The true northerner., 1880-05-14

A Few WORDS THAT ARE FULL OF SENSIBLE
SUGGESTIONS TO THE SLAVES OF THE TRADES
UNIONS.
From the New York Tribune.
Here are two or three significant facts, taken
from our dispatches of the last week, to which
, we wish to call the attention OF The working
men and women of America.
l. During the last six days Is large steam
ships have left the Mersey FOR North American
ports, loaded with emigrants, nearly all Of whom
are bound for the L ted States. The number
is unprecedented.
2. During the last month the tide Of emigra-
tion has increased 10 an unexampled extent at
this season Of the year, not only from Ireland,
but Germany, England and the Scandinavian
nations. Most Of the emigrants from every
country but. ireland are reported to be mechan =
les, skilled workingmen or servants.
3. The demand for this foreign labor is still
greater than the supply. The superintendent
az Castle Garden has hundreds Of applications
for women servants in advance OF their arrival.
ferred, because they are skiliul, respectful and
neat or in other words, because having taken
up domestic service as men do a trade, th ey
carry into it the qualities which enable them TO
succeed Good homes and liberal wages are
waiting for them. Now, every American city
and village is full, on the one hand, Of house
keepers who want such servants. and of Ameri-
can girls, shrewd, nimble- fingered and lntelli-
gent, who either prefer to starve at some other
work, or, If they so to service, scorn to make
themselves ether particularly skllful, neat o.
respectful,
There is a fact for the consideration OF our
workingwomen; DOW for the worklngmen.
4. Applications are sent in far beyond the
supply of emigrants to fiji, for mechanics of
every grade, carpenters, weavers, gardeners,
workers IN every kind OF metal, etc. As our
readers know, bodies OF skilled workmen have
been imported during the last six months by
our manufacturing firms by the hundreds, tc
so large an extent as to close many OF the mills
village is crowded with idle boys and young
men-not Idle of their own choice, but seeking
vainly to find work as boOk-keepers. clerks or,
perhaps starving as briefiess lawyers or patient
less doctors. Comfort and a competence await
the foreign mechanic, while the American OF
the same class goes hungry The principal
cause OF this is that our trades, generation
ago, closed their doors on apprentices IN order
to keep down competition.
The owner OF the largest printing establish =
ment in Philadelphia tried in VAIN. few years
ago. to find admission for his soA as an ap-
prentice in his own estabshmen.. The same
rgor has been observed IN almost every trade.
While however, they eau keep their own and
their neighbors sons out, they cannot exclude
the foreign mechanic who, as we have shown,
is coming by the hundreds and the thousands
to step quietly into the comfortable and lucra-
tive places from which our own people are shut
ont.
II Is time that our working people should
waken to the folly of this suicidal policy. 1t is
all very we'll for us to boast that America offers
a refuge for the oppressed Of every nation
She has done it in the past aud ong vii. con
tlnue to do it. But II is hardly consistent with
such character Of universal benevolence that
her own children should be the only oaes de-
prived of an opportunity of earning an nie-
pendent livelihood.