Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1879. THE BRITISH WORKMAN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5497, 27 September 1879, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1879. THE BRITISH WORKMAN.

The San Francisco mail furnished ns with three items of news, the full significance of which can only be obtained on reading them together. The first detailed a series of savage street fights in Canada between the Irish and the French. The reason of the fight, we are told, was that the Frenchmen, recognising the dulness of trade, thought it but fair that the price of labor should fall. They saw and appreciated the fact that employers could not keep their works going at the old rate of wages, and they preferred work at lower wages to no work at all. The Irishmen were determined not to disgrace themselves by yielding to the laws of political economy, when those laws told against themselves, and, after the manner of their nation, they argued with sticks and stones. Ultimately peace was restored. The second item of news was that the majority of the cotton-mills in Lancashire had not paid any dividend to their owners. The third was that extensive, strikes amongst the cotton operatives were imminent. Judging him by his words, none more than the British workman deplores the manufacturing stagnation at Home, and ho one is more fully alive to the dangers of foreign competition. Judging him by his acts, he thinks the present an opportune time to strike for higher wages, and laughs at foreign competition. The Frenchman is wiser in his day and generation, and recognises the great political truth that if the workman be entitled to share in the prosperity of his employer by high wages when work is brisk, the employer is equally entitled to demand that the workman shall share in adversity, and be content with lower wages when the market is slack and profits are small. "We Englishmen, wrapped in our egotism and self-conceit, are accustomed to paint the French as a nation of big children, full of lightheartedness and gaiety or of the other extreme of depression, but utterly incapable of reasoning out great principles. Events prove the contrary, but we are accustomed to laugh at proof where it hurts our self-love. The events which have recently happened in Canada and in Lancashire prove to everyone blessed with a skull of less thickness than the average Briton that the French have a more extended knowledge and just appreciation of the inevitable laws of supply and demand than the English. A persistence in this determination not to see, on the part of the British workman, must ultimately end in the loss of England's manufacturing supremacy. This deplorable state of feeling in England, and among Englishmen "wherever they may be found, is mainly due to the teachings of blatant demagogues possessing more tongues than brains, and of newspapers which, from a cowardly fear of offending the working classes, forbear from representing the truth, and lend their aid to the dissemination of error. The result of this teaching has been to set class against class, and the inoculation of the woi-kman with the idea that the interests of labor are antagonistic to the interests of capital. The interests of both are, properly considered, identical, and whether it be the employer or the workman who first breaks the bond of mutual interest, and strives to obtain an unfair advantage, the result is paralysis of trade, depression, and serious injury to both employers and employed. At a time when manufacturers keep on their mills and give their labor and run large risks without the hope of 1 a fair profit, the workmen strike and demand higher wages, or resist a small reduction. The manufacturer closes his mills, and straightway he is hounded down as an autocratic oppressor, seeking by the power of the purse to crush and grind his laborers. The fact is that he has only obeyed an . inevitable necessity. He does not like to see his mills and his capital lying idle and unproductive, the property depreciated in value, the buildings falling to ruin, the machinery rusting, and the raw material in the warehouse rotting. He would not have involved himself in all this loss if he could have afforded to pay the wages demanded. He suffers in the same proportion as his workman. The unfortunate part of the system of strikes is that the more prudent, who do not approve them except when it is clearly shown that the workman is not getting a due share of the profits made by the employer, are driven to join with the more numerous and more foolish, or they will suffer a galling social ostracism, if not actual personal violence. Thus the whole are blamed for the folly of part. In speaking of the British workman as a class we do not refer to this minority, for we can honor and respect them, and lament the system which forces them to be ruled by a majority of numbers possessing inferior brain power. With the better education of the masses we may hope for some improvement, and a better understanding of the relations existing between capital and labor. Until then the workmen, good and bad alike, will be the chief sufferers, though employers will be impoverished also.

A good deal of amusement was created yesterday at the opening ceremony of the Poultry and Canary Show by the almost

futile attempts oi Mr Tiffen. to make himself heard above the, crowing of the cocks and the. cackling tif the hens; What made fe affair Jblie rddre ludicrous was that fch'Bre 1 Would be a moment's quiet, and then just as Mr Tiffen had uttered a couple of words the vociferous notes of the" chanticleers were at the loudestvery much after the style df an uproarious public meeting. " Ladies and gentle T men, M commenced Mr .Tiffen— lioud arid prolonged chorus: " Cdd-kod-rdd^kdd;" Tlie aasenible'd unfeatnered bipeds of course laughed, and then a sharp-looking cock, with .head on one side, uttered a sort of chuckle, as if he too enjoyed the fun. Of oourse under such circumstane'es the address was of the briefest, but brief a 8 it was We doubt whether it was heard by more than those who were in the closest proximity td the speaker;

.In the Sistriofc Goiirt, yesterday-, Wo civil Cases Avere called— Murray v. Merri'tt and another, and Murray And ftridth er v. Merritt and Aiidtlifer— but nd appearance being put in by either party, tfte cases were adjourned fdr h 1 earing Until Tnursd&y niornhi£ iieifc. Tile only business before the R.M. Court yesterday morning was the taking of evidence in a case Of Messrs Masdn, Struthers aiid Go; against Mrs Barry of Taradale. It was a claim for some goods which it seemed had not been received; The evidence is to be forwarded to Christchiirchj where the case will be decided. A man named Alexander Grants late lieutenant in the Dun edit Naval Brigade, against whom a warrant was lately issued on a charge of forgery, was arrested on Monday at Cape Runaway, in tlie Eing county, by Constable Dorris of the Hawke's Bay police. Dorris had seen Grant's description in the Police Gazette and was thiis enabled tb make the capture. At Waipawa yesterday, before Mr Inglis, J.P., Charles O'Neilwas sentenced to one month's imprisonment for obtaining goods under false pretences. Wo learn from Wellington that the Napier portion of the San Francisco mail is not likely to reach here until Tuesday next. It was intended to have sent the letters on last night by special train to Featherston and thence by buggy to Kopua, but this was found to be impracticable in consequence of the flooded state of the country between Manawatu and Woodville. ' _ The train to Napier last night was considerably delayed through an accident that occurred to the engine when the train was at Waipukurau, and which necessitated procuring another engine before the train could come on. We are requested to state that Miss Fidler will give her first cooking lesson in Napier on the 4th of October, instead of on the Ist, as previously announced. The Ecv. Robert Fraser will conduct the service in St. Paul's Presbyterian Church to-morrow, niorning and evening. The Rev. 0. Penney, of Waipawa, will preach in the Emerson-street Church on Sunday, morning and evening. The elections in Wellington are said to have been expensive. The defeated can^ didate, Mr Greenfield, spent over 20s per head for all who polled for him, and it is stated that Mr Hunter's candidature cost him £1000.