The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-01 00:00:00

certainly as wide as the poles apart. The former
cannot get rid of the old-fashioned notion that
there is something like a moral principle on which
Representation must be based; and, like the Duke
of RICHMOND, in the early days of Reform, he can-
not deny the natural right of every mature man,
subject to the laws of the kingdom, influenced by
its legislation, and contributing to its finances, to a
share in the representation. Lord TETNFIANI and
the Duke are right ; unless we assume the morality
of political slavery, one man's civil rights are equal
to those of his neighbours. And the grand advan-
tage of a principle is this, that you plant your
foot on firm ground, and proceed in security,
to make the requisite limitations and decide
the necessary conditions. Grant that every
taxpayer and every man affected by legislation ought
to have a vote, it is then easy to calculate circum-
stances, and consider the friction under which any
general principle must be worked, and to allow for
it. We have never been advocates for unqualed
universal suffrage ; but we assume the representa-
tion of every man to be the normal principle, and
only introduce the necessary limitations. Lord
JOHN, and the aristocracy, in regard to Reform, be-
lieve in their right to octroi for us a franchise,
according to their conception of our fitness for their
purposes, not of our right to control their doings
with us and for us.

Lord JOHN put on, we are told, the cap of the
Freedom of Aberdeen city, and was loudly cheered
—we would have cheered more loudly if
he had unveiled for us the statue of the liberty he
meant to give us next spring.

The Builders' Strike has now entered upon quite
a new phase. Conciliation, and conciliation on the
part of the men, too, has been attempted and failed.
The position now is, that the masons have separated

from the " Trades' Conference" which the masters

objected to as illegal and irresponsible, and have

endeavoured to treat by themselves with the
masters. The masons were disposed to give up the

nine hours demand ; indeed, the London masons
found that their brethren in the country did not
sympathise with this movement—a circumstance
greatly to their credit, and which in our estimate
of the working men generally, ought to be taken
into account. If they are too ready to be led away

by glib-tongued POTTERS and NOBLES, it should be
remembered that their class includes also a PoME-

ROY, with his terse letters, and a PLUMMER who
made the first-rate speech on which we had occasion
to comment a little while ago ; and perhaps equally

important, a HARNOTT, of Bristol, who if left to his
own unbiassed judgment would, we believe, come to
a sound conclusion.

The masters, however, in a modified sense, ad-
here to the declaration ; that is, to its spirit. The
declaration has no other object than the perfect

freedom of master and man. This is its spirit;
this is its meaning. That it assumes a form which
would debar men from belonging to the present
trade unions, arises from the fact that those unions
i have made rules and regulations which have no-

thing to do with their proposed benevolent objects;
objects which every man in England approves.

Their rules enslave the men to a few conceited com-
mittee men, who manage the Union, and deprive
the men of their free agency in dealing with the
master, and enslave him too. The master cannot

make such regulations as his own business may re

quire, or his own common sense and that of his
men may devise and mutually accept. Mr. MYERS,
Or Sir MORTON PETO, or Mr. TROLLOPE must go,
cap in hand, to Mr. Secretary POTTER, and make

;heir rules subject to the approbation of worthies

of his class. We cannot wonder that masters
are determined no longer to be the subjugated
rulers over Mr. POTTER'S slaves. They regard
their declaration as a masons' emancipation act;
and we must think they are substantially right.
They do not now press for the form of the thing,
but they maintain that, to be masters of trades'
union slaves, is not the position they mean any

longer to assume. They demand a revision of the
laws of these unions in a sense favourable to the
workman and masters' freedom before they can give
way. The Central Masters' Committee, however,
makes this offer—" that the rules and bye laws of
the unions, so far as they affect the employers and
the employed, shall be revised by some impar-
tial authority, and that all rules and prac-
tices contrary to the spirit of the law of the
land shall be removed." If the workmen cannot
accept this offer, their cause will be pronounced a
bad one. "The spirit of the law of the ]and"—no
one can doubt, since the repeal of the Combi-
nation Laws, has been so favourable to workmen
that, if they have an honest case, they must close
with the proposal.
Let us, however, ask our operative friends, and
those of the higher classes who incline to look
with favour on the strike, to the principle which
should settle the right or wrong of it—When is a
strike legitimate ? When can it be defended on
those principles of economical science, which
will vindicate their claim to authority, how-
ever ignorance may resist them for a time ? We
reply—Strikes are justifiable when the workmen
think they axe underpaid according to the market
value of labour at that time ; when the masters
think they are properly paid ; and when neither
side can convince the other. The workman, then,
is as much justified in refusing to sell his labbur
as the farmer to sell his corn, or the grocer his
commodities, if either think the customers offer
them too little for what they would purchase.
Fifty skilled or unskilled labourers say, our labour
is worth 2s. 6d. or ss. 6d. a-day—the master says,
I can have it for 6d. a-day less. They deny it.
There is nothing for it, then, but for each to try
the truth of-his opinion--the men to try and earn
more somewhere else, the master to get his work
done for sixpence less. This is all perfectly legiti-
mate striking. It is but " the higgling of the
market." _ _

But the very opposite of this is the object of the
Trades' Unions—we speak of them solely in re-
ference to the non-benevolent part of their rules.
Their object is to monopolise a certain class of labour.
They endeavour to do it, first, by preventing per-
sons from learning the trade ; secondly, by pre-
venting each man from doing all'he can, to cut off
the supply of labour. They want to make labour
dear, as the Corn-laws aimed to make bread dear,
by cutting off the natural supply of the article.
Naturally lads would learn a trade according to
their turn of mind, or according to the probabili-
ties of its being worth their learning. Naturally
a clever fellow would do all he could in the hours of
labour, and an industrious or needy man work
more hours than the idle or the well-of, if he had
the opportunity ; these operative protectionists,
however, would prevent this natural supply of
skilled labour from coining into the market, in order
that the articial scarcity may raise the price. No
man has a moral right to do this, to join, we mean,
iu a confederation which shall become as compul-
sory upon its class as an act of Parliament, to re-
strict, artificially, the supply of labour. It is as
indefensible in principle as Corn-laws and other

monopoly laws.
There is, indeed, a natural way of raising the price
of labour if it be too low. That of those who think
it so, declining, as we have already said, to work at