MORE TRADE OUTRAGES.

West Coast Times, Issue 677, 25 November 1867, Page 3

MORE TRADE OUTRAGES.

(fbom the age- cobbespondent.) The labor question continues to absorb great interest ; but does not seem to approach more closely a satisfactory conclusion. Sheffield having had its run, Manchester an^ the adjacent towns have this month had their opportunity. A Royal Commission has been sitting in Manchester to inquire into the working of trades' unionism, and though it has succeeded in bringing to light a new series of revelations of oppression, tyranny, outrage, maiming, and murder, done in the interest of trades' union principles, and paid for out of trade's union funds, it has not elicited one half the truth. There is every reason to believe that an organised effort to disguise the worst features of the system has been successfully made ; society-books have been destroyed wholesale, and witnesses have been inconsistently contumacious ; and the Commission has adjourned its inquiry with the view of getting new powers. Meanwhile, a movement has sprung up for the formation of " Free Labor Associations." In the Midland counties and in London societies of -workmen have been formed te rcsiit the actions of the trades' . unions, and secure their own individual liberty to sell their labor upon their own terms ; and, under the pressure of public opinion, even the sawgrinders' union at Sheffield, lias rescinded the resolution in which it originally justified the murders, outrages, and oppression of which Broadhcad and Crookes were the self-convicted heroes. An international congress of representatives of labor has been held at Lausanne, in Switzerland ; aud, partly on account of the transcendental theories of the French and other delegates, and still more because

the congress was a Babel, where no man understood another's tongue, tho affair was a complete fiasco. One result of its discussions, however, is that Mr John Stuart Mill is now agitating in England for an alteration of the English law, with a view to the better preservation of trades union property and funds. In your last letter you were informed of tho prorogation of Parliament. Tho •Reform Act of 1867 had become law, and the country was at liberty to ruminate upon one of the most remarkable enactments — in history and in essence — of modern times. Reform League gatherings have since been held in Dublin, where the speeches of Mr Beales, Ernest Jones, aud The O'Donoghue were received with loud Fenian cries, and the schemes of English reformers for the reformation of Ireland, apart from Hibernio-Republican ideas, were treated with demonstrative scorn ; and in Glasgow, where letters from Mr Bright, advocating a ballot crusade, from Mr Berkely, to the same effect ; from Mr Hadfield, recommending an anti-Church State organisations ; and from Dr. Mill, putting forth a comprehensive programme, in which Irish land and Church grievances were included — were read and considered. The London Working Men's Association projected a fete and banquet in \ celebration of the passing of the Reform Bill, to be held at the Crystal Palace ; the Reform League has taken umbrage because it was not consulted in the arrangement ; Earl Russell declines to attend because he cannot regard the act as a triumph of Liberal principles at all; and Mr Gladstone, while giving a qualified approval, has " a prior engagement." The questions in domestic politics which just now occupy most attention here, bear on the future of the Liberal sections. It is admitted that Toryism is dead and buried ; but what will become of the moderate Conservatives, who have Liberal nations ; and how will the Whigs, with their cautious habits and their conservative traditions, reconcile themselves to the democratic rule which Toryism, in its death-struggle, has bestowed upon the country? Under tho shock of Lord Derby's " leap in the dark, . even the Radicals have divided, and already; as many are reverted to the " first principles" as are content to make the best of the mystery that lies before its. ('Continued in page 4.J

English News — Continued from, Page 3. I