Strikes and rumours of strikes is the news from all
parts of the country. The dispute between the London builders and their men as to the rate of wages and hour of beginning work is still unsettled ; the lock-out on the Clyde continues ; and now there is added the serious strike in the cotton mills at Bolton, throwing idle some 10,000 hands. It is notorious that the cotton lords have had of late a bad quarter of an hour, and that, in fact, for two years many of them have been living on thn profits they made in prosperous times. Some of those whose goods go abroad have not sold a hank of yarn to much purpose for mouths back. The result is a proposal on the part of the masters to reduce wages 5 per cent., and a determination on the part of the men to resist the reduction. The case of the latter is, as we understand it, that the mischief is over-production, and that wages may b kept up if the mills run half-time. The masters don't believe this, and no wonder. A cotton Ring—for the idea comes to that—is in these days out of the question.
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