Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1887 — TRADE AND LABOR. [ARTICLE]

TRADE AND LABOR.

Philadelphia Record. The manufacture of school slates, the first of the kind in the United States, was established in 1826 in Pennsylvania. The plumbers and # steam-fitters all over the "West are forming a national union. The membership will be about 20,000. The numbsr of persons who struck during the first week of August was 10,500, while during all of August, 1886, only 18,200 struck. There are now 100,000 children under fourteen years of age employed, contrary to law, in the factories and workshops of New York. The Hatters’ Union, which has been in existence for forty years is now national trade district assembly No. 128, of the Knights of Labor. The Massachusetts State Board of Arbitration decided that three hundred Beverly lasters who threw 2,360 other shoemakers out of work had no case. Brown, Bonnell k Co., at Youngstown, have acceded to the demands of the Amalgamated Association regarding the two-job rule, and work will be resumed to-day. This practically ends the 6trike, as the operators of only two mills are standing out. When Isaac Cline, one of the truest labor reformers in Pittsburg, took the train for his new home in Kansas, not a soul was there to see him off. Had he devoted the same 26 years to his own benefit no doubt he would have been a prosperous employer. There is a wonderful development in the Lake Superior iron ore regions. A syndicate with $25,000 has been formed, and a number of powerful crafts will be built, and the facilities for mining and? transporting ore greatly improved. In the new Gogebic range there are sixty mines. The London Chamber of Commerce thinks the evil of a lack of technical education has became so pronounced as to call earnest attention to it. A bill has been introduced into Parliament to provide means for an extension of technical education facilities. The present means are found to be far behind continental facilities, and in consequence the manufacturing interests of the continent are scoring advantages in colonial markets over Great Britain. A much larger number of workmen than usual are taking a vacation wheth-' er allowed or not. In many cities vacation clubs have been informally organized, qnd the workmen depart in squads, the most of them to seek rural or fishing haunts. This custom will grow rapidly, and in a few years the vacation will become an institution among liluerican workmen, just as camp-meetings now are. There is a, growing sentiment against continuous summer labor. The demand for labor is great, and in numerous branches the supply is far short of the dbmand. Wages are high, and efforts are made by employers to reduce them: The great anxiety now is to have enough men to fill incoming and anticipated orders.