The German miners’ strike is an immense event for us. Like the
miners in England in the Chartist times, the colliers of Germany
are the last to join the movement, and this is their first start. The
movement began in the Westfalian coalfield in the North—a
district producing 45 million tons annually, and not yet halfdeveloped, coal having been bored at a depth of 500 yards. These
miners—hitherto good subjects, patriotic, obedient, and religious,
and furnishing some of the finest infantry for the VII. army corps
(I know them well, my native place is only 6 or 7 miles south of
the coalfields), have now been thoroughly aroused by the
oppression of their capitalists. While the mines—almost all joint
stock concerns—paid enormous dividends, the real wages of the
men were constantly being reduced, the nominal weekly wages
were kept up, in some cases even raised in appearance, by forcing
the men to work enormous overtime—in place of single shifts of
8 hours they worked from 12 to 16 hours, thus making from 9 to
12 shifts weekly. Truck shops,** disguised under the name of
“Co-operative” shops, prevailed. Cheating, on the quantity of coal
got by rejecting whole truckfuls of coal as being bad or not
properly filled, was the rule. Well, since last winter, the men have
given notice several times that they would strike unless this was
remedied, but to no purpose, and at last they did strike, after
having given due notice of their intention, and the owners lie
when they maintain the contrary. In a week 70,000 men were out,
and the masters had to feed the strike, for they paid wages once a
month only, and always kept one month’s wages in hand which they
now had to fork out to the strikers. The masters were thus caught in
their own net. Well, the men sent that celebrated deputation to the

Emperor *—a snobby, conceited coxcomb of a boy—who received
them with a threatening speech; if they turned towards the social
democrat and reviled the authorities, he would have them shot
down without mercy.**? (That had in fact been tried already at
Bochum, where a sublieutenant, a lad of 19, ordered his men to
fire on the strikers, most of them fired in the air.) But all the
same, the whole empire trembled before these men on strike. The
military commander of the district” went to the spot, so did the
Home Secretary,© and everything was tried to bring the masters
round to make concession. The Emperor even told them to open
their pockets, and said in a council of ministers “My soldiers are
there to keep order, but not to provide big profits to the
mine-owners.”

Well, by the intervention of the Liberal Opposition (who have
lost one seat in Parliament after another by the workmen passing
over to us) a compromise was effected, and the men returned to
work. But no sooner were they in than the masters broke their
word, discharged some of the ringleaders (though they had agreed
not to do so), refused arranging for overtime by agreement with
the men, as agreed upon, etc. The strike threatened to break out
again, but the matter is still in suspense, and, I am sure, the
Government, who are in a devil of a funk, will make them give in
at least for a time. Then the strike spread to Coalfield No. II. and
III. This district has been kept, so far, free from Socialist
contagion, as every man who went there to agitate, when caught in
the meshes of the law, got as many years’ imprisonment as he
would have got months’ anywhere else in Germany. The
Government alone made concessions to the men, but whether
these will suffice remains to be seen. Then the men in the Saxon
Coalfield, and in the two Siberian‘ Coalfields, still further east,
took up the tune, so that in the last three weeks there have been at
least 120,000 colliers on strike in Germany, and from them the
Belgian and Bohemian miners caught the infection, while in
Germany a number of other trades who had prepared strikes for
this spring season, have also left work.*° Thus there is no doubt
the German colliers have joined their brethren in the struggle
against capital, and as they are a splendid body of men, and
almost all have passed through the army, they form an important
addition to our ranks. Their belief in emperor and priest has been

a William II.— Ed.

b E. Albedyll.— Ed.

¢ E. Herrfurth.— Ed.

d Should read: “Silesian” .— Ed.

The Ruhr Miners’ Strike of 1889 54]

shattered, and whatever the Government may do, no Government
can give satisfaction to the men without upsetting the capitalist
system—and that the German Government neither can nor will
attempt. It is the first time that the Government had to pretend to
observe an impartial position in a strike in Germany: so its
virginity in that respect has gone for ever, and both William and
Bismarck had to bow before the array of 100,000 working men on
strike. That alone is a glorious result.