Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-04-02
From Our Regular Correspondent ]
Our European Letter.
LONDON. Eng March Il, 1879

English labor market on account of which
American manufactures are being more
readily introduced. The industrial phe-
nomena which we are now Witnessing
may no doubt be accounted for by the
prolonged depression of trade, but they
none the less challenge attention as u
proof of the great change that has taken
place in this country during the past few
years. When prosperity was going for
ward by leaps and bounds, Goals were at
famine prices, house rents reached point
never touched before, wages sprang up in
many trades in manner quite unprece-
dented, and there was general briskness
in business caused by the large accession
to the wages fund of the country. 1t was
in those days that we heard of the golfers
drinking Moet and Bollinger as pleasant
way of disposing of their money, and
although the allegation was probably
fiction, it may be taken rs an indication Of
the prosperity of the period. The carica-
lures of the comic papers exhibited butch
ers asking extraordinary prices for their
meats, colliery proprietors were making
fortunes, and proposals to reduce wages
were never heard of. The difference be-
tween the picture of commercial and in
dusral life rs it then presented itself, and
as it now appears, is SO striking that it
justiiies n feeling of establishment that so
great Il change should have taken place in
so short time. The contrast is complete.
The coal and iron trades. and nearly all
other trades, have experienced a degree of
depression almost unknown in this gener-
alton; house property has in many places
become dug on the market, and labor
has suffered us prices have fallen. There
are ut this moment waiting for settlement
numerous trade disputes, and in nearly
every instance they relate, not to fresh
demands on the part Of workmen, but to
proposed reductions of wages, Or to an
increase in the hours of labor. Some of
the greater railways have already enforc-
ed on their employees reduced scale of
payment; the engineering trade is threat
ened in the same direction, and there are
many instances in which strikes on a con-
siderable scale have taken place. The
felt hat makers of Lancashire struck
against Il reduction of ten per cent. In
districts in Scotland third reduction of
five per cent in the wages of fax.spnners
has taken place; great strike of riveters
has taken place on the Clyde against
seven and e-half per cent reduction; at
Dundee the joiners receive eighteen pence
per day less than they did year ago;
there has been II considerable reduction in
the wages of the iron shipbulders; in the
north of England the employees of the
Lancaster wagon company have accepted
a reduction of wages; ut Liverpool there
were recently twenty thousand men idle
through Il strike against reduction in the
dock laborers' wages. In Wales the men
in the employ of the Abernaut company.
numbering over two thousand, accepted Il
reduction, after u weeks strike, the COM |
pany having threatened to close the pits;
at Preston leading firms have reduced the
wages in the weaving branches to the ex-
tent OF ten per cent; ut Rotterdam arti-
sans have submitted TO IN increase of the |
hours to nine and half per tlay,
and in the leading Matchmaking districts in |
reduction of ten per cent
has been accepted. These are but a few |
specimens Of tho downward movement
which is accompanying the depression of
trade. The general allegation of en-.
ployes is that labor is more than abundant:
that trade in many branches has ceased TO
be remunerative; and that the high rate
of wages which became possible in DAYS
of unparalleled prosperity can no longer
be paid, and us a result of all this, prepa-
raticns on a gigantic scale for wholesale
emigration TO America are being made,
The idle lands in tho United States will
soon receive some good tenants and sever
al railroad companies are at present deeply
engaged in holding out the various adj.
vantagcs each has to offer as to GOOD
homes and cheap transportation.
The people of England hal, with Great
satisfaction the improving tone of the
Vatican since the robuster rule of Leo
Nil. has begun to make itself felt Oar.
ing the last few years of his life, the late
pope WIS mere senile tool in the hands
Of the Jesuls, by whom he was used for
purposes to which. us younger man, he
would never have submitted. Cardinal
Pecci is altogether II man of different
mould; and, although no very violent
'hanges can be expected from one in his
the reforms he has already intro.
laced do not find much favor with the
One of the most sensible
llIngs which the new pope has done is to
discourage, to the utmost of his pbwer.
'elief in the numerous miracles which of
ate years have become 50 common on the
continent France, Belgium, Bavaria, have
vi in turn been the scenes of duly anthem
icated modern miracles, u belief in which
vas almost an article of faith under the
ate pope, by whom some millions of little
medals were blessed, all having reference
o these so-called miracles. The palpable
bsurdity of the circumstances surround.
ng the miraculous appearances and the 9
ures wrought at the scenes of the mira $
les, have done SO much to bring the
'athoic religion into contempt, that the
ew pope has already lent the weight of
Is authority to stop the further propaga- =
ION of this pernicious nonsense. One of G
ne first effects of the new order of things h
illustrated in very striking manner in
ne printing trade. Hitherto an enormous II
usiness has been done by the great Cath L
lie publishing house of NJ. NJ. Maine. at d
ours, who annually printed many mil :
ons of little tracts descrintiva of tho