"Ex-Congressman William L. Scott, who owns coal mines at Spring Valley, Ill., has offered to pay 75 cents a ton for mining to the strikers who in their destitution have been subsisting for some time on public charity. This is 2-1/2 cents a ton more than the miners have asked for, but it is coupled with the condition that each man must seek work individually and not through some outside union committee. Although the men have been reduced to a state of abject want it is said the conditions imposed will prevent a settlement. In that case we may conclude that a few well-fed walking delegates are acting for the men and not they for themselves. It is a strange time to quibble over such a matter. The worst and most oppressive enemy of labor is the parasite who lives upon its distresses." A strike is a state of war, and like war, there are two parties to it, and it cannot be expected that the party of the other part should not strike back. The "_lock-out_" is the counter-stroke of the capitalist to the "_strike_" of the laborer. Lock-outs, however, are comparatively infrequent. Capitalists, as a rule, are conservative and forbearing. Massachusetts took the statistics of lock-outs as carefully as those of strikes, and the following is the table:-- +------------------------+------------+------------+------------+ | STATES. | Employees' | Employees' | Employers' | | | Loss. |Assistance. | Loss. | +------------------------+------------+------------+------------+ | _Lock-outs._ | | | | | Illinois, | $533,497 | $5,374 | $347,065 | | Massachusetts, | 952,310 | 136,626 | 550,675 | | New York, | 3,150,123 | 392,316 | 845,262 | | Ohio, | 848,829 | 231,870 | 493,100 | | Pennsylvania, | 712,956 | 77,038 | 237,735 | | Other parts of the | | | | | United States, | 1,960,002 | 262,814 | 988,424 | | +------------+------------+------------+ | THE UNITED STATES, | $8,157,717 | $1,106,038 | $3,462,261 | +------------------------+------------+------------+------------+