of their convictions. To meet
together and say merely that they " will never re-
sume labour until a full and unconditional 10 per
cent. has been conceded" is to act in a manner
which can never be approved by public opinion.
On such a principle they might just as well ask for
20 per cent, as 10, and, when they had obtained it,
demand 30 per cent, more. We want to hear the
grounds on which this demand is made.
The " strikes" are certainly not traceable to the
price of provisions, for they commenced before prices
had sensibly risen, and, even if this had been the
origin of the dispute, the case would not have
been defensible. If the receipts of an operative
are insufficient, owing to high prices, to procure
him what he needs, he deserves both sympathy
and assistance, but it does necessarily follow
that his employer can increase his wages, for
wages depend on the profits of the trade, and
not on the cost of provisions. Very likely the
diminution of supply in the labour-market may
improve the value of labour, but this can certainly
have nothing to do with the "strike," for it is a
matter which would very soon settle itself without
any such aid. No employer can ever procure
labour cheaply when it is really dear. Perhaps the
influx of gold may in time affect the currency, and
therein the scale of money payments, but this has
not occurred yet. What is it, then, which has oc-
curred to justify the present " strikes ?" If the
workpeople have a substantial case let them plainly
state it, and we will take care they shall be
heard

" The cotton lords," said Mr. G. Cowell in his
address to the Preston meeting, " have their ser-
vants to wait upon them, and their wives luxu-
riating in silks and satins." But would working
people be any better if servants were not wanted
by somebody ? Is not a good place with good
wages a very comfortable thing for a working man's
son or daughter ? As to " silks and satins," how
could Mr. Cowell talk so like a fool ? Why, what
would become of all the Spitalfields weavers if some-
body or other did not wear silks and satins, in-
stead of " miserable cotton dresses ?" Don't we
constantly have complaints from these quarters
whenever silks and satins are going out of fashion ?
And isn't the Queen constantly solicited to give a
great ball, in order that the trade may get a little
brisker ? The Preston weavers, as well as the
other operatives, will be quite able, we are sure,
to understand what we now write, and to see the
truth of what we say. If they have any reason to
believe that the state of trade can afford 10 per
cent. higher wages, or the state of the labour-
market entitle them to ask the advance, let them
prove their case, and they will have the public
with them ; but, if they have merely an idea that
is a good time to " strike" for more pay, and if
they have no better ground for so doing than be-
cause they think they should like the increase,
they will get no support from without, and their
position must by-and-by. become worse than it was
before.

( Front the Morning Advertiser. )

No one who is interested in the social prosperity
of this country can contemplate without much pain
the misunderstandings and unnatural alienations
which are growing up between the various classes
of operatives and their employers. The present
loss to both classes is enormous, while to indivi-
duals it must prove in many cases, if not absolutely
ruinous, certainly the means of crippling their re-
sources for a long time to come.

In Preston about 20,000 of the best work-people
in Lancashire are in the streets, and it will be seen
that while it is most properly asserted that they
are not idle and dissolute characters, there are
those approaches to disorder which call for magis-
terial interposition ; and although by great efforts
money has been obtained to keep up the strike,
there are sufficient indications that before very
long the sinews of war will fail.
In reviewing the strike at Stockport, and which
lasted twelve weeks, it appears, although the ope-
ratives have been successful, that seven months of
industry at the advanced wages will not be suffi-
cient to recompense the men for the loss they sus-
tained during the strike. How prejudicially this
method of adjusting matters operates against the
men, is sufficiently evident in noticing the helpless
condition in which the turn-outs frequently find
themselves placed. As the result of the turn-out
of the dyers in Manchester, about 1,600 men are
left out of work, their places being filled by new
hands, and similar painful consequences have been
experienced elsewhere.
We subscribe ex animo, as we think every one
must, to the judicious observations made on this sub-
ject ky Mr, 1% B. ,Addison, in hid altos to the

grand jury of North Lancashire, which he said :
" We cannot look at such an interruption without
apprehension and without great regret, because we
know it must lead to very great loss and suffering—
to great loss on the part of the manufacturers, and
to great suffering on the part of the work-people and
their families." Mr. Addison adds—" Ido not
see in what manner it is possible to interfere, with
anything like authority, in the making of these
contracts, which must necessarily be voluntarily
entered into by both parties. We cannot compel
the workman to labour. He labours for his own
benefit, for the support of himself and family. If
he does not choose to labour, we may regret it, and
we may think him ill-advised, but it is not in our
power to put compulsion upon him ; neither on the
other hand can we compel, nor is it desirable that
the law should compel, the master-manufacturer
to carry on a trade which he in his own judgment
does not find it desirable to carry on. We may be
sure that he does not stop his works, that he does
not allow his capital to lie idle, that he does not
forego the profit which his trade would produce
him voluntarily, but that he does so from a neces-
sity of which he is the judge, and in which it is
not for other persons to interfere or tell him that
he forms a mistaken judgment." We say, that
there is nothing to object to in these remarks,
which recognise the truth that these disputations
are between the employers and the employed, and
that officious interference between the parties is to
be deprecated.
It is a very easy thing for us to tell the opera-
tives that they are not going the best way to work
in order to secure a proper adjustment of wages i
for themselves ; or for us to tell the employers that
they ought to encourage a full representation of
the views of their work-people--such representation
to be given by any parties in whom they have the
greatest confidence. This is, indeed, the sort of
advice we should be disposed to tender, if we
thought that any advice, ab extra, were likely to
be acceptable and useful to the contending parties;
for we believe that there is much to be said by way
of explanation on each side, which ought to be re-
spectfully and patiently heard.
To our thinking, the employers are not sufficiently
respectful to the voice of the people. That voice
may not be sufficiently regulated to please the rich
men to whom it is addressed ; but they ought suffi-
ciently to understand honest and earnest opera-
tives, to allow for a little more roughness and de-
cision than are quite agreeable.
On the other hand, we are quite satisfied, as we
have already stated, that the present position of
employers is not exactly understood by the work-
people they employ. It is most natural, when
there are such large demands for production, such
attractions for skilled labour to the new territories
which have been opened for it, and such an increase
in the price of food of every description, that the
operatives should expect to have the benefit of the ,
general rise in prices, and find that labour is not
the exception to the rule.
The employers, however, could tell the operatives
of the injustice which is done to them in conse-
quence of the artificial famine of money which is
the result of a grand legislative error made in 1819,
and re-made in 1844. We should expect that the
people in our manufacturing districts would per-
fectly understand that the masters are deprived of
much of the property which they are supposed 11
to enjoy, in consequence of money being raised to
such an artificial value, by the fact that our banks
are being cleared of their gold to send to foreign
countries for bread, and that at a time when wealth
is being rapidly created day by day. It might be
shown to the operatives that the quarrel ought not
to be so much between themselves and their em-
ployers, as between both these parties and the dun-
derheaded legislation by which they are repeatedly
thrown into collision with each other ; and that,
before matters can come right, they must unite
their forces for the purpose of repealing the inju-
rious law under which all parties are doomed to
suffering and misapprehension, and the whole
country periodically to a commercial crisis.
The manufacturers, it may be, in many cases do
not understand the real cause of all the confusion
and interruption to their career of prosperity which
they have to endure. They certainly have failed to
have their true interests represented in Parliament
on the important question of the currency. They
ought to send to the House of Commons a number
of men who will go into Parliament for the express
purpose of getting this most iniquitous, absurd,
mischief-making, and destructive law repealed.
There is no great profundity of political wisdom re-
quired in showing the downright folly of the law
which enacts, that whatever be the substantial
wealth of the country, it shall have no bank-note
representation, except in as far as it consists of one
particular kind of metal. That metal has been
presented in larger quantities than usual since its
discovery in California and Australia ; but there is
no reason whatever to expect that it exists in quan-
tities which will prove sufficient to make it the re-
presentative of the whole wealth of this country.
Our present law says, you may take credit for your
wealth in the form of currency, if you should hap-
pen to have in the cellars of your bankers a corres-
ponding amount of gold ; but if not, if there be no
gold, there must be no money.
We must hope, therefore, that the manufacturers
will fight their own battles, and be joined in the
conflict by the employes, and that every opportu-
nity will be embraced for sending into Parliament
men who will expound the subject of the currency,
and not allow the country to remain in the anoma-
lous and dangerous position in which it was left by
the law of 1844. The present representatives of
the manufacturing districts and commercial cities
should have their attention called to this great
question, and they should be instructed by their
constituents that there is no subject which more
imperatively calls for their most energetic efforts.
As the result of that healthy impulse given to the
industry and enterprise of this country by Free
Trade, it is now found that we can no longer en-
dure to be restrained by any laws which press un-
duly on the development of that industry and en-
terprise. If we had submitted to the discipline of
the Protectionists, we must have submitted to all
the bandages and fetters which that class of politi-
cal doctors would impose. We have now liberty
to grow, and we must have liberty also to lay aside
the elegant golden armour, which is painfully op-
pressive, and which must, like all metallic armour,
find its place among the curiosities of the past.

THE YELLOW FEVER AT BERMUDA.

A private letter from Bermuda, dated Septem-
ber 22, says :
"The yellow fever now at St. George's is the most
awful visitation I have ever known. Bad as it was in

1343, it is now ten times worse. Almost every one of
the officers and their ladies who have been attacked have
sunk under it. They say it is the very worst type of
yellow fever, quite like the African fever. Poor Cap-
tain and Mrs. Hare are both gone. She was attacked
first, and died after about five days' illness ; he, poor
fellow ! was taken ill on the day she died, and expired
on the third day.
" We are at this moment, and have been since Sun-
day, without a Governor. Colonel Philpotts died on
that day, and Colonel Robe, who was the next senior
officer, was buried this morning. Major Oakley, the
next, is in a very, precarious state, having been taken ill
on Monday, and until it is seen how his illness termi-
nates, we must remain without a Governor. Major I
Byles, of the 56th Regiment will be the senior military
officer ; he has only had his majority two or three
months. This is a fearful state of things.
" This fever does not attack the natives as yet, or
rather, only their children.
"It has reached Ireland Island, but is not near so
bad as at St. George's Island. It has not yet reached
the main island, Hamilton, and as there are very few
soldiers and no convicts, we hope to escape.
"The officers of the Ordinance have suffered fright.
fully ; only one clerk is left in that department. All the
artillery and engineer officers at St. George's are ill,
and also the wives of those who are married.
"Mrs. Robe, wife of Colonel Robe, is ill, but not
dangerously.
" There is great want of medical assistance. In the
Sampson they had only four medical men ; two of them
were taken ill very early, one of them is dead, the other
better. Private practitioners receive 51. a-day for going
to St. George's.
"To-morrow is the day set apart for prayer and hu-
miliation in all the churches, and both the poor men
who ordered it are gone to their account.
"To-day the wife of Lieutenant Whitmore, of the
Engineers is reported dead."

SECRET SERVICE.—It appears that in the year ended
the sth of January last the home secret service cost the
country 10,0001., the foreign secret service 31,3001.,
and the secret service (Ireland) 4,6151.
Two MEN POISONED BY the EXHALATIONS PROM A
CESSPOOL.—Between twelve and one o'clock on Monday
morning, a man named Adcock and three assistants were
engaged in emptying a cesspool belonging to an empty
house in Pelham-street, Spitalfields, which was ordered
to be cleansed by the sanitary authorities. One of the
party named Walker, was descending a ladder into the
receptacle, when he suddenly fell backwards into the
soil. Adcock immediately went to his assistance, but
only to share the same fate. They were both extricated
as quickly as possible, but they were found to be quite
dead,