The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Thursday, October 14, 1897. THE EIGHT HOURS FIGHT AT HOME.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXII, Issue 224, 14 October 1897, Page 2

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Thursday, October 14, 1897. THE EIGHT HOURS FIGHT AT HOME.

♦ The engineers' strike now proceeding m the Old Country is one of the most bitter and serious combats between Labor and Capital that the present century has known. The engineers are about the best organised of all branches of British labor. For many years they have been steadily accumulating funds m their Unions, and were, therefore, all the better equipped for the conflict which, it must be said m all fairness to the men, was forced upon them. It was not a case of the men striking work as of the employers locking out the men until the latter had come to the terms of pay and hours of labor laid down by the former. The employers assert that for some past the various unions connected with the engineering trade have been agitating against the introduction of new labor-saving machinery, that they have been artificially checking production and generally restraining trade. They scout the idea that the present conflict is on the Eight Hours system alone, and they roundly declare that if they do

not now take a firm stand and insist upon having the control of their own businesses they may as well close down their works once and for all. And m this spirit they have entered upon the fight with a staunch determination to see it through to the bitter end. The cause of the workmen, on the other hand, has been : espoused by many influential poliI ticians and by no inconsiderable section of the press. The men scout the idea of the eight hours system meaning the ruin of the trade, and point to the success which has attended the adoption of the system at Woolwich Arsenal and m other Government departments. Further, they point that the profits of the employers have for years past been very large — the Armstrong works at Elswich have, it is asserted, paid dividends of from 10 to 16 per cent — and declare that the eight hours system could be granted without any serious loss to the capitalists. According to the latest cablegrams, the recently formed Free Laborers Protection Association has managed to get the " rat " workers into some of the Sheffield foundries, and there are signs also that the funds of the Engineers' Association are giving out. Meanwhile, both sides being apparently determined to maintain the struggle with. equal vigor, steel contracts which ought to have gone to England have been let to American firms. It is a sorry prospect for British trade when employers and workers squabble m this way, and when contracts are, m consequence, let to foreign powers.