The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-27 00:00:00

STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.

, The council of the Society for the encouragement of
Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, having!. had the re-
cent disputes between employers and employed in the
' manufacturing districts under their serious consideration,
are of opinion that this society may be ma de, in some
degree, instrumental in promoting a clear knowledge of
the facts and principles involved in the questions at
issue, and may offer a, neutral ground upon which both
parties may fairly and temperately discuss the best
modes of either preventing the outbreak of such disas-
trous quarrels, or terminating them as speedily and sa-
tisfactorily as possible to all parties, when they arise.
, The council, therefore, propose, in the first place, to
hold a conference, to which they will invite the General
Associations of masters and operatives at Manchester,
and the Local Associations of masters amd operatives
at Preston, to send each a representative. They also
propose to invite to the conference an equal. number of
those who took the most prominent part out either side
of the late dispute among the mechanical env,gineers. It
will further be the care of the council to bring to the
conference, without bias on one side or other, as many
as possible of those who, without being inviolved in the
labour question as partisans, have studied and mastered
its various bearings. The council propose to regulate
the order of the proceedings so that they may have
practical tendency, and a business character, and not
degenerate into vague, noisy, or useless declamation.
For this purpose, each speaker will be strictly limited to
a few minutes on each topic ; and, that digression a
be readily checked, the whole subject will be defined amndy divided into distinct propositions, such as the following :-
1. Combinations.—Are they objectionable, whether set
en foot by employers or employed, as a means of influenc-
ing the value of labour ? Would a law of limited liability
in partnerships tend to render such combinations unineces-
sary ? Do they remove the questions with which they deal
from the privacy of ordinary trade management, :arid place
them under public cognizance, and, if so, how stay that
publicity be most simply and effectually secured 2 Ought
any legislative provision, or othel. arrangement, to be made
by which the right of association, if obviously exorcised to
the detriment of the community, might be controlled or
neutralised ?
2. Strikes and Lock-outs.—Should partial strikes, in-
tended to take the masters of a locality in detail, be met
by lock-outs ? What other means are likely to be effectual
in terminating them ?
3. Wages.—Does payment by piece-work alter substan-
tially the nature of the relations which would exist between
employer and employed were the latter day or weekly la-
bourers? Can list of prices for piece-work be equitably
drawn up so as to meet the varied circumstances of differ-
ent machinery, different management, different localities,
and the constant progress of improvement ! Ought manu-
facturers ,to bind together their associations within the
limits of a minimum scale of prices for piece-work Ought
the operative to share beyond the market value of his
labour in the increased productiveness of improved ma-
chinery ?

The Council propose that no resolutions should be
adopted except where entire unanimity prevails. While
they venture, for convenience sake, to prescribe the order
of the proceedings, they intend to observe a strict neu-
tr4lity. They have fixed upon Monday, the 30th day
of January, for holding the Conference, which is hereby
convened at the Society's House, John-street, Adelphi,
punctually at 11 a.m.

ANTICIPATED DEPARTURE FROM LONDON OF BARON
BRUNOW, THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR,—It was cur-
rently reported yesterday, says the Morning Herald, at
the clubs, that Baron Brunow aad various attaches of
the Russian embassy had made every preparation for
leaving London at the shortest possible notice • and that
matters had gone so far, that the fine which 'his Excel-
lency had undertaken to, pay, should he give up pos-
session of his residence without the usual notice, had
been already paid.
METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS.---At the weekly meet-
ing of the Board of Guardians of the Holborn Union,
Mr. S. Pearson said that a plan was about to be brought
forward for opening out several new streets from Gray's'
inn-lane to Leather-lane, by which the courts and alleys
in that locality, where the most wretched dwellings of
the poor existed, would be removed, which would le
the greatest improvement that could be effected in the
parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, as the hot-beds of fever
would thus be removed, and the health of the whole
neighbourhood improved. Mr. Horn said that a more
comprehensive scheme was to make a new street, in con-
tinuation of King's-road, from Gray's-inn-lane to the
end of Cross-street, and the houses were now being taken
down on the north side of St. Peter's Church, to continue
this street to Victoria-street—it should then be con-
tinued to the end of Wilderness-row ; and if this scheme
was carried out, the governors of the Charter-house had
expressed their willingness to set back their wall in
Wilderness-row, in order to widen that thoroughfare.
A direct route from Oxford-street to Shoreditch would
by this means be opened out. Several of the guardians
expressed their desire to see these improvements earned
out, and the subject then dropped.