White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1911-10-08
GLOOM AHEAD
FOR ENGLAND
NATIONWIDE STRIKE Is PRE-
DICTED FOR THE TIGHT LIT
TIE ISLE WHICH WILL MAKE
RECENT TROUBLE SMALL.

erican, makes the prediction that his
country will see a still greater strike
and declares that 1t will come with
In the next year. when the world will
see the wonderful spectacle of a
whole nation on strike. The writer
says:
The recent labor revolt in England
fell upon the nation like a bolt out of
the blue. Samuel Gompers, after a
recent visit to this country, stated
that the Labor Party had destroyed
the effective fighting power of trade
unionism. We have only recently
passed through one of the greatest
uprisings which this, or probably any
other country, except Sweden has ever
seen.
Beginning with the seamen and
dock laborers, it spread from n
trade to another till 1t eliminated,
for the moment, in 200, 900 railway
men coming out. One remarkable
feature of the revolt is that it was
largely confined to the u~norganized
and most depressed classes of work
ers. Even where there was an or
ganization, as in the Ease of the rail-
way servants and the lockers the
non-unionists obeyed the call to come
out just as readily as their union
brothers.
One other very notable fact must
not pass unnoticed-every grade of
worker stood by every other. Thus
in one railway dispute the porters
and platelayer, the locomotive en-
gineer and fireman, the guard, the
booking-clerk, and the inspector, all
made common cause, came out to-
gether, and none would accept a
settlement which did not apply to all.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive En-
gineers in the United States of Amer
lea may find in this fact something to
ponder over; 100000 work people
were on strikes, and in only n case
did the strike fail.
1t would take more space than is
at my disposal to analyze and ex-
plain the causes of the revolts. Fifty
years ago trade unionism was a
mighty power. At that time there
was no organization among employ
[ ers. Businesses were owned by in
dividuals, the limited liability COM
pany was in it's infancy, and the trust
had not been born. Trade was
booming. and, as a consequence of
these factors, the workers, through
their trade unions, for a period of
twenty-five years we're able to effect
many improvements in their lot.
Wages were raised, working hours
reduced, and conditions generally
much improved.
The Great Dock Strike.
In 1889 came the great uprising of
unskilled labor known as the dock
strike. That succeeded, as did also,
five years. later a strike in which
100000 miners fought for and won
a minimum wage. The employers
were by this time also organizing,
and, as a result mutual agreements,
Cancellation boards and sliding scales
for the regulation of wages became
almost universal.
1t was in 1897 that the employers
were first able to show conclusively
that the balance of organization had
now turned in their favor. In that
year the London engineers ina
chinists) went on strike for an eight
hour day. The Employers Fedora
ton promptly responded by locking
their men out all over the country.
The engineers were accounted the
a~ristocracy of labor; they were we'll
organized and had been the pioneers
in nearly all the great movements in
the past. They fought bravely, but
in the end they were starved into sub
mission. The bosses won.
The same has been true of nearly
every trade dispute of any magni-
tude since. In addition to organic
ing on trade union lines for mutual
support, the capitalists had also been
amalgamating their business. In
shipbuilding, mining, iron and steel
making, rings and trusts controlling
millions of pounds of capital had
supplanted the old individual en-
ployers, and a great chasm yawned
between the worker and employer.
Capital had become powerful, AFRO
CANT, and oppressive, while labor
groaned under a sense of hopeless
pnGc