Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Friday 06 June 1890
Mr Pickard’s Reply
With characteristic pugnacity, Mr. Pickard, M.P., has replied to the peremptory demands of the Denaby miners for the redress of their conceived wrongs. Coming from one who, upon occasion, claims to be the servant of the miners, his language is somewhat disrespectful.
When Mr. Chappell was deposed it was for counselling surrender to the terms which, even though the state of trade was then very depressed, aroused the indignation of Mr. Pickard. At that time the member for Normanton advised resistance to the death, and even took steps to oppose the advocates of settlement. On this account, and apart from the merits of the question, his hectoring language on Wednesday night to the Denaby men comes from him with a bad grace. Those men suffered untold misery in resisting, with his approval, the very grievance they complain of now, and surely they are entitled to demand some attention to it when the times are more propitious.
Granted that conciliation is the best and that the Denaby Company, as large employers who by their enterprise are able to assure a full measure of work, are entitled to the utmost consideration, it surely not the function of the miners’ leader to scold so vigorously at what he, at the same time, declares to be ” a reasonable and fair demand.”
As to the demand itself we venture no opinion, but it is against the censorious tone of the whilom participator in the men’s complaints that this protest is directed – a tone inspired, apparently, by sundry “peculiar ” letters calling in question the infallibility of the men’s masterful servant.