Thorncliffe, near Sheffield, is the scene of a kind of
civil war. Messrs. Newton, Chambers, and Co., who rent the collieries there, recently decided that they would employ no Unionist miners, their terms being too high, and after a month's notice they locked them all out. They offered work, however, to every miner who would make a separate engagement, and gradually a considerable number of non-Unionists arrived. They were protected on the grounds by the police, but whenever they go off them, even to church, they are hooted and assaulted, and they can buy nothing except under the escort of policemen armed with cutlasses. Recently an attack was made on the works themselves, the non-Unionists drew revolvers, and a regular battle was only prevented by the heavy body of police employed on the grounds. Clearly, in a case of this kind the magistrates are chiefly in the wrong. They should ask for soldiers. The men have a right to combine and a right to abstain from working except at their own price, but they have no right to prevent others from doing as they like too. That is a theft of labour, and should be prevented by the law.
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