SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4549, 27 May 1889, Page 3

SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.

* Tho consequence of excessive boars of labor is tho social degradation of the toiler, who knows of only two states of existence, toil and sleop. Recent Homo papers record a remarkable speeoh made m. tho Houso of Commons on this eubject by Mr CunmnghameGrahamo. He allowed that many of the railway companies kept men at work from 13 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 locomotivo drivers work 1 6 hours a day. In tho salt works of a largo Cheshire] firm, the men work 12 hours a day, during the greater part of which timo time they nre " stewing over pots of chemicals "m which tha salt is manufactured. The profits of the firm wore last year no less than 50 per cent., while the rate of wages wore 3sd per hour. " Talk aboutslavery," said MrUunninghamo-Qrahame " philanthropic cardinals might move the bowels of compassion of fashionable chrUtiaus a9 to tho slavery that existed m Central Africa; but if a slave was rightly described as a maa who had to give the whole of his time and work for another man's profit there were as downtrodden white slaves m Cheshire as m any portion of Africa or m any Oriental country." Again there is tho case of Bryant and May, the mutch 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 Houee of Commons looked on complacently while such slavery was m existence, was that many of its members held sbaret m these sweating companios. Ho boldly asscrtod " that the man who held shares m such businesses, knowing tho condition of labor enforced m them, might with equal morality hold shares m a public brothel." A horse had a far better timo of it m England than many a working man, for, as Mr Qrahame pointed out, there was no reliable instance of a horse being worked 15 and 16 hours a day, as wore tramway and omnibus men m London and Liverpool. He considers that tho first step to be taken is to shorten tho working day.