Works of Frederick Engels 1886

On the Strike at a Glass-Works in Lyons

Source: The Commonweal, May 15, 1886;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.

The French Republican Government seem resolved to show in every possible way that they are quite as much the Government of the capitalists as any of their predecessors. Not content with siding with the Mining Company in Decazeville, they now come out even stronger in Lyons. There is a strike at a glass-works there; a few knobsticks continue working, and are lodged inside the works for safety’s sake. When the furniture of one of them — a German anarchist of the name of Litner — was removed to the works, the strikers followed it, hooting. No sooner was the cart with the furniture inside and the gates closed, than shots were fired from the windows upon the people outside — revolver-bullets, and buckshot flying about in every direction, and wounding about thirty people. The crowd of course dispersed. Now the police and the judicial authorities interfered. But not to arrest the capitalist and his retainers who had fired — oh no! they arrested a number of the strikers for interfering with the freedom of labour! This affair coming on at this very moment, has caused immense excitement in Paris. Decazeville has swelled the Socialist votes in Paris from 30,000 to above 100,000, and the effect of this murderous affair on the La Malotier Gray at Lyons will be greater still.

F. E.