THE OLDHAM STRIKE.
STRIKES are often so rashly undertaken, and their positive results, in the shape of pecuniary loss and household suffer- ing, so palpable, that we are too apt to forget that they may have a good as well as an evil side, and to ignore the high qualities
of endurance and self-sacrifice they frequently call forth. Consider, for instance, the strike now going on at Oldham. As we pointed out shortly after it began, this strike arose from a difference of opinion, probably more apparent than real, between employers and employed as to the best means of relieving their trade from the difficulties into which it had drifted. The masters thought this could best be done by lowering wages 10 pm. cent. ; the operatives, on the other hand, being persuaded that the trouble came from over- production, proposed to reduce the working-time by a third, and their wages by 5 per cent. The adoption of this expedient would have diminished their earnings something like 40 per cent..; but as the employers did not see their way to accept it, the men went out on strike. Neither party seemed much averse from this solution of the difficulty, and there was a tacit understanding that if the stoppage produced the desired effect, and increased the margin between cotton and yarn to a paying point, work should be resumed at old rates. So far both have been disappointed ; for albeit the strike is now in its eleventh week, and the production of yarn has been diminished to the extent of one hundred and ten million pounds, busi- ness is still so bad that even spinners elsewhere than at Oldham have found it necessary to curtail their output, and short-time is becoming general throughout the cotton manu- facturing districts. There can be no question, however, that the men were less at fault in their diagnosis of the disease and conception of a remedy than the masters. If after a stoppage of nearly three months the yam-market is still stagnant, what would have been its condition had the Oldham mills gone on full swing Their production would have been simply unsaleable, their losses so enormous that the 10 per cent. saving in wages would have appeared by comparison altogether insignificant. The fact is incontestable, and is fully recognised by the experts whose contributions on the subject have appeared in the local papers. It is, indeed, as certain as anything which has not actually come to pass well can be, that the action of the operatives has saved Oldham from a great disaster; for it is now evident that had there not been a summary and general stoppage of machinery, many of the limited liability mills must have come to utter grief. Of this the operatives are fully aware ; and they have just refused to go in at a reduction of 10 per cent. for three months only, mainly on the ground that the stoppage is only now beginning to affect prices, and that if full-time were resumed, business would soon be as bad as ever. They may eventually be con- strained to close with this compromise, but they will accept it reluctantly and under strong protest.
As for the wisdom of the operatives in thus acting, there may be a difference of opinion ; but there can be none as to the steadfastness and resolution, we might almost say the heroism, they are displaying. For the strike is entailing severe and widespread suffering on all concerned. Of the twenty-five thousand people whom it has thrown out of work, not more than about three thousand are being supported by the Spinners' Union, and these are nearly all adult men, many of them heads of families who are idle like themselves. The earnings of a self-actor minder when times are good often exceed thirty shillings a week, and a man with two or three children in full work may easily make from £2 to £3. Assuming that he receives fifteen shillings per week from the Union, the difference repre- sents a diminution of income equal to from 50 to 75 per cent. In other words, twenty-five thousand people have to live on less than half the sum which a few weeks ago three or four thousand of their number were receiving. Rather than accept a com- promise which would relieve them from a grievous strain and put money in their pockets, but is repugnant to their sense of justice and their notion of expediency, these Oldham factory-hands are voluntarily submitting to privations hardly leas cruel than those which are borne by the inhabitants of a beleagured garrison during the stress of a stringent blockade. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that in thus acting they have no other motive than the improvement of trade. They know by experience that a reduction in wages, once con- ceded, is not easily recovered ; they believe that the proposed drop is greater than the circumstances warrant, and that, after the sacrifices they have made, it ought not to be demanded, the more especially as in their opinion it would benefit consumers and middle-men much more than their own em- ployers. They believe, in short, that they are resisting an injustice ; and so long as they are able to hold out in any fashion, refuse to yield. This is the character the contest is now assuming, and which is imparting to it a bitterness from which it was beforetime free. "It is a pity that the workpeople have to undergo such priva- tions in defence of what is near and dear to their very existence ; and it would appear that they are doomed to be kept down in the social scale of life to satisfy the cravings of those who have become capitalists in a small way." Thus writes the Cotton Factory Times ; and while we deeply regret the spirit which this observation bespeaks, it is impossible to deny that the operatives have much to say for themselves, and that they deserve all the indulgence which it is in the power of their employers to bestow, and which we trust they will receive. Oldham is far from being the only part of the cotton manufacturing districts which is suffering from the pressure of the times. In Rossendale, trade is described as being in a wretched condition." In the whole valley there are no fewer than forty factories idle out of one hundred, and three thousand hands have to live as they can. As, moreover, the remaining concerns are running short-time, the earnings of the whole body of operatives are greatly reduced. From other parts of the country—Accrington, Blackburn, Preston, Chorley, Clayton-le-Moors, Huddersfield (Yorkshire), Glossop (Derby- shire)--come similar Job's tidings of strikes, short-time, closed mills, idle hands, and general distress. The falling-off in the Excise returns is almost certainly in great measure due to the diminished purchasing power of the vast population who depend for the means of living on our greatest industry. It is, we fear, too sudden and too considerable to be ascribed mainly, or even in part, either to the influence of teetotalism or the preaching of the Salvation Army.
These are circumstances which must be taken into considera- tion by politicians, and it is an interesting question how the state of things described is likely to affect the Elections. The ordinary and logical results of distress are to create discontent and strengthen the party of Progress and Reform ; and the natural desire of the operative classes to better their condition must needs be intensified by their present sufferings. But the Tories profess to have their welfare just as much at heart as the Radicals, and they will probably bid high for the popular favour. On the other hand, Tory candidates cannot, without dropping their Conservatism altogether, advance beyond a certain point. They may promise to remit school-fees, but they will hardly go the length of adopting the very Radical programme of the Blackburn labour candidate, on which we commented a fort- night ago; and Fair-trade has no charms for men whose woes are in part due to a plethora of silver, who care naught for Protection, and want nothing so much as free markets all the world over. Not the most dexterous of legislators could devise a scheme whereby the margin between the prices of cotton and cotton-yarns and calicoes could be increased, and the operatives would strongly object to readjustments of the tariff the effect of which would be to raise the cost of any of the commodities they consume. So much for Lancashire. As for Yorkshire, there is not the least reason to suppose that the pronounced Liberalism of the great towns of the county has suffered any diminution ; while the redistribution of seats and the lowering of the Franchise have, beyond doubt, greatly reinvigorated the Liberalism of the rural dis- tricts. Of this, a significant instance occurred last week at Guisborough. A meeting of electors, "mainly composed of ironstone miners," was called to hear an address from Mr. Guy Dawnay, M.P., the Conservative candidate for the Cleve- land division. No resolution was put ; but after the honour- able Member had delivered his speech, and been sharply "heckled," as they say in Scotland, the meeting concluded with three cheers for Mr. Gladstone. The Conservatives, in fact, have neither a cry nor a man ; they can neither appeal to popular achievements in the past, nor advocate a vigorous policy for the future ; and the distress from which the manu- facturing districts is suffering, equally with the agricultural counties, is no more likely to serve their cause in the one part of the Kingdom than in the other.
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