AN INDUSTRIAL OBJECT LESSON. 723 



The machinist trade involves a high, grade of intelligence, and its 

 skilled operatives earn the best wages going. Their organization 

 is one of the oldest, most compact, and best disciplined in the island. 

 Its leaders are men of brains, discretion, and nerve. In deliberate 

 preparation for this great contest, the organization had accumulated 

 a maintenance fund of nearly two million dollars. They have been 

 sustained by many evidences of popular sympathy, including gener- 

 ous contributions to their funds, and they have been careful to so 

 conduct themselves as to win rather than alienate public support. 



They have regarded themselves as the chosen champions of what 

 is known as the " new unionism," and they knew that the whole 

 status of trades-unionism in the immediate future of English in- 

 dustry turned upon their success or failure. It has thus been, on 

 the part of the engineers, something in the nature of a vicarious 

 struggle. They were giving battle for an abstract proposition, 

 deemed by them vital to the future well-being of organized labor, 

 not merely or chiefly their own group, but all branches of organized 

 labor in England and everywhere. However widely we may differ 

 with these men, however impossible and impracticable we may regard 

 their demands, we must feel a genuine admiration for the grit and 

 doggedness with which they have carried on a battle which for many 

 months past has been seen to be hopeless. If they have failed, and 

 failed disastrously, it is only fair to say for them that they have failed 

 through no lack of courage or endurance. 



On the other hand, let us look at the attitude of the employers, 

 and the reasons which underlie it. Erom their point of view it was 

 a struggle for existence, for the right to continue the industries in 

 which their fortunes and future are embarked. To fully under- 

 stand this it is necessary to explain the ostensible and the real reasons 

 of the lockout. It was precipitated on July 24th last, by the formal 

 demand of the London branch of the engineers for the eight-hour 

 day. This demand was the logical aftermath of the successful strike 

 of the engineers for the nine-hour day back in 1870; the Amalga- 

 mated Association having been successful in that movement, it was 

 the natural agency through which the eight-hour movement, upon 

 which English trades-unionism has now resolved, should be pushed 

 to an issue. The original demand for eight hours was confined to 

 the London shops in accordance with the well-known trade-unionist 

 plan of campaign. The iron masters of the provinces, realizing 

 that the success of the movement in London must inevitably extend 

 the eight-hour day to all the iron establishments of the kingdom, 

 made common cause, and combined to lock out their employees 

 pending the settlement of the London difficulty. The collision be- 

 ing inevitable, they determined to force into it certain other quea- 



