The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-07-30 00:00:00

TO THE PAR isilioNEu.s OF LIVERPOOL.
LAniss AND GENTLEMEN,
1 i-NDERSTANDING that the appointment of a COL-
/1 LECTOIt, in the room of the late Mr. I'. S. Dowdall,
wi _ shortly take place, I beg leave most respectfully to offer
rti self as a CANDIDATE for the Situation.
i am thirty years of age,
. a native of this Town, and have a
/
pra cticat knowledge of its locality, as also of book-ke ping and
accounts generally. The testimonials I shall be le to pro-
duce on the day of election will, I trust, be suc as to satisfy
you of my capabilities to fulfil the duties of the like.
I have the honour to be,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your most obedient servant,
ZAC H. BARNES HOUGHTON.
43, Finch-street, 27th July, 1833.

KENYON AND LEIGH JUNC HON RAI -WAY.
XTOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a SP CIAL GE-
NERAL MEETING of this Company ill be held at
our Office, in Union-court, Castle-street, Liv 001. on Traits-
DAY, the ist of Aup;ust next, at Twelve o'cloc , for the purpose
of declaring a Dividend, and on other special affairs.
Dated this 16th day of July, 183.3.
C. W. ,A.Y, Z Clerks of the Company.
J. SWIFT, S
N.B.—The Dividend will be paid at the Meeting.

THE BUILDERS' TURN-OUT.—REPLY to a STATE-
IL MEN l' published in the Afancbesthr Papers qf Saturday
tart, and purporting to emanate front DO Masters in the Building
Trades.—Difficult and unpleasant as the situation of the
Master Builders has undoubtedly bean rendered by the unpro-
voked hostility of their men, they yet flatter -themselves that,
whatever steps a sense of duty may have dictated in a crisis so
perplexing, they have never, when speaking either of avowed
opponents or of enemies who have flung their darts from under
the cloak of professed neutrality, compromised their characters
by manifesting an indifference for truth. Hence do they feel
that they have strong grounds for complaint in the very unfair
course of proceeding adopted against them by others in the
trade. They did expect when they saw statements put forth
with a flourish of trumpets, and followed by the important ap-
pendage of 150 witnesses, all vouching for their accu acy, that
they would indeed be accurate, and that their ace acy would
he substantiated by some very stubborn facts. aving, how-
ever, sifted the preparation of chaff with whic t was intended
to blind the Public, they take this opportunity of expressing
their surprise that any man of character should think 'for a mo-
ment of lending the sanction of his name to statements so
grossly untrue as those published in a document which appeared
in the Manchester papers of Saturday last, and which purported
to come from a meeting of 150 Masters, at which meeting Mr.
Wirinna was to the chair.

The Masters, against whose interests that document was
levelled, felt it a duty incumbent upon them to submit the
allegations contained in it to a rigid examination, and the
resat% as far as an inquiry so difficult could be prosecuted is,
that they are utterly groundless. They find that of those whose
names are appended to that document, thirty-six at least
(there may be more) were affixed to it without any authority,
and many of the pasties have expressed their wannest indigna-
tion at such a fradulent use of their names. Forty-four of the
number were not present at the meeting, and many of these
have signified their entire disapprobation of its proceedings.
There are fifty-four without either establishments or men, four of
whom are turnouts, and ten sworn supporters of the union. Of
the gross number who have any claim to the title of masters,
there are ninety-eight who do not employ more than five men
each, and a great number of these but one man each, and are
mere jobbers. Besides those above-enumerated, one master
whose name was affixed to that document, as able and ready to
serve the public, departed this life in March last but one, and
three others are not to be found. Were it possible to carry this
inquiry to the extent we could wish, we have every reason to
believe that the inaccuracies would be found to be considerably
more than those we havejust enumerated. That there are a grea
many of the above number who do not profess to belong to, and yet
pay to the union ; and that there are others whose names we have
not enumerated, who are members of the union, our inquiry has
fully established ; but anxious that we should " nothing ex-
tenuate, or ought set down in malice," we have, in the calcula-
tions now presented to the public, been more favourable to the
framers of the document in question than, perhaps, was justi-
fiable. The round number thus employed by those whose
names were published, as far as can be ascertained, is about
eight hundred,, while the number thrown out of work by the
turn-out amounts to about a thousand. Most of the large
buildings are at a stand, and many of those going on are
worked by men not in the union ; where then, if their published
numbers be correct, are the men at work ?

It has been insinuated that we were making interested re-
ports ; is it too much to say in reply, that we have committed
no such impudent fraud as the above upon the public. The
character of the precious document which we have just ana-
lyzed, must convince every otte who peruses the above, for
what end and by what description of persons it was got up.
We speak with due deference of those who, though their names
were attached, had nothing to do with it. If there are those
(and we know there are) who are anxious to fish in troubled
waters, and to prolong the contest by supporting the union,
why act in disguise ? by seek such ineffectual shelter as a
defence made before the accusation is heard, and which crum-
bles to pieces at the first touch. Men smarting under the con-
sciousness of error, and of a guilty acquiescence in the wrong
doing of others, may be excused making an untimely defence;
but they know best how much need there is for it. Ihe Master
Painters and Plasterers perhaps can best tell by whom, and
how the 150 Masters were scraped together—who it was that
forged the names of a number not present, and sent the public
in quest of men dead, and not to be found, to carry on their
buildings, in order to complete their very "accurate list."
The Plasterers and Painters, who " declare that they are un-
connected with any combination," can tell how much they
respectively contributed to the several sums which it is ascer-
tained were generously handed over, by their own union, to the
general trades' fund since the turn-out. They can tell, too,
how they can afford to be so generous to a combination which
they profess to have no connexion with, and whose pocket
bleeds to furnish the means. Perhaps, as it involves a point
of delicacy, we had better do it for them.
The Plasterers and Painters (of course there are a few excep-
tions) have, by a process of combination peculiar to themselves,
almost extinguished competition in their respective trades;
and obtained an advance upon plastering of 70, and upon paint-
ing of 30 per cent. Whenever an estimate is required from a
Master Painter, he is obliged to give notice to the secretary of
his trade, and afterwards to form his estimate after a fixed scale.
Should an estimate be required from a second Master for the
same job, he, in the same manner, is obliged to give notice to
the secretary, and to copy the particulars from the estimate of
the other Master; so that should there be six estimates they
will be all the same. Every person neglecting to give such
notice to the secretary is fined. To give a better idea of the
arbitrary rules of this trade, we may state that some time ago a
Master handed in an estimate for some of the town's work, in
which he fagot an item of £l2; for this offence he was fined
£lO. For all these restrictions and penalties the proprietor
suffers. The men are compulsorily placed in a position which
enables them to set competition at defiance; and the owner of
property has to pay, not according to the general average of
prices, but after such a rate as the union may think fit to exact.
Thus it is that the public and the Masters are lorded over by
the workmen. The liberality of the former, which is thank-
lessly received, is hoarded up as an instrument of oppression for
some future day; and, as in the case of the Plasterers and Pain-
ters, is handed- from one trade to another, to be shaken in the
face of those whose pockets supplied it. We have often heard
of oppression, but till the reign of the trades' union we never
knew it in its blackness.

The standard of reason and justice, which the union has set
up, may be best judged of by the following fact. In conse-
quence of a Master, whose men turned out, not being able to
complete a building which he had begun upon, another Master
was engaged to finish it. The proprietor waited some time and
saw no progress making with the building, which induced him
to write to tne Master whom he had engaged to finish it; when
he received the following reply : _ _ _

" July 22d, 1833.
"Sir,—Having so repeatedly heard from you on the subject
of your building, I waited many times on the committee of the
Union Bricklayers, and I am sorry to say that they will allow
neither a bricklayer or labourer to work a stroke at it until the
floor (put on by the former builder) is taken off again, and it is
impossible for me to go on with your job."
Such facts need no comment. No oppression can be blacker.
Yet it is obviously for the purpose of supporting these men, and
all engaged in the turn-out, that a document, to which we have
felt it our duty to reply, and which embraced more falsehoods
than the public could be fairly expected to swallow in one week,
was published. THE. MASTER BUILDERS.