An interesting letter was addressed to Thursday's Times by four
gentlemen who have themselves carefully examined into the grievances which have caused the strike amongst Bryant and May's match-girls,—two of them writing from Toynbee Hall (Mr. A. P. Laurie and Mr. Arthur G. L. Rogers), the third (Mr. H. Llewellyn Smith) from 28 Com- mercial Street, E., and the fourth (Mr. Arthur G. Stevenson) from 60 Stanhope Buildings, Southwark. The general drift of the letter is that wages,—originally low,—have recently been reduced for at least three classes of match-girls, and now (in summer) hardly yield six shillings a week,—though they may yield double that in winter,—that heavy fines are imposed, often without any cause proved against the girls, and that these are deducted from their wages ; and that the gates are closed within five minutes of the time of beginning work, so that lateness means the loss of half-a-day's wages. Sharp discipline of this kind seems to us quite fair, but a positive lowering of wages already so low,—and in one case excused by a deduction to pay for help which is no longer given,—can only be justified, if at all, by a real fall in profits, for which, we suppose, in the case of this prosperous match-factory, there is no evidence.
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