The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-20 00:00:00

STRIKES IN AMERICA.

Public attention is again called to movements of
combined associations of working men, and once
more we are apprised that there are tobe combination
strikes, and the demand of increased wages at the peril
of the suspension and possible destruction of many
branches of business, with the inevitable recoil of the
movement upon those who can least afford to bear the
evils that must of necessity follow. Firmly believing
that'labour and capital, employer and employes, are
and ever should be friends and allies, we deprecate
any movement that tends to disturb that unity of in-
terest, and most especially the sheer madness of
strikes. If any individual is underpaid let him go di-
rectly to his employer and see what can be done by a
fair and temperate discussion. We are sure that in
most cases he would either gain his point or be con-
vinced that the employer really could not afford an
advance. But to shrink away from capitalists, as
if ashamed or afraid to discuss anything, to meet in
trade societies and send forth a peremptory demand
for increased pay under the threat of ruining an
entire business if employers hesitate to yield, is an
outrage of the most aggravating kind, and capital-
ists must be more than human if they do not resent
it. What was the result of the ship carpenters'
strike ? 'The suspension of work in many places,
and the turning of all repairing of vessels over to
Boston and other eastern ports. The working men
lost more by this one folly than ever was gained by
all the strikes on record. How did the oar-drivers
fare in.their attempt at coercion ? They failed, and
hundreds of them were compelled to seek work in
other places and other business. They did all they
could to injure the capital that had fed them, until
capital turned in self-defence, and shook them off.
Not one of the leading strikers can ever again get
employment from a city railroad company.
All these combinations to force prices injure the
working classes - they degrade themselves thereby,.
holding out the idea that they have no moral or
legal rights; and, therefore, turn footpads and sake
by violence what by that very act they acknowledge
they cannot rightfully claim. The rates of compen-
sation for labour are already very high ; daily and
weekly wages are quite as high as when gold was
250, and any attempt to force a rise will most cer-
tainly produce the opposite result. The high rate
of pay for carpenters, masons, and bricklayers has
kept back the business of house-building, and in fact
quite suspended it. There might have been thou-
sands of additional small and large tenements within
ten miles of the City-hall if labour had been even
20 per cent. lower for the past five years. The
vacant ground is there, and capital stands ready
and anxious to build the moment it can see a
fair probability of ordinary returns. How much
do the carpenters expect to increase the amount of
housebuilding by adding 15 per cent. to the cost
thereof ? We hope all trades will carefully consider
these .matters, and that they will, for the sake of
the working men, avoid the ruinous folly of coer-
cion and strikes.—. New York Times.

CANADIAN VIEWS OF THE CESSION OF RUSSIAN
AMERICA.
The Toronto Globe writes :—" The sole object of
the United States's Government in this matter is the
miserable advantage of shutting off the northern
portion of British Columbia from direct access to
the Pacific Ocean, a mere strip of Russian ter-
ritory, running down some 400 miles along the
coast from Mount St. Elias to opposite Queen Char-
lotte's Island. It is along this strip alone that the
Russians have any settlements—and these are not
on the mainland, but on the islands which stud the
coast, and afford facilities for hunting the sea-otter.
The only settlement among them of any importance
is that of Sitka Island, on which is the town of New
Archangel, a little place of 800 to 1,000 inhabi-
tants. All the rest of Russian America is an un-
penetrated and impenetrable wild, in which the
Indian roams in all his primitive independence. The
entire population of this new acquisition of Brother
Jonathan is some 60,000 souls, of whom all but
3,000 or 4,000 are aboriginal Indians. The idea of
anybody getting excited about this affair is simply
ridiculous. It may afford our Republican neigh-
bours an opportunity of extending their Japanese
system, and making themselves as unpleasant as
possible to the bold pioneers who penetrate
the northern regions of British Columbia ; but
the acquisition of 481,276 square miles of
ice, with a population, all told, of 3,000 Cossacks
and 50,000 savages, is hardly an investment to be
coveted by anybody not afflicted with an insatiable
craving for useless territory. The blowing of our
neighbours over so sterile an acquisition enables one
to form some estimate of the cruel longing that afflicts
them for the possession of British America." The
Montreal Transcript says :—"ln a political point of
view the possession of this inhospitable region can
give no extension of influence to our Republican
neighbours. It may be gratifying to the national
amour propre to know that they possess a coast line
which, in a measure, hems in the British territory,
but the gains are practically nil. It matters little
to us that a territory so worthless passes into Ameri-
can hands. If our neighbours can succeed in uti-
lising its barren resources, and bestowing upon its
sparse and semi-barbarous population those bless-
ings of civilisation and religion which, under Rus-
sian rule, have been practically denied, we shall
have reason to rejoice rather than to be dismayed
at a consummation to which the American people
may be pardoned for attaching an undue import-
ance."