The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-27

brief despatch from England in recent
edition of the HERALD, which was probably
overlooked by our readers in their eagerness
to read about the Beecher trial and the canal
controversy, possesses an importance that
cannot be overestimated. From this de-
spatch we learn that the cotton masters Of
North Lancashire have held a meeting and re-
solved 'on a general lockout unless the opera
tives of chickering's mill, in Blackburn, who
are now on strike returned to work uncondi-
6onally." The despatch does not give us the
details of the difficulties between the opera
tives and the cotton masters. We presume,
however, that it is the old story of contests as
to the power of labor and wages, the rights
of capital apd labor, which now agtates Eng
hsh politics. AS to the merits of the quarrel we
are not in position to speak, and The proba-
bility is that there is right as well as wrong
on both sides. The cotton masters have not
considered the feelings of their employees, and
the employees, strong in their compact organi-
zation, have not been disposed to conclliate
those for whom they work.
The grave point in this despatch is that there
cotton masters and the operatives that the
former are compelled to unite to punish the
latter Taken as a question of duty between
man and man it is hard that the operatives in
all the mills of North Lancashire should be
turned out of employment in these cold winter
months simply because those who work in
Pickering's factory will not consent TO the
terms imposed upon them. We can see no
justice in such resolution but we soc in
finite danger in this policy of retaliation. 1t
is the arraying of class against class, which
was seen in France before the Revolution, and
which was among the impelling causes Of that
tremendous movement When capital COM
bines for the offensive or defensive against
labor it brings an issue so terrible, SO pain
full, fraught with so many disastrous conse-
quences, that we cannot think Of it without
the utmost concern. If English politics
is to become a question between the
higher classes, the aristocracy, those
land owners and the Speople, then we are
on the eve of events of momentous impor-
lance. The tendency of affairs in England
has been to widen the breach between the
people and the ruling classes. There is no
longer in the mind of the English peasant that
respect for the Crown and the Church and
the Bar and the Peerage that once was
the boast Of Englishmen. This was seen in
the election of DR.. Kenealy to Parliament
This is one of the most extraordinary events
in English politics for the last twenty five
years; for the meaning of this election was
that an English constituency, composed of
laboring men, populous and courageous even
to turbulency, publicly declared that the Lord
Chief Justice of England was tyrant, that
English law had condemned the heir to q
baronetcy to prison, that the Peerage, the
Bench, the Parliament, and even the Throne
were conspiracy to deprive the citizen of
his Just rights, and that Arthur Orion, con-
demned by the law as swindhng butcher,
was in truth the heir to the ancient house Of
Tichborne. AS it is there can be no more
distinct illustration Of that dividing of inter-
ests and sympathy which arrays class against
class, and which cannot be too strongly de-
plored.
The HERALD said many months ago that the
Tichborne case might i'll It's results be as i'm
portant an event in the political history of
England as the diamond necklace case in the
history of France. For this we were tainted
by the English press But when an English
constituency sends DR.. Keneay to Parlia-
ment, man who was believed by every gen.
teman in England to be as much of a scamp
as Caghostro 1t shows the existence OF q feel
! ing in the English mind as intense and res
olute as that which was disclosed by the dia-
mond necklace case in France. And there
fore, we think that with this public feeling in
the laboring classes in England any event
like this combination of the cotton masters
against the cotton operatives tends to widen
the breach is fraught with most disastrous
consequences and is playing with fire in q
wantOn manner.