THE " RIGHT TO WORK." [TO Tag EDITOR. or TRIC
"SPECTATOR.1
SIR,—I am unfortunately convinced, being an employer of labour in a small way, of the discouraging fact that workmen will enter into a contract to work for so much an hour, and will then do their best not to keep their part of the said
contract while forcing the master to keep his. Would it not be Letter, instead of reviling, to try to induce the working man to have more respect for himself—that is to say, make him understand that if be undertakes to do a day's work, for however small a sum, he should keep his word—meanwhile agitating in the open for better pay and shorter hours? My sympathies are far more with the workmen than with those sometimes not too truthful masters who brag that they do twice as much work as their workpeople, but forget to add that they usually thereby obtain six times greater comfort. I do, however, think that wurk:ng men should be warned that
they are not going the right way to obtain better conditions by forcing their masters to spend thousands of pounds on the unproductive labour of policing them, and I would as earnestly exhort Trade-Union officials to teach their followers to agitate openly for better conditions, and not to lose their own and others' self-respect by lending their countenance to methods they are not prepared openly to avow.—I am, Sir, &c., J. EDWARD FRANCIS. The Atheneum Press, 13 Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.
Previous page
