The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Saturday Review thinks the alarming riot at Thorn-
oliffe, in the Barnsley district, will not increase the popu-
larity of trade unions. Not only were the rioters members
of a Union, but the atrocities which they committed were
perpetrated in assertion of their right to exclude competi-
tion. As in the great majority of similar cases, the
immediate sufferers were not members of the hostile body
of employers, but working colliers, with their wives and
children. The severities of internal discipline among
themselves are in this instance more formidable than
tote sufferings which are inflicted on the enemy.
The capitalist may be ruined, or forced to retire from
business ; the non-unionist workman is insulted, mal-
treated, or driven; as at Thorncliffe, with his family, out
of his home. The mob of colliers appear to have behaved
with a brutality worthy of their neighbours, the saw-
grinders of Sheffield, or of the Manchester bricklayers.
The case will be too serious for the magistrates to dispose
of, and full justice will be done by the regular tribunals.
The law is happily not yet administered by juries selected,
a3cording to the audacious demand of unionist agitators,
from the very body which promotes tyrannical acts of
injustice ; nor will the offenders be able to plead, in the
terms of a clause in the bill of last session, that their
crime was committed in the course of a trade dispute.
The provocation which the rioters may allege that they
have received will be considered by the court in
passing sentence, if it appears to form any excuse for an
outrage on non-unionist workmen. Between the dis-
putants in the Thorncliffe case it would be premature, as
it is unnecessary, to decide in default of thorough know-
ledge of all the circumstances of the earlier struggle ; but
it is impossible not to see that there is a third party
which requires protection more urgently than either
masters or unionist workmen. The men who were
assaulted and plundered were also hard-working miners,
whose only fault was that they had infringed a local
monopolY. It is absurd to say that they were deserters
from their order who were justly exposed to the penalty
of treason or mutiny. If there had been work enough in
the Barnaley district or elsewhere for both sets
of men, and for all other unemployed colliers,
tlhe Therncliffe lessees would have been defeated
In the field of battle which they had selected. It
may, perhaps, be a misfortune that capital should prevail
over labour where two workmen are working for one
employer; but the result is inevitable, unless one of the
workmen imposes himself by force, not only on the
master, who might, perhaps, 1 e loss entitled to compas
sion, but on the competitor, whom he excludes by superior
strength. The Thorncliffe rioters may, perhaps, in their
normal condition, be useful and industrious members of
the community, but there is no presumption in their
favour when they are compared with their victimr. All
the unions in the kingdom include less than a fifth part of
the able-bodied population, and probably two of the
remaining fifths have also to live by labour. Legislators
who measure rights by numbers will commit a grievous
error if they grant privileges to guilds with numerous
mgabers at the expense of a still larger body outside.
In the only dull part of his introduction, says the Spec-
tator, Lord Russell twice criticises us in in somewhat
sneering and abstudly incorrect terms—precisely in the
manner in which he might have raised a cheer at the
expense of Mr. J. S. Mill, had he been answering him in
Parliament. Lord Russell quotes the Daily News to prove
that fixity of tenure in Ireland would "diminish progress
and stereotype desolation," and he adds, with almost
inconceivable misunderstanding of what we have written,
" The Spectator seems to have no objection to desolation,
and says that 'the more wealth Ireland has accumulated
the more loudly and bitterly she has protested against our
rule.' But surely it is not the business of Parliament to
stereotype desolation, to stop the accumulation of wealth,
and to foster the agrarian murders which, instead of being
stopped, would be promoted by such legislation." And in
another place Lord Russell says," The course proposed by
the Spectator would produce, instead of fertility, desola-
tion; instead of hatred, contempt. Here would be a fine
result of statesmanship applied to Ireland." Now, this
misunderstanding of our argument is marvellous. Our
position has been simply this—that to force on Ireland an
agricultural system which, though it might be absolutely
the best for any country where it finds popular feeling
and natural circumstances suitable for that system, is
utterly alien to Irish feeling and Irish circumstances, on
merely economical grounds, is not good statesmanship, and
xpay end, as it has ended in Ireland, in accumulating con-
siderable wealth, which is devoted, not to the production
of more wealth, but for the purpose of rendering all pro-
perty insecure by fomenting political conspiracy and
paying for foreign intervention. As to having no objec-
tion to the " stereotyping of desolation," that is Lord
Russell's own fancy, which we take leave to say, though it
might have been a happy and telling imputation in
debate, is a little beneath him in serious disquisition.
But, on the whole, Lord Russell's introduction to his
speeches and despatches will add very justly to the esteem
with which he is regarded in England. It is the work of a
proud, upright, candid, shrewd mind, a little arrogant, a
little narrow, especially on topics with which it is not
very familiar, a little careless of the personal feelings of
others; but typically national, and for a mind so national
and so Whig in all its traditions, very noble. Lord
Russell's influence on English politics has been enormous,
and will be felt for all time to come. Few statesmen in
our history have exerted an influence showing so vast a
preponderance of good.
The John Bull observes that the current number of the
Edinburgh Review contains a very temperate and well-
reasoned article on the now engrossing question of land-
lord and tenant in Ireland. We cannot, of course, infer
fiat the principles avowed in this essay are those on which
Mr. Gladstone will frame his forthcoming measure. But
we have here, at all events, a proof of the requisitions
which an influential class of his supporters will make to
him on the subject. We can only say that, as far as it is
possible to speculate on the results of legislation on this
matter, Ministers can hardly do better than place them-
selves under the guidance of so discreet an adviser as the
one who has just now spoken. The Quarterly Review also
has its essay op the " Irish Cauldron," and finds therein
ample theme for the witches' refrain—" Double, double,
toil and trouble." Our Albemarle-street friend does not
seem disposed to offer any contribution of his own to the
seething mass of perplexity. He dwells on the difficulties
of the case, and insists, not without reason, that the
government of Ireland is not just now in the most capable
hands. As, however, the Quarterly has worked zealously
for some time past to make a Conservative Government
impossible, this complaint is not put forth just now with
a very good grace. Tu l'as voulu Georges Dandin b—and
must make the best of the consequencss. For our
own part, we believe fully that - the Conserva-
tive leaders are ready to give their sincere and
active support to any sound and wise measure on the
subject that may be offered by Government. spf course
their first business will be to watch that the forthcoming
bill is not of too reckless and sweeping a character. Some
modification of the existing law of landlord and tenant
must take place and we assume that in the first instance it
must take the shape of some encroachment on the right
now exercised by the landlord. We believe, as we have
said, that the concessions required of them are not of a
very serious nature, that they will, in general, gladly
advantageous
in making them, and that the result will be highly
advantageous to themselves and to the rest of the com-
munity.

The Economist is strongly opposed to the movement for
securing State aid to emigration. The scheme is in fact
socialist—that is to say, it proposes to take from John
what he has, simply because he has it, in order to give it
to George, simply because he has it not. Mr. Torrens
affirms, indeed, that there is no gift, but only a lean, but
ho is talking what commercially speaking is mere non-
sense—a loan by a State without security being to all
practical purposes a gift. We can understand very well
that a State may find it expedient or feel it right to assist
the helpless, or even to prevent starvation among the able-
bodied—though the expediency of the latter proceeding is
more questiouable,—but to compel one man who has some-
thing to give tb another because he has nothing is to break
up the very foundations not only of our society, but of
any society of any kind not organised like a regiment, for
it would either produce universal idleness or substitute
for a temptation to work a compulsion to labour. And for
what is the nation to make this gift? Not, it is acknow-
ledged, to reliove pauperism, for paupers would not go
and the colonies would not accept them ; but to extend
the frightful area of pauperism by tempting new classes
to apply for State aid. Every body of workmen, in fact,
Who were discontented with their wages, or out on strike,
would be authorised to apply to the State for a free las_
sap to a colony, PO when he got there, and a homestead
freo of cost. Was ever such a premium offered for failure
by one's country at its own cost, or did anybody ever sug-
gest a more reckless reward for improvidence ? The sav-
ing are actually to be plun.lercd to mace the wasteful
snore comfortable than themselves, and this at a moment
when we are about to tax the workers anew, in order that
the whole body of the people may acquire by education
now eapaciti.,:s both for work and for economy, and when
statesmen are patiently striving to reduce the, burden
which unavoidable distress throws upon the country. The
pre:ect is entirely inadmissible even as an experiment.

PArErt Hot'sEs.—The American invention for
paper building material has been recently tested in
Chicago, with the result, we are informed, of establishing
its utility. It is said that a house, 22ft. long, 16ft. wide,
and 14ft. high, can be covered on the outside fot less than
nine dollars ; and a home wit. by 22ft., and 20ft. higb,
foz *twenty