National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-04-17

more money than brains, seem to have sui
fered their stubbornness TO carry them to
the extent of stopping or unmanning their
pumps at the very season Of the year
when freshets were most likely TO come
and food the mines. five may credit re-
ports, many of the shafts and slopes are
now filed with water, which 1t will take
all summer to pump out. Of course, while
the water is being expelled the property is
Just eating itself up with expense. The
business of the companies yields nothing
but expense until September. Until the
water is pumped out no coal csnd be mined
or marketed.
1t is clear to every one that until mining
can commence very large force must lay
idle or turn its attention to other kinds OF
labor. The result to the miners then Will
be the loss of some nine months pay at
the least. The capitalists, on the other
hand, will be losers of property by damage
and expense of repairs and the profits which
might have accrued from a full years OPP
erations. But, as we have intimsted above,
this is not all or the worst Of the matter.
The miners and the capitalists both deserve
to suffer for their impolicy and obstinacy.
They should exercise larger discretion, and
select better End more promising moments
for their efforts to obtain what they con-
ceive to be their rights. That time should
be when it is clear that the opposing inhu-
ence cannot afford to refuse the demand.
Such times always occur during the year;
and the miners know when they come to
the managers and owners as well as the
latter know at what periods the former can
best afford to strike. The innocent persons
who will be made to suffer for all the follies
of these parties are chiefly the consumers
of fuel. Without being in any degree per-
sonaIly responsible for the cause of it. these
people, including the poverty stricken of
the large cities, must pay two prices for
their coal next winter unless some new and
unlooked-for source of supply should be
found.
And who will be benefted2 No one
Whichever way the strike may end it will
settle nothing permanently. A recurrence
may be expected whenever the hot-headed
leaders of the miners Unions" on the
one hand, and the hard headed but arrogant
and purse-proud capitalists on the other,
choose to differ as to what constitutes proper
rates of wages. How much better it would
have been for all parties il the operations
at the mines had been kept in progress all
winter at the old rates, and the fuel pro-
duced even at ten per cent. addition to the
prlce. Under the striking process we have
not only seen suffering and misery among
the miners, resulting in vice and crime,
with attendant punishment, but we have
seen property injured and destroyed, the
military called forth at a vast expense to
the State, and the prospect of higher rates
for fuel entailed upon the community at
large. And for all this, the stagnation to
business which always results from the
idleness of laborers, the loss to the general
productive wealth of the country, amount
ing to some millions more, we have
absolutely nothing to show. There is not
a single compromising feature visible. There
is but one way Of avoiding these strikes,
and that is by managers evincing disposi-
ton to deal fairly with the lsborers. The
labor of this country as a rule is disposed
to be just and fair, willing to work for rea-
sonable compensation, but it is exceedingly
jealous-of its rights and prerogatives, and
scorRs anything that smacks of oppression.
1t is sufficiently intelligent to know that
without its aid capital cannot accumulate,
and that therein it has the capitalist at q
disadVantape