The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-17 00:00:00

THE BUILDERS' STRIKE.

Last night a public meeting was held in St.
Martin's Hall, tong:acre, for' the purpose of afford-
ing the various trades of London an opportunity
of expressing their opinion upon the " odious docu-
ment:.

Not les.s than 2,000 Operatives were present,
and Mr. Allen, Secretary.to the Associated Engi,
neers, iVa&Falied to the chair.,
Mr. POTTER was happy to say that almost td'a
man the building operatives liad refused to' accept
work at the expense of signing the document, and
be trusted that the mcetiag would express its ap-
proval of, their condUct, and would support them
until the document was unconditionally with-
drawn.

Mr. LESTER, delegate from the Glassblowers'.
Association, moved the following resolution
" That the meeting is of opinion that the declara-
tion which the employers in the building trade
desire to force upon the
,ipen amounts to an infringe-
ment of their moral and 'legal rights, as clearly de-
fined by a recent act of the legislature, and con-
siders that the men are justified in refusing to
accept it, and are entitled to public support, which
this meeting pledges its best exertions to obtain."
Mr. CHARLES MURRAY. (shoemaker) seconded
the resolution, which was supported by Mr. H.
J. SLACK and Mr. MANTZ (compositor).
The CHAIRMAN, in putting the resolution,
set ved that the engineers . on their strike were Lot
defeated, nor had their society been suppreSsed.
On the contrary, the fact was that at the time'of
their strike the number enrolled in the society was
11,000, but no W. thonumbers amounted to upwares
of 17,000, and their last year's expenditure was no
less than £52,000. • (Loud cheers.) -
The resolution was' carried amidst the most voci-.
ferous cheering, not a single hand being held up
agains it.
A vote of thanks, on the motion of Mr. BEcKErr
(compositor), was then passed to the chairman, and
the meeting .dissolved. •
The following letter was read in the course of
the proceedings :
" Queen's Hotel, Brighton, Sept. 13, 1859.

" Sir,—As many thousands of the building ope-
ratives reside in Southwark, they will be glad to
learn that their popular member, 'the gallant old
admiral,' in a letter to me to-day, says About
the strike, I think now that the workmen arc right
and the masters are wrong.'--I am, &c.,

" MARSH NELSON.
To Mr. George Potter, Secretary to the
United Trades Conference."

(From the Building Xeres.)
Judging of the declaration as a measure of policy,
it incurred last Monday the severest condemnation,
for it signally and ignobly failed. Although the
shops were opened, but a fraction signed, and of
those the majority never have belonged, and never
would belong„ to any society. They must not, how-
ever, be supposed for that to be the most prudent,
the best conducted, and most reliable hands. In the
large establishment of Mr: Myers, not a man signed,
although nearly 400 of the best and oldest hands
had assembled in York-road at six o'clock in the
morning, and were addressed on three several occa-
sions by the senior member of the firm in explana-
tion of the meaning and purport of the declaration.
The addresses met with no response, for the listeners
to a man refused to work under it. Messrs. Jar,
in the City-road, who before the lock-out employe.d
upwards of 1,200 hands, did not succeed in obtain-
ing a dozen out of that number—not one in a hun-
dred—to enter upon the terms insisted upon.
Messrs. Piper were more fortunate—they entered
about 25 out of 1,100 men usually employed, but
they were principally sawyers and masons, of whom
not three-fourths were old hands, and the remainder
fresh ones. There were, however, some hundreds
ready to work without reference to the nine hours,
and also without reference to the declaration.
Messrs. Brown and Robinson obtained six out of per-
hapss 500. Of the 60 men who presented themselves
at Messrs. Ashby's, not one would sign, although
to
willing to give up the nine hours' agitation. Messrs.
Holland and Hannon entered about 30 workmen out
mofetthwe
itlh,OhoaOlfthaedyozgeennepraailillyteresmwphlooyas. Aelnetsesrds . Lucaswork
under the declaration. Of the 300 usually
employed
by Messrs. Mansfield, 100 presented
themselves,
but refused to sign, with the exception of a few
painters and labourers , • the remainder walked
away. Messrs. Cubitt were
more fortunate, for
about a third of the 1,500 men they employed
sumed work under the declaration. Htlienumber
of building operatives is 7,000, owhich it is under-
stood to be, it followCubitt'
s that, excluding Messrs.s
men, not one per cent. have signed the
and when ninety-nine men out of every hundred
prefer "short commons" to signing the " doe: °lt,"
and that in the seventh week of the strikeiNfirthe
fifth week of the lock-out, spectators must be per-
mitted to doubt its prudence, and will be induced
to believe that it is more seriously offensive and re-
pugnant to the feelings of respectable artizans than
it was first represented to be. Another remarkable
circumstance is that the number of men who took
work under the declaration barely equalled the
number of those who sinned the anti-strike declara-
tion. What, then, has become of those thousands
who we were told welcomed the " document" as a
shield and protection against the tyranny and in-
terference of societies ? The most favourable fea-
ture reported of Monday's proceedings was the
opening of several shops without asking for any
declaration from the men. The firms who are
stated to have adopted this wise, conciliatory, and
honourable policy are Mr. Poole, with sixty men;
Mr. Aldin, employing four hundred men ; Mr. Beris,
sixty men ; Mr. Rose, one hundred men; and
Messrs. Jackson and Shaw, two hundred men.