The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-15 00:00:00

THE WORKING CLASSES OF NEW TORK.

Tho New York 7'i,nes has an exhaustive article
on this subject, one daily rising in importance, as
thereis no city wherein "strikes" are more general or
likely to cause more mischief, as may be seen from
the following account from the Philadelphia Ledger :
"The German cabinetmakers of New York have
struck for an advance of wages. In that city there
are 107 shops, in which the cabinetmakers, num-
bering about 2,500, and belonging to an associa-
tion, are employed. The journeymen are now earn-
ing from eighteen to twenty dollars per week. The
strike is for a general advance of about 15 per cent.
The men employed in each shop, *however, will de-
termine the price to be paid. The gas and steam
fitters of New -York, it is stated, will on March 22d
strike for an increase of fifty cents upon the pre-
sent rate of wages, $2 50c per day. The stone
rubbers' strike in New York still continues, the un-
employed men being supported by the hands who
have work. The printers' strike in New York is
not yet settled ; eight bosses decline acceding to
the demands of the men, and it is asserted that the
men must establish a co-operative printing estab-
lishment, in order to obtain the contracts now held
by the employers." The New York Times says :
" ' The rich are becoming richer, the poor poorer,'
is the graphic expression by which Commissioner
Wells, of the Internal Revenue Service, pictured
the condition of the American people generally.
11n no part of the country has wealth more rapidly
accumulated and concentrated in the hands of the
few, or poverty become so general and extended, as
in this city. Nowhere are the poor becoming more
rapidly poorer than •in the wealthiest city of the
Union. This is, as some argue, undoubteily due
to the fact that, against all reason and their own
interests, the labouring classes insist on adopting
mechanical rather than agricultural pursuits, and,
in search of occupation in these branches, crowd
into large cities, instead of remaining in the rural
districts, where, if wages are less, the cost of living
is also proportionately less. The labour market of
many mechanical branches in this city is often
glutted—there is no denying that ; and at this time
of numerious strikes in various branches of industry
this over-supply of labour is a principal source of
trouble and the cause of the non-success of many
strikes. But, aside from this fact, there are other
causes affecting the prosperity of the most skilful
labourers, who are in the greatest demand, and
which tend to keep all grades of the working
classes in poverty ; so that while the • general
prosperity of the country increases with the grati-
fying rapidity of past periods, the majority
of the mechanics are not so prosperous as
they were before the war. In a few of the
less crowded and most active trades workmen
are realizing profitable wages as compared with the
ante-war rates. For instance, a goodly number of
coopers are doing about as well at $24 per week as
they did in 1860 at $9 per week ; but there are
three times as many shoemakers as coopers in this
city, and these are half-starving on $l2 where they
got $9 before the war. The plasterers and brick-
layers, in this time of active building operations
are making more money at $3O per week now than
they did in 1860 at $lO and $l2, but ten times as
many tailors are losing money and living poorly at
$2O instead of the $l4 which they received before
the war. Our careful inquiries and observations
into this subject, while revealing that a few of the
trades requiring skilled workmen are paying profit-
able rates, aad a few others are affording what are
living, but barely living wages,
the majority of the
trades, and those employing the vast majority of
working men, are conducted by employers at star-
vation wages to the workmen. From the elaborate
and valuable table which accompanies this article,
and which has been compiled with great care, em-
bracing the comparative wages of all the principal
trades, computed in various articles of constant and
necessary domestic use, it will be seenthat—lasl:
Bricklayers, carpenters, coopers, masons,
at plas-
terers, rs,
receivingp ri t printers s
comparatively(daily),
painters, printers, i r -pbruoifil dt
profitable
stair-builders, tin-roofers,
na-greoso; e rasn,
average of $26 10c. weekly.
2. Blacksmiths,
bookbinders, brassfounders,
(book), slate-roofers, tailors, are receiving barely
living wages—an average of $2O 57c. weekly. 3.
But the vast army of bakers, boiler-makers, cabinet-
makers, engineers, iron-moulders, labourers (com-
mon), machinists, paper-stainers, shoemakers, tin-
workers, are receiving starvation wages—an average
of $l6 10c. per week. Thus it will be seen that
while a few trades, giving employment to a few
workmen only, are prosperous, or, at least, well-
to-do, the majority employing large numbers of
mechanics, are unprofitable. That the cost of
living has advanced about 90 per cent., while the
advance in wages has been only about 60 per
cent., and that, as a consequence, the great majo-
rity of the poor are becoming poorer. The most
reliable statistics collected by individuals and asso-
ciations interested in the vital questions of work
and wages and the welfare of the working classes
fully corroborate the figures and sustain the theory
of Commissioner Wells. The secretary of the New
York Association for Improving the Condition of
the Poor, in a report of its operations of 1868, calls
attention to the evidence of increased destitution
among all classes of working men, including the
skilled labourers and some professional men. He
says :—" Notwithstanding the high wages for
labour, the seemingly ample remunerations of in-
dustry have failed to put the labouring class in so
favourable a position as they possessed before the
advance of wages in 1860. The present large
wages compared with those in ante-war times are
consumed by the exorbitant expenses of living,
leaving a smaller margin for accumulation than
when wages were lower. The purchasing power of
their earnings in many cases, even with full em-
ployment, is scarcely equal to their expenses, so
that they have little or nothing in advance. Hence,
when labour slacks or fails, they are brought to
suffering, and to dependence on charity. This
readily explains how it is that so many of the tem-
perate, the frugal, and industrious, are brought
into straits and need temporary aid, and
it shows, moreover, why large demands for
relief are acquired at a time when both the
capital and industry of the country are in a
broad view tending to resume their wonderful
career of progress and development. In looking
over the visitors' returns, among the recipients of
relief we find persons representing almost every
form of industrial and professional pursuit. La-
bouring persons of both sexes and mechanics con-
stitute, of course, the great bulk of the needy but
there there are also two artists, civil engineers, schoollt
ertse,anciilslesiros,narmieesr,chtraancttsd,
isntiriinbiusttoerrss:
physicians,teachers,
1111au:vi3c'
Bible readers, and others of similar culture and
moral grade."

The death of a very well-known gentleman is
announced. Sir Edward Cunard, the head of the firm
which owns the celebrated steamship line, died suddenly
in New York of heart disease. His wife died two years
ago as suddenly. To the last ho regularly attended his
office, working as hard and keeping the same hours as his
clerks. He was still in middle life, and apparently in good
health, when he was thus suddenly cut off.

THE TENCIRE-OF-01710E ACT.

(from the Anglo-American Times.)
The debate on the repeal of the Tenure-of-Office
Act was resumed on the 20th. March, Senator
Thayer making a long speech. He modified his
substitute to thirty days after the commencement
of a session in which to receive the President's re-
port of the names of the removed, and the causes
why, during the recess. The substitute was offered
to get a direct vote for repeal. No good reason had
been given in the long debate why the act should not
be repealed. It was passed to check a dishonest Pre-
sident, not to put manacles on an honest one. His
knowledge of human nature told him that the Pre-
sident must desire the repeal, as would any Senator
in his place. One of his own reasons for desiring
the repeal was that the President might be free to
turn out the Johnson men and Copperheads still in
office. The Senator from Missouri (Mr. Schurz)
had denounced the system of distributing patronage
in the interests of a party as a curse ; but he (Mr.
Thayer) believed the true doctrine to be that the
patronage of the Government rightfully belonged
to the party in power by the verdict of the people.
Ile knew it was fashionable to decry this view,
but lie would like to see the Senator who did not
seek to exercise the right of dispensing patronage
to his friends. The man who would not do so
would soon be without friends, and would deserve
to be so ; and the political party that refused to
reward its own supporters and followers would
soon go to the wall, and would deserve to do so.
Senator Thurman knew of no Copperhead party ;
the Senator meant the Democrats, and he could
scarcely expect them to vote for the repeal as a
means to facilitate the removal of their few office-
holders. In his State (Ohio) there were but two
in Federal posts ; both distinguished_officers, and
one with a wound That would afflict him for life.
Senator Drake favoured repeal, but not suspension,
which was but saying to the President, we will try
you till next session, and lie was not one that deserved
such treatmeat. He also desired tosee corrupt officers
and those unfriendly to the Republican party turned
out, for he was a party man, and as his party saved
the country, and in power would promote its wel-
fare, he would use all Executive patronage in its
support. Senator Morrill, of Vermont, would
modify rather than repeal or suspend. Every
Senator who had voted for the impeachment of
President Johnson, on Article 111., had in that
vote shown the judgment that, in violating this
law, the President had violated the Constitution.
How, therefore, could these Senators now vote for
the repeal ? It was not passed as a temporary de-
vice, but as a permanent policy. He dissented from
the last speaker with regard to Government patron-
age. It was unquestionably true that the party in
power might at any time properly take to itself the
chief offices of the Government, yet it was just as
certain that the system which changed every public
office of Government at the end of every four years
was a great evil. Senator Casserly said he thought
the question was, in whom is vested the power of
removal, arguing to show that it was not vested in
the Senate, nor in the President with the advice and
consent of the Senate, but in the President alone.
Nor was this merely constitutional, but also the
only reasonable view, as the sole means of insuring
a faithful administration of public affairs. Regarding
the doctrine implied in the Act as a dangerous
heresy he would vote for an absolute repeal of the
law. This closed the debate on the 20th ult., and
the anti-repealers met in caucus on the 22d, in the
hope that the repealers, without the Democrats
being in a hopeless minority, would be committed
by the resolution of the caucus. Grant and his
friends Went strongly for absolute repeal, and the
hungry office-seekers raised a clamour for it in every
part of Washington, as they believed it to stand
between them and that for which their souls thirsted.
It was proposed to suspend the law during Grant's
term, but nothing less would satisfy the Grant
party than total repeal, and those who favoured that
finding it hopeless seceded amid a storm of excite-
ment. Another caucus was held in the afternoon,
and the majority decided to send tho bill and the
amendments discussed back to the Judiciary Com-
mittee, in the hope that Grant might be prevailed
on to accept an- othfication. Considering the
position in which the Senators who favoured the
retention of the power conferred by the bill were
placed, their obstinacy showed how difficult it is to
wrench power, from an assembly, even temporarily
conferred. Here was a powerful President, in the
height of his popularity who had set his mind on
its repeal, b hind him was a House of Representa-
tives which had voted almost unanimously for a total
repeal ; around them were crowds of office-seekers
clamouring for them to give way, leaving the Pre-
sident's hands free to create vacancies and to give
them the posts. When we reflect on the position
with the knowledge we have that this bare majority
in the end overcame all opposition, and actually
carried off the bone, in spite of the world and the
best men of their own body, we are surprised at the
strength with which such a clique can fight. On the
24th Senator Trumbull, from the Committee on
Judiciary, reported the bill as follows
An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices,'
passed March 2, 1869, bo and the same are hereby repealed,
and in lieu of said repealed suctions the following are
hereby enacted :
" That every parson holding any civil office to which be
has been, or hereafter may be, appointed by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, and who shall have be-
come duly qualified to act therein, shall be entitled to hold
such office during the term for which he shall have been
appointed, unless sooner removed by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, or by the appointment, with
the like advice and consent, of a successor in his place, ex-
cept as herein otherwise provided.
" Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That during any
recess of the Senate the President is hereby empowered in
his discretion to suspend any civil officer appointed by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, except Judges
of the United States Courts, until the end of the next ses-
sion of the Senate, and to designate some suitable person,
subject to be removed in his discretion by the resignation
o f another, to perform the duties of such suspended officer
in the meantime, and such person so designated shall take
the oaths, and give the bonds required by law to bo taken
and given by the suspended officer, and shall, during the
time he performs his duties, be entitled to the salary and
emoluments of such officer, no part of which shall belong
to the officer suspended. And it shall be the duty of the
President within 30 days after the commencement of each
session of the Senate, except for any office which in his
opinion ought not to be filled, to nominate persons to fill
all vacancies in office which existed at the meeting of the
Senate, whether temporarily filled or not, and also in the
place of all officers suspended, and if the Senate during
such session shall refuse to advise and consent to an ap-
pointment in the place of any suspended officer, and shall
also refuse by vote to assent to his suspension, then, and not
otherwise, such officer at the end of the session shall be
entitled to resume the possession of the office from which
he was suspended, and afterward to discharge its duties
and receive its emoluments as though no such suspension
bad taken place."
Various motions were made to defeat the Bill, but
in vain. On the morning of that day the Republi-
can Senators had again met in caucus to hear the
report, and had agreed on the amendment known
as the Conkling modification. It had beer submitted
to the President by a sub-committee, to whom Gen.
Grant had stated that his principal objection to
the law was the provision preventing him from
making removals during the recess of the Senate.
As the proposed modification contained none of the
features to which he objected he was satisfied with
it, and hoped there would be no further delay.
Hence the vote was now a foregone conclusion, the
chief difficulty being removed. A debate, however,
followed, which was made remarkable by the sayings
of Senator Sprague, of Rhode Island. A few days
before he had expressed an opinion against the pre-
ponderance in Congress of men of one profession,

as unfitting it to control the appointing power of
the President. Though he had carefully avoided

reference to any individual, Senator Nye had attacked
him, he said, personally in reply, and raised a laugh
in the galleries. Turning to that quarter, the Sena-
tor remarked he felt justified in addressing to them

a few words. They were better clothed than the
masses, but each might judge for himself whether
there was more virtue under these gaudy habili-

ments. He did not wonder that they laughed at

hip warning.
" The teaching of the past had educated them to make

light of serious things, and had made them of a frivolous,
thoughtless, senseless disposition. They reminded him of
the idiotic inmate of a burning dwelling, who laughed at
the warning and perished in the flames. He would,