The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-15

Beaten and fugitive Ameer. with bread so hard To
earn and ones piano and sewing machine aud sacred
wedding ring going to the pawnbroker's shop? Here
is leading newspaper article calm and well con-
sdered the hundred Thousand GOLFERS Their wages
have been pared down and down until they can
hardly keep shoes on their feet. Remember that this
distress has been coming slowly for long time.
and these proposed Christmas reductions only
a step in series of reductions Now the golfers
asked to come down twelve per cent. The good
times which were promised every clipping came
off their former pittancethe radiant, sunny times
when every Englishman would enough to insure
him at least warm dinner with beef and baked po-
tatoes-where they? As far of as ever and still
greater cutting down. The golfers argue that while
all trades have suffered their trade has been the least
affected; that people have Goals. whether poor
or rich. and that they pnched not because-tl
masters suffer but because they wish to take advan.
age Of the general distress to increase their profits
am afraid this argument has holes in it and will not
carry water. In time of such unexampled misery
every industry will suffer alike. and one feels quite
certain that nothing but necessity which could not
be surmounted leads TO the which has sum
moned the golfers TO arms If the government can
find way to avert this strike it will avoid serious
difficulty. One hundred thousand ont of en-
| poyment, and angry because they feel that their
dleness is grievance enforced upon them, what may
not result? The argument of the workmen.
quote it from authority favorable to the masters.
paper entirely in the tory capitalist interests. is
| this -"The workmen say that the masters promised
that reduction should be carried further than the
removal of all the addition to made since the
beginning of that extraordinary expansion OF trade
which few years ago enriched colliery proprie-
tors and their hands at the expense Of the
that is TO say, OF nearly all trades. and
of every family in the country The masters deny
TINT such rromisSe WAS made l is difficult
how it could have been made. No reasonable
business man would promise, because he had
cessfu series of years and had put away large profits.
that in years to come he would pay more for wages
than he earned and use his profits in the future to
bad times In all such quarrcls. where the point
at issue is matter Of personal advantage there
right and wrong both sides. The masters pressed
their advantage when times were bright without con-
| sidering the workmen-now the workmen mean to
press their sheer force against the masters without
making allowance for the distress 1t is hard to
| spend the pronts of 1875 in supporting work
! men in 1873. It is also very, very hard to
| keep body and soul together and have
children around you the wretched woges paid to
collier, especially il twelve per cent is to be
| taken from them. One cannot well see how tho
problem is to be solved and the impending strike OF
hundred Thousand golfers. which appears to be
cepted inevitable to me the gravost fact in
| the present history of England.
AMERICAN INFLUENCE CAUSING DISTRESS.
You have heard that committee is at work dis.
tributng bread and meal, and also making search
| ing inquiry into the causes of the distress. Many
assigned-thc main reason the prosperity
| Of the United States. Nothing clearer than
| this. that England is falling back simply be-
cause America is advancing. Peace, it is
| written. hath her victories less renowned
than How wise it was in those
who governed America to be content with peaceful
| controversy with England. am not writing in any
spirit of exultation because never have cause
for rejoicing in any war, peaceful otherwise. and
I believe il the relations between the family of ma
tions adjusted on sound basis you would not
see what pains one so much-the suffering Of nations
like Germany and England, and the prosperity of
tions like France and America One cannot help feel
ing that, having had day Of sorrow. it is sweet
| once more to see the sun. But, sooner OF
1 later. this distress here must Affect the most
| prosperous of nations. If you look for
the of this trouble what do find? There is
the distress in the iron trade. Well, in ten years
! America has added twelvcfold to her iron produc-
ton. Every ton of produced is much taken
| from England. We make iron even in Tennessee
and Alabama cheaper than it be made in England.
and as consequence export trade of English iron
| once the largest item of imports is confined to
the Atlantic coast. Very soon it will be driven out
and we shall be sending our manufactured iron to
this market This makes an immense chasm in the
profits OF English labor There is distress in the cot
| ton trade. Not long since England had virtual
| monopoly OF cotton manufacture. She purchased
| our raw cotton and sent 1t back to us in
cloth, and the industry assumed prodigous proper
| tons She had a market in India and China. am
afraid to hazard guess as to the amount Of
money England has made in the last half century out
OF her cotton trade with India. China and the United
| States. What do you now? The United States
makes her cotton into cloth and begins to SUPP
| ply England. In China our cloths much better
than the English that taking the market hear
OF some English mills initiating American trade
| marks so to o Chinese market. 1 read
warming articles in tho newspapers telling
cotton manufacturers that unless they stop
cheating the Chinese by putting too much
sizing in their cotton cloths they will lose
their whole trade, the Chinaman being thoughtful,
pruder, person. and not caring to buy his sizing by
| the yard In India. where England has monopoly
OF the cotton trade. and where local regulations
would forbid any serious competition on our part.
the people building cotton mills and making their
own cloth Labor il cheap in Indn aud cotton
grows there in such profuson that this competition
must DO effective So you see that three great mar
kets in which England has heretofore been supreme
are from her and the cotton trade dies, and the
men who work in cotton must go TO the relief
Citations and crave bread and meat.
WILL EMIGRATION GOOD?
so might continue and show you how in industry
after industry we have defeated England. Our con-
quests have only begun. The victims are the poor
starving workmen in Lincolnshire and the Trent
Valley. What is the remedy? Some speak of re-
vsa of commercial treaties that America will give
England chance. This means that having thriyed
under a protective tariff we should try and revive
England by made TO suit her markets. You
that Prince Bismarck has some such scheme for
Germany. There is no hope that any treaty revising
commercial relations will ever be made between Eng
land and America TO the disadvantage OF America
England has given any other country advan-
| tagc in commerce which she could reserve and sho
cannot expect to do differently. Another remedy
| In nnairratinn shnuld not be surnrised tia