ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LABOR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5308, 30 March 1878, Page 6 (Supplement)

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LABOR.

Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., delivered a lecture on the “Comparative efficiency of English and Foreign Labor,” ou 21st January in the hall attached to Christ Church, Westminster-bridge-road. He said that while the depression in the trade of other countries had been even more marked than that experienced in England, the fact remained that there had been - a decline in the markets for the chief commodities of our export trade, which was described as steady, continuous, and, serious. The apprehension with which British competition was regarded was clearly indicated by the protective policy which every manufacturing ; country still maintained. In this respect the United States were far more stringent than any other country, and then followed Russia, Belgium, and Germany. The recent strike among the shipwrights in the Clyde at a time of unprecedented depression, he regarded as one of the most regretable, incidents in the labor movement of the past year. The sharp lessons of the present bad times would, however, work their own most permanent and certain cure. In America, as in England, a period of high .wages, during which the labor-producing power of workmen was enervated by luxury, was followed by reductions in the wages of railway employes of from 24 to 37 per cent.; in the building trades from 28V to 50, contractors’ men from 37J to 52, oil refineries about 25 per cent. The cost of labor had stimulated the ingenuity of inventors, and by labor-saving machinery they had been able to successfully compete with Great Britain in her own special manufactures, supplying rifles to the Turkish armies and railway engines to South America, and even our Australian colonies. At the same time their mechanics worked longer and more industriously than our own. If our workmen deluded themselves with the notion that by working at half-speed they would prevent over-production, British industry would shrink away before the free and vigorous efforts of the Americans. A vote of thanks was passed to Mr. Brassey at the conclusion of his lecture.