The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-03-09
LEHIGH'S TERMS.

A CatornaI Letter from the Lshigh Coal a
Navigation Company to Its Former Em-
plOyes.
PHILADELPHIA, March 2-Some of the
former employees Of the Lehigh Coal q
Navigation Company, having requested
from the officials a statement of the terms
upon which work will be resumed at the
mines, the following reply, signed by
President J. s. Harris, was issued yester.
day, and will be posted at the company's
mines:
The Lehigh Coal 8 Navigation Company is
asked by certain men who desire employment
to state upon what conditions it will resume
work at It's collieries. 1t answers that, owing
TO the long suspension Of mining, It can not at
once produce coal on as large a scale as hereto
fore OF employ as many men, but it is willing
to get its mines ready to resume work and to
give employment to men and boys as fast as it
can proftably do So It will employ all persons
who may be sufficiently skilled in the various
branches of work to be done without
regard to whether they may hereto
fore have been in its service or not.
retaining, Of course, such persons as are now
at work in their present positions so long as
their services shall be satisfactory to the COM
pany. It has no feeling in regard to the great
majority of men who we're formerly in its
employ, except those of sorrow that they were
misled, and of sympathy for themselves and
their wives and children, and will be glad to
see them again at work, but It will not promise
employment to persons who in the past have
abused the positions held by them to create
dissension between the company and its work
men, or who have attempted TO incite TO vio-
lence or intimidation toward those who desired
to work. II realizes that such disturbers have
heretofore done their utmost to iniure it and
its worlxmen, and that they will probably do so
| again, II opportunity shall be given them.
The company expects to continue its accus-
| toned course of justice and Kindness knowing
that this is righteous thing to do, and trust
| ing that in due time its worlzmen will come 10
zee that they have no better friends than their
| employers. It will, as in the past, consideI
questions of compensation that may be pre-
sented TO it by its employees, and will still make
/ proper allowances when exceptionally difficult
/ work shall call for temporary special relief ia
| contract rates: but the experience Of eleven
/ years shows that il can not possibly give its
/ worlxmen a larger share of the money realized
from sales of coal; for after deducting from this
| sum the small royalty Of ten cents per ton on
/ all coal larger than buclxwheat coal, and the
/ actual depreciation in value OF its inn
/ provements from decay of the structures and
/ exhaustion of the mine openings, it has not in
| the best year since it resumed control Of Its
| mines in 1877. made profit of twenty-five and
| half cents ton, and in the worst year it paid
all that renamed for wages and supplies, and
| made no profit at all It, therefore. can not af'
| ford to, and IL will not, change the basis OF
| wages, nor the rule by which the compensation
| of its inside men is deduced from the price at
! which Lehigh coal may sell from time to time
| at Ports Johnston and Elizabethport.
Although the return for its large investment
| in coal lands and coal improvements is not such
as IL is fairly entitled to receive, it is willing
for the present to continue its operations with
out insisting that the rates Of payment for labor
shall be reduced, but it finds it entirely tmpos-
iible to increase them.
[signedl IS HARRIS, President.