The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-30 00:00:00

THE BUILDERS' STRIKE.

Yesterday morning, at the early hour of eleven,
a meeting of the working men was held at the
Surrey-gardens, for the purpose of getting an ex-
pression of opinion on the question at issue between
the employers and the employed in the building
trade. The meeting was most numerous consider-
ing the very early hour it which it was held.
Seven or eight thousand persons were present. Mr.
Gray, mason, occupied the chair, and addressed a
few. words to the meeting.
Mr. POTTER then addressed the meeting. He de-
nounced the " document " as an attempt to force the
working man into slavery. The masters put it for-
ward that there was nothing in the " document" to
which the men ought to object. But the men did
object to it, and they felt that if they signed it they
would be selling away their rights as freemen.
(Cheers.) He had before him a bill, which was put
forward by some persons calling themselves the
" Anti-strike Committee," and signed by C. Mills,
secretary. That bill put it forward to the working
men that there was nothing degrading, insulting
or derogatory to the working man in the signing
of the document. He was now addressing several
thousands of the working operatives of London, and
the question was about to be submitted to them
whether they thought it insulting, degrading,
and derogatory, or not ? (Cheers.) He main-
tained that it was an insulting and tyrannical
attempt on the part of the masters, and that
any workman who signed it would degrade him-
self and his class. (Cheers.) He did not know
what Mr. Mills might think, but he was sure
that Mr. J. S. Mills would consider it a degrada-
tion to sign such a paper. (Cheers.) The motto of
the working-men should henceforward be " Excel-
sior." (Cheers.) They should learn what their
rights were, for the more they knew of what was
due to them, the more ardent and energetic would
they be in obtaining them. The strike at Trollope's
had now existed for five weeks. The artisans on
strike received the first week, 145., and the men Bs.,
making £lBO ; the second week they received 20s.
and 15s. making £215 ; the third week, 15s. and
10s. making £150; the fourth week, 12s. and Bs.,
making £l4l. Such a distribution he believed was
unprecedented in the annals of any strike. (Cheers.)
To the men on strike they gave X 685, to the lock-
outs £542 12s. 7d. ; and the general expenses were
£2lO ; making an expenditure of £1,337 14s. 7d..
against £1,401 ss. id., which had been received.
They had a balance left of £63 12s. 6d. They were
aware that delegates had been sent to rouse the
operatives in the provinces, and he was happy to
tell them that the reports received were most en-
couraging and cheering. From Glasgow they had
been promised £5OO. Committees had been formed
in no fewer than 35 towns, including the most im-
portant of the kingdom, for the purpose of organis-
ing a system of weekly contributions. That was
satisfactory to his mind. Was it satisfactory to the
meeting ? (Cheers.) Let them only show a deter-
mination to hold out. Their brethren in the pro-
vinces would support them all the more readily if
they evinced such a determination. (Cheers, and
" We are determined.") It was said that they were
taproom orators, and that they were living on the
contributions of the working men. That was a gross
calumny. He did not wish to live by agitatioq.
(Hear.) For the last three weeks he gave his
humble services to them gratis. (Cheers.) He was
sharing the responsibility of this question equally
with them all. He was only doing what they pushed
him forward to do. (Hear, hear.) The position he
was in had been thrust upon him. However long the
strike might continue, he was determined to receive
no pay till they resumed work, and then they
might pay him what they did before. (Cheers.)
Mr. NOBLE, bricklayer, said that he had little to
do except to corroborate the financial statement of
Mr. Potter. He was placed in a position between
Mr. Potter and the treasurer, to see that the one
was doing his duty and the other was honest.
(Laughter.) He was endeavouring to perform that
duty to the best of his ability. He denounced the
document, the real object of which was to destroy
the trade societies. (Hear, hear.) They all knew
what benefit those societies bestowed upon them,
how they aided them in sickness and want; were
.they then going to abandon those societies ? (No,
no.) If they ever gave up their societies and signed
the document they would be at the mercy of the
masters. (Cheers.) Let their motto therefore be,
No surrender," and "No document." (Cheers.)
PER AN, mason moved the following resolu-
tion :—" That it is the opinion of this meeting that
the document presented to the operatives and the
building trades for their acquiescence, is degrading
and insulting in the extreme, and that the master
builders, by introducing it, have shown a spirit of
tyranny and oppression which cannot be tolerated
either by society or the working classes of this free
country ; and this meeting pledges itself not to re-
sume work until the obnoxious document is uncon-
ditionally withdrawn." (Loud cheers.) He hoped
there was not a mad amongst them who would
not say " yes% to that resolution. He trusted they
would hold out to the last ere a man of themsigned
the document. (A voice—" We will eat the clover
first.") They were no public-house orators, but they
felt the iron of injustice in tneir souls, and they
would never abandon the contest till justice was
done them. (Hear, hear.) He knew that six of the
best masons who ever drew a mallet had already
crossed the Atlantic rather than submit to the
tyranny and dictation which was sought to be im-
posed on them in their own country. (Cheers.) No
less than 60 or 70 others had drawn their cards to
travel through the country in order to obtain work.
(Hear.) The report of Mr. Potter was very grati-
fying, and by holding out a little longer they would
be rolling in the wealth received from the operatives
throughout the country in support of the movement.
(Cheers.) The working men were the producers of
all wealth. They built up the fortunes of those who
had locked them out, and the very money which was
the result of their sweat was employed to starve
them into submission to a slavish document. (Loud
cheers.) He would repeat to them the lines of
Burns :

" If I'm designed yon lordling's slave
By nature's law designed,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind ?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty and scorn ;
Or. why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?"
Mr.WHEELER, plasterer,seconded;the resolution,
and characterised the document as intended to sub-
ject the working classes to the tyranny of the
masters.
Mr. BLOOMFIELD, bricklayer, and Mr. TURNER,
mason, supported the resolution.
The CHAIRMAN then came forward in front 'of
the platform, and called the men, some of whom
had dispersed to a little distance, together, for
the, purpose of hearing the resolution, and giving
their opinion upon it. When they were all
pretty well united he read the document, and asked
for a show of hauls. The immense mass of people
in front and around the platform held up their
handi in its favour; not a hand was raised against
it. (A Voice, " Where is Mr. Pomeroy ?"
The result -was received with vehement cheering.
The CHAIRMAN then called for three cheers in
favour of the nine hours movement. The response
was equally unanimous and enthusiastic.
Votes of thanks to the chairman and to Mr. Pot-
ter, who was loudly cheered, terminated the pro-
ceedings.

(From the Times).
The Builders' Strike halts on, giving a temporary
importance to men like Mr. Potter and Mr. Nugent
and creating wretchedness to thousands. The long
days and fine weather are going, the favourable
time for building operations is passing away, and
the short, cold days of winter are coming, to find
. -work scarce and the Benefit Society box empty.
Meanwhile idleness is very expensive ; the credit
at the chandler's shop cannot endure for ever ;
_ the bricklayer is already sitting down with his
pipe opposite his half-finished wall, fondly per-
' suading himself that the master cannot hold out
many more days, and wishing that the operations
of his own stomach and of the stomachs of
( his wife and children could be stopped with
as little pain as the raising of that brick wall. We
fear that this is hitherto the only course of his
cogitations. Although he has had plenty of time
for reflection, he has not yet seriously asked him-
self whether the cause for which he is contending
is a. righteous cause. As he squats in his martyr-
dom of idleness, or hangs about trying to ktep up
his spirits by talking to others in his own condition,
he sees omnibuses and cabs drive by, yet it does
not occur to him that the drivers work with eye
and hand at a harder task than bis for 12 or 14
hours every day ; he sees the baker's man come up
from his- hot prison after day and night spent in
his sultry labour ; he sees the doctor go back to his
home in the morning, jaded and tired as from a
night's hard watching, and emerge again shortly
after and go forth upon his daily round.
IT.here is a
dim ray in that upper window, where a sairtrnaker
into
that through the night ; and if he could see
that lit rooni in the 'larger street, he would see a
lawyer sitting at his papers. The butcher's shop,
where our strikesman is not now a welcome visitor
is open for fifteen hours every day; and his own
chandler's shop has its shutters down at 6, and the
active, hustling shopmistress, who looks more seri-
ous latterly, is not off her feet till 10 at night.
•Ueing his eyes and his brain while he smokes that
pipe, is he quite certain that it is the privilege of a
Builder only, of all men, to work but nine hOurs a
day ? If this strike is good for him, is it not equally
good for the omnibusman, the baker, the doctor,
the shirtstitcher, the lawyer, the butcher, and the
vlaandler's shopkeeper? The Builder is not more

hardly worked. than the happy and busy crowd
around him. Does no doubt cross his mind when
he finds that he alone is idle, while others work
longer than he works and are content—nay, glad ?
The truth is our friend the Builder is suffering
under an old English disease which the French
caught some time ago and exhibited as a new dis-
covery. John Plummet is a Socialist. He does
not go quite the length of saying that all men
ought to be equal and all property in common,
for he does not see his way to working that
out ; but he is convinced that all bricklayers ought
to be equal. He has no natural preference for the
old doctor over the young doctor when his children
are ill, and would think it unreasonable that the
young doctor should insist upon having his turn
with the old one in physicing him. He also deals
at the chandler's shop where the bacon is best and
the tobacco not too much wetted, and at the public
where the beer is mildest. He would grievously
resent being dragged into the " Live and Let Live,"
where they water the beer, on being called upon
by Mr. Sloeleaf to give him his regular turn of
custom. John Plummet takes advantage of com-
petition in all trades with which he deals, but he
will not allow it in building. There he sits, a
saint, a martyr, a suffering patriot, with a pipe in
his mouth and his eyes fixed upon that half-finished
wall ; and his cause is—the exemption of builders
from all competition. John Plummet happens to
be an average workman ; he does his business
fairly, but not particularly well—a great deal better
than that drunken fellow Bill Trowel, but not
nearly so well as Henry Line. If you asked
Plummet whether he thought his day's work worth
more than Trowel's, he would unhesitatingly say,
" Yes ;" if you ask him whether it is worth as
much as Line's, he will candidly say, " No." Yet
Plummet insists, and Trowel insists, and poor Line
submits, that the same differing value of labour
shall be paid the same daily money wage. This is
indifferent to Plummet, but it is a robbery of Line
to the benefit of Trowel. It makes no difference to
the master, for he calculates his average ; but it
destroys all incentive to excellence, and how it
robs the good man for the bad. This, however, is
part of john Plummet's cause. Line, morever, has
a family, and is in some hopes of saving to keep
a shop of his own, and would like to work over-
work, and his master would like to give it him.
But Plummet and Trowel will not allow this.
A builder's a builder. It means nine hours a
day and 4s. 6d. a day. Into that position, Henry
Line was born or brought up, and in it he must
stay, like a Hindoo. The Trades' Union has a
property in every building undertaken through-
out England. Does a lawyer, or a parson, or a
cheesemonger, or a duke, undertake to build an
outhouse, or a church, or a shop-front, or a palace,
he becomes immediately the property of the Trades'
Union. They run it up to a particular tariff; they
say how much of the cost any individual shall take
of it ; they divide the money equally, and the work
divides itself unequally. The end is that the
Trowels get drunk en the Lines' earnings ; that the
good men are hopeless and the bad men careless.
This is the normal operation of the Union so far
as its effects upon individual industry are con•
cerned ; and how any Englishman can submit to
such slavery, such hopeless bondage, more like the
caste of the Hindoo than the freedom of a white
man, is what we cannot comprehend. Sometimes,
however, the whole body meditates an advance, and
then all the bad men and the average men are, rea-
sonably enough, made martyrs to the system ; but
not only so, the industrious men also are martyrs to
a system which is their own bondage. At some
favourable crisis the Union comes to the conclusion
that the builders deserve larger remuneration from
the general public than they receive. Theis the
builders strike. In all strikes the men begin by
demanding higher wages, and the masters reply by
requiring the abolition of Trades' Unions ; the con-
test goes on for a longer or a shorter time, and the
end is that the masters abandon their crusade
against the Unions, and the men go to work at
lower wages than before. So it was in the cele-
brated Bradford strike, which lasted for 10 months,
was supported by the contributions of 152 places,
and ended by reducing the whole town to a state of
pauperism. The strike was maintained by no less
a sum than £14,431, whereof £1,394 6s. 7d. was
absorbed by the delegates and the committee. The
whole of the details of this great and ruinous effort
have been written by the chief leader of it, and
although the man wrote with the intention of jus-
tifying himself and his cause, his account only
shows what must be the necessary consequence of
such a contest uven when conducted by men of
the most honest intention and with the firmest
sympathy and support. In former days workmen
used to get Acts of Parliament to further their
strikes. In the time of Elizabeth the town of
Shrewsbury complained that outside artificers,
• " upon a mere covetous desire and mind" (almost
the same words we hear it the present day), "to
the impeachment and hinderance of 600 people of
the art or science of shearmen, intromitted with
and occupied the trade." The Legislature expelled
the intruders. Six years- after, the Act was re-
pealed, with an avowal that "it was now like to
be the greatest cause of the impoverishing and un-
doing of the poor artificers and others at whose
suit the Act was procured, for that there be now
since the passing of the said Act much fewer
persons to set them to work than before." It was
legislation of this character which produced Man-
chester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Leeds. These
unprivileged and obscure hamlets were originally
places of refuge to which our best operatives and
our most enterprising masters fled to avoid the
exactions and vexatious rules of the old incorporate
Guilds. They flourished because they were free.
It is not, however, to the evils or to the ill-
success of strikes that we now address ourselves ;
it is to the wonderful phenomenon presented by the 1
patience of the good workmen under the tyranny
of the bad. We are not ignorant of the machinery
by which it is worked. We are quite aware that
the societies which bind the energies of the work-
men have other and better objects than those at
which they are now working. These Trade Unions
are Benefit Societies as well as Trade Combinations.
Prudent workmen have joined them, and paid
their money to them, and depend upon them for
their support in sickness and in old age, and can-
not now leave them without great sacrifice. Except
in this madness, which creates a periodical waste
of their accumulations, they are institutions
worthy of all praise. They disburse five millions a
year, which would otherwise be paid out of Poor-
rates, and they contribute largely to the sustenta-
tion of the independence and upright feeling of the
English workman. This is the secret of the hold
they have over their members, this is the reason
why the best workmen and the most prudent hands
submit to a dictation which they abhor. No impar-
tial looker-on can feel such distress at the dissipa-
tion of all the hard earnings hoarded by these so-
cieties as they do who have contributed to them.
But what can be done ? The mandate goes forth,
and they must obey. The remedy, if it come at all,
must come from the men themselves. We should
like to see the men speak freely upon this matter,
and declare their resolve no longer to mix up
Trade Combination Clubs and Benefit Societies.
We should like to see them make-this movement,
not at the dictation of the masters, but in further-
ance of their own convictions. Trade Combination
Clubsmay be good or bad. We are far from denying
that the tyranny of capital may be sometimes so
great as to justify, and even to make expedient, a
combination of workmen. One of the Hyde Park
speakers said, " If political economy is against us,
let us be against political economy." There may
be extremities at which this nonsense becomes
sense, but such is not the case at present. A mix-
ture of two entirely different objects cannot, how-
ever, but be bad. You gather funds for sickness
and old age, and you spend them upon a strike for
Socialist crotchets which never can be attained.
We see no way out of this evil but by the respect-
able portion of the working classes insisting upon
having these strike clauses struck out of their
Society rules. Let those who desire to do so corn.
bine and strike when and where and as often as
they like; but let them do so at their own ex-
pense. Let there be Combination Societies and
Benefit Societies, but let them be distinct. If this
strike continue a few weeks longer, the Builders
will have a fair opportunity of beginning afresh
upon this plan, for the claims upon the exhausted
Society boxes will not be worth much.

Soma pockets of the new crop of hops arrived in
the Borough during the last week have sold at 112 s. per
wt.
SUICIDE IN A RAILWAY TRAIN.—An unfortu-
nate man'from Preston committed suicide in the train due
at Blackpool at a quarter-past nine o'clock on Saturday
evening. It would appear that before reaching Poulton
Station, it was known by those in the carriage with him,
that he was almost in a state of insensibility from the taking
of laudanum ; yet, strange to say, no one took the means of
obtaining medical aid On arriving at Blackpool, he fell
among the carriages, but was lifted on to the platform, and
then, along with the crowd, which was very considerable,
must have made his way down the streets, as he was found
leaning against some iron railing, about 20 minutes to 10
o'clock, by two gentlemen, who kindly carried him into the
Railway Hotel opposite, and there he died almost hurtle-
61,ttely.

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