DEPRESSION IN ENGLAND.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1623, 6 November 1885, Page 2

DEPRESSION IN ENGLAND.

i A few figures summarise. from a aeries of elaborate reporN for the month of August show thHt in most, if nut uli, the greater industries ( the make or outpnt is being fortLer^redoo d in

several places. This, of course, means less employment for capital and less remuneration for labor. Taking, as a rustic hard of Erin hath it, " a fall 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 downed per ton and that makes 2s 4d per ton decrease in six months. One Hi Hi at Newcastle on Tyne has stopped work lieeaose the men would not give ■ in to a reduction of lh per cent, and ; now they are suffering a reduction of ■ 100 per cent. In the nail trade prices j I for CK'fciiii qualities in much demand liav.» go.ie rtown f'-om 5 to \'l\ p-r cent, since 1879 :vu\ now the employers • say they cannot «?o on unless the men j submit «'• a reduction of 10 per cent more. A!i round • nin!oy;-r-* ye telling their hands that the o-ily way to cheapen the cost of production, which is necessary if we are to hold even what trade is l«-ft, is to reduce wages. At Ashton and OMhani the men of

the coal pi f s have a^eed to a 5 per cent, reduction. At Ilk-ston the men | offo/ed to t-ike 10 p.-i- c- -t. less, lint j the employers felt they cou!d not go on without 12 per cent. less. In toe Merthyr coil district the men, to the number 40,000, have lost about 7s per head per week, or nearly the value of two days' work. At Dewsbury there will !»e a lo<k ont if the carpet weavers do not submit to a redaction estimated at 15 to 20 per cent. At Oldhimi, in the cotton trade, 30,000 people are without work, because the employers insisted on a 10 per cent, reduction, and, as a consequence, three fourths of the spindles in the Ashton district are on half time. At Chorley the hands of the three mills a»'e nut on strike against a necessary 10 per cent reduction, and at Wigan 1,500 are out for precisely the same reason, and in the Atlantic steamshipping trade firemen are striking at a redaction from 90 to 80s a month, while Wue jackets are doing the same because certain employers insist on paying 70s instead of HO. But the reduction in the present state of the ! shipping interest is inevitable, and that pot in the Atlantic steamers only. Some of the shipowners have Wn obliged to throw their hands ont entirely, because they are compelled to lay np their vessels as they reach England. And in one port a quarter of a million of capital is thus made 1 unproductive. — 'Irish Times.'