Now! Then! The Leeds Mercury calls on local textile manufacturers not to sack the 30,000 workers who refuse to renounce trade union membership

5 October 1833: The Leeds Mercury calls on local textile manufacturers not to sack the 30,000 workers who refuse to renounce trade union membership

Leeds Mercury. 1833/10/05. Leeds Mercury. Leeds. Get it:

Excerpt

A great struggle, which sagacious men have long foreseen, is about to take place in the manufacturing districts of the West Riding of Yorkshire. That the crisis is at hand is sufficiently clear from the proceedings of the master manufacturers, at the meeting held in Leeds last Saturday, and reported in another column. If we are rightly informed, the cessation from labour of manufacturers, employing 2,000 horse power, would throw out of employment 20,000 adults and 10,000 children. It is true that the struggle, if to the extent contemplated, must be of short duration, but, however short, the danger from such a state of things is imminent, both to the interests of the musters and the workmen, as well as to the permanent interests of trade, and to the tranquillity of the district, and we hope such measures of reconciliation will take place immediately as to prevent the necessity for encountering these dangers. At what period the masters will begin to require the renunciation of the Union is, we believe, not yet fixed, but if no reconciliation takes place, it is probable that it will be in the course of the present month. The time fur reconciliation is, therefore, the present, and whoever stands in the way of that adjustment, on fair and equitable terms, as between master and workman, will incur a tremendous responsibility. As a principle upon which this adjustment of all existing differences is to be effected, our advice to the masters is, to require nothing from the men that will infringe upon their liberty, or that will interfere with their obtaining a fair remuneration for their labour, which is the article in which they deal, and over which they ought to have as much control as the farmer has over the price of his grain in the market; and our advice to the men is, to renounce all dictation in the management of their masters’ concerns, and to let all differences which may arise between any master and his workmen as to the rate of wages he settled by the parties themselves, without any interference from persons who are ignorant of the peculiar relations in which they stand to each other, – and above all, entirely and practically to abandon that system of intimidation and annoyance which has been so notoriously exercised towards workmen, who have thought fit to determine for themselves the price at which they will sell their labour. Such a system is as unjust and oppressive as it is repugnant to the principles of freedom.

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Original

A great struggle, which sagacious men have long foreseen, is about to take place in the manufacturing districts of the West Riding of Yorkshire. That the crisis is at hand is sufficiently clear from the proceedings of the master manufacturers, at the meeting held in Leeds last Saturday, and reported in another column. If we are rightly informed, the cessation from labour of manufacturers, employing two thousand horse power, would throw out of employment 20,000 adults and 10,000 children. It is true that the struggle, if to the extent contemplated, must be of short duration, but, however short, the danger from such a state of things is imminent, both to the interests of the musters and the workmen, as well as to the permanent interests of trade, and to the tranquillity of the district, and we hope such measures of reconciliation will take place immediately as to prevent the necessity for encountering these dangers. At what period the masters will begin to require the renunciation of the Union is, we believe, not yet fixed, but if no reconciliation takes place, it is probable that it will be in the course of the present month. The time fur reconciliation is, therefore, the present, and whoever stands in the way of that adjustment, on fair and equitable terms, as between master and workman, will incur a tremendous responsibility. As a principle upon which this adjustment of all existing differences is to be effected, our advice to the masters is, to require nothing from the men that will infringe upon their liberty, or that will interfere with their obtaining a fair remuneration for their labour, which is the article in which they deal, and over which they ought to have as much control as the farmer has over the price of his grain in the market; and our advice to the men is, to renounce all dictation in the management of their masters’ concerns, and to let all differences which may arise between any master and his workmen as to the rate of wages he settled by the parties themselves, without any interference from persons who are ignorant of the peculiar relations in which they stand to each other, – and above all, entirely and practically to abandon that system of intimidation and annoyance which has been so notoriously exercised towards workmen, who have thought fit to determine for themselves the price at which they will sell their labour. Such a system is as unjust and oppressive as it is repugnant to the principles of freedom.

446 words.