The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1877-10-13
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY
L II A ID T. : u y 10 y =
For which nifty pounds Ghe gf. % Mr. Macdonald, M
we're awarded At the Liverpool Trades Union
Congress, January, 1875.


Continued.
Although, theref, re, wages increase la
Dor does not become dearer This is very
gratifying, because it can hardly be doubt
ed that the spread OF education, and the
comforts which follow fr m it, will induce
the working man to work less hard, and
for shorter time, for increased wages, than
he has hitherto done. The facts above
stated, too, should serve to lay that fri ght-
ful hobgobin-" Foreign competition.
ship can hardly be launched IN Amer
lea, or a furnace lighted III Belgium, but
England is assured that III consequence of
strikes the trade is leaving the country.
The most trade will always be found where
are are the best workmen, and the argu-
ment Of these pages shows how these are
to be made. 1t is very amusing to notice
that while British capitalists pretend to be
alarmed at foreign competition, every ma
ton under the sun is afraid of English
competition. When our cotton manufac-
turers were earning l2s to los week,
those in France, Belgium and Germany
were earning IS Sd to 9s "a, and those III
Russia we're content with 2s 4d to 2s lld
and yet the one thing dreaded by the
Continental nations mentioned was actu-
ally the competition of the British. Such
fears on the part of a populated country
like England are groundless in the face Of
the scarcity of labor in some countries,
and its entire absence from others. The
facility with which people jump to cOnclu-
sions is something extraordinary. The
public are generally too ready to accept the
invariable anIecedent" as a cause and
when a few cargoes of Swedish ore are
imported into England after dispute
in the iron trade, the newspapers
gravely tell Us that trades unionIsm is
running the country, while little inquiry
would have told them that the one was
probably no more caused by the other than
that the railway collision at Thorpe Was
due to the burning cigars which Mr.. Spur
geon nightly smokes to the glory Of
God" The story is, indeed, an old one,
and its constant recital is tedious. Ii was
heard as long ago as 1928. when, in con.
sequence Of strong union" in Dublin,
the shipbuilding trade ON the banks of the
Litfey was destroyed. A little inquiry
would have satisfied an impartial Judge
that, as vessels in Dublin cost f3 5s Cd per
ton tor repairs alone, while i'll Liverpool,
Sunderland, and many other places, the
same class Of vessels could be bought out
and out for FL los per ton, there WAS am
pie reason why the trade should leave the
Liffey; and as in the towns to which the
trade was attracted there was also strong
unions" it is little less than an Irish bull
to take the view which was taken by the
Dublin shipbuilders. So recently as last
June the Times used as an argument against
trades unionism, that it had driven the
shipbuilding trade away from the Thames
One can hardly admit that q journal is
honestly conducted when so much careless
ness is displayed in attempts to ascertain
the truth, and when such rash conclusions
are drawn from false premises. Unions
exist on the banks Of the Tyne, the Mer-
sey, the Humber, the Clyde, and elsewhere.
If, therefore, the result Of unionism Is to
drive away the shipbuilding trade, how is
it that it affects the Thames alone II the
writer in the Times had taken the trouble
as hs ought to have done-to inquire
into the cost Of shipbuilding on the banks
Of the Thames, where there are no iruT
, and coal, and compared that cost with th'
expense of building ships on the banks o
rivers near which there is abundance o
coal and iron, he would have found tha
, the same causes which destroyed the ship
0 building trade in the Liffey also drov
the trade from the Thames 20 the Tyne.