LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
TWO MORALS FROM HULL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The history of the recent strike, however it terminates, will have taught all observant persons two things which they will do well to remember, and to enforce upon public attention. These are :—(1.) What we might expect, on the very possible occasion of any great "labour-struggle" in the Metropolis, in case the London County Council, with the Progressive Party in the majority, had control of the Metropolitan Police. The law would be inefficiently enforced, or not enforced at all, wherever the effect of the employment of soldiers, or military, would be (incidentally) to "crush Unionism." (2.) It is now frankly contended—perhaps one should say admitted—that violence, or at least terrorism, is the recognised "sanction" of Trades-Union doctrines. Otherwise, how could we find the inhabitants of a country which has not yet exhausted all the resources of civilisation, calmly acquiescing, for example, in the prospect that it is, and must remain, impossible for "free labourers" to live—i.e., to be secure of life and property—in the town of Hull?
If the logic of " Unionism " fails to commend itself to large
numbers of working men, are we going to allow Union leaders to exercise, by means of what is called 'picketing," a tyranny more absolute and less excusable than the old-fashioned. "press-gang" P—I am, Sir, &c., 2 The net Place, Temple Bar. G. H. POWELL.
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