Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-05-11
THE WAR FOR WAGES.
The Cause of the Depression in Bus.
iness,

The Bellaire Independent says that mer-
chants and business men all complain
that trade is universally dull. This is aC-
counted for by the fact that there are
widespread fears of strike on June |
among the iron workers. That this threat
ened calamity should cast dark shadow
before is natural. People, anticipating a
strike, are more careful OF their expendi-
lures than they are when everything is
running along smoothly. They buy less,
and are more disposed to refuse to pay
their debts. The effect OF this is seen in
the present depression OF ira ie. No one
wants strike. The iron worker breads a
strike as much, il not more, than any one
else. The manufacturers would avoid one
if it were in their opinion
Conceding a Point TO the Men.
Last years fight was so well maintained
that only the monied interest is dis
posed to play the part OF a bully. The
manufacturers insist on reduction of
wages because purchasing pno!ic insist
upon getting iron at price less than 1t
can be made at prices of labor, yet nails
are kept up to the 3io card with remarka.
bic regularity.
THE iron workers, on the other hand,
are as firmly determined TO refuse to work
for less than they have been receiving
lney say lnulNluudIlN anu COIleCtlVely
that they won't, and nothing can be more
certain than a strike on June 1st. if the
manufacturers insist on the reduction. AS
TO the
Duration OF the Strike,
or rather lockout, there is a diversity Of
opinion. 1t will certainly be as prolonged
as il was last year il both sides gel down to
another test OF endurance. But they
won't. The strike last year was for an in
crease of wages, when many of the best
men in the Amalgamated Association
knew and declared from the first that an
increase was not justified by the condition
OF the iron trade. There was a division
among the iron workers the first that we'll
nigh wrecked the Amalgamated Associa.
tiOn. This year, if there is a strike, it will
be against reduction, and the Associa-
ton members will not be at war among
themselves regarding it. Herein lies the
hope of avoiding conflict. When the pur-
chasing public comes to understand shat
The Wages of Mil Men
cannot be put down except at the end of a
protracted struggle, the figures demanded
BY the iron workers will not look so large
as they do now. Instead OF sending their
orders to be filled at a figure out OF al pro-
portion TO the wages paid and the cost OF
production, purchasers will figure for the
best bargain that can be made, and make
their contracts accordingly. They are not
so anxious, as a rule, to get iron cheap as
they are to getit as low as Others can get it,
and when this is secured they are satisfied.
1t is not unlikely that the dealers in iron
will learn before the first OF June that the
causes which they have supposed in exis-
tence to work out cheaper iron do not exist,
and this OF Itself would
frSE
There is one other thing that will weigh
heavily in the scale for prices. II is a. GER
tain as any certainty that a number Of
mills in different parts of the country will
sign last years scale in the belief that there
is going to be q prolonged strike. II a
strike should follow il would be haymaking
for them, at least until the strike should
end. They would have all the work they
could do at their own figures The mills
that run along through last years strike
made money fast and to. day the msnufac-
turers whose mills were Idle. resisting the
demands of the strikers FIVE long months,
would rather see their men getting more
than is due them than see their corApetit-
ors' plants blossoming, IS they were year