The Bee-Hive. — 1875-02-13 (London, England)

THE MERCY OF EMPLOYERS.  The question will come up for discussion, and will have to be answered, whether employers can, for the purpose of coercing their men by a lock-out, force them to apply for poor relief, and thus compel the public to support then. It will also be asked whether it is right for employers, simply as an act of strategic policy, to turn into the streets thousands of men who have complied with their demands as a means of reducing to submission those who have not so complied. Look at it as we may, this act on the part of the South Wales eoalowners is cruel in its character, even supposing it to be necessary as a policy. Fifteen thousand workers said practically to their employers, "We accept the reduction in wages you offer— we will take what you say you can afford to give us—we shall not expose our families to hunger and cold at this inclement season of the year." There was no cause of quarrel between these men and their employers; they remained at their work on the conditions offered, and they were most anxious to continue at it. They had nothing to do with the decision of the men who decided not to accept the employers' conditions. They were not in any way seeking to influence the issue of the conflict. They had in no way sinned against the public interest, or against the interest of the men in whose employment they were. Nevertheless, the employers had, we believe, bound themselves to act together, and, according to this secret compact, these men had to be turned adrift without an atom of consideration for their wants, or the wants of their wives and little ones. Some forty thousand men, women, and Children are thus at a blow reduced to a state of absolute starvation, by no act of their own, and without any power on their part to escape from the misery thus brought upon them. We take this naked fact as it is, and we pronounce it, without hesitation, most flagitious and dastardly, most ferocious and inhuman. It indicates an indifference to human suffering that would disgrace savages. We doubt not that many lives will be sacrificed. There cannot be a doubt that many amongst the old and the young, the feeble and the ailing, will succumb, and it is right to say straight out that those employers in Wales who have Participated in locking- out men who were willing to work, will be guilty of murder in every case where life is sacrificed through want and misery amongst the people so locked out. The savage who °Penly tomahawks .his victim, or the Thug who secretly crawls 11Pon and strangles the unsuspecting traveller, cannot in the sight Heaven be more guilty than the conspiring coalowners who 10c1c-out and starve men willing to work on their own conditions, simply that they may reduce others to a submission to their will. What respect can such poor famine-stricken wretches have for in men who thus starve them and their wives and. children ?—or how can it be expected that life and property can continue to be  safe where men are maddened by a wantonly-inflicted wrong, from which they have no power, of escape? What we say of these men does not apply where the workmen go willingly into the fight, as they have the power to end the battle when they please, and who usually make some kind of provision to sustain them while it lasts. But it does apply to all who have been locked-out whilst willing to remain at work, and who can get bread in no other way than by the labour thus withheld from them. No doubt the newspaper press will treat this matter in the way all matters connected with working men and their employers are treated, and the benevolent, who poured supplies into India during the famine in that country, will let the hunger-stricken miners of Wales die as a warning to their fellows. Dispensations of Heaven may be provided against, but the dispensations of employers are of too sacred a character to be interfered with.  We hope the working men of Great Britain will take this matter up, and stamp the inhuman conduct of the Welsh coalowners with the infamy it deserves.