Fear that the United States is to see another great struggle between Capital and Labour is expressed is many quarters, says the Washington correspondent of the "Morning Post." The Pennsylvania Railway Company has ordered the dismissal of 12,00 men, approximately 10 per cent. of its entire force, nominally to effect a reduction of £3,000,000 in operating. costs, but also, it is said, because the men are slacking, and, in the words of one of the company's Executive; "It time the men got down to work." Efforts to restore normal efficiency have been unsuccessful, and the company, it is asserted, has concluded that the only way to restore pre-war conditions is to adopt the drastic method of reducing its staff and weeding out the incompetent.
The men say that this is not the real reason, and that the compiuy is seeking revenge for the recent "outlaw" strike, and is trying to save the increase of wages granted the Railway Labour Board.
Trouble also threatens in the steel industry. Mr. Foster, who led the strike against the United States Steel Corporation last year, which ended in complete victory for the Corporation, is again agitating and secking to take advantage of the unrest among railwaymen to induce them to join with the steel workers, so that they may be able completely to paralyse the steel mills and prevent the delivery of-all raw materials. The soft coal miners' strike of last year was ordered to help the steel strike, but the miners were not sufficiently organized, and it collapsed, as did the steel strike; but if now there should be an alliance of the steel workers, miners, and railwaymen the situation would be serious in the extreme.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.