The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-04 00:00:00

THE STRIKE.

From information obtained in the course of yes-
terday in quarters the most trustworthy it is now
beyond a doubt that the strike, taking a fresh start
from recent events, is beginning to assume a new
phase, decidedly against the interests of the masters,
and placing the inveterate obstinacy and determina-
tion of the men in a still stronger light. Until now,
with a trifling and irregular exception, the contest
was confined within the limits of the metropolitan
postal area, but the emissaries of the Paviors' Arms
Convention have at length crossed the Ticino, so to
speak, and are now preparing to engage the enemy
on entire'y new ground. " War to the knife !
was the phrase used yesterday by a man who has
taken a conspicuous part in the movement from the
beginning to symbolise the course of action which
the members of the Conference are now reso'Ned to
pursue. And among them, at least, however other-
wise it may be with the masters' executive com-
mittee, there is no halting or want of unanimity.
Keeping for the moment the nine hours' movement
in abeyance, they are content to fight the masters
simply on the question of "the odious document,"
being shrewd enough to perceive long ago that
their resistance to the employers on that point,
irrespective of its merits in their own eyes, has
attracted an amount of popular sympathy never
accorded to their original demand. The defec-
tion of the operative masons, sineo the failure
of their recent attempt at mediation with the
masters, is now more apparent than real. Indeed,
an impetus and a life have been communicated
to their policy since they took up the quarrel on
their " own book," which it never assumed so long
as their adhesion to the Strike remained unsanetioned
and unsustained by the society at large to which
they belong. Divided from the Conference, but
only in appearance, by a recent misunderstanding, .
they may now be said tofight under the same ban.
ner and with a prestige urknown to their previous
course of action. Samuel Northam, the chairman of
'their central committee, and Richard Harnett their
general secretary, returned on Saturday to Bristol,
their "seat of Government," as they call that city,
with the full intention of using all their influence
with the members of the society at large, some
10,000 in number, to enlist their sympathies with
their brethren on strike; and it was understood
that a communication would arrive yesterday even-
ing in London frcm Harnett to be laid before the
meeting of the Committee of Masters, to be held this
day, to the effect that in the event of their not agree-
ing, before separating, to abandon the declaration,
the whole of the society masons engaged under any
of the members of the Central Association at build-
ing operations in the country, beyond the metropo--
litan postal district, will forthwith be " called off,"
to use the expression in vogue among society men.
Some, however, say that this is more intended as a
menace than as indicating a course of action which
the masons' executive committee are prepared to re-
commond and to carry into actual practice. Time
will show. Be this as it may, the Paviors' Arms
Committee are influenced by no scruples of con--
science in .that matter, for they have already deter-
mined to have recourse to a similar policy, and have
absolutely begun to give practical effect to it, sing-
line. out Mr. Myers as one of their first victims.
ACWoking, where he has bet wt en 100 and 200
men at work in the erection of a prison for invalid
convicts, an attempt was made on Friday by some
emissaries from the Paviors Arms to decoy them
away, but, the police having interfered, the endea-
vour was abandoned for the time. Yesterday, how-
ever, it was reported to the committee at the Paviors
Arms that 40 or 50 of the men there had left off
work and come to London ; and, moreover, that
about 30 more in the employ of Messrs. Mansfield
and Son, of Henry-street, Gray's-inn-road, in the
erection of a large mansion in Hertfordshire, had
struck work and returned to town. The committee,
it is also said, are about to call off all the men in the
service of Messrs. Jackson and Shaw, at their
various jobs at Tunbridge Wells, Brighton, and in
other parts of the country, unless they consent to
the unconditional withdrawal of the declaration
among the men at work at the church and monas-
tery they are now building at Notting-hill, and at
other of their operations within the postal district.
They are likewise understood to have designs upon
the fidelity of the men employed under Mr. Myers
at Nel-ley Abbey.
This new line of action on the part of the Con-
ference cuts two ways, and that is a circumstance they
have possibly overlooked. Aimed at a vulnerable
point in the harness of the masters, it will have a sui-
cidal reaction against themselves, for, supposing
them successful in drawing away the whole or the
greater part of the hands now in the employ of the
associated masters at works beyond the metropolitan
postal district, they immediately convert some
thousands of men from being contributors to reci-
pients of the fund raised weekly for the support of
the men on strike; in other words, they will have
to sustain an augmented charge with a diminished
exchequer. Nothing, as the event has proved,
could well have been more ill-advised or indiscreet
than the high-handed manner in which the Com-
mittee of Masters on Tuesday last rejected the
offer of reconciliation made to them by the Confer-
ence. To the merits of that proposal allusion is
not now made, but to the contemptuous mode in
which it was treated, characterised as that was by
an utter want of tact, and calculated still further
to estrange men already sufficiently far alienated
by this unhappy contest. Forgetting that they
themselves were a body deriving, like the Confer-
ence, a temporary status from the same great emer-
gency, they twitted them with being an irrespon-
sible conclave, whose proceedings were illegal and
with whom they could have nothing to do. This
may have been simply true, but mark the result of
the ill-timed sally. The Conference immediately
appealed against the charge to the great body of
working men in the building trades, convened for
the express purpose at a large public mesting, who,
as a matter of course—for they are extremely popu-
lar with their own class—endorsed all their pro-
ceedings by an unanimous vote of confidence ; and,
taking new courage from fresh contact with their
constituents, the Conference thenceforth continues
the agitation with greater vigour and audacity than
before. It Ought to be stated on behalf of the mas-
ters' committee that they allege in justification of
their refusal to negotiate with the Conference acts
of treachery on the part of that body in previous
dealings with them.
Yesterday the Conference declared another divi-
dend for the week of 4s. a man to the whole of the
operatives still remaining on strike, and, as usual,
12s. skilled and Bs. unskilled to each of the men
who struck work at Messrs. Trollopes'. The ag-
gregate sum divided was £1,291 4s. among 6,240
men. The amount was £37 less than that paid
away on the previous wek, and the recipients were
fewer in number by 214.. The result shows that,
though the recipients of the fund are becoming less
week by week, 6,240 men still continue firm in
their refusal to work under the masters' declara-
tion. It proves, however, that whereas 214 men,