The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-08 00:00:00

Q51t11:

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY $, 1851.

A forvight's interval tells very strikingly the ra-
pidity and magnitude of the preparations making for
the vow fast approaching Exhibition. Within a very
few weeks more we shall see almost all the prelim-
wary labours of the Commission completed. Already
several of these have terminated to the satisfaction of
all concerned in the undertaking. And from the
universal enthusiasm evinced on all hands there can
be little doubt but that the rest of the works adven-
tured upon in connexion with the great display of the
industrial achievements of Christendom will redound
tr, the glory of its originator.
Travellers from Several of the principal countries
of Europe have recently assured us that everywhere
they have heard scarcely anything spoken of but
the on-coming Exhibition. The phlegmatic Hol-
lander,,the excitable Prussian, the volatile Frenchman,
the. enervated Spaniard, and the earnest Italian, have
t.likat shared in the interest with which the novel pro-
.ye.at of the Parrica CONSOILT of England bas been
discussed. Each interlocutor has echoed his prede-
cessor in predictions of its complete success. The
surliest curmudgeon amongst us has refrained from
uttering his usually
sinister prophecies.
Eastward
and westward, northward and soutlaward,th
nevooice of
encouragement has been made audible;
and
prowhedre.
havv we seen the tokens of indifference to a
eee inx calculated to draw forth such an universal emu-
ation.

Nations celebrated for the most different commo-
dities are even now transmitting to our shores speci-
mens of their ingenuity or fruitfulness ; while among
ourselves corresponding efforts are being made to vin-
dicate our own renown for our skill in various kinds
cf handicraft, for our enterprise in mechanical
invention, for our proficiency at once as manu-
facturers and agriculturists. Meantime, simultaneous
ettr:ta are making in the metropolis and its vicinity
for the reception of those visitors who wilt indubit-
ably flock hither from the four quarters of t he globe,
erger to see the aggregated results of raw:tarn civili-
zation as they appear when gathered toget her in one
of its most distinguished capit4ll.
Aware sui:we must necessarily be by Wls time of
the vigour displayed in all these maniii prepa-
rations, we should not lose a recoil ?ction of
the fact that the foreigners about to as-
semble in London will have a keen and scrutinizing
regard not only for the articles ranged befall 3 them in
the Crystal Palace, but likewise for the general as-
pect of things in the length and breadth of idle great

I metropolis. All our shortcomings will be before
them as nakedly as all our most successful achieve-
ments, more apparent to them in their cha-
ffes strangers than they can by any possibility
be to ourselves, for the same reason that the
changes eff,cti d by time or disease are imperceptible
in the faces of those with whose features we are
daily more and more familiarised. Whatever is vile,
quite as much as whatever is meritorious, will be ob-
served by the intelligent classes who in a month or
so more, will have come over here either from
beyond the Channel or the Atlantic. The villanous
management of some of our urban and suburban lo-
calities, the foulness of some of our most populous
quarters, the ricketty nature of some of our many
thousand tenements, the inefficiency of our drainage
and of the general irrigation of our cities, the lode-
corum of many of our habits, the hideous appearance
presented by most of our public monuments, the in-
significance of some cf our public buildings, and the
miserable imposts levied at others of a sacred cha-
racter, will glare upon the observation of the foreign
multitude attracted to this particular spot by the
great event of the Exhibition. For our credit's
sake, therefore, it would be advisable, indeed, to pre-
vent, as far as is possible, the disgraces of these vari-
ous descriptions from accumulating on our heads.
Several of the eyesores here adverted to might within
the next three months, namely, before the opening of
the Exhibition in May, be partially, if not altogether
removed. For instance—The twopenny fee extorted
at the entrance of St. Paul's Cathedral might be abo-
lished. The Nelson Testimonial, in Trafalgar-square,
might at length be finished off hand ; or, at any rate,
the last of the four bronzes might be affixed to
the west side of the pedestal, supposing the
granite lions were not as yet placed upon
the pediments. The Sewage Commissioners
might bestir themselves a little more than they have
hitherto done in rendering the system over which
they preside more effectual in cleansing the metropolis.
The authorities at Gwydyr House might employ
somewhat more e nergetically than they have done
erstwhile the powers entrusted to them with a view
to the better carrying out of sanitary ameliorations.
The Act for the prevention of intramural interments
might be rather more energetically enforced. The
new Palace of the Parliament might be hastened on
towards its ultimate completion. The approaches to

some of the bridges across the Thames
might be considerably improved, and some
of those bridges themselves very greatly
beautified and strengthened. The waste fields near
Battersea might be reduced to some decent shape,
and inclosed in the railings of the projected park.
The fagade of Buckingham Palace might be at last
finished according to the admirable arrangement of
the architect. The Marble Arch might be rebuilt at
Cumberland-gate in a few weeks, instead of a few
months. The roads, as they recently appeared in the
vicinity of Eaton-square, and as they are even now
in some of the most fashionable localities, might be
repaired and widened. These, and a large variety of
other improvements, too numerous or too obvious to be
particularised, might be readily effected within the
space of the next quarter—during February, March,
and April ; so that the capital might present a some-
what more comely and orderly appearance than it

does at the present moment. We are not projecting
impossibilities. We are mentioning things that might
be wrought out with no little facility if the authorities
only prepared themselves to display a trifle more than
their ordinary enterprise. Other and greater advan-
tages we should still be left to sigh after.
We should still have reason to lament the
paltry aspect of the National Gallery. But
the completion of the new front of the British
Museum, we might reasonably hope to wit-

ness before the first of May and the simultaneous
commencement of the Exhibition. Such changes as
these, we trust, may yet be secured to the
inhabitants of the metropolis, so that their credit may
not in such particulars be jeopardised in the estirna-
don of the foreigners. Trusting yet that we may
have to record the carrying out of some at least
among these proposed innovations, we may deem it

advisable at intervals to remind the publio (as we
have done here this evening) of all that remains to
be accomplished, even while celebrating the motley
crowd of achievements, preparatory to the Great
!,:xposition of Industry.

The report, recently published, of Mr. SEYMoUR
TEEMENUEERF, the commissioner appointed to inquire
into the condition of the mining population, throws
some interesting light on the question of strikes
between capitalists and operatives, and their mischie-
vous results on all parties concerned, directly or in-
directly.
In the counties of Northumberland and Durham,
the principle coal-fields of the kingdom, there have
been no fewer than five great strikes among the coal-
miners there within the last twenty-four years, en-
tailing serious losses on all interested, and injuring
the trade and commerce of the whole neighbourhood.
In 1644, when one of those great strikes took place,

the whole of the miners in those two counties,
amounting to upwards of 22,000 men and boys,
ceased to work. The struggle lasted for four months,
during which the colliers suffered considerable pri-
vation, and the coal trade was almost wholly sus.
pended ; and the result was that at the expiration of
that period the men yielded to their masters' terms,
The strike of that year is estimated to have occasioned
a loss to the collieries, in wages, of 300,0001., and to
the coal-owners in that trade of about 200,0001.
A strike which occurred in 1832 is calculated to have
resulted in a loss to the men of 60,000/. And all

this was irrespective of the detriment occasioned to
the numerous body of men, not actually colliers, but
employed above ground about the pits in bringing
the coal to the surface, and on railways, in the con-
veyance of it to the place of deportation, and not in-
cluding the loss of freight and wages to all engaged
in carrying the coal to distant markets, and the injury
to all persons concerned in the manufactures, com-
merce, and general trade of the locality of the strike.
The strike of 1844 was organized and carried on
by delegates and agents of a society called the
Miners' Union, a combination, we are told, extend-
ing over all the coal .fields of the kingdom, and number-
ing at one time upwards of 60,000 men. The failure
of that strike is attributed by the miners to their
having aimed at too much at once. Their object oa
that occasion, we are told by Mr. TREMENHEERB,
was to stop all the manufactories in the kingdom
until they could obtain from their employers the rate
of wages for working the coal which they demanded.
The whole mining population at once having volun-
tarily abandoned their employment, in a few months
they had exhausted their resources, and were com-
pelled, from sheer necessity, to consent to
the terms of the masters ; thus not only
failing in the end they sought to achieve, and subject-
ing themselves to consequent mortification, but
suffering, in the attempt, an almost incredible amount
of privation. A subsequent strike, which occurred in
those two counties in 1849-50, was carried out upon
a different principle. The colliers throughout the
two counties did not all cease working at once, as in
1844, but struck at certain individual collieries. By
this means the miners who continued to work in places
where there was no strike contributed to the support
of thoso who had struck, and so enabled them to
maintain a more successful struggle against their
employers.
This course operated upon the coal-
owner at whose pit a strike existed in insulating him
from the surrounding working collieries. Though
all the operations of his pit were suspended so far as
the
winning of coal was concerned, yet he was,
nevertheless, obliged to incur a vast amount of daily
expense to keep the mine in working order. Pre-
suming on the burden of this outlay, and his appre-
hensions lest his trade would remove to other locali-
ties, the colliers thought of coercing the coal-owner
by these means into compliance with their term!, and
we can conceive nothing more likely to succeed. We
oafrethneotr,eshuolwt eovfert,hisinfiztoduvbrye
strike
B y of
theselB49 l‘aldro.pltendE duringidEliE rtßh the
periodical misunderstandings between
masters and men, the 10,000,0001.
of
mated to be engaged in the coal trade capitalof t
h e t es
counties of N
jorthumberland and Durham is subjected
to an enormous tax every four or five years,
w
the 25,000 men and boys employed in the collieries
there are as often thrown out of work and subjected
to privation.

Seeing that this privation is self-imposed, we can
have but a small degree of pity for the subjects of it,

though we deeply deplore the ignorance in which
these lamentable strikes originate, and the obstinacy
with which they are maintained. Nor is the whole
mischief resulting from them confined to the loss sus-
tained alike by masters and men, during the con-
tinuance of the strike. Even whilst the colliers are
at peace and in full employment they, either volun-
tarily or by coercion, generally restrict themselves to
working only five days in the week, and about five
hours in the day, though their employers' interests re-
quire a much closer and more protracted application
of their labour. The object of this restriction on
the part of the men is stated to be the desirability of
always limiting the supply of coals to the market, so
as to facilitate the success of a strike whenever it may
be deemed advisable to commence one. So that, not
only in times of strike, but of order and full employ-
ment, the coal-owners are always more or less at the
mercy of their servants.

We refer to this subject not simply with a view to
recount the statistics of strikes between the colliers
and their employers in Northumberland and Durham,
but to deduce from them a salutary lesson, of which
not those of colliers alone, but employees of every
class, may avail themselves and treasure up for their
future rdvantage and welfare. If there is one fact
more indisputable than another, or one more con-
firmed by every-day experience, it is that no com-
bination of persons, however formidable, or in what-
ever branch of trade, can ever raise and permanently
maintain the rate of wages above the leve
at which natural and inevitable