The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-18 00:00:00

TRADE DISPUTES IN THE IRON
DISTRICTS.

The following letter from Mr. Samuelson, M.P., appears
n the Times :

" Sir,—Your columns are again being filled with reports
of trade disputes in the iron districts, as usual, but now
also among the colliers. In the present depressed state
)f trade the men will probably be compelled to give
way, just as the masters were obliged in the greater
number of cases, after a struggle, to submit to an ad-
vance of wages when coal and iron were in greater
demand. If these disputes were confined to the im-
mediate locality in which an advance of wages is de-
manded, or a reduction enforced, the ill-blood created, the
capital destroyed, the hunger endured by women and
children and subsidiary labourers would be sad enough.
But the evil does not end here. The men seek and obtain
sympathy from their fellows throughout Great Britain, and
the masters unite for defence, if not for aggression, until
every local contest becomes a war of capital against
labour, not only in Lancashire or in Staffordshire, but
over the length and breadth of the land. Thus
the country suffers equally whenever the demand for
labour increases and when it slackens. When
strikes or lock-outs have lasted for months it is
usual for some gentleman of great benevolence, but gene-
rally possessing little knowledge of the relative strength
of the contending parties, to offer his mediation,•which
is thankfully accepted by those who feel themselves
worsted, and contemptuously declined as an improper in-
terference by the winners. Such mediation is rarely of
more use than would have resulted if some philanthropist
had interfered (luring the cotton famine between the
merchants of Liverpool and the spinners of Preston to
arrange that cotton ought not to be sold for more
than 17id., and had declared 18d. to be an extor-
tionate price, and that public sympathy would be with
the manufacturers unless the importers abated their
demands of the extra farthing. And yet fluctuations in
the price of merchandise occur from day to day. They are
settled by the higgling of the market '—in other words,
by compromise and conciliation ; and what is done in the
market for commodities can be done in the market for
labour. I say it can be done, because I know that it is
being done. For the last nine years the hosiers of Notting-
ham have settled wages by the mutual consent of masters
and workmen. I believe the carpet-makers—all ex-
cept those of Kidderminster, who still prefer strikes and
lock-outs—have done so for nearly twenty years. The lace-
makers of Nottingham refused to follow the example of
the hosiers till last autumn. When I visited Nottingham
in the summer, lace frames were standing idle in nearly
every factory, mainly because every change of fabric pro-
duced a dispute as to wages. At length a Board of Conci-
liation—a labour exchange, for it is nothing else—was esta-
blished. The result is, that, as your trade correspondent
tells you, `the lace trade is brisk,' and, as lam informe3
by one of the principal manufacturers of Nottingham,
' not a machine is idle, and all is at peace for the first
time within the memory of man.' The masters and work-
men of other trades will deserve their inevitable fate if
they refuse to lay aside their feuds and follow the example
of Nottingham."