Year: 1875

a sufficient force of citizens could be got in
any county in Mississippi TO act under the
orders of the Governor in maintaining the
peace. We quote the above to show that he
was accurate. Evidently Governor Ames
does not need federal |oops to keep the
peace.


The Industrial Deadlock at Fall River.


We think the millowners at Fall River are
pressing the operatives beyond necessity or
reason. The willingness of the latter to re-
sumo work at reduced wages is a confession
that their strike was failure, and of course
a blunder, as all strikes are which do not ac-
complish their purpose. The millowners
have lost little by the suspension, as they had
great stock on hand and the market was
! glutted with their kind of goods. The
strikers, on the contrary, have lost their
wages, have nearly exhausted their previous
savings, and many of them are reduced to
the last extremity of distress, with hunger
and hard winter staring them in the face
The modification of going back to work at
the same wages which they refused in July
is pretty good security that they will be in





structive attempt The millowners may
safely allow them to go back to the looms
and spinning mules without putting
upon them the further humiliation of
giving guarantees for the future. The
immediate future is secure enough for the
employers, on the homely adage that "a
burnt child breads the fire." If these labor
ers were again at work another strike would
be improbable for quite period to come.
They cannot attempt one until they shall
have reaccumulated their exhausted savings,
and the result of the present calamitous ex-
pertinent will cause them to think twice be-
fore again putting their small sums in the
savings banks at hazard to be risked and
lost in a fruitless strike. We appeal to the
interest and humanity of the millowners to
put am end to this distress, now that the
operatives consent to take such wages as the
mills can afford to pay.


We appreciate the wish of the employers to
take advantage of this occasion to erect bar
rier against the stoppage of their mills by
the sudden desertion of all their operatives.
But their method is injudicious and needlessly
irritating 1t would be altogether wiser to
manage this difficulty by free mutual con-
sent. Instead of debating, it would be better
for the millowners to try the effect of concil-
iation and seek some friendly arrangement
to which the workmen and workwomen
should be parties. They go entirely too far,
in requiring the operatives to withdraw from
and dissolve their protective unions. 1t is
an idle demand; and since these associations
cannot be dissolved it would be better to
utilize them The power of binding their
members, which they claim and exercise,
might be turned to good account if both
employers and the employed would con-
sent to refer their disputes to friendly arbi-
tration. Let equity be substituted for mere
will on both sides. There is no fairer way
of settling disputes than for the interested
parties to refer them to impartial third per-
sons. Both parties should have an equal
voice in selecting the umpires. If the work
men choose one, the employers one, and
these two third, the Board would be fairly
constituted, unless the two selections by the
parties should fall upon impracticable ex-
tremists To guard against this each party
might offer list of three or five oUt Of which
the other party should select one, these two
to agree on the other. Before these arbitra-
tors both parties should be heard by
counsel of their own selection, and after fair
hearing the decision should be accepted by
both sides for period of say six months, or
until some considerable change should take
place in that branch of industry. Such an
arrangement would guarantee the workmen
against arbitrary reductions of their wages
by their employers, and, on the other hand,
it would protect the millowners against
sudden stoppage of their business at the
mere fiat of the leading spirits in the labor
unions. An adjustment once made ought to
be binding on both parties for some definite
period to be mutually agreed on as perma-
nent rule with the adoption of the system,
and neither party should be at liberty to
reopen the question and call for a new arbi-
tration until after the stipulated period had
expired The decision of the arbitrators
should remain in force for six months, or
until new set of arbitrators, chosen in the
same manner, had decided the disputes that
might subsequently arise. Wasteful troubles
between capital and labor will perpetually
occur until this or some similar equitable
plan shall be adopted for adjusting their
differences.


Mr.. DELANo RESIGNS. st is probable that
no correspondence between two United States
officials could give much qualification to
the country as the letters will give which. we
publish to-day from the President and the
Secretary of the Interior. In one of them