The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-20 00:00:00

TIT E BUILDELY STRIA E.

(From the Times.)
The law of blockade is ore of the most arbitrary
and questionable of belligerent rights. It has lately
been strictly limited to the Ein gle case in which the
blockade is " effective," and it seems probable that
this construction will be rigorously applied to any
questions that may arise out of the present war in
America. The reason why neutrals have been spe-
cially impatient of the exercise of this right is plain
enough. Not only is it a serious encroachment on
the general freedom of neutral commerce, but it vir-
tually makes the neutral power an instrument in
the hands of the blockading squadron, and thus
gives an unfair advantage to a belligerent nation
which may happen to command the sea. Now this
extreme and exceptional right, which can only be
justified in international law by the paramount
necessity of curtailing the horrors of warfare, is
just what the workmen new on strike claim to en-
force against the public, and that, too, in the form
which has been strenuously repudiated by neutral
States. The Trades Unions have proclaimed a paper
blockade of their employers' works, and call upon
the Government to aid them in reducing their ad-
versaries to extremities. A short time ago their de-
legates waited on Sir G. C. Lewis and demanded
the withdrawal of certain Sappers and Miners from
the new barracks now being erected under a Go-
vernment contract at Chelsea. Mr. Higgs, the con-
tractor, was among those who had adopted the sys-
tem of payment by the hour, and the masons and
carpenters who had struck against this system pro-
tested against any "interference" on the part of the
Wir-office which might enable him to "disregard
the claims of the workmen." In an evil hour Sir G.
C. Lewis yielded, without even exposing the tran-
sparent fallacy on which the application rested, and
of course the most has been made of this injudicious
concession. The builders have now gone a step fur-
ther. In the case of the Chelsea Barracks it was
admitted that soldiers had been substituted for
regular workmen, instead of rescinding Mr. Higgs's
contract, with a view of expediting the completion
of the building. The new grievance is infinitely
less plausible. Mr. Myers has a contract for the
execution of a range of Artillery stables at Alder-
shott. "On this job, where there has been no
strike, it being out of the limits in which the dis-
pute exists, no workmen are employed but soldiers.
There are 24 bricklayers and about 100 of other
branches and labourers belonging to the following
Regiments—viz., the 10th, 25th, 32d, 72d, 84th,
Rifles and Sappers. The employment of the sol-
diers at this job has a more serious effect upon the
existing dispute as against the men than even the
employment of the Sappers at Chelsea Barracks, for
by this means Mr. Myers is able to keep the brick-
layers he has working for him at his London jobs,
and thus to hold out longer."
We have stated the case exactly as it has been
stated on behalf of the men, and we ask any one
capable of looking at the two sides of a question
whether a more extravagant pretension was ever
started. The jealousy of the old guilds was not
half so unreasonable or suicidal. It is not only
that the right of the Government is expressly de-
nied " to place soldiers in competition with regular
workmen, wbo have families to support,"—as if
there were anything to prevent a Sapper from
having a family to support, and as if the screw were
not mercilessly applied by these very men to their
fellows, however large their families ;—it is not
only that by entering into these controversies, and
regulating their patronage by an official report on
the merits of each case, Government would set a
precedent far more damaging to the rights of labour
and to the independence of the English workman
than these misguided men are able to perceive ; the
really monstrous characteristic of the hypothesis is,
that it leaves the rights and interests of the public
altogether out of the account. Any loss to the
nation in time, money, or efficiency of work is to
go for nothing if the employment of our own
trained and paid artificers would " spoil the
sport," and prevent the match between the two
combatant bodies being fairly played out. Many
have thought that some part of the leisure of sol-

diers might be devoted to manual labour with bene-
fit to themselves as well as to the public purse, and
that Shorncliffe and Aldershott might gradually
become schools of military, as our ships of war have
always been, more or less, of naval construction.
But here the builders asset t a private right, and the
Crown must not violate fair play, or disturb the
prescribed rate of profits, by employing its own
troops to build the lodgings for themselves in its
own camp. Of course, it follows that the Govern-
ment have no right to have the biscuit for the navy
prepared by machinery at Portsmouth, instead of
in the ovens of regular bakers. By and by the prin-
ciple will be extended to amateurs, and a gentle-
man with a turn for carpentering willnot be allowed

to use his own hammer and nails, lest he should
interfere with the privileges of some carpenters on
strike. There is only one theory of property with
which these claims can be reconciled, and that is
the one expressed in the terse maxim, "La pro-
priete c'est le vol." Jack Cade, himself a brick-
layer's son, would have had something to learn
from these modern craftsmen ; for he only decreed
generally that seven halfpenny loaves should be
sold for a penny, and that the three-hooped pot
should have ten hoops, whereas they prescribe the
means whereby prices shall be kept up to an artifi-
cial standard.
It is the less necessary to mince matters in dis-
posing of the issue now raised, because it is quite
separable from the principle of the strike. If politi-
cal economy and common sense were ever so much
on the side of the men, the injustice of this mock
neutrality would be equally clear. Though we can-
not but consider the last move of the masters as a
measure of self defence against an organised
attempt to raise wages under colour of shorten-
ing the hours of work, and though we agree
with Sir S. Peto that the hour system is the
sounder and fairer of the two, we have never said
a word against the right of the men to back their
demands by combination. It is perfectly true that,
man for man, an artisan is no match for his em-
ployer, for the simple reason that labour cannot
be hoarded like capital, and that a reserve of labour,
not being so exchangeable as capital, cannot be
counted upon to support life till the experiment
has been tried out, and the balance between supply
and demand restored. Combination is the natural
means of compensating for this natural superiority,
and if combination were to take the form of asso-
ciation for the purpose of competing with the mas-
ters, or even of mutual support pending the dispute,
it might not seriously disturb the laws of trade. Un-
happily, though it may begin with these objects and
no more, it seldom ends there. To look on while
other operatives, or, as in this case, the Government,
are pursuing their own interests, and to rest satis-
fied that it is only by the free play of these various
rival interests that the rights of the question can
be fairly tested, is a degree of self restraint of
which an ignorant or undisciplined mind is scarcely
capable. It seems so much simpler to give the
pendulum a shove—of course, in the right direction
—to exercise a slight pressure on the indicator—
t,_) pack the jury judiciously, lest they should
give a wrong verdict. Then follows, as a matter of
course, all the mischievous machinery for agita-
tion, the gradual growth of a class of men whose
element is discord and who pine and gasp in any

other atmosphere, who degrade union into conspi-
racy, and, grasping the one-sided truth that the fear
of Strikes is quit.) as powerful a weapon as actual
Strikes, adopt terrorism in theory, if not in prac-
tice. O'Connell, the greatest agitator of modern
times, did not shrink from denouncing Trades
Unions, not because he had much sympathy with
the class against whom they were directed, but be-
cause he had seen that the lengths to which they
would go in obstructing industrial progress were
only limited by the conscience or education of their
leaders. We will not do the existing Unions the
injustice of comparing them with the Luddites, the
frame-breakers, and the mill-burners, against whose
senseless prejudices even O'Connell protested, but
we cannot help seeing that the spirit in which
they are now acting is equally tyrannical, though
less atrocious. We can make great allowances
for men exasperated by real lock-outs" into
open defiance, or even for the temporary irritation
produced by the present trial of strength on the
hour system. We cannot expect them to admit that
they have brought this crisis upon themselves by
the vain attempt to serve two masters, dictating
terms to the one, and executing the most capricious
behests of the other. But we warn them once more
not to take Sir G. C. Lewis's ill-advised act as an
indication of public opinion. A
"strike" would
indeed be a hollowaffair if thepnblic were in league
with the men to starve out the masters. This would
be " compulsory arbitration" with a vengeance, and
from that moment, instead of capital employing
labour, labour would employ capital—that is, such
capital as could b e retained in the country under so
tyrannical a regime,