THE STRIKES IN LONDON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 914, 6 September 1889, Page 15

THE STRIKES IN LONDON.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEAV ZEALA.ND MAIL. S IB) Anent your remarks on the big strike’in Louden and its probable portent, 1 had some opportunity, when drifting hither and thither about London last year, of seeing what the struggle for work at the docks means. The matchairls’ strike, and the sweating inquirjq together with the scores of minor trade troubles, of which we here know nothing, were exposed to view. The educated p oor _clerks, shopmen and the like—were then in for the pinch, and several times did T see the eager, almost rude anxiety to press forward, if only by one man, in crowds often of over 100 in number, whose lot it was to take turn in the bare hope of being selected for some petty countinghouse billet. These are the men who driven by the competition of youths and woriien from the only work to Avhich they have been trained, and in their fall having necessarily taliouse with the unedcated poor —then themselves for the first timeiearning t he true meaning of poverty—these men in such surroundings are fired almost with a fury against the state of society which enforces such contrasts as is understood by wealth and poverty. Having themselves . in their better days experienced the luxurious ease which wealth bestows, they can in their fallen fortunes, the better compare and sympathise with their less educated bub longersuffering fellows. These educated poor become the natural leaders and mouthpieces of the illiterate poor, and this is Avhere the danger lies. These better educated men, feeling the pinch of poverty more intensely than those whose early. home was the gutter and garbage heaps, do, by their intenser feeling and vehemence, fire up the more inert, but once moved, more dangerous masses. Theu the better-to do ivorking men and artisans with their trade organisations, and other rallying points, are always earnestly doiug their utmost to better their own lot and to make the still poorer discontenied with their miserable existences. The Socialists, for activity and for foment, whenever opportunity presents, must be counted both big and dangerous, for prominent among the leaders —many of whom are exiles from despotic nations openly advocate physical force. In Hyde Park on Sundays representatives of the extremest views in every shape are actively propagating their different notions —religious, anti-religious, Socialist, antiSocialist, Anarchist, and from high Tory to out-and-out Radical. Among these crowds are the outcast poor, in their lags and their dirt, who seldom know—indeed, only when in casual wards or iti gaol R 3 vagrants —what it is to change their clothes, such as they are. The poor and the working people have not been entirely shut out from the parks, bub almost daily they see in operation alterations in the fencings and reserved places, and curtailments here.and there which, together with the replacing of the ordinary iron railing bv high, strong iron bars set deep in solid stone embedded in cement, all which too plainly indicate the carrying out of. a plan for strategetic purposes, and which yras interpreted as a further aid to ; c Commissioner Warren,’.’ the then head of the police, the easier to enforce his military rul© over the civilians of the. great metropolis, Shutting out the people from Trafalgar Square, as Warren did, was both a blunder and a crime, and “ murdered Linnell ” is deep graven in the minds of the thousands who witnessed the funeral of this victim of police batoning in Trafalgar Square. Driven from this, the most ponvenienfc and spacious gathering place whßh London'affords for the ventilation of real or supp.Qseql grievances—the simplest and most natural safety-valve — the workers and starying poor have no other recourse than secret, hole-and-corner meetings, These have taken the place of previous public outspokenness, and, as the outcome, this great strike. It would startle colonials to see the sort of stuff that is secretly printed and widely circulated among such as are now among the strikers —leaflets Which refer to Royalty, from the .Queen downwards, in what can only be characterised as terms, and which, after enumerating facts, in startling fashion advbcate “Revoltheads off *” One characteristic leaflet is entitled “ Blood, Bullets, and Bayopets !” The sufferings of the poor in various forms starvation and the like—are enumerated, and contrasts made with Royal incomes and expenditure. The late appeal for further endowments the son of the Prince of Wales will but be the load of fury. The power of rings—pioncy syndicates, and other com-

binations of capital—to control manufactures and markets is interpreted but as further weapons forged to crush the workers. Hence the union of the poor, —they “syndicate,” mass together—and the present strike, judging by indications casually observed, is but a throb to the upheaval which will follow further extension and organisation of the .widespread discontent. Of course, as telegrams state, the military are at hand to quell disturbance. Should there be conflict and deaths, the strikers will count them as murders, and still nurse their wrath. The aim of manufacturers is for the highest excellence in machinery to enable them to dispense almost entirely with manual labour. The outcry of these same manufacturers is for markets, but with such perfection in machinery, with so much les3 need for manual labour, or for only boy and girl labour, where are the consumers with means to purchaso to be found 1 Even if machinery could be invented to bring people into being like the incubator does chickens, of what avail would the increase in population be unless the means to purchase food and manufactures i 3 also provided. It would occupy too much space to enumerate a tithe of the discontented elements now in ferment in London and other large centres. The above are but a few of the directions in which the pinch of poverty is ed ucating the workers. It is to kick and kick unitedly and internationally, not in England alone, or in Germany alone, or France, but, in all and together. These are the views which are being spread, and the moral pointed that it is not more work that is required so much as a more equal division of the products of industry, and the breaking up wealth monopolies. The fitful help given by the rich does but little real good, and the visitations of aristocrats of all degrees to the East End toilers and the poor which were fashionable during the London season a few years ago, did but make more clear the extremes whichwealth and poveiffy create. The soup' kitchens, free meals with preaching, night refuges, casual wards, and so on : even Dr Barnardo’s and the like—- “ child kidnappers ” as they are often derisively termed —do not touch the root of the evil. These latter, by relieving the too-willing of their trouble some offspring, do but create demand and more prolific supply. The gravity of the situation may be gauged when such advanced Radicals as Charles Bradlaugh are counted by present day agitators as “ Conservative.” Bradlaugh’s line, lias always been ‘‘Reform by Constitutional means.” He objects to physical force In countries where there is proper Parliamentary representation and an unfettered press. The above is but an outline of what is too glaringly conspicuous to anyone who travels in the Old Country with an open eye and receptive inclinations. Moral for the Colonies —Do not grow monopolies in either land or manufactures, and sit on “sweating.”—l am, &c., J. Kenavorthy.