At Blackburn, on Saturday, Lord Harlington pointed out that, so
far from clearing the way for English and Scotch legis- lation by granting the Parnellite demands, Parliament would really be surrendering without terms to any unscrupulous minority which chose to make itself troublesome enough to the majority. And in criticising the "Plan of Campaign," he told the Blackburnere that the true analogy is not the procedure of English Trade-Unions, but such a procedure as the fol- lowing among an association of manufacturers :—" Supposing that in this district the manufacturers, instead of paying labourers a weekly or fortnightly wage, were to enter into an agreement to pay weekly or fortnightly a certain proportion of their wages, and that the final adjustment should take place at the end of six menthe. Supposing that, at the expiration of six months, the manufacturers were to say to their hands,—' It is quite true that we owe you, according to contract, such-and-such a balance; but times have been very bad, we have been working at a loss, and cannot afford to pay you what we agreed, and you must take 25 per cent. less ;'—supposing that they were to enter into combination to make this declaration that they would employ no workman who refused to accept these terms ; and further, if they entered into combination that unless every workman accepted these terms, not only for the past, but also for the future, they would have nothing to say to him, I wonder what would be said of such a proceeding on the part of the em- ployers of this country P Why, gentlemen, it would be said, and would be said truly, that it was downright robbery." Yet that was the " Plan of Campaign."
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