Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1878-07-10
STRIKES IN FRANCE,


Il =. -s.s . ~ as
In these days of eager competition il
is absurd to suppose that labor will not
always fetch what it is worth; but moth.
ing is gained by temporarily forcing it
above its value. Such imitation of wages
naturally tends to falls, which to the
workmen may be ruinous. 1t is to be
hoped that this truth will commend it.
self to the French working classes before
they are put in possession of the liber-
ties for combining and striking which
Englishmen enjoy. For the present
therefs no prospect of their being en-
do3ed with these liberties, for even lib
fHfal Republicans are 10th to advocate
them lest they should arouse that terri
BILE "Question Sociale," behind which
80 many dangers are felt to be lurking.
So afraid are cautious men of allowing
even the thin end of the said @. S. to be
introduced, that they will not hear of
allowing cooperation for charitable pur-
poses. An association for relieving Grip
Piles at Rouen must not have any kinship
with similar establishment at Nante or
elsewhere. Institutions which seem to
be exempted from this rule, and which
have branches in different places, are all |
under the special control of govern
ment, and generally flourish on state
grants -...t n
When you talk to Frenchman of |
societies like the Foresters and Odd Eel
lows, which reckon their numbers by the
hundred thousand, he answers that such |
colossal associations would be impossible
in France They would develop into
political cauclses and try wild expert
ments in the way of communism. As to
trades-unions, the conservative party
think that the law has already gone too
far in allowing the workmen following
the same trade in one particular city or
commune to combine. Whenever these
gentlemen have been in power they have
quelled strikes by the effectual but ulti-
mately ruinous- prooessof. making SOL
diers do theswork of strikers. When, in
1865, the journeymen hatters Of Paris
struck, an order was read in all the bar
racks of Paris, and the garrisons that
soldiers who weresllat-makers by trade
might have leave to go and work, on
condition of accepting the rates of paw
offered by the masters. Many, of course,
nmped At the pTdfoss1, III order to get
lew weeks holiday. In4that'same year,
1865, there was astrike among the Paris
an cab-drivers, and again soldiers were
pressed into service; this time in such
arge numbers that the strike came to an
md in less than week. We have called
his ruinous process, however, because
t sows iIl-will between the army and the
working classes, and the fruit of such
nmity appears in civil wars.
The police are also made to pay
arge part in the suppression of French
trikes, and we cannot help thinking that
his part is not fair one. There was
zig strike at the Creuzot iron works in
so, another near St. Etienne in 1873,
md now there is one among the miners :
t Decazeville. On all of these occa-
ions We have heard of wholesale arrests
'eing made on the charge of picketing. ,,
fen who had not used any threats to de-
er non-unionists from work, but who c
lad simply been found pleading the cause !;
4 the strikers, were charged with riot
ng, whilst Others who were strangers to
he district. and who had come to do
title agitating in an amateur capacity,
vere adjudged guilty of the more helm !
US offense of political conspiracy. A /;
rench strike somehow always gets =
nixed up with politics. Be the strikerslfc y
yer 70 careful, their ringleaders almest b,
nvariably end by getting into Jail, and = :
he judges often add to the penalties Of i
deprivation of civil :. and political =
lights, along with police Supervision. for
term of years. We cannot call to !.
lind any French strike which has re- :
ulted in a complete victory for the :.
trikers. Government takes alarm at /.
be first signs OF combination, and the
masters, being backed by the whole
trength of the administrative mechan- !
,m, naturally decline to make conces- 7
ions.