THE DEPRESSION IN ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2129, 26 October 1885, Page 2

THE DEPRESSION IN ENGLAND.

A few figures summarised from a series of elaborate reports for the month of August, show that in most, if c iiot all, the greater industries the make or output ia being farther reduced in several places. This, of course, means less employment for capital, and less remuneration for labor. Taking, as a rustic bard of Erin hath it, "afull synopsis with the unassisted eye," the result is the discovery that since April 30 the average price of manufactured iron in, the Cleveland trade has gone down 6d per ton, and'that makes 2s 4d per tqn decrease in six months. One firm at Newoastle-on-Tyne has stopped work because the men would not give'in to a reduction 7J per cent., and now they are suffering a reduction of 100 per cent. In the nail trade prices for certain qualities in much demand have gone down from sto per cent, sinco 1879, and now the employers say they annot go on unless the men submit to a reduction of 10 per cent 1 Ajj round 'employers afe tellipg that the only yjay to. cheapen cost o| prodi)ctipn, which is necessaiy if we are to hold even what trade is left, is to reduce wages. At Ashton andOldhamjfiliemeiiQf the coal pits liaye agreed to. a 5 per cent, reduction, At llkeaton' the men offered to take 10 per cent, less,', bub tho employers felt they could not gooiv without 12 per cent, less, In the.Merthyr coal distriot the men, to the number of 40,000, have lost about 7s per head per week, or nearly tho value of two days' work, At Dewsbury there will be a lockout if the carpet-weavers do not submit to a reduction estimated at 15 to 20 per cent. At Oldham, in the cotton trade, 30,000 people are without work, because the employers insisted on a ten per cent, reduction, and, as a consequence, threefourths of the spindles in the Ashton district aro on half time. At Ghorley, the hands of the three mills 1 are out on strike against a necessary 10 per cent, reduction, and at Wigan, 1500 are. out for precisely the sanie reason, and 'in fcg Atlantic steam-shipping trade {jreniqft Wfl striking at n a niqntl], yfhile blqe jaokeia are doin? tho same because oertain employers insist on paying 70s instead of 80s. But the reduction in the present state of the shipping interest is inevitable, and' that not on the Atlantic steamers only. Soma of the shipowners have been obligee) throw their hands fiflt entirely, tliey ip qqmgellecl |q lay up, their as they reach' England, And in one poit a quarter of a million of capital ia thus made unproductive,-Irish Times, '