. " STRIKES " ABOVE AND BELOW.

ILLUSTRATED IN THE STRUGGLES OF A BOOT.

IN our paper for the 29th of January, under the new department

which bears upon trade, we reported the progress of certain "strikes" in several manufacturing districts; and this week we have the account of one movement which is assuming truly dis- agreeable proportions. It is in the boot and shoe trade. Since October 1857 the working people have been combining to resist the introduction of a machinery for sowing the tops of boots ; and the want of success which they have encountered, instead of in- ducing them to abandon their resistance, or to revise the grounds of their combination, has impelled them to extend their appe

and to render the combination wider. For the moment they hay

obtained an apparent advantage, in securing the cooperation Stafford, another centre of the shoe trade. But while it is per- fectly certain that the workpeople must fail in the object they have most immediately in view, it is by no means improbable that they may have that sort of success reversed which consists in cut-

ling away their own employment permanently. The manu- facturers of Northampton who might procure hands from a dis- tance, had resorted to another process : they caused the boots to be made elsewhere, with the effect that a trade in " uppers " has sprang up in these other spots.

The people of Northampton affirm that, by employing a smaller number of women, the use of machinery would result m reducing wages by 2001. a week, and that may be true ; but it is obvious that if the trade of making uppers be removed to other places, the people of Northampton lose, not only in the reduction of their wages, but in the removal of the whole amount of wages on that branch of the trade. And it is, indeed, by no means to be as- sumed that the immediate loss upon the reduction of wages in a particular department of the trade would not be compensated by an increase of employment and of wages in another way. The introduction of the handloom was resisted by the weavers as tending to supersede their employment; whereas an easy employ- ment was offered to an enormously increased multitude ; and why because the reduction in the price of the manufactured article first of all placed it at the disposal of much larger num- bers, and, then by improving the quality of the article, rendered it more attractive to still greater numbers. The costume of our humbler classes now, with their Sunday silks merinos, or al- pacas, resembles that of many a lady in the middle-class not many generations back; and the weavers of Lancashire as a body make far larger amounts in working for "the million" than they did for the few. More recently the sewing machine, which we long

- since described at some length in our own paper, has destroyed the starving occupation of the sempstress immortalized by Hood in those deadly verses ; has created a new kind of occupation for women working at the machine besides rendering household work at the needle much less laborious; and has moreover re- deemed from its most degrading, because cruel, influences the work-room of the clothing contractor. Every improvement in the means of production ends by increasing the wealth of the great body of society, facilitating employment and rendering the reciprocal exchange larger for each party.

We had already written this paper when we received an admi- rable article on the same subject in the Daily News obviously from that pen which has illustrated the truths of polities]. economy, so that they stand forth like sculpture in the noonday sun and we cannot better help our own purpose than by borrowing the passage most close to the one question of the boot. The writer admits that the illustration is taken amid favourable circumstances, but the principle is the same whatever may be the obscurity occasioned by local complications-

" It was in America that the new machine was first extensively applied to use. There is a town in America—in Massachusets—where almost every resi- dent is (or was some time since) a shoemaker—bringing up his children to make shoes also. In that town of Lynn, there was a kind of offset to every dwelling—like a little school-house ; it was the workshop where the family made shoes in winter. In summer, father and sons applied themselves to fishing, and to the tillage of a bit of land, while the women persevered in their shoe-binding. The method was for the leather to be cut out at the warehouse, and carried home to be made. There was scarcely a town in the Union which was not supplied with Lynn shoes ; and the people were highly prosperous, investing their surplus gains in the purchase of land, or in building dwellings, or extending their fishery. But the day came when the new Sewing-machine was talked about, and their prospects were altered. There is no evidence that they made any useless attempts to quash the in- vention. Everywhere the workpeople seem to have adapted themselves to the change at the earliest possible moment, to save the trade. For a long time to come there must be such a demand for shoes and boots in America, that any town which most readily adopts improvements, is pretty sure to keep the lead in the manufacture ; and as Lynn is still spoken of as the great seat of the shoe-manufacture, it is pretty clear that it is turning the new invention to its advantage, instead of letting the trade depart to other places by keeping up the price of their article.

"Within one generation, the place has gained a population of shoemakers three times as large as the total former population ; and there will be shoe- making for more thousands to do in the next generation, if they keep the lead in the manufacture by producing as good and cheap an article as mo- dern skill can produce." • •

"There are houses in London now where from seventy to ninety sewing- machines each are at work, each machine doing the work of fifteen pairs of hands. Can such a discovery be stopped? And when it is found that the machine does the work of the awl as well as the needle, can that use of it be stopped It is impossible."

Political economy and those especial experiences agree in con- firming one argument,—that the working classes gain by the employment of machinery ; and the further experience of other trades equally illustrates the danger, that by resisting improve- ment the working classes may drive away the traffic from their own homes. Thus Coventry has lost a large portion of her black riband trade to Derby ; the strike of the weavers of Preston has injured their employers, but themselves more painfully, for capital can migrate more easily than the million can • and Stour- bridge is threatened with a migration of its glass trade, while the employers are likely enough to introduce foreign hands to under- take the work which the native hands refuse.

There is, however, another side to this story. If we censure the working classes for combining to keep down, improvements, they may very justly turn round upon us and say that the high- est authority in the land, that which regulates society and is the example, has equally combined to check improvements ; and we find the illustration in the very trade that we • are now considering—the boot trade. Let us tell this Tale of the Root,—that nether article of clothing almost as much oppressed as the country which metaphorically bears its name. About twenty years ago there was in the town of Edinburgh a very in- telligent man engaged in the business of making boots, whose in- tellect was struck by the fact that, like the Chinese, we advanced people of the British Isles caused our feet to be fitted to our boots instead of fitting our boots to our feet. When the foot is placed fiat on the ground the measure of it from the tip of the toe to the perpendicular line of the heel is less than when, in walking with the body advanced before the foot, the toe remains upon the ground bent and the heel is elevated ; but, ordered to "fit," the foot, and the more favoured if he makes the booted foot look prettily small, the bootmaker cramps the expansive bone of the instep and toes into a fixed boundary. Recent physiology has shown that the body and limbs grow through the whole of life, insomuch that dwarfs who have be- come adults before rising above two feet have grown to be three feet and a half or more before death ; and the increased weight and breadth which are observable in most men are the result of this lifelong growth. The Edinburgh bootmaker considered how the universal fault might be remedied. He made the vamp or upper leather to fit the arch of the tarsus, where the bones are fixed ; allowing space for the more expansive metatarsal and digital portions ; and under the hollow of the foot between the upper leather and the sole he introduced an elastic piece which yielded as the under circumference of the foot was stretched in the act of walking. Thus the boot became capable of adjusting itself to the limb in its various positions.

It was precisely the article for any walking class of men, most especially for the soldier ; and the inventor applied to the Adju- tant-General of that day. The Adjutant-General applauded, but referred the matter officially to the Commander-in-Chief. The approval still came, but it assumed the cool tone of all official re- cognitions ; and the inventor was instructed to send boots to one re- giment for trial. After long delay the Colonel of that regiment backed out; and at a much later date the inventor learned that the clothing Colonels in those days made a large percentage on the necessaries furnished by the regular Army Clothiers. The perse- vering man,—too persevering for military etiquette,—went straight to head quarters, at the Horse Guards ; and the Adjutant- General undertook to try 150 pairs in his own regiment—his Lieutenant-Colonel being favourable. Here was an opportunity, but the Army Clothiers to the regiment discovered that their order was 150 pairs short of the usual complement, and the Ad- jutant-General's order was withdrawn. Subsequently the matter was carried by appeal to the Iron Duke, to the Secretary at War, and to other officials. This brief recital tells the tale of many years, during which there were many reports ; and the persevering man came to be regarded as that horror of public departments, "a

bore" with a " right " or a "grievance." Now he had really an immense improvement to propose ; but what then ?—he was dis- turbing "the system." One gallant officer in high authority told the inventor that he had got rid of all " pests " and annoyers but one, our Edinburgh friend,.—and that he should very soon:get rid of him too.

The official reports grew more and more unfavourable ; but the man went on until at last the whole subject of Army clothing came before the House of Commons. Well ! here, you would think, it ended ? No such thing. The old system of Army clothing has been upset, but the old boots are still worn ; and a gallant Colonel has lately declared that common soldiers do not need such " luxuries " as any boot but the old foot-vice. It is indeed remarkable that Ministers of State, in their individual ca- pacity,—yea, even those who are in the very highest posts of au- thority, have tried the boots, approved the make, and moreover relished the joke of the whole story ; but "the system" goes on. Whitehall furnishes the counterpart to Northampton and Stafford. The "Circumlocution Office" presents a grand bulwark, behind which the official obstructives take shelter; but it is only an accidental advantage : in their ease the principle and motive are the same as at Northampton. It is the fact that no honest interest, not even in the Army, could be injured by establishing improvement ; but gentlemen with the most magnificent of epau- lettes, and gentlemen holding Army contracts, think that their interests are menaced ; and they have all along been as much "on strike" against Mr. Dowie and his improved boot, as the men of the boot and shoe districts are on strike against machine- sewn tops.