Shipping Federation, one of the most powerful organisations of employers, which, in its eagerness to make up for lost time, unwisely ignored the claims of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union. Hence the strike; whereby to the general surprise a weak union won advanced rates of wages in a month at all the chief ports of the kingdom.
Still another reason for recent discontent among these grades of labour is traceable to their own want of organisation, or to their choice of those who lead them wrong.
For instance, in the woollen and worsted industry of South Yorkshire the operatives have never displayed the ability of their Lancashire brethren of the cotton trade in organising themselves into trade unions. This is borne out by the low scale of wages which the former have obtained even in very good times. The Board of Trade return shows that both these industries are worked by women in a large majority; but whereas the Lancashire woman gets 18s. 8d. a week, her woollen and worsted sister receives only 13s. 10d. But a deeper root of mischief is that the workers take so little continuous interest in their trade unions that they fall under those who have other fish to fry, and whose interests often diverge widely from those of labour itself. The cure of these several evils is administrative, not revolutionary.
There is a fifth remedy, applicable to those who, in spite of the first four, incidentally fall out for miscellaneous reasons from the ranks of
