Note 462 — Chapter VI

See the Times leader of September 11, 1871. This leader, which pronounced “the conduct of the employers throughout this dispute as imprudent and impolitic,” called forth the bewildered remonstrance of Sir William (afterwards Lord) Armstrong, writing on behalf of “the Associated Employers.” “We were amazed,” writes the great captain of industry, “to see ourselves described in your article as being in a condition of hopeless difficulty; and we really felt that, if the League themselves had possessed the power of inspiring that article, they could scarcely have used words more calculated to serve their purposes than those in which it is expressed. The concurrent appearance in the Spectator of an article exhibiting the same bias adds to our surprise. We had imagined that a determined effort to wrest concessions from employers by sheer force of combination was not a thing which found favour with the more educated and intelligent classes, whose opinions generally find expression in the columns of the Times” (Times September 14, 1871).