The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-07 00:00:00

STRIKES.

Dr. WATTS read a paper on strikes, of which the
following is an abstract :—After some observations
on the general nature of strikes, Dr. Waits said—
Economic science rules that the price of labour,
like that of any other commodity, will be regulated
by the supply of, compared with the demand for
it, and working men practically acknowledge the
truth of the theory even while fighting against it, for
they withdraw labour from the market, thus mak-
ing it artificially scarce, in order to keep up the
price. But such an operation, even if successful,
is short-sighted. The operatives forget that all
increase to the wages fund comes out of the
profits of the employer and the invested savings
of the workman, and that to arbitrarily pre-
vent the production of wealth is just as injurious
to society, and as certainly lessens the future demand
for workmen, as if the employers and workshops
and plant had been burnt or been cast into the sea.
The main object of trade societies is to keep up
wages, and I am not prepared to assert that they do
not in some cases succeed, but I wish to inquire if
strikes be a necessary condition to that success, or
if, on the contrary, any possible success achieved by
such process could not equally be arrived at by less
objectionable means, and if it be not possible to ar-
range trade disputes without resort to this fearful
sword of strife. The main causes of strikes have
been threefold—the desire to limit trade, the intro-
duction of machinery, and dissatisfaction with the
rate of wages paid. Sometimes the strike is against
the new machine, and sometimes against the ar-
rangements rendered necessary by its introduction.
A Liverpool shipbuilder in 1859 got the copper for
a ship's bottom punched by machinery ready for
nailing on, but his workmen struck and obliged him
to set the hand punches to work to go over the job,
as if it was not already done, and to pay them for
the sham. The stay-stitchers of Kettering struck
against the employment of the sewing machine, and
so strong was the sympathy of trade societies that
subscriptions were sent in aid of the strike from the
very machine shop which supplied the obnoxious
articles. It seems to be very difficult for working
men to get out of t e idea that improved machinery
will lessen the demand for labour, although both
theory and practice prove the contrary. It is quite
certain that for a new machine to get adopted it
must make a profit to its owner over and above that
of the machine which it supersedes. It is equally
certain that the increased demand for labour, the
increase of population and of material wealth, have
been most rapid where machinery has achieved the
greatest perfection, as in the cotton trade of Lan-
cashire. And is it possible, by any strike, to stay
the progress of invention? I hope and believe it is
not. But most of the strikes which have come under
my observation have resulted from dissatisfaction
with the amount of wages paid. This dissatisfac-
tion, so far as the cotton trade is concerned, is
sometimes general, and sometimes local, It is gene-
ral when the state of trade requires a reduction of
wages, or when workmen think the state of trade

justifies a rise; it is local when the hands of one
place think themselves worse paid than the hands
in other places. The workmen seem to desire to
have a regular standard list of wages throughout
each department of the trade, regardless of the ad-
vantages or disadvantages cf particular localities,
the quality of the machinery used, or the materials
to be wrought up. If trade always left a large mar-
gin of profit, these differences might not be impor-
tant, but when a manufacturer has, to keep up a
large establishment upon a single penny per pound
between the price paid for yarn, and the price ob-
tained for cloth, then a shilling per ton extra for
coals, or the existence of an extra toll bar, and a
few extra miles of carriage to the market, make the
difference between profit and loss. The manufac•
turer also feels that if he lays out capital on im-
proved
_machinery, or supplies extra good material,
and thus enables his workpeople to produce more in
a given time, he ought to get a trading profit upon
such extra outlay. The price of labour is a bargain
between the employer and the workmen, and it is
not unnatural that each should put a different esti-
mate upon the proposed arrangement. Any dissa-
tisfaction on the silo of the workmen is submitted
to the central committee of their society, which ad-
vises whether to accept the terms of the employer
or to organise a strike in order to force the employer
to give the price demanded by the society. The dif-
ference in dispute is sometimes not more than 21,
frequently not more than 5, and seldom exceeds 10
per cent. of the wages paid. The duration of a strike
varies much. The great Preston strike lasted 38
weeks; the late one at Padiham, 29 weeks; Bolton,
six weeks; Ashton and district, six weeks; Clitheroe,
six weeks ; Blackburn, three weeks. The strike of
the London builders lasted 26 weeks, and the late
Caine strike 50 weeks. Let us assume five per cent.
as the average amcunt in dispute, and assume that
the strike is in every case successful, and we shall
then fled the adage which is applied to disputants
at law, " that he who wins loses," is equally applic-
able here. A week is nearly 2 per cent. of a working
year, and of course represents nearly 2 percent. of the
wages of a year. If therefore a strike for 5 per cent.
succeeds, its results will be exhibited as follows:

Tee iess of one month's wages will require to make
it up 1 3-sth of a year of work at the extra rate;
two months' wages, 3 I•sth ; three months' wages.
4 4-stlis; six months' wages, 9 3-sths ; 12 months'
wages, 19 1-sth. But as money is worth 5 per
cent., it follows that if a strike last Phi-- months, and
then succeeds, the workman has lost in interest
much more than he has gained in wages, and there-
fore no part of the loss can ever be made up, for
if he would have worked for the lower sum during
the_ year of strike, and have invested instead of
spending the money, the year's wages would have
grown into three years' wages nearly by the time
in which the gain of the strike would make up for
the loss of a single year. Of course a strike for
.10 per cent. would require only half the above
term to make up the loss, whilst a strike for 21
per cent. would require 41 years. The strike of the
London builders in 1859 was for 10 per cent., and
'As it lasted 26 weeks, would, if successful, have re-
quired 10 2-bth years of continuous work at the
extra rate to make up the loss of wages sacrificed,
The associated ooliiers have spent about a quarter
of a million since 1842, and the amalgamated en•
gineers threw away nearly half-a-million in 1852.
According to our assumption of capital of £65 per
individual, the amount thus lost would have given
employment and wages to 17,184 persons. All
the above named, except the Preston strike,l
have occurred within the last two years and
a half, and all have ended unsuccessfully, so
that there has been no compensation whatever.
To resume, therefore, I conclude that a strike to re-
strict a trade, either by limiting the number of ap-
prentices, or preventing the employment of efficient
Workmen who have not teen apprenticed, being an
invasion of individual liberty, ought not to succeed ;
that the more rigidly such restrictive rules are en-
forced the sooner will they be destroyed. Strikes
against improved machinery are attempts to stay the
progress of human intellect and civilisation ; they
originate in ignorance of the tendency of such im-
provements, the displacement of labourers caused
by new machinery being an occurrence to be pro-
vided against by well regulated trade societies in
the form (

temporary 'relief twit the labourers can
replaced or otherwise provided for. But strikes
against new machinery can never permanently sue-
u.efl, and all money thus spent is therefore entirely
thrown away ; and when trade is in such a position
as to render a union of employers for a reduction or
against a rise of wages possible a strike cannot possi-
bly succeed, for as longas thereis machinery standing,
if a lair profit be pos-sible:haii CIS will be sought for that
'6linery at a rise of wages if necessary, in order to
Mil.M the PrOEt ; that whenever it is possible for a
local s rike to suected it must be either becausy wagis
n that, locality are below the average, or because
the demand for hands being general the local em-

ployers give way rather than lose their workpeople ;
that in all such cases trade societies, by operating
as trade agencies, and assisting in the gradual re-
moval of hands to places already secured for them,
would achieve an equal success without a struggle,
without wasting a week's wages, and without a
thousandth part of the ill-feeling which is conse-
quent upon a strike ; that strikes are therefore
either wholly injurious, or an entire waste of effort
to an extent of not less than a million sterling per
annum, or the bread of 38,460 each, with the addi-
tion of 4,000 or 5,000 who would have been called
into employment by the profits in strikes ; that a
court of arbitration would be able to deal with local
misunderstandings and misrepresentations, and
heal many differences before they came to an open
rupture ; and that co-operative societies, whether
they succeed or fail, will find employment for much
talent hitherto misdirected, and will teach lessons
of wisdom and prudence which will render such a
foolish waste of capital as that lost in and spent on
a strike for wages almost impossible.
Mr. E. Hill, the Rev. Mr. Molesworth, Mr. Faw-
cett, Mr. Bracebridge, Mr. Tartt, and Mr. E. Ash-
worth made some remarks approving the paper.
Lord MONTEAGLE strongly recommended Arch-
bishop Whateley's "Lessons in Money Matters,"
in order to enlighten the minds of the labouring
classes on the subject of strikes; the thorough in-
doctrination of the children of working men with
such lessons would eventually tend to prevent the
occurrence of these dangerous combinations.
The CHAIRMAN referred to the proceedings of the
Select Committee of the House of Commons which
recently sat on this subject—a committee admirably
constituted, consisting of such men as Sir M. Peto,
Mr. Mackinnon, and Mr. Walter, which after a
most laborious and impartial investigation had
come to an unanimous report, recommending the
establishment, by way of experiment, of Councils
of Conciliation ; a recommendation in which he
cordially concurred.
MECHANICAL SCIENCE.

Mr. Bateman, the president of the section, having
taken the chair,
Mr. SCOTT RUSSELL laid on the table the third
report of the Committee on Steamship Performance
This, he said, was a very long document, consisting
chiefly of very valuable tables which were obtained
from actual experimental trials with various steam-
ships, most of them in actual practical work, some
of them in her Majesty's navy, and some of them
employed in the mercantile service. He, therefore,
gave a short epitome of the objects carried out by
the committee during the last year. On Thursday
a paper was read in this section by Mr. Atherton,
the chief engineer of Woolwich Dockyard, which
had a most important bearing on the subject. Mr.
Atherton showed that by a little variation in the
shape of a ship, as great a difference may be
made on the freight of goods carried by her
(that is, in her actual mercantile value), as there
is between 100 and 132. In short, the
proper shape of a ship for a particular pur-
pose, as compared with an improper shape, would
give as mush as 32 per cent. profit, or loss, upon the
performance of a ship. This, coming from such a
quarter, was a most important declaration, espe-
cially, as in Mr. Atherton's case, the result of vast
experience. It showed that that was now estab-
lished as a truth, in the mind of practical men,
which this British Association, and this particular
section, 20 years ago, was ridiculed for attempting
to establish. It was formerly believed that, given
the mid-ship section of a ship, her dimensions, and
her displacement, there were all the elements of
forming a good ship from those data, the form being
an altogether immaterial matter, and more a ques-
tion of taste than anything else. The British Asso-
ciation, however, instituted a series of most nume-
rous and costly experiments upon this subject, and
carried them on continuously for a great number of
years. Those experiments succeeded at last in sates
fying the publicof the value of form in a ship, to such
an extent that at the present moment there was no
steamship in the world now performing 14
knots an hour, which was not a vessel made upon
the exact form resulting from these experiments of
the British Association. (Cheers.) And, if at this
moment 14 knots was as common as 10 knots was
before the experiments took place, that 14 knots
was due to the change of form that had taken place
in steam vessels. He said it was absolutely due to
this change, because he would give them this prac-
tical fact—that those ten knots an hour vessels,
which were built on the old form, had as much as
I one horse's power to propel two tons, while the vessele
now performing 14 knots an hour required as little as
one horse's power to three or four tons, and, in the
case of the Great Eastern, as one horse's power to nine
tons, in order to propel them at 14 knots an hour.
This fact was now recognised, he believed, almost
for the first time officially, by Mr. Atherton, a
Government officer, who, in his report, gave it as
the result of his experience that as much as 32 per
cent. depends on giving a proper shape to a ship,
with the same material. This was a fact which the
committee had been very anxious to educe, and they
had also desired to ascertain for every pirticular
velocity of a ship what was the particular shape best
suited to that velocity. They had reason to believe
the Admiralty would accede to the request made to
them, to arrange for testing the weight of resis-
tance of every ship by means of dynamometrical
traction, so as to enable them to determine for each
steamship in the British Navy what was the real
value of her form, as distinguished from the value
of the propelling power of her engines. This had
never been done, so far as he knew, with any ship
in the British Navy. The kind of result they now
had was different and of inferior value. He was
happy to be able to mention that the form
which resulted from the experiments of the
British Association had now been adopted
by the Admiralty; that the hollow water lines,
or the form known as the wave line, were the
lines on which they constructed their largest and
fastest ships, including the Black Prince and the
Warrior. The report of the committee, now ready
for distribution, contained, in the first place, the
performance of a large number of her Majesty's
vessels, in the manner he had stated, the indicator
diagrams being taken as a measure of the power,
and the results accurately recorded. Other tables
showed the performance of seven of her Majesty's
vessels, and many merchant vessels, under a variety
of circumstances, some of them very peculiar. The
committee believed they were doing a great benefit
to the merchant shipowner in furnishing him with a
systematic table of records of the performances of his
ships; and this was positively proved by the fact
that this system of registration had been adopted
with the vessels of the London and North-Western
Railway Company for the last eighteen months,
and that company having supplied to the com-
mittee the comparative results before records
were kept, and since, it appeared that a great saving
had taken place in money, in repairs, and in time,
to the owners of the ships, and a greatly increased
performance of the ships themselves. The corn
mittee were also enabled to furnish the returns of
the whole postal fleet of the French empire, con-
ducted by a company called the Messageries
Im-
periales. Among the tables were given some
valuable records of cases where ships had under
gone alterations in various ways.
After some remarks from Sir E. BELCHER,
The PRESIDENT intimated that it was not cus-
tomary to discuss reports printed in the " Transac-
tions."

Mr. JAIIES HEYWOOD, F.H.S., read a lengthy re-
port from the Committee on the Patent Laws. It
appeared that the Committee of the National Asso-
ciation for the Promotion of Social Science, recog-
nising the general feeling which existed among
persons interested in manufactures that further
reforms were required in the law relating to patents
for inventions, and deeming the subject within the
scope of their association, appointed a committee to
investigate the question, inviting the assistance of
several gentlemen conversant with this branch of
the law, and who had given considerable attention
to the question. The result of the committee's
deliberations was embodied in the following reso-
lutions, and reasona stated in the report for their
adoption. The resolutions were :

" 1. That all application• for grants cf Lltters patent
should be subjected to a preliminary investigation before a
special tribunal.

"2, That such tribunal shall have power to decide on.