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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd April 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 325, Untitled Article

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      they say , the colonial trade is uncertain . The masters have issued a joint address , a copy of which we have not received . The men , however , have remained firm ; and we understand that meetings between certain of the masters and their men have been appointed for this week , which are very likely to result in a virtual concession of the demands made by the men , at least so far as those masters are concerned . Others of the masters will probably join that secession ; and before we go to press an advantageous change may have taken place in the posture of the affair .

      We have the less doubt on that subject , because we are convinced that the general rate of wages throughout the country has not yet attained its highest level ; and that , in the end , employers generally will have to make concessions very like those now asked of the Norwich masters . Whatever the result may be , ono thing is perfectly evident to us , —that it will be most desirable for masters and men to ascertain as soon as possible what can be conceded on either side , what must be so conceded , and what cannot . If the masters know that a certain proportion of wages prevails throughout the handicraft trades , and if they know that the men are aware of that fact , they cannot refuse to grant their payment of the usual rate ; unless , on the other hand , they can show to the men that the shoe trade of

      INTorwich , through some exceptional cases , is m so bad a condition that it cannot pay the same rate of wages as other trades , and yet return a profit to the masters . If , indeed , the trade were in that bad condition , it would follow , as a matter of course , that unlike almost every branch of trade in the country , the shoemakers of Norwich are too many for their business , and then it would be better both for themselves and their men if some of their number gave up the business .

      The very argument which they put forward induces us to think that they have no very sound data for the calculations with which they meet their men . They say that the colonial trade is so uncertain . " It is quite true that the emigration to Canada has considerably abated within the last five or ten years ; quite true that the West Indies are not so prosperous as they have been ; but the Cape of Good Hope is decidedly better off than it has been before , and has every prospect of improving greatly under a more intelligent administration , as soon as the absurd

      Kafir war , bequeathed by previous Governments , shall be brought to a close ; and the Australian colonies are entering upon a career of prosperity unprecedented for magnitude and rapidity of extension . In 1847 , the numbers emigrating to the Australian colonies and to New Zealand were under 5000 ; in 1848 they rose to nearly 24 , 000 ; next year they exceeded 32 , 000 ; then falling to 10 , 000 in 1850 ; they again rose to 21 , 500 in 1851 ; and last year to the number of more than 87 , 000 ! These figures alone show the great

      expansion of that colony ; but the emigration-which has peopled that region is attended by two circumstances mutually auxiliary . In Australia , tho emigrant soon becomes possessed of very considerable wealth , and working men find sovereigns in their pockets where silver was before precious . While numbers are thus established across the sea , numbers are withdrawn from the over-crowded labour market of England . This fact is telling in every direction ; tho numbers that have emigrated from the United Kingdom within the hist ten years , amount altogether

      to 2 , 140 , 000 , and tho emigration is gonitf on at tho rate of : { , ()()() , ()()() a year . No cheek is observed in it . In . Ireland , ; i large proportion ol tho letters contain remittances from America , summoning friends and relatives . Tho withdrawal of labour is felt in every branch of tho labour marled , at homo . . From Liverpool to Launceston , the carpenters ; iro asking for higher wages . Building advances in many of the manufacturing towns and tho

      labouring trades connected with building arc about to reap a vory fine harvest : masons in Hnulf ' ord , for example , an ; talking of f > . s \ C > d . a day an their proper wages , hlvon ( . ho agricultural labourers of Berkshire , Oxfordshire ! , and Will-shire , are now obtaining an advance- to l ) . v . a week -an oxtraordinary aifllueiico for tho labourer of the- field . Under such eirc , iunst ; anceH it is quite preposterous to suppose that wagt'H in any particular trade can be kept down . If trades cannot possibly bo rendered productive , tho working people will emigrate to

      another country or another trade ; and now is their opportunity . The weavers of Norwich , for instance , if not those of Bolton and Bethnalgreen , had better make way while the gold shines , and get to a more hopeful work or world , than try to resuscitate an impossible trade . Thorough changes will take place . This generally prosperous state of the country inevitably tends to put a termination to trades that cannot maintain a higher rate of wages , for many and concurrent reasons . The Times , for example , perceives this so distinctly , that it has

      thrown out a startling suggestion . "Almost every week , " writes the leading journal , " we have to record a strike for increase of wages amongst certain classes of male labourers ; it is time that the turn of the overworked women had come ; " and of course it will . Emigration has withdrawn considerable numbers , even from female traders ; and the consequence is , a draft from the less well-paid trades served by women to the better-paid . In some towns , from that cause , it is excessively difficult to procure domestic servants : in Manchester , for example , women

      prefer the factory to the kitchen , because they get better wages and more freedom . Nor is it probable that women in the west-end establishments of London will be willing to endure the cruelly protracted hours , from six in . the morning till three o ' clock on the following morning , with wretched diet—dry bread for luncheon , meat and toast-and-water , and the unceasing work which a " First-hand" describes , in the Times , as the rule for previous seasons . If this

      season does not see an improvement subsequent seasons will . But it is probable that the most intelligent employers , like Mr . Hitchcock , of St . Paul ' s Churchyard , will bethink themselves , before it is too late , that they had better draw to their establishments able hands , by offering good wages and comfortable accommodation as well , than be left to find that a brisk season is the opportunity for a vindictive reminder of their own harshness at previous seasons .

      The fact is , as we have said repeatedly , the trade of the country , in spite of temporary checks here and there , is proceeding at a very brisk rate ; independently of the general commercial briskness , the price of labour is rising , on account of the immense emigration ; and the price of labour will continue to rise , because the emigration is continuing , and , under such circumstances , no one trade can remain below the level .

      Untitled Article

      COMPANIES FOR NON-PERFORMANCE . "When anything is amiss with a ship belonging to one of our great strain navigation companies , a great gentleman connected with , tho management goes down to the sea-port , to " inspect" the ship ; and then tho vessel , restored by that magical process , < roes to sea . It cannot be for the purpose of discovering anything tho matter , that this inspection takes place , since it so often happens that nothing is found to bo the matter ; and even when serious defects do exist , they must be beside the question , since it so often happens that disasters occur after the most dignified of inspections . Tims the Australian could hardly keep at sea , although she had been triply inspected—by the surveyor of Lloyd's , the surveyor of tho Admiralty , and a special surveyor on behalf of tho company . The benefits of inspection , great as they are , appear to be a secret inscrutable to the \ ininitiated , like that of

      Freemasonry . But the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company is not the only corporation whoso directors Hit at homo at easts while its passengers are fain to think upon the dangers of tho seas . There is also the I foy al West India Mail Steamship Company , whose . ships sire favoured by tho privilege of carrying the royal mails , and whose passengers occasionally write homo such letters as the one before uh . Tho Medwat / which conveyed the writer , jirrived al . St .

      Thomas ' s , after a passage of 4 : 582 miles , in twenty-three- dcijs ! Tho ship had taken in ;{( i () ions 1 ) 1 cwl . of coals , at Htarting , and YM tons at Madeira ; having on board when she arrived , not quite 15 Ions , or half a day ' s consumption . Tho IMedioai / is not singular in its eoeenf . rioilies , nlthough oilier vonhoIh belonging to tho company are newer . »() f tho Orinoco wo learn , thai , her main-dock was cni , through amidships , in order to admit the driving-shaft ; and Hho has thus , of course , lost one of her principal supports . Her dock , it \ h said , ia quite uneven

      with straining ; and the fate anticipated for her is that often ascribed , though we believe erroneously , to the President—a sudden snapping across . The strange complaints of her eloquent timbers have already caused many an . alarm to the passengers ; as on the blowing night of tho 15 th of December last , when something cracked with a loud noise . The Orinoco ^ however , was " inspected , " and nobody could find out what caused the alarm .

      One vessel of the company is reported to be quite safe—the La Tlata , purchased of Cunard ' s Company . It happens , unfortunately , that this ship was built , not for a tropical , but for a cold station ; and therefore she has fittings which maybe pleasant in the line of voyage that she does not perform . There is something unsatisfactory in using for one company the cast-off ships of another ; and one would like to know " the reason why" the one company rejects and the other purchases .

      This company ought to have the amplest means of keeping up its navy . The British Lion contributes the modest sum of 240 , 000 £ . a year for the mails ; and there is no beating down of prices for passengers . Yet there is a curious plan of close shaving in the arrangements . The Medwai ) sailed on the 3 rd of one month , and the painters only left her on the 1 st of that month , or the 31 st of the previous one . Down to the 31 st , we are told , she had no captain named , no crew or servants engaged ; but , surely , this must be a mistake ? However , whatever the precise day , there is no doubt as to the fact of an unseemly haste in providing for that which is a matter of periodical routine .

      These annoyances , and worse—for several ships of the company have been lost—are perfectly known ; yet we have no promise of an effectual remedy . Passengers complain , and may still enjoy that privilege . Government holds a contract , with penalties , we presume , for non-performance ; but we do not hear that the penalties are enforced . " Competent persons" occasionally " inspect , " with what consequences we have seen . In absolute despair , those whoso business obliges them to voyage between Europe and the West , are looting with impatience for the promised competition from the United States , or France

      Untitled Article

      THE ( CAB ) STA ^ TD FREEDOM . Ir tho Administration of our country were now actuated by a desire to introduce the Austrian system , of governing the people in detail , they could not have made a beginning more ingenious than that of interference with the Cabmen and Omnibus-men . Their intervention has been strictly of an Austrian character , and they have selected for their first objects a ( dass who are , upon the whole , not pojjular amongst the working classes , properly so called . Those classes which fulfil the office of servants to the richer classes are not viewed with a very friendly eve , and a cabman partakes in some degree of tho odium which is cast by tho working man upon a footman . By a strange perversity attending on our trado spirit , tho class who have most reason to bo grateful for the services of the cabman and the omnibus-driver , and who are most answerable for tho faults of thin class , are also far more sensible of the foibles than of tho meritorious services . . For one uncivil cabman or conductor that you encounter , there are ten who are at least as courteous as the rider is to them . There are some— -more even than the rough and uncivil —whoso example illicit bo imitated by many riders .

      The fact , is , that the experiences of tho conductor or cabman , who sees numbers of his fellow creatures in their little moments of impatience , or awkwardness and blundering , tend to impart the philosophy which I he traveller acquires ; and then ? is many a savant or merchant , many a inoralistorstatesman , who unconsciously . submits to be claused in a special . sjjstetna untune , by the reflecting conductor or cabman . Tho learned trontleiniiM \\\\ o # ot . s out of ; m omnibus i' ; uw , forthe most ol

      ward , and is thrown into undignified postures in the street on Mie slightest movement , ; tho elderly , who shrieks his indignation at tho conductor because the man has not . before been , told , and could not divine by instinct , I hat tho moralist wished to gel . down live feel , earlier in the Nlnicl , ; the statesman who stumbles into his cab after dinner , in order to go as quickly and as comfortably as possible from tho folly of tho board to tho folly of the debate , and . tmporcili-

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      April 2 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 325

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1853, page 325, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1980/page/13/