The English Coal War.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 292, 9 December 1893, Page 4 (Supplement)

The English Coal War.

Starving St. Helens. (from the london " chronicle's " special commissioner.)

Manchester, October 6. Another day's tramping over the paved roads of Lancashire, still more eooriea of privation and hunger, of heroic fortitude and of dogged endurance—a resistance to o ppresßion, backed by the whole force of the public opinion of tho neighbourhood. For ten weeks has the fight been going on, nnti! now the very sources of charity aro becoming dried up, and che tradesman vho is sharing hie substance with his fellows ungrudgingly is beginning to feel Che pinch himself. And yeb how nobly theeo people stand by each other ! Churchman and Iloman Catholic, Wealeyan and Salvationist, Tory and Liberal, Socialist ami Orangeman, each and all throw open their buildings and give themselves to the work of feeding the hungry, if I could only ger. the British public to see the sight I have j witne93ed to-day, and at the same time realise thac it is all brought about by the action of haif-a dozen greedy coal owners who want to nip off one-fifth of the miners' wage 3, I feel assured that the public con science would be arousod until the voice of justice became strong enough bo frighteu Messrs Hewlett, Chambers and Co. into something like a reasonable frame of mind. I commenced this morning my daily travels at Tyldesley. This is a big mining centre just outside Manchester. I'nere are some 11,000 colliers. None of these have had aoy lockout pay for seven weeks, and all the titno they have been living on the contributions of their friends and neighbours. Tyldesley this morning was like the city of the dead, and the silence was only broken by the never-to-be-forgotten sound oi Lancashire clogs as they clamped down the streets. But the people are being cared for in a rough sorb of way. I wa» informed that last week 3,866 families I ! were fed, who numbered 15.56S pereoDS. The work of feeding ia carried on at the Conservative Ciub, the Temperance Hall, and the Primitive Methodist, echoolroom. The chef at fha first place is an old Army man, and he would havo me taste the soup he was preparing for distribution at four o'clock, together with a big lump of bread. Ail I can say is that j never tasted better soup in my life. People ?eem to have given all sorts of things, for on the balance-sheers before mo I find gifts recorded of ' 100 raisin cakes,' 'forty quartz of psas,' und 'one load of potatoes.' I also find that besides an afiverse balance of £12 123 8d there are bills to tho amount of £43 9* 2|d still unpaid, so that the committee's credit seems pretty good. A big mining village jaet outside Tyldesley called Asbley, was, I wag told, very destitute, so 1 sent £10 to the relief fund there, and went on with Mr Isherwood to Atherton. On our way there I was shown over a | big cotton mill, the manager telling Die that they wore paying ISs 6d a ton for fuol. That is the only word to call it. | You could not call it oosl, for it consisted chiefly of lumps of slate mixed with coal jdußb. My mentor appraised it at 3s 6d a ton, and informed me that it could nob bo given away in ordinary times. Another injustice to the poor distressed coal owners, and so on to Atherron, where we found the Baptists had thrown open their big schoolroom for the use of the lockedotit miners, many of whom we found sitting round the tables reading and playing at draughts. Here at Atherton they have a good relief Committee under an energetic Secretary, Mr James Lutbam, one of thoso sharp - featured keen-looking Lancashire artisans, who make you understand something of the reason why this extraordinary county hng gone ahead so. Mr Latham has whipped up his friends and neighbours pretty thoroughly, and 1 find, from his balance-sheet that he has got 100 rabbits from one contributor, and ' one large jannock, 1 whatever Chat may mean, from another. Mr Latham is feeding his peopie from five centres every day in the week, giving them one meol a dny either of soup anu bread or'hotpot,'' which is a tasty Lancashire confection of potatoes and meat and sundries. This includes Sundays, for Mr Latham think* people are just as liable to be hungry on that day as any other. Then I went on to Leigh—a big, busy town of some 36,000 people, which has boen hit very hard by the present troubles. There I foun) the most- curious phenomenon thfth 1 have yeb come across Hurini* niv ' ten week* wandering*. Mr I-=herwnnrl ■-'rove me up to the iioliee-8 ation, but- I fhoncrht tio'hin<- of this, nc he in one of Mr. Brvfifl's har'l hanzfiin*, us they cnV fh« now LaMpi^hire Labour J. P. 'a But when I I^3 inside T »onrc found out the re»pnn. In Ibe enely r\;,yr. o F the dispute pome lie.".! Dogb"rrv thoncht they wero not pnfe in Lfitrh without pome im ported P'>!ieo. Sn they enme nnd found Tio'lum/ whatever to do in the shone ! of que'limr rHstnrbances, and this lend? to ! tlie remark on this. *he most extraordinnry part of the L-'nonehire part of the look-out. Thero are 86.000 men involved, three parts of whom an'? their fami'ie* aro. and bnvej been, depending on public cha'ity for their daitv bread for eieht weeks past, and yet I question whether there hove been half a dozen police-court crises arising our. of the lock-out. But to return to our forty imported 'Roberts.' What were they to do? What better than instead of cracking people's heads, filling their stomachs. So the superintendent is the treasurer of the! relief fund, and he took me to sco a brawny serereant preparing for the next day's menl of soup and bread. Thu tables are all *eb out in the station yar.i ; the children are fed first, then tho women, then the men, and it was a treat yesterday to see the native politeness of the coMier asserting itself by making a lane to the door for a weakly old body who was rather late for her midday meal. An English Manufacturing Town. At St. Helens I found plenty to engnnre tho attention. How can J adequately write such a description of this populous centre of industrial'ife as shall in any way present a vivid and faithful picture of thewaste and howling wilderness that it really is? Imagine manufactories of all descriptions, chemical works and collieries dumpe ! down on a flat plain, and grouped around it rows upon rows of uffly, mean lifctlo houses, nob placed in streets, but in little blocks around various factories. Dividing cne block from tho other are waste pieces of ground, with nob a blade of grass to be ssoa.

the poison of the chemical works effectually killing all vegetation, for nothing will grow in the forecourts of the houses. The window plants are miserable, etuated specimens of their kind. Through these bare, dismal-looking swamps inky streams wind in and out giving forth the Diosb vile odours possible to imagine, and over ail'this is thrown the black pall ol starvation, misery and want. I thought that nothing else that I could possibly eofl after my previous experiences would be a surprise to me, bnt I confess that to-day'i visit to St. Helens has been a revelation in more ways than one. Within a radius o{ four miles there are about 8,000 colliers, la the town itself there is a large pcpui* tion of glass blowers and chemical workers, and these are all out of employment through scarcity of fuel. I first visited Mr Thoimis Glover, J.P., the miners' agenb. His wife told me that her husband had just gone down to the Central Relief Committee Rooms, to help in the distribution of tha soup and bread, i found him hard ab .work, with plenty of willing helpers. The arrangements were of a primitive character. In an old shed off the old market were the boilers containing the soup, fenced oft from the too eager children by two or three empty ponltry pens aud a board on trestle?, over which the cans of about 1,900 famished children were handed. . The women stood in the background watching with anxious eyes to see if there should be a drop left for them. The Soup Runs Short. Unfortunately the supply ran short before all the children had been served. Two or three of tho younger and feebler o! them turned away sobbing quietly, others, of a stronger and more self-reliant nature pushed to tne front, held up their . little skinny arms with their pitchers, • unwilling to believe that; there would be no portion for them that day. The children were Boon informed thab they, might name on the morrow, and thedinnera. would be served throughout the next week. Mr Liptrob, who first started this relief by giving 150 dinners daily, told me of an incident which happened on the previous day, which will be the best illustration I can/> give of the terrible state of things in St. Helens. After the distribution of the soup some 30 or 40 women sat on a fence watch-.' ing to see if there would be any chance for them to get a bite. Their disappointment), was go evident and their distress so great that Mr Liptrob gave orders to the Committee to fetch a load of , potatoes from his house, roughly wash , them, and boil them in their jackets and j distribute them amongst the women. When % they were cooked and handed round in buckets, with a bowl of salt, there was a rush made for them. Hands were thrust into the buckets, and the potatoes and their skins were soon mixed in the same manner as the food is mixed before giving it to the' pigs. This did not dober the women. The potatoes were eaten up, sk:n and all, wibh an eagerness which testified to the reality of their hunger. I myeslf witnessed a painful scene. DESOLATE HOMES. One of the women on being disappointed ab not receiving any relief foil down in a faint with an infant in her arms. Willing hands quickly came to her assistance, and i remedies were used to bring her back again to the faint shadow of life which she possessed. I wondered in my mind whether the truer kindness would not be to let her remain in her happy oblivion, and noS to bring her back again to the miserable existence which was now her portion. When she recovered sufficiently to be able to tell us the cause of her illness, she told us thab she hud come out bo t-.ae if she could get a bite wibh which to break her fast. The disappointment had been too greab for her. At the invitation I went alone home witifa h6r. She aaid Unit it was in Green-bank. As wa wont along we passed groups of colliers sitting with their backs up against the wall sunning themselves in the warmth of the sun, some of them nursing tho bairns— doing what they could to pass away the weary hours. In a row of buses situate in the centre of Green-bank—which is a fearful slum right in the middle £f the town—l found nor home. On entering, three or fo'jr little ones clamoured around her, asking for ' butty,' which means, in the Lancashire dialect, bread and butter. The mother had neither bread nor butter to give them ; but stay, from o(f a dusty shelf, side by side with a candlestick and a paraffin lamp, were the two bottom crusts of a loaf which the eldest girl had been out and begged from some charitable neighbour. These they broke up into four and gave to the children fco satisfy their craving, and then sent them off to school. She had pawned everything that she possibly could, their clothes, except those which they had on, their books—nothing remained bub starvation. The baby that drew its sustenance from its mother uttering a wailing cry, she told me that she was unable to satisfy ib through insufficient food herself. All through the niyhb it; kept up the same miserable cry. I asked her if there wore other oases as bad as hers. ' Ah, worse,' she replied, though 1 did not well see how thab could be. But she pointed out to me a. room nearly opposite where the man had been oblieed to soil up his home and live in lodgings—at least in one room, which he hired. In this room himself and wife and six children lived. There were neither tables nor chairs, but an apology for a bed covered with two or three sacks, and on it were t-ittin<r and lying two or three children without any underclothing, their sole attire consisting of a petticoat in tatters, through which their flesh gleamed white as marble. The woman said they cou'd nob starve, find everything they possessed had been turned into money. I visited one or two more houses and found tbpm all alike. These are rtpfc isolated bnt tvpicnl prises of thn starvation and distress that exist in this rich country oi ours.