The Potteries Examiner : — 1871-03-24 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

TETE P 01774 OF STAFPORDSIIIRE.  The altide to which we referred last week upon the above question, and which spoke of the amount of money earned in the potting trade; alm contains the following paragraph: . • .  tro°eicutZ el-ch occuring about thirty years ago may be regarded as, in a sense, turning points in the history of the district. In 1837, yearo of latent hostility between the manufacturere and their hands manifested itself in a „vecral strike, which lasted six months, and innided incalculable misery on the population. No strike of importance has since taken place, anti there is good reason to hope none will ever occur again, a Board of Arbitration and Conciliation having been established with the concurrence of both masters and men, trades unions being by no means universally popular, and the relations between capital and labour being of a friendly and intimate character. Since the great strike the district has progressed steadily in material prosperity; business is conducted on sound and sober principles, as shown by Buena that from 1848 to the prow Unit, only one leading  house has stepped payment; and the operatives are now as contented and well paid as probably any in the country. The other event referred to was the so called Chartists riots of 1842, a terrible bueitiewi truly, resulting in a special assize and the wholesale trausportation of the principal offenders (Indicentally these riots gave '• Alton Locke," and the " Purg,tory of Suicides" to English literature.) Both events are to this day referred to with hated bream and a degree of awe ; the latter also with a wholeeome ounce of humiliation. The potters of Staffordshire arc etill ardent politicians, but they care little about the "Sec points," and a great deal about compuleory education, the Permis.sive Bill, nondatervention, and a cordial alliance with ths United States, the chief market for their commodities. They are steady patrons of the London, Manchester, and Birmingham daily papers, and in many workshops it is the custom, winked at by employers and managers, for the workmen to read ! aloud in daily turn each morning's news. Pity the sorrows of the unfortunate candidate who at a I parliamentary election appears before the potters of I Staffordshire dieplaying an imperfect acquaintance with his political catechism" . We heartily agree with some parts of the above ex. ! Cruet; but the writer has indulged in a most uncalled for and unjust covers sneer against the trades unions of the Potteries. After stating that no strike of importance in the potting trade is likely to occur again because there is a board of arbitration, he says as if their Abilene° had led to the amt. of peace he d.scribes—" trades unions being by no means universal." Mr. J.L.C. the wrier of the letter in the Leisure Hour, knows well that the trades unions, and they alone eetabliehed the board of Arbitration, and had it not been for those societies, though they have unfortunately not been universal, that fair rate of wages, which he series disposed to congratulate the operative potters would have had no existenee ; and he and others may ponder upou the truth that there has been no union among the painters for many years and that is the trade in winch as discover* so great discrepancy between their skill and their wages. As to the popularity of the trades unions among potters we believe that in no trade in England does there exist greater faith in the power and noes of trade coru• binations, and every intelligent potter ackuowledgeo, his indebtedness to the action of these societies Workingmen who were in the midst of that great. fight of labour to which J.L.C. refers, know that the" meal. culable misery" and lose that was inflicted on the workmen and employers in the trade luta had its effects in making the employers respect thejust claims of the workmen, instead of, by combined tyranny, driving them to a general strike. wiU well remettber an article in the Staffitrdihire Advertiser of a little more than twelve months ago, in which it was pointed out that the ",ottnd and evber principles" on which some of the employers in this trade conducted their busineas was an mettle competition and system of allowing enormous discounts that glutted the American markets, no that no real demand for our goods existed. We can heartily agree with the general &erecter given of the people of this district in thesentence As a rule the potters of Stafford. shim are an intelligent, epergetic, orderly, and selfre. specting race,' and though we have seen fit thus to criticise some ofJ.L.C.'s remark, we still believe that : his intention in anything he wrote would be to do fulljustice to the workingmen of North Stafford ; and it is only right that we should say, in regard to the i comments made last week upon the alleged earnings of working potters, that in another part of the article we find that he says that the averages of the wages ! earued would be much lower thee the figures lie gives, and which we quoted last week.