To the Director of LA PROVINCIA. Respected Sir: The year ninety has a happy beginning for the poor workers who have had no other means of subsistence than the daily wage earned in the workshops of the Rio-Tinto Mining Company. The dismissal spoken of among my fellow workers, a dismissal that will soon become a reality, judging by what is seen in the workshops themselves, will leave us in the most sorrowful situation, and to bring bread to our families we shall have to implore the most dreadful public charity. It is said that the suppression of calcinations is the cause of said dismissal, and as those calcinations are suppressed by government mandate, it follows that by Royal Decree we are left without bread, and for us, this is the most horrific despair. Yesterday we were happy; by the sweat of our brows we earned sustenance for our families, and when thinking of tomorrow, we saw with joy that the constant vigilance of our industry assured us an equitable reward with which we could attend to our needs; today, in a moment, everything has changed, misery appears at our doors, and it puts an end to our home, our illusions, and our joy. Today we see that we must abandon our children and our wives and begin a sorrowful pilgrimage in search of a less ungrateful land, since our own does not even wish to grant us its shelter. This, Mr. Director, is horrible; and to think that it is the Government that condemns us to perish of hunger!

I have said many times to my fellow workers: no, our attitude must not be one of silence in this struggle of the interests of certain farmers against the industry of the miners. When they ask for the suppression of calcinations, we must go to the provincial authorities asking for bread, and if tomorrow our homes are empty and we are cast out from the land that saw our birth, where our memories and all our joys reside, we must go in manifestation to the doors of the Government’s representative to tell him that a single man has no right to bring tears and desolation to our houses. A paternal government must watch, first and foremost, over the welfare of all citizens and not take bread away from thousands of families. The deed is already consummated; soon thousands of workers will be without work, and then we shall demand employment from those representatives of the province who told the Government that with the mining industry would come the ruin of Huelva and its province. Here we have established our interests, here we have our affections, here lies everything that gives breath to our lives, and must we lose it because a few have willed it so?

Alas, Mr. Director! May the name of Huelva be stripped of the title “refined” if it serves as a footstool for a few schemers who deceive it with pretty words. I have said it and I repeat it: everyone in this struggle against the smoke has looked after their own business; we, in contrast, are the ones who will suffer the consequences. Who will offer us tomorrow the daily wage that the mining companies gave us? The day the workshops close will be one of infamous jubilation for the anti-smoke party… but how many tears these joys will cost. Forgive me, Mr. Director, and make whatever use you wish of these lines. They may be poorly written, but if you, like me, could see the anxiety and anguish in the hearts of a thousand fathers of families, you would understand the need to make public these immense sorrows, which are so little known by those who cause them. There must surely remain a little conscience. I kiss your hand, A Worker.