WAGES, LABOUR AND TRADES' UNIONS. 465 



manufacturers of Kidderminster, which we abridge from a respectable 

 periodical*, who takes its facts from the House of Commons' Com- 

 mittee's Report : The history of the strike in 1828 by the workmen 

 in this trade reads an instructive lesson on the subject of combinations. 

 The prices of carpets having been reduced in the market by the com- 

 petition of the manufacturers in Scotland and Yorkshire, where the 

 wages were about one-sixth lower than in Kidderminster, it became 

 necessary for the manufacturers of the latter place to bring down the 

 wages of their workmen to the same point. An announcement to that 

 effect was accordingly made. Upon this, acting under the direction 

 of the committee of their union, the weavers to the number of about 

 2,000 men and boys, all struck and left their work. The strike took place 

 on the 25th of March. It is but justice to the workmen to state, that 

 their conduct during the whole of this turn-out was perfectly peace- 

 able ; and it is, therefore, the more deeply to be regretted that, 

 through an erroneous impression, they would have been led into a line 

 of conduct which eventually induced so much misery upon themselves. 

 After a shorttime, their little savings being expended, they were obliged 

 to sell their furniture, and their sufferings became extreme. Even 

 with all their sacrifices they were not able to hold out on their own re- 

 sources alone. They were supported, it appears, by subscriptions from 

 different parts of the country, which were distributed by the commit- 

 tee of the union, the allowance to a man with a family of three or four 

 children being eighteen pence a week. A general meeting of the 

 men was held weekly, at which the committee laid before them the 

 state of their affairs. Discipline was enforced by strict orders issued 

 by the committee ; so that those who were inclined to work at the 

 reduced wages were prevented by intimidation, if other means failed. 

 In this way the turn-out was persisted in with obstinacy for some 

 time, yet the men were at last obliged, by absolute want and starvation, 

 to give in. They returned to their work about the middle of August, 

 having been twenty-one weeks idle ; and the only concession they 

 obtained from their masters was an allowance of twenty shillings to 

 every single man, and thirty shillings to every man with a family a 

 poor compensation for the five months' wages they had lost. But the 

 consequences of this useless struggle did not end here. The masters 

 made no profits during the continuance of the strike ; business was at 

 a stand still, and eventually both the weavers and the inhabitants of 

 Kidderminster suffered considerable loss by the partial transfer- 

 ence of the trade to other places, which took place during its 

 suspension. The workmen themselves confess that the effect upon 

 trade of their disagreements has been very bad, and that employment 

 has never been so regular since as it was before. 



The case of the shipbuilders and sawyers of Dublin is another, well 

 worthy the consideration of the advocates of Trades' Unionists. We 

 have not space to go into its details. Suffice it to say, that in conse- 

 quence of the unreasonable demands of the workmen as to their own 

 wages, added to other tyrannical restrictions as to the admission of 

 apprentices, &c. which they tried to impose upon their masters, the 



* The Companion to the Newspaper. 

 M. M. No. 101. 3 O 



