The San Francisco call., 1898-01-18
Prospect of the Battle Spread ing Throughout New
 England.
MANY PEOPLE AFFECTED
Hundreds of Canadians Who Flock to This Country May Have to Re-
 turn to Their Homes.
Special Dispatch to The Call.


 BOSTON, Jan. 1.-The fight between employers and employees in the New England cotton mills is on, and what it will lead up to cannot be foretold The great corporations in New Bedford are silent and thousands of operatives are idle, while here and there discon- tent has cropped out all day, the most serious being at Biddeford, Me, where 3200 persons refused to work thus clos ing two mills, and at Lewiston, Me, where one mill was crippled by 400 weavers staying out. The general wage reduction is estimated to affect 127 ,O0O persons and about 150 mills.
 Tonight finds the textile operatives everywhere intently interested in the New Bedford struggle, for there the real strength and the endurance will come, and upon the outcome will de- pend the question of an industrial bat tie the entire length and breadth of the New England States. The chief point in this battle will be discipline From the point of view of the mill own CT, the New Bedford situation is now lockout. Intervention by the State Board of Arbitration this week is hard ly to be allowed, and no overt act on the part of the strikers and no attempt to open a mill is expected for a num- Der of days.
 The New Bedford strikers will receive strike money from operatives else where, but the sum total will be re- served until protracted battle brings on want and hardship. which the unions will then try to relieve.
 All the New Bedford mills opened at the usual time. When no help came in, lights went out, speed stopped, over seers and second hands prepared to make everything snug and mill lates were closed indefinitely. The labor unions did little work day, except to carry out plans of campaign, which will be developed only as faint hearted WeaVers seek to return to work
 Of the other strikers little had been developed in them as yet to forecast the future. The Laconia. and Pepper ell mill works in Biddeford struck be- cause they were anxious to, while the employees in the Androscoggin mill Lewiston, simply took matters into their own hands, regardless of other de- partments. These two strikes, while on identical issues, will serve only as minor fights along the line unless the strike fever grows and they become the nucleus of a general fight in Maine
 
 is at Burlington, Vt, where the Queen City mills shut down indefinitely be- cause the operatives refused poInt blank to accept the reduction. This trouble, however, began a number of days ago, but reached the acute stage to-day.
 Taking the days events throughout New England. it may conservativeIy be said that things came to pass just as expected. II is the immediate fu- tuTe which awakens apprehensions.
 One feature of the labor troubles which may manifest itself is the re- turn to their Canadian homes by hun- dreds Of families who speak French. who flock to the States in winter to se- cure employment. Following is an estimate of the number of operatives affected by the cut down, but the ac- tual result will scarcely be seen until the new schedule of wages is tried: Knight, Goddards & Chase mills in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- necticut. 20,0OO;. Lowell mills, 5000: Lewiston, 5000; Fall River, 40O0; Bidde- ford and Saco, 4000; other Maine mills. 4000; Nashua, 5000: New Hampshire. other than Manchester and Nashua. 5000; Worcester County, 5000; Holyoke. 10000; Vermont, 10000; miscellaneous, 5000.
 NEW BEDFORD, Mass, Jan. 17-A shutdown, the most complete in the history of the cotton mills of New Bed ford, began this morning. Not a spin dle was turning nor a loom in motion in the factories of the cloth corpora tions an hour after the usual time of beginning work. Between forty and fifty operatives went into Bristol mill and twenty-five or thirty into the Whitman, but, aside from these, no mill made any show of running, and these two soon shut down. Nine cor porations, operating eighteen mills. in which upward of 5000 hands are em- ployed, are involved in the strike The cut is uniform all over the city-1O per cent The total payroll of those cor porations is estimated at s70 900 weekly. First add Resist Reduction
 WOONSOCKET, R. l., Jan. 1.-The 23CO people employed in the Social Globe and Nourse Mills of the Social Manufacturing Company and the Clin- ton mill in this city went to work at reductions of wages averaging, it is stated, about 10 per cent. Fears are felt that trouble may yet arise.
 BIDDEFORD, Me, Jan. 17-Every department of the Pepperiil and La conia Mills in this city, and all the de- partments of the York Mills in Saco, with the exception of the carding and mule spinning rooms, shut down to- day as result of the decision of the operatives to resist 10 per cent re- duction in wages which was to go into effect on this date. At the York Mills in Saco the weavers remained out and were followed by the ring spinners. The cut at these mills is said to aver age F per cent. There are 15OO opera tives and 51,204 spindles The man agers fthe mills refuse to say what their policy will be.
 LEWISTON, Me, Jan. 17.-The oper- atives of all the mills here except those of the Androscoggin went to work as usual to-day under a reduction in wages of from 10 to II 1-9 per cent At the Androscoggin only seven out of 400 weavers went to work. The re- duction went into effect at the mills | or the Continent and Androscoggin, | Hill. Barber and Bates corporations and at the Lewiston Bleachery and | Dye Works. The total monthly pay l