The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-05 00:00:00

[Too third article of hnvaehmEnt we omit, as
telligible to ordinary readers.]
" 4. That if the irregularities of different prices for
night and day work be corrected, and no more appren-
tices be introduced, the establishment shall henceforth

be considered fair.
" 5. That in the event of the above alterations not
being made on the Times newspaper, such compositors
as quit that establishment on the announcement of such
refusal of the proprietors, shall be received into the
London Union as fair members.
"5. That individuals who, previous to this meeting,
have quitted the Times newspaper, shall receive their
Union cards upon such terms as the Council shall
deem fit ; but individuals working on that paper after
this examination and attempt at adjustment, shall be
deemed unworthy members of the trade, and forfeit all
eldrn to the consideration and protection of the com-
positors of London."
Finally, they " begged to be allowed " (as Mr.
Chucks says) "in the delicalest way in the world to
insinuate " to us, that they hoped we would change
our system of payment to suit " their long-established
scale of prices," which they had before observed " put
out of view the question of' adequate remuneration."
Our own mode of dealing with such dictation need
scarce be told, and we totally rejected such uncalled-
for and unjustifiable interposition bete een ourselves
and those employed in our establishment. Over and
above the plain necessity of putting down such assump-
tion of authority, the demands or charger themselves
were manifestly unreasonable, as shown by the follow-
ing extract from their own pages :
" The Trade Council at the same time feel that as
the following statement has been placed in their hands,
lit is but performing a simple act of justice to put the
meeting in possession of the arguments in extenuation
of the existing system adopted on the Times newspaper :
" First, tat the compositors employed on the Times
are, upon the whole, remunerated for their labour
(those on the day part receiving on an average 50s. per
week).
"‘ Secondly, the apprentices, which form one of the
grounds of complaint, cannot be received as a just one,
as they are not, nor ever were, a principle of the
house, and
.not at all connected with the closing or
of it, but were forced upon it in its own defence, by
a species of dictation which no men (whether masters
or journeymen) have a right to use against others.
Had it been a principle of the firm in question to
carry on its journal by apprentices, time enough has
elapsed since its quarrel with the journeymen to have
reared three companionships—one for the night, one
for the day, and one as a corps de reserve. This has not
been done. There have been but fee' apprentices
taken, and the small number now on the establishment
are employed in the day 'department, and on the same
principle as the book houses. The night work is per-
formed entirely by journeymen procured from the trade
at large.
" Thirdly, the division of the work into day and night
ought not to be condemned as unfair, for it should not
be forgotten tbat persons employed on the day estab-
lishment have not to make those sacrifices of comfort
which are incidental to an evening paper, and much
less those which are inseparable from a morning one.' "
All which " sacrifices of repose and comfort," it is
afterwards added, " on the premises of that journal are
amply paid for." The warfare then continued ; and
we find now, that while the trade is in a state of de-
pression, which " hundreds of persons" can testify has
no parallel in the last 400 years, every compositor who
has been employed on the Times for the last thirty
years, unless he has voluntarily left his situation, or
forfeited it by very gross misconduct, is still in the
receipt of steady and ample remuneration ; to which
we may add, that those still in our employ arc
among them holders of several thousand pounds in
a savings'-bank. From all this, we leave our readers to
judge—not whether it is wise to relieve individuals
actually suffering from severe distress—which is not a
question of wisdom but of plain duty and charity—but
whether they will do well to commit the credit and
responsibility of dispensing their alms to a committee
so very nearly related to, probably in a great measure
identical with, ono which aims expressly at giving or-
ganization and efficiency to that " striite " system of
which the masons at the Houses of Parliament and
Woolwich have given us a specimen rather too recent
to be very popular.
GLOBE.—The Monopolists are beginning to feel
themselves a morally beaten party. Some of the more
stupid of their number may sneer at this ; they do not
know what a moral beating means, and can feel no-
thing but a physical one. Notwithstanding, however,
their boasted majority, they are beginning to feel them-
selves beaten. They are giving ground ; the " No surren-
der" of his Grace of Buckingham has rare echoes. Almost
all their scribes and speakers, while " swearing." like
Pistol, are preparing to " eat the leek." The Herald
of this morning, in an article which we extract else-
where, declares that with all " moderate men," the sub-
ject has now become a question of compromise. We
congratulate the moderate men of the Herald on this
conclusion ; but we consider the right to the epithet,
derived from their previous doctrines, as something of
the same kind with that of the master who addressed
his footman, " I think I have been a moderate good
master to you, John." Whereto the reply was,
" Very moderate, Sir. The moderate men of the
Herald would not now for the world restrict or tax ma-
chinery. We are happy to hear it. The time is not
far back when they proclaimed the policy of doing both.
The moderate men of the Herald have an opinion
but moderate of the comforts enjoyed, for the most
part, in the manufacturing districts, amongst the work-
people. We arc sorry to say, so have we. The vicis-
situdes in their condition, demonstrably produced by
restrictions on food more than any other cause (as we
shall endeavour to show presently) preclude a condi-
tion of steady comfort. The question is, whether ma-
chinery has caused their discomforts ? Whether, with-
out machinery, they could have had what means of
comfort they have had ? Whether machinery has not
enabled them to work for foreigners beyond the home-
market's demands ? And whether it is machinery that
prevents foreigners giving them food for work'?
STANDARD.—The Times has been so cruel as
to rob the ex-Ministerial party of their only English
grievance—a grievance upon which they have been feast-
' ing for the last forteight. This grievance is the appoint-
ment of Lord Heytesbury to the vacant Governorship
of the Ise of W.ght, with a salary of fifteen hundred
pounds a-year. The appointment is not to be
disputed, but the Times shows, by an extract from
the patent of the Noble Governor, that the salary
is altogether a gratuitous addition of the Liberal
journals ; for Lord Heytesbury is to derive no salary
from the dignity—not fifteen hundred pounds per
annum, not even fifteen pence, in the shape of salary,
perquisite, or any other shape. When the grievance
was first brought forward the Liberal journals called
upon the public, in a fine tone of indignation, to receive
Lord Heytesbury's appointment as a specimen of the
system of gee ernment pursued by Sir Robert Peel's ad-
ministration. We suppose that the specimen is equally
faithful, whatever quality it represents ; and we
therefore think that our Contemporaries, now that the
truth is known, are called upon to render their ap-
plause as zealously to Sir Robert, for the surrender
of 1,500/. a year, as they directed their reproaches
against him when they erroneously believed that
he had retrened it. For our own part, hoss-
ever, we do not think that the case would have
been one for much blame if Lord Heytesbury
had been permitted to retain the salary with
the office of his predecessor. And though the
surrender of the salary is, on the part of the present Go-
vernment, a respectful and graceful concession to the
opinion of Parliament in the matter, we are very far from
subscribing to the soundness of that opinion. In a consti-
tution like ours the Government must avail itself of the
services of able men, not only in routine officers, but
in various other fields of exertions ; but the most able
men are not always rich nien, and the question of re-
munerating those who have served the country not less
usefully because unofficially, must frequently present
itself. Remuneration by sinecure offices is, we are
disposed to think, the moil economical on the whole,
because it fixes a limit, and because a sinecure office
usually carries an honorary distinction that greatly aug-
ments its money value, so as to make the actual payment
go far as a reward beyond its mere pecuniary amount.
COURIER.—The profound silence of the organs
of Whig-Radicalism on the subject of the municipal
elections that have just concluded, affords, when inter-
preted aright, a powerfully cutting commentary on the
diatribes with which they daily regale their readers con-
cerning the unpopularity of Sir R. Peel's Government,
and the foul influences upon which it depends for support,
and by which it had been carried into power. We do not
attach so much importance as some of our Contempt,.
raries appear to have done, to the result of municipal
elections, believing that the decision of the bur.
gesses is in many eases liable to be swayed by
private and local considerations, and that the
elections often turn upon the chicai.o and dex-
terity of the parties connected with their manage-
ment ; but we never refused to receive the general
result, whether adverse or not to our own principles,
as a tolerably plain indication of the political opinions
that prevailed pararnourit in the cities and towns of
England. We well recollect the burst of insolent joy
with which these elections were hailed five years ago by
the prints in the service of the then Government, and
the fervour and earnestness with which they were dwelt
upon, as the most irrefragable proofs of the ascendancy
of Whig-Radical principles. Year after year have we
si en the triumphs and advantages then obtained by
the rampancy of faction gradually on the decline ;
the spirit of reaction was abroad, and was vastly
accelerated in its march, and influenced by the
jobbing, the profligate extravagance, and grasping,
greedy, selfishness of the new town councils. Each suc-
ceeding election witnessed a diminution in the Whig-
Radical elements that had upon their first formation
under the new regime entered so overwhelmingly large
into their composition, until the characters originally
impressed upon them have been nearly c (faced, so that
instead of continuing, as they were, the citadels and
fortresses of the movement party, they hay:, become
soundly and staunchly Conservative—a change as