The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-04-24
LABOR and CAPITAL.
The Strike OF tho Lancashire, England
Cotton Operatives.
correspondence of the New York Herald

Correspondence of the New York Herald
LONDON, March 81, 1869.-Unless most think
ing mon in England are very greatly mistaken,
very serious calamity is hanging over the
country, and is almost at our very doors, AS
you will no doubt have seen in our newspa-
strike" as it ls called, and already some 5000
''mil hands" are without employment. This
OF itself would be bad enough, but the evil is
increasing. and nc d before another fortnight is
over, at least II, 600 men, women and children
IN and about the great centres of cotton spin
ming will be idle, subsisting upon the contri-
buttons OF their fellow laborers in other dis.
tricts where the milowners have not tried to
reduce the wages of their workmen.
AS it at present stands, the dispute between
the milo wners and the operatives in and
al! over LancashiIe-may be briefly stated as
follows: The masters say, and say truly, that
at the present high pi ice they pay for cotton,
and the low price of the markets for cotton
pay them to work their mills, and that they
must reduce all wages by ten per cont. The
operatives on the other hand, say no. They
brisk, tho staple low priced, the manufactured
goods high, and q demand for the latter in
every market, the miliowners (all of them
made immense profits and turned over their
capital again and agaln.) did not raise their
wages q penny apiece and that now they ought
not to lower them because the market is for
the moment depressed. Moreover they say,
Huu WlCu perfect reason on tn6lr 6luo, CIaC IL
their wages are now lowered ten per cont,
the millowners will never raise them again,
but that famine pay" will be the rule hence
forth and forever among them. They are quite
the arbltrators to consist of an equal
number of artisans and millowners, who
will among them select some we'll,
the masters will not hear of this. With that
doggedness and bull-headed obstipacy which,
am sorry to, say. 80 often distinguishes the
and has q com :ortaole balance at his bankers,
they will listen to nothing. 'Take what we
offer, or leay it," rs their stereotyped reply
and thousands Of artisans have taken them at
helpless women and children are halt-starved,
and the whole state Of society disorganized in
what generally are the most hourishing dis
tricts OF England for the working-class. For
north OF Lancashire and in Yorkshire, who are
not 30 short-sighted--not 80 g,aspng. Thei
mills ere not shut, because. they have not
sought t to reduce wages In these favored dis
scr1blng to maintain those who are not. The
friendly societies and trades union also
help greatly, 80 that the poor people do not
bread and tea for it is very little meat they ever
BEE except on Sunday. But still it is an evil.
a great wrong is being done these people. The
funds on which they ought to rely in time o
every day food" And oil, I fear, for no use.
Unfortunately for us, capital always starves la
Dor into submission in England: say s.un-
fortunately" for fear we shall all suffer some
day from the greed Of those who own capital in
this country. Men cannot-and, what is more,
they will not submit and give in forever when
they think they know-they have right
on their side. The day will come when the la
borer in England will help himself to hundred
fold more than capital might now content him
with. Capital in all civilized communities has
it's duties as we'll as it's rights and II it negects
those duties it will some day have to feel-be
made to feel-tnat it has done wrong.
All those operatives that are on strike are
the very pick of our artisans. They are steady,
hard working men. anxious only to get q fair
days wages for a fair days work, to maintain
their wivos and little ones in comfort, to keep
couple OF decent rooms over their heads, and
to put by small nest egg which will keep
those dependent upon them from the poor
house when the head of the fapatiy is dead.
They are, in every sense OF the word, decent,
respectable men, with no small amount Of self
respect, as witness the privation they endured
ut the commenc cement Of the civil war in Ameri-
ca, before the wealthy of England came to their
help. They would make good citizens any
where; but most Of all are they calculated to
fourish in the United States. where no matter
how humble man may be born, or how short
his purse may be, he feels that if hs has o
trade or handicraft. and is honest, sober and
we'll conducted, lie must rise in the world.