To all appearance the dispute in the engineering trade will not end until a long and bitter struggle has entailed upon both parties great loss and suffering. Several weeks have now gone by, costing the Amalganated Society of Engineers a weekly expenditure of about £30,000. So far as London is concerned the number of small employers conceding an eight hours' day is growing and the trade union claims a victory along the line on this point. Bat firms which originally combined together in the Employers' Federation and are recei ing the assistance of the great engineering firms in the north of England continue on their part to express the utmost confidence. Their purse is quite as deep as that of thie engineers, there is no immediate pressure of contract work, and they can afford to view with equanimity the exten sion of the lock-out to the allied trade unions and to the non-union men who have struck in sympathy and whom the engineers are therefore bound to provide with some portion of relief pay. The great Elswick works at Newcastle have this week become involved in the struggle. shipbuilding has come to a standstill in other of the north-eastern ports and men are being thrown out of work in great numbers at Leeds, Huddersfield, Oldham and other centres of machine manufacturing. The government workshops of course are kept by the officials as much as possible outside the dispute. The case of the Post Office Telegraphists, however, shows that Ministers have gone as far as they can in their endeavours to meet the agitation among the men. The Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Hanbury after giving a patient hearing of all grievances at the conference which took place with members of Parliament have now come to the conclusion that they must say with Sergeant Bagnet that discipline must be maintained. They have reprimanded some of the clerks who were prominent in the agitation, and this has aroused another outery, but the telegraph clerks who are "s a class by no means ill-off as compared with other classes will probably find discretion the better part of valour and wait for a more convenient season to renew their claims upon the national pocket.
20th August.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.