* * It is characteristic of the state of the
wage market that the Covent Garden porters are already being paid con- siderably more than is earned by skilled engineers. There is a steady flow of skilled men from the engineering shops— or perhaps we should rather say of men who ought to be at work in the engineering shops to America. Mr. Bevin, who has been very active in leading the porters' cause, always relies upon using public incon- venience as a means of pressure for ending a dispute.
But in this case the amount of inconvenience must have disappointed him. Producers have to an appreciable extent (and no doubt the tendency will increase-) been avoiding Covent Garden Market as a distributing centre• altogether, and have been sending their goods direct to wholesalers, to local markets, and to the larger- retailers. If it• is shown that a middleman can successfully be cut out, that middleman is not likely to be restored. " The confused and unorganized ana- chronism," as Lord Linlithgow's Report called Covent Garden. Market, will find that some of the trade now lost will never be regained.
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