Slavery in England.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5016, 25 May 1889, Page 3

Slavery in England.

The consequence of excessive hours of labor is the social degradation of the toiler, who knows of only two states of existence, toil and sleep. Becent Home papers record a remarkable speech made in the House of Commons on this subject by Mr CunmnghameGrabame. He showed that many of the railway companies kept men at work from 'l3 to 18 hours a day. Nearly every railway signalman, has to work 18 hours, a fact which ought to make railway passengers feel nervous. Many locomotive drivers work 16 hours a day. In the salt works of a large Cheshire firm, the men work 12 hours a day, during the greater part of which time time they are “ stewing over pols of chemicals ”in which the salt is manufactured. The profits of the firm wore last year no less than 50 per cent., while the rate of wages were 3fd per hour. “Talk about slavery,” said MrUunningbame-Qrahame “philanthropic cardinals might move the bowels of compassion of fashionable chrisliaus as to the slavery that existed in Central Africa; but if a slave was rightly described as a man who had to give the whole of his time and work for another man’s profit there were ns downtrodden white slaves in Cheshire ns in any portion of Africa or in any Oriental country.” Again there is the ease of Bryant and May, the match manufacturers. In their factory women work 11 hours, a day, and a good week’s wages is 7s 6d. Yet the Bryant and May Company pay a dividend of 20 per cent. Many other .instances of the tyranny of capital were given by Mr Grahame. He affirmed that the reason why the House of Commons looked on complacently while such slavery was in existence, was that many of its members held shares in these sweating companies. He boldly asserted “ that the man who hold shares in such businesses, knowing the condition of labor enforced in them, might with equal morality hold shares in a public brothel.” A horse had a far better time of it in England than many a working man, for, as Mr Grahame pointed out, there was no reliable instance of a horse being worked 15 and 16 hours a day, as were tramway and omnibus men in London and Liverpool. He considers that the first step to be taken is to shorten the working day.