THE NEW SPIRIT AND THE NEW MODEL
[1843-1860]
We have seen the magnificent hopes of 1829-42 ending in bitter
disillusionment: we shall now see the Trade Unionists of the next
generation largely successful in reaching their more limited aims.
Laying aside all projects of Social Revolution, they set themselves
resolutely to resist the worst of the legal and industrial oppressions
from which they suffered, and slowly built up for this purpose
organisations which have become integral parts of the structure of a
modern industrial state. This success we attribute mainly to the spread
of education among the rank and file, and the more practical counsels
which began, after 1842, to influence the Trade Union world. But we
must not overlook the effect of economic changes. The period between
1825 and 1848 was remarkable for the frequency and acuteness of its
commercial depressions. From 1850 industrial expansion was for many
years both greater and steadier than in any previous period.[308] It is
no mere coincidence that these years of prosperity saw the adoption
by the Trade Union world of a “New Model” of organisation, under which
Trade Unionism obtained a financial strength, a trained staff of
salaried officers, and a permanence of membership hitherto unknown.
The predominance of Chartism over Trade Unionism was confined to the
bad times of 1837-42. Under the influence of the rapid improvement
and comparative prosperity which followed, the Chartist agitation
dwindled away; and a marked revival in Trade Unionism took effect in
the re-establishment, about 1843, of the Potters’ Union, and of an
active Cotton-spinners’ Association, and, in 1845, by the amalgamation
of the metropolitan and provincial societies of compositors into
the National Typographical Society.[309] The powerful United Flint
Glass Makers’ Society (reorganised in 1849 as the Flint Glass Makers’
Friendly Society of Great Britain and Ireland) dates from the same
year. Delegate meetings of other trades were held; and national
societies of tailors and shoemakers were set on foot. A national
conference of curriers in 1845 established a federal union of all the
local clubs in the trade. But the most important of the new bodies
was the Miners’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland, formed at
Wakefield in 1841.[310] Up to this period the miners, held in virtual
serfage by the truck system and the custom of yearly hirings, had not
got beyond ephemeral strike organisations. Strong county Unions now
grew up in Northumberland and Durham on the one hand, and Lancashire
and Yorkshire on the other; and the new body was a federation of these.
Under the leadership of Martin Jude, it developed an extraordinary
propagandist activity, at one time paying no fewer than fifty-three
missionary organisers, who visited every coalpit in the kingdom. The
delegate meetings at Manchester and Glasgow in the year 1844 soon came
to represent practically the whole of the mining districts of Great
Britain; and the membership rose, it is said, to at least 100,000.[311]
A leading feature of this Trade Unionist revival was a dogged
resistance to legal oppression. Although the more sensational
prosecutions of Trade Union leaders had ceased with the abandonment of
unlawful oaths, there was still going on, up and down the kingdom, an
almost continuous persecution of the rank and file, by the magistrates’
interpretation of the law relating to masters and servants. The miners,
in particular, were hampered by lengthy hirings, during which they were
compelled to serve if required, but were not guaranteed employment.
Unskilled in legal subtleties, and not yet served by an experienced
class of Trade Union secretaries, they were made the victims of a
thousand and one quibbles and technicalities. The Northumberland and
Durham Miners’ Union grappled with the difficulty in a thoroughly
practical spirit. They engaged W. P. Roberts,[312] an able and
energetic solicitor, with strong labour sympathies, to light every
case in the local courts. In 1844 the Miners’ Association of Great
Britain and Ireland followed this excellent example by appointing
Roberts their standing legal adviser at a salary of £1000 a year. When
the Durham miners had to relinquish his services at the end of 1844,
he was taken over by the newly formed Lancashire Miners’ Union. The
“miners’ attorney-general,” as he was called, showed an indefatigable
activity in the defence of his clients, and was soon retained in
all Trade Union cases. The magistrates throughout the country found
themselves for the first time confronted by a pertinacious legal
expert, who, far more ingenious than the employers, was not less
unscrupulous in taking advantage of every technicality of the law.
In a letter written to the Flint Glass Makers’ Friendly Society in
1851, Roberts himself gives a vivid picture of the difficulties
against which the Unions had to contend. After explaining the law,
as he understood it, he proceeds as follows: “But it is exceedingly
difficult to induce those of the class opposed to you to take this
view of things. I do not say this sarcastically, but as a fact learnt
by long and observant experience. There are indeed men on the bench
who are honest enough, and desirous of doing their duty. But all their
tendencies and circumstances are against you. They listen to your
opponents, not only often, but cheerfully--so they know more fully the
case against you than in your favour. To you they listen too--but in a
sort of temper of ‘Prisoner at the Bar, you are entitled to make any
statement you think fit, and the Court is bound to hear you; but mind,
whatever you say,’ etc. In the one case you observe the hearty smile
of goodwill; in the other the derisive sneer, though sometimes with a
ghastly sort of kindliness in it. Then there is the knowledge of your
overwhelming power when acting unitedly, and this begets naturally
a corresponding desire to resist you at all hazards. And there are
hundreds of other considerations all acting the same way--meetings,
political councils, intermarriages, hopes from wills, etc. I do not say
that all occupants of the bench are thus influenced, nor to the same
extent; but it certainly is at the best an uphill game to contend in
favour of a working man in a question which admits of any doubt against
him. It never happened to me to meet a magistrate who considered that
an agreement among masters not to employ any particular ‘troublesome
fellow’ was an unlawful act; reverse the case, however, and it
immediately becomes a formidable conspiracy, which must be put down by
the strong arm of the law, etc.... When I was acting for the Colliers’
Union in the North we resisted every individual act of oppression, even
in cases where we were sure of losing; and the result was that in a
short time there was no oppression to resist. For it is to be observed
that oppression like that we are speaking of--which after all is merely
a more genteel and cowardly mode of thieving--shrinks at once from a
determined and decided opposition. In the North we should have tried
this case, first in the County Court, then at the Assizes, and then
perhaps in the Queen’s Bench.”[313]
One result of Roberts’ successful advocacy is perhaps to be seen in
the introduction, during the Parliamentary session of 1844, of a Bill
“for enlarging the powers of justices in determining complaints between
masters, servants, and artificers,” which the Government got referred
to a committee, by which various extraordinary interpolations were made
in what was at first a harmless measure.[314] Not only was any J.P. to
be authorised to issue a warrant for the summary arrest of any workman
complained of by his employer, but “any misbehaviour concerning such
service or employment” was to be punished by two months’ imprisonment,
at the discretion of a single justice. It is easy to see what a wide
interpretation would have been given by many a justice of the peace to
this vague phrase; and Roberts was not slow to point out the danger to
his clients. Upon his incitement the delegate meeting of coal-miners
at Sheffield set on foot a vigorous agitation against the Bill, which
had already slipped through second reading and committee without a
division. The Potters’ Union took the matter up with special vigour,
and circulated draft petitions throughout the Midlands.[315] A friendly
member, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, obstructed its further progress, and
got it postponed until after the Easter recess. Meanwhile petitions
poured in upon the astonished House, amounting, it was said, to a
total of two hundred, and representing two millions of workmen. When
the Bill came on again all the Radicals and the “Young England” Tories
were marshalled against it. Sir James Graham in vain protested that the
Government meant nothing more than a consolidation of the existing law,
and led into the lobby all his colleagues who were present, including
Mr. Gladstone. But the combination on the other side of Duncombe,
Wakley, Hume, and Ferrand, with Tories like Lord John Manners, and a
few enlightened Whigs such as C. P. Villiers, settled the fate of this
attempt on the part of the employers to sharpen the blunted weapon of
the law against the hated Trade Unions.[316]
The miners were less successful in their strikes than in their legal
and political business. In 1844 their National Conference at Glasgow,
representing 70,000 men, voted, by 28,042 to 23,357, in favour of
striking against their grievances, and the Durham men, numbering some
30,000, engaged in that prolonged struggle with Lord Londonderry
and their other employers for more equitable terms of hiring and
payment, to which we have already alluded.[317] After many months’
embittered strife the strike failed disastrously; and the great
Miners’ Association, whose proceedings form so important a feature of
the _Northern Star_ for 1844 and 1845, gradually disappears from its
pages, and in the general collapse of the coal trade in 1847-8 it came
completely to an end.
But the culminating point in this revival of Trade Union activity was
the formation, at Easter, 1845, of the National Association of United
Trades for the Protection of Labour, an organisation which resuscitated
and combined some of the ideas both of Owen and of Doherty. This
Association was explicitly based, as its rules inform us, “upon two
great facts: first, that the industrious classes do not receive a
fair day’s wage for a fair day’s labour; and, secondly, that for some
years past their endeavours to obtain this have, with few exceptions,
been unsuccessful. The main causes of this state of things are to
be found in the isolation of the different sections of working men,
and the absence of a generally recognised and admitted authority
from the trades themselves.” But, unlike the Owenite movement of
1833-4, the National Association of United Trades was from the first
distinguished by the moderation of its aims and the prudence of its
administration--qualities to which we may attribute its comparatively
lengthy survival for fifteen years. No attempt was made to supersede
existing organisations of particular trades by a “General Trades
Union.” “The peculiar local internal and technical circumstances of
each trade,” say the rules, “render it necessary that for all purposes
of efficient internal government its affairs should be administered by
persons possessing a practical knowledge of them. For this reason it
is not intended to interfere with the organisation of existing Trade
Unions.” Moreover, the promoters evidently intended the Association
to become more of a Parliamentary Committee than a federation for
trade purposes. Its purpose and duty was declared to be “to protect
the interests and promote the well-being of the associated trades” by
mediation, arbitration, and legal proceedings, and by promoting “all
measures, political and social and educational, which are intended to
improve the condition of the labouring classes.”[318]
This new attempt to form a National Federation originated in a
suggestion from the “United Trades” of Sheffield, embodied in an
able letter written to Duncombe[319] by their secretary, John Drury.
Duncombe had become widely known to the Trade Unionists, not only
through his friendship with Fergus O’Connor, and his outspoken support
of Chartism in the House of Commons, but also by his successful
obstruction and defeat of the Masters and Servants Bill of the previous
Session. He appears to have laid Drury’s proposals before the leading
men in the London Unions, who agreed to form a committee to report on
the scheme, and to summon a conference of Trade Union delegates from
all parts of the country. At Easter, 1845, 110 delegates, representing
not only the London trades, but also the Lancashire miners and textile
operatives, the hosiery and woollen-workers of Yorkshire and the
Midlands, and the “United Trades” of Manchester, Sheffield, Norwich,
Hull, Bristol, Rochdale, and Yarmouth, met together in London.
The preliminary report made to the Conference by the London
Committee of Trade Delegates is practically the first manifestation
of that spirit of cautious if somewhat limited statesmanship which
characterised the Trade Union leaders of the next thirty years.[320]
The Committee, whilst recommending the immediate formation of a
national organisation, “to vindicate the rights of labour,” and “to
oppose the tyranny of any legislative enactments to coerce trade
societies, or of a similar character to the Masters and Servants Bill
of last session, were deeply impressed with the importance of, and
beneficial tendency arising from, a good understanding between the
employer and the employed; seeing that their interests are mutual,
and that neither can injure the other without the wrong perpetrated
recoiling upon the party who inflicts it. They would therefore suggest
it to be one of the principal objects of this Conference to cultivate
a good understanding with the employer, and thereby remove those
prejudices which exist against trade combinations, by showing upon
all occasions that they only seek by combination to place themselves
upon equal terms as disposers of their labour with those who purchase
it; to secure themselves from injury, but by no means to inflict it
upon others. Although the Committee are anxious that this desirable
and important organisation should be carried out to the fullest
possible extent, they feel that great caution must be observed in
the formation of its laws and regulations, in order that the evils
which existed and eventually destroyed the Consolidated Union of 1833
shall be carefully avoided. The Committee conceive it necessary to
call the attention of those trades who are comparatively disunited,
and whose men are consequently working for different rates of wages,
to the great necessity that exists, that those who are receiving the
highest wages should use every effort within their power to secure to
their fellow-workmen a fair remuneration for their labour; and that
every inducement should be held out by the several trade societies
to their separated brethren to join them, in order that they may be
the better enabled to make common cause in cases of aggression, which
would be the certain result if each trade were to form itself into one
well-regulated society for their mutual interests.... And, finally, the
Committee would earnestly recommend to this Conference, in order that
these important points may be considered and dispassionately argued,
that no proposition of a political nature, beyond what has been already
alluded to, should be introduced, or occupy its attention; convinced
as they are that the only way to carry out these desirable objects
satisfactorily, and with a due consideration to the best interests of
all those who are concerned, is to consider and dispose of but one
question at a time: and, moreover, to keep trade matters and politics
as separate and distinct as circumstances will justify.”[321]
The proceedings of this Conference show that the change of front on
the part of the Trade Union leaders was reflected in the attitude of
the rank and file. The surviving influence of Owenism is to be traced
in the frequent recurrence of the idea of co-operative production, the
desire to establish agricultural communities, and the proposal for a
legislative shortening of the hours of labour. But of the aggressive
policy and ambitious aims of 1830-34 scarcely a vestige remains.
Strikes were deprecated, and the idea of a general cessation of work
was entirely abandoned. The projects of co-operative production were
on an altogether different plane from Owen’s grand schemes. The Trade
Unionists of the National Conference of 1845 had apparently no vision
of a general transfer of the instruments of production from the
capitalists to the Trade Unions; co-operative production was regarded
simply as an auxiliary to Trade Union action, the union workshop
furnishing a cheap alternative to unproductive strike pay. Besides thus
formally abandoning the methods and pretensions of 1834, the Conference
declared its allegiance to a new method of Trade Union activity--the
policy of conciliation and arbitration. In the demand for “local Boards
of Trade,” a phrase borrowed apparently from the silk-weavers, we
see the beginning of that system of authoritative mutual negotiation
between the representatives of capital and labour which became a very
distinctive feature of British Trade Unionism in the last half of the
nineteenth century.
But the shadow of the failure of 1834 still hung over projects of
universal Trade Unions. Although nearly all trades had been represented
at the first conference, most of the larger organisations decided, on
consideration, to hold aloof from the new body. We find, for instance,
the Manchester Lodge of the Stonemasons’ Society promptly protesting
against the adherence of the society’s delegate, and expressing their
emphatic opinion “that past experience has taught us that we have had
general union enough.” This view was endorsed by the Central Committee,
which, in submitting the matter to the votes of the members, observes
that “there are several trade societies in England as perfectly
organised as ourselves, although their machinery may be somewhat
various; but we can hear of none of these societies being desirous to
join this national movement.... It may be very well for trades who
are divided into sections and have no national organisation amongst
themselves to join such an association--they have nothing to lose; but
it is a question for serious reflection whether a general union of each
trade separately would not be far more effective than the heterogeneous
association in question.”[322] A similar view seems to have been taken
by the Coal-miners, whose national federation was still in existence. A
delegate meeting of the newly formed National Typographical Association
decided by a large majority to remain outside. The Lancashire
Cotton-spinners sent a delegate to the adjourned conference, and even
proposed to have perambulating lecturers to explain the advantages of
the new organisation, but never actually decided to join.[323]
The adjourned conference on July 28, 1845, was therefore composed, in
the main, of the delegates of the smaller or less organised trades.
About fifty delegates took part in the proceedings, which extended
over six days. It was eventually decided to separate the Trade Union
from the co-operative aims, and to form two distinct but mutually
helpful associations. The “National Association of United Trades for
the Protection of Labour” undertook to deal with disputes between
masters and men, and look after the interests of labour in the House
of Commons. The “National United Trades Association for the Employment
of Labour” proposed to raise capital with which to employ men who
were on strike under circumstances approved by its twin brother. At
the second conference, held at Manchester in June 1846, when 126
delegates, representing, it was said, 40,000 members, were present,
the contribution to the Trade Association was fixed at twopence in
the pound of weekly earnings; and it was decided that the strike
allowance should vary from nine shillings up to fourteen shillings per
week, the latter sum being the wages agreed on for men employed in
the association’s own workshops. Up to this date no strike had been
supported, as it was desired to avoid the premature action which had,
it was held, destroyed the Grand National Consolidated Union. A number
of paid organisers were engaged. The Association, which hitherto had
consisted of woollen and hosiery-workers and of the Midland hardware
trades, spread in various new directions. The executive of the Friendly
Society of Operative Carpenters and Joiners--the association that had
played so important a part in the movement of 1830--issued a manifesto
to its members in favour of joining, and the general secretary became
an active member of the Executive of the National Association. The
Manchester Section of the National Cordwainers’ Society urged all
its members and all societies of boot and shoemakers to join. The
Potters of Staffordshire, the Miners of Scotland, the new-born
National Association of Tailors, as well as the Metropolitan branches
of the Boilermakers’ and Masons’ Societies came in. The Association,
in fact, became reputed a power in the land, and drew down upon
itself the abusive censure of the _Times_.[324] But in spite of the
wise intentions of its founders, it soon began to suffer from the
characteristic complaints of general unions. The depression of trade
which began in 1845 brought about during the next two years reductions
of wages, followed by strikes and turn-outs in almost every branch of
industry. The local committees of the National Association, frequently
composed of the officials of the trades concerned, promised their
members the support of the national funds, and took umbrage when the
Executive sitting in London reversed their decisions. Each constituent
trade felt that its interests were misunderstood, or its grievances
neglected. A prolonged strike of the Manchester building trades in
1846, begun without sanction, failed miserably, the local committee of
the National Association declaring that the collapse was due to lack of
the financial support which had been promised on behalf of the central
body. The coal and iron miners at Holytown in Lanarkshire engaged
in a struggle against their employers which excited the sympathy of
the Trade Union world, but which ended in failure. An equally severe
conflict by the calico-printers at Crayford in Kent met with no better
success. The Scottish miners complained that they had been inadequately
supported by the association; and the Lancashire miners made this the
pretext for continued abstention.
Though Duncombe’s association had discouraged strikes, and acted
principally as a mediating body, the employers throughout the country
showed themselves uniformly hostile. The “document” which had figured
so prominently in 1833-4 reappeared in a slightly altered form. The
employers signified their toleration if not their approval of local
trade clubs, but condemned with equal acrimony national unions of
particular trades, or general unions of all trades. Affecting a sudden
concern for the independence of character of their workmen, they
insisted that the existence of any kind of central committee, however
representative it might be, prevented the men from being free agents,
and exposed them to the arbitrary commands of an irresponsible body.
In face of this attitude, the efforts of the National Association to
bring about peaceful settlements met with only qualified success. The
London Executive, unable to cope with the applications for assistance
that poured in daily from all parts of the country, issued strong
admonitions against unauthorised strikes, but had eventually to
give or withhold support without sufficient knowledge of the local
circumstances. Duncombe was principally occupied in drawing up and
presenting petitions in favour of the legislative shortening of the
hours of labour, and in this direction he rendered valuable assistance
to the Lancashire cotton-spinners’ “Short Time Committee,” which
secured the Ten Hours Act of 1847. The Central Executive was, indeed,
during these years, more a Parliamentary Committee for the whole
movement than a federation of Trade Unions. The plan of co-operative
workshops, from which so much had been expected, proved entirely
futile in the prolonged contests of the staple trades. One flourishing
boot workshop was started; and the 1847 conference found, in all, one
hundred and twenty-three men at work, the enterprises being confined to
those trades carried on by hand labour in a small way. In 1848 it was
decided to merge the two associations in one, and to set about raising
£50,000 in order to start on a larger scale. But before this could
be attempted the association suffered a double reverse from which it
never recovered. Duncombe was compelled, by failing health, to withdraw
during 1848 from active participation in its work. And at the end of
the following year a strike of the Wolverhampton tinplate-workers
involved the National Association in a struggle with employers and with
the law which drained its funds and destroyed its credit.[325]
The later history of the association is obscure.[326] It lingered on
for many years in a small way, its paid officers serving as advisers
and representatives to a number of minor Trade Unions. Its principal
work in later years was the promotion and support of bills for the
establishment of councils of conciliation, and its persistent efforts
certainly paved the way for the Joint Boards subsequently set on
foot. But it ceases after 1851 to exercise any influence or play any
important part in the Trade Union Movement.
The National Association of United Trades stands, in constitution and
objects, half-way between the revolutionary voluntaryism of 1830-4
and the Parliamentary action of 1863-75. It may, in fact, be regarded
either as a belated “General Trades Union” of an improved type, or as
a premature and imperfect Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union
world. And although the great national Unions of the time took no
part in its proceedings, its moderate and unaggressive policy was
only one manifestation of the new spirit which now prevailed in Trade
Union councils. We see rising up in the Unions of the better-paid
artisans a keen desire to get at the facts of their industrial and
social condition. This new feeling for exact knowledge may to some
extent be attributed to the increasing share which the printing trades
were now beginning to take in the Trade Union Movement. The student
of the reports of the larger compositors’ societies, from the very
beginning of the century, will be struck, not only by the moderation,
but also by the elaborate Parliamentary formality--one might almost
say the stateliness of their proceedings. Instead of rhetorical abuse
of all employers as “the unproductive classes,” and total abstinence
from investigation of the details of disputes, we find the compositors
dealing only with concrete instances of hardship, and referring every
important question to a “Select Committee” for inquiry and report.
In 1848 the London Consolidated Society of Bookbinders, established
in 1786, used part of its funds to form a library for the benefit
of its members. By 1851 a reading-room furnished with daily and
weekly newspapers had been opened. Four years later a similar library
was established by the London Society of Compositors. In 1842, the
Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers’ Friendly Society started
a Mutual Improvement Class at Manchester. Even the Stonemasons, at
that time a rough and somewhat turbulent body, were reached by the new
desire for self-improvement. The Glasgow branch of the Scottish United
Operative Masons report with pride, in 1845, that they have “formed a
class for mutual instruction ... an association for moral, physical,
and intellectual improvement” which was setting itself to investigate
the question--“Is the present improved condition of machinery
beneficial to the working classes, or is it hurtful?”[327] But the
most effective outcome of this desire for information was the starting
by the Unions of special trade journals. The United Branches of the
Operative Potters set on foot in 1843 the _Potters’ Examiner_, a weekly
newspaper which dealt with the trade interests and technical processes
of their industry.[328] The Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers’
Friendly Society issued the _Mechanics’ Magazine_ between 1841 and
1847. In November 1850 Dunning persuaded the London Consolidated
Society of Bookbinders to publish the _Bookbinders’ Trade Circular_,
in the pages of which he promulgated a theory of Trade Unionism, from
which McCulloch himself would scarcely have dissented,[329] and made
that humble organ of his society into a monthly magazine of useful
information on all matters connected with books and their manufacture.
But the best of these trade publications, and the only one which
has enjoyed a continuous existence down to the present day, was the
_Flint Glass Makers’ Magazine_, an octavo monthly of ninety-six pages,
established at Birmingham in 1850 by the Flint Glass Makers’ Friendly
Society,[330] which advocated “the education of every man in our trade,
beginning at the oldest and coming down to the youngest.... If you do
not wish to stand as you are and suffer more oppression,” it enjoined
its readers, “we say to you get knowledge, and in getting knowledge you
get power.... Let us earnestly advise you to educate; get intelligence
instead of alcohol--it is sweeter and more lasting.”[331]
With increased acquaintance with industrial conditions came a reaction
against the policy of reckless aggression which marked the Owenite
inflation. Here again we find the printing trades taking the lead.
Already in 1835, when the London Compositors were reorganising their
society, the committee went out of their way to denounce the great
general Unions. “Unfortunately almost all Trades Unions hitherto
formed,” they report to their members, “have relied for success upon
extorted oaths and physical force.... The fault and the destruction
of all Trades Unions has hitherto been that they have copied the
vices which they professed to condemn. While disunited and powerless
they have stigmatised their employers as grasping taskmasters; but as
soon as they (the workmen) were united and powerful, then they became
tyrants in their turn, and unreasonably endeavoured to exact more
than the nature of their employment demanded, or than their employers
could afford to give. Hence their failure was inevitable.... Let the
Compositors of London show the Artisans of England a brighter and
better example; and casting away the aid to be derived from cunning
and brute strength, let us, when we contend with our opponents, employ
only the irresistible weapons of truth and reason.”[332] The disasters
of 1837-42 caused this spirit to spread to other trades. From this
time forth the minutes and circulars of the larger Unions abound in
impressive warnings against aggressive action. “Strikes are prolific,”
say the delegates of the Ironmoulders in council assembled; “in certain
cases they beget others.... How often have disputes been averted by
a few timely words with employers! It is surely no dishonour to
explain to your employer the nature and extent of your grievance.”[333]
The Stonemasons’ Central Committee repeatedly caution their members
“against the dangerous practice of striking.... Keep from it,” they
urge, “as you would from a ferocious animal that you know would destroy
you.... Remember what it was that made us so insignificant in 1842....
We implore you, brethren, as you value your own existence, to avoid, in
every way possible, those useless strikes. Let us have another year of
earnest and attentive organisation; and, if that does not perfect us,
we must have another; for it is a knowledge of the disorganised state
of working men generally that stimulates the tyrant and the taskmaster
to oppress them.”[334] A few years later the Liverpool lodge invites
the support of all the members for the proposition “that our society
no longer recognise strikes, either as a means to be adopted for
improving our condition, or as a scheme to be resorted to in resisting
infringements,”[335] and suggests, as an alternative, the formation
of an Emigration Fund. The Portsmouth lodge caps this proposal by
insisting not only that strikes should cease, but also that the word
“strike” be abolished! The _Flint Glass Makers’ Magazine_, between
1850 and 1855, is full of similar denunciations. “We believe,” writes
the editor, “that strikes have been the bane of Trades Unions.”[336]
In 1854 the Flint Glass Makers, on the proposition of the Central
Committee, abolished the allowance of “strike-money” by a vote of the
whole of the members. As an alternative it was often suggested that a
bad employer should be defeated by quietly withdrawing the men one by
one, as situations could be found for them elsewhere. “As man after
man leaves, and no one [comes] to supply their place, then it is that
the proud and haughty spirit of the oppressor is brought down, and he
feels the power he cannot see.”[337]
It was part of the same policy of restricting the use of the weapon
of the strike that the power of declaring war on the employers was,
during these years, taken away from the local branches. In the two
great societies of which we have complete records--the Ironmoulders
and the Stonemasons--we see a gradual tightening up of the control
of the central executive. The Delegate Meeting of the Ironmoulders
in 1846 vested the entire authority in the Executive Committee. “The
system,” they report, “of allowing disputes to be sanctioned by
meetings of our members, generally labouring under some excitement or
other, or misled by a plausible letter from the scene of the dispute,
is decidedly bad. Our members do not feel that responsibility on these
occasions which they ought. They are liable to be misled. A clever
speech, party feeling, a misrepresentation, or a specious letter--all
or any of these may involve a shop, or a whole branch, in a dispute,
unjustly and possibly without the least chance of obtaining their
object.... Impressed with the truth of these opinions, we have handed
over for the future the power of sanctioning disputes to the Executive
Committee alone.”[338] The Stonemasons’ Central Committee, after 1843,
peremptorily forbid lodges to strike shops, even if they do not mean
to charge the society’s funds with strike-pay. And though in this
Union, unlike the Ironmoulders, the decision to strike or not to strike
was not vested in the Executive, any lodge had to submit its demand,
through the _Fortnightly Circular_, to the vote of the whole body of
members throughout the kingdom--a procedure which involved delay and
gave the Central Committee an opportunity of using its influence in
favour of peace.
The fact that most of the Executive Committees were, from 1845 onward,
setting their face against strikes, did not imply the abandonment of
an energetic trade policy. The leaders of the better educated trades
had accepted the economic axiom that wages must inevitably depend
upon the relation of Supply and Demand in each particular class of
labour. It seemed an obvious inference that the only means in their
power to maintain or improve their condition was to diminish the
supply. “All men of experience agree,” affirms the Delegate Meeting
of the Ironmoulders in 1847, “that wages are to be best raised by
the demand for labour.” Hence we find the denunciations of strikes
accompanied by an insistence on the limitation of apprentices, the
abolition of overtime, and the provision of an Emigration Fund. The
Flint Glass Makers declare that “the scarcity of labour was one of
the fundamental principles laid down at our first conference held in
Manchester in 1849.” “It is simply a question of supply and demand, and
we all know that if we supply a greater quantity of an article than
what is actually demanded that the cheapening of that article, whether
it be labour or any other commodity, is a natural result.”[339] In
this application of the doctrine of Supply and Demand the Flint Glass
Makers were joined by the Compositors, Bookbinders, Ironmoulders,
Potters, and, as we shall presently see, the Engineers.[340] For the
next ten years an Emigration Fund becomes a constant feature of many
of the large societies, to be abandoned only when it was discovered
that the few thousands of pounds which could be afforded for this
purpose produced no visible effect in diminishing the surplus labour.
Moreover, it was the vigorous and energetic member who applied for
his passage-money, whilst the chronically unemployed, if he could be
persuaded to go at all, frequently reappeared at the clubhouse after a
brief trip at the society’s expense.[341]
The harmless but ineffective expedient of emigration was accompanied
by the more equivocal plan of closing the trade to new-comers. The
Flint Glass Makers, like the other sections of the glass trade, have
always been notorious for their strict limitation of the number of
apprentices. The constant refrain of their trade organ is “Look to the
rule and keep boys back; for this is the foundation of the evil, the
secret of our progress, the dial on which our society works, and the
hope of future generations.”[342] The printing trades were equally
active. Select Committees of the London Society of Compositors were
constantly inquiring into the most effective way of checking boy-labour
and regulating “turnover” apprentices. And the engineering trades,
at this time entering the Trade Union world, were basing their whole
policy on the assumption that the duly apprenticed mechanic, like the
doctor or the solicitor, had a right to exclude “illegal men” from his
occupation.
Such was the “New Spirit” which, by 1850, was dominating the Trade
Union world. Meanwhile the steady growth of national Unions, each with
three to five thousand members, ever-increasing friendly benefits, and
a weekly contribution per member which sometimes exceeded a shilling,
involved a considerable development of Trade Union structure. The
little clubs and local societies had been managed, in the main, by men
working at their trades, and attending to their secretarial duties
in the evening. With the growth of such national organisations as
the Stonemasons, the Ironmoulders, and the Steam-Engine Makers, the
mere volume of business necessitated the appointment of one of the
members to devote his whole time to the correspondence and accounts.
But the new official, however industrious and well-meaning, found upon
his hands a task for which neither his education nor his temperament
had fitted him. The archives of these societies reveal the pathetic
struggles of inexperienced workmen to cope with the difficulties
presented by the combination of branch management and centralised
finance. The disbursement of friendly benefits by branch meetings, the
custody and remittance of the funds, the charges for local expenses
(including “committee liquor”),[343] the mysteries of bookkeeping, and
the intricacies of audit all demanded a new body of officers specially
selected for and exclusively engaged in this work. During these years
we watch a shifting of leadership in the Trade Union world from the
casual enthusiast and irresponsible agitator to a class of permanent
salaried officers expressly chosen from out of the rank and file of
Trade Unionists for their superior business capacity. But besides
the daily work of administration, the expansion of local societies
into organisations of national extent, and the transformation of
loose federations into consolidated unions, involved the difficult
process of constitution-making. The records of the Ironmoulders and
the Stonemasons show with what anxious solicitude successive Delegate
Meetings were groping after a set of rules that would work smoothly
and efficiently. One Union, however, the Journeymen Steam-Engine
and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Friendly Society, tackled the
problems of internal organisation with peculiar ability, and eventually
produced, in the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, a “New Model” of the
utmost importance to Trade Union history.
To understand the rise of this remarkable society, we must revert
to the earlier history of combinations which have hitherto scarcely
claimed attention in our account of the general movement. The origin
of Trade Unionism in the engineering trades is obscure. We learn
that at the close of the last century the then dominant class of
millwrights possessed strong, exclusive, and even tyrannical trade
societies, the chief of them being the “London Fellowship,” meeting at
the Bell Inn, Old Bailey.[344] The millwrights, who were originally
constructors of mill-work of every kind, both wood and iron, were,
on the introduction of the steam-engine, gradually superseded by
specialised workers in particular sections of their trade. The
introduction of what was termed “the engineer’s economy,” that is to
say, the parcelling out of the trade of the millwright among distinct
classes of workmen, and the substitution of “payment according to
merit” for the millwrights’ Standard Rate, completely disorganised
the skilled mechanics of the engineering trade. This condition was
not materially improved by the establishment, from 1822 onward, of
numerous competing Trade Friendly Societies. The Ironmoulders alone
concentrated their efforts upon maintaining one national society.
The millwrights, smiths, pattern-makers, and other skilled mechanics
engaged in engine and machine making had societies in London,
Manchester, Newcastle, Bradford, Derby, and other engineering centres.
Of these the Steam-Engine Makers (established 1824); the Journeymen
Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights (established 1826); the
Associated Fraternity of Iron Forgers, usually called the “Old Smiths”
(established 1830); and the Boilermakers (established 1832) are known
to have been organisations of national extent, with branches in all
parts of the country, competing, not only with each other, but with
the Metropolitan and other local societies of Millwrights, Smiths,
Patternmakers, and General Engineers. This anarchic rivalry prevented
any effectual trade action, and tempted employers to give the work to
the lowest bidder, and to introduce the worst features of competitive
piecework and sub-contract.
We are, therefore, not surprised to find that the engineers’ societies
took little part in the great upheaval of 1830-4. But the wave of
solidarity which then swept over the labour world seems to have had
considerable, though tardy, effect even in this trade. The chief
districts affected were London and Lancashire. In 1836 a London
joint committee of several of the sectional societies successfully
conducted an eight months’ strike for a shortening of the hours of
labour to sixty per week, and for extra payment for overtime. Again,
in 1844 a joint committee obtained from the London employers a further
reduction of hours. Encouraged by these successes, the members of the
Metropolitan societies and branches began to discuss the possibility
of a national amalgamation. The most prominent personality in this
movement was that of William Newton,[345] a leading member of the
Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Friendly
Society, the association which afterwards became, as we shall see, the
parent of the amalgamation.
William Newton had exactly the qualities needed for his task. Gifted
with remarkable eloquence, astute and conciliatory in his methods,
he was equally successful in inspiring masses of men with a large
idea, and in persuading the representatives and officials of rival
societies to agree with the details of his scheme. His influence
was augmented by his tried devotion to the cause of Trade Unionism.
In 1848 he was dismissed from a first-rate position as foreman in a
large establishment owing to his activity in trade matters, and in the
following years his business as a publican was seriously damaged by his
constant absence on society business. But though from the first he had
been an active member of his Union, and was for many years a Branch
Secretary, he was, so far as we know, at no time its full-time salaried
official. He stands, therefore, midway between the casual and amateur
leaders of the old Trade Unionism and the new class of permanent
officials, sticking closely to office work, and acquiring a detailed
experience in Trade Union organisation.
Whilst Newton was bringing the London societies into line, the
Lancashire engineers were moving in the same direction. Already in
1839 a “committee of the engineering trades” at Bolton urged upon
their comrades the establishment of “one concentrated union”; and in
the following year, through the energy of Alexander Hutchinson, the
secretary of the Friendly United Smiths of Great Britain and Ireland,
a United Trades Association was set on foot in Lancashire, to comprise
the “Five Trades of Mechanism, viz. Mechanics, Smiths, Moulders,
Engineers, and Millwrights.” The objects of this association were
ably represented and promoted by its organ, the _Trades Journal_,
established to extend and “improve Trades Unions generally in Great
Britain and Ireland,”[346] The attempt proved, however, premature,
and it was not until the year 1844 that the Bolton men, under the
leadership of John Rowlinson, succeeded in establishing a permanent
“Protection Society,” composed of delegates from the Societies of
Smiths, Millwrights, Ironmoulders, Engineers, and Boilermakers.
Inspirited by the success of the Bolton society, which successfully
maintained a nine months’ strike (costing it £9,000) against the
“Quittance Paper” (character note, or leaving certificate) which the
employers eventually agreed to abandon, joint committees of engineering
operatives were formed between 1844 and 1850 in all the principal
Lancashire centres. These were repeatedly addressed by Rowlinson and
Hutchinson, and the ground was prepared for a systematic attempt at
national amalgamation.
The leading part in the amalgamation was taken by the society to which
Newton belonged. The Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and
Millwrights’ Friendly Society, with its headquarters at Manchester,
at this time far exceeded any other trade society in membership and
wealth. Established in 1826 as the Friendly Union of Mechanics, it
had absorbed in 1837 a strong Yorkshire society dating from 1822 (the
Mechanics’ Friendly Union Institution), and by 1848 it numbered seven
thousand members organised in branches all over the kingdom, and
possessed an accumulated reserve fund of £25,000. The silent growth
of this Union, the slow perfecting of its constitution by repeated
delegate meetings held at intervals during the preceding twenty years,
stand in marked contrast with the dramatic advent of the ephemeral
organisations of 1830-34. But this task of internal organisation, with
its gradual working out of the elaborate financial and administrative
system which afterwards became celebrated in the constitution of the
Amalgamated Engineers, seems to have absorbed, during the first fifteen
years of its existence, all the energy of its members. In none of the
working-class movements of this period did the society play any part,
nor do we find that it, as a whole, engaged in any important conflicts
with its members’ employers. At last, in 1843, a delegate meeting urged
the members to oppose systematic overtime, and in 1844 the society,
as we have seen, took part in the London movement for the shortening
of the hours of labour. By 1845 it seems to have felt itself strong
enough to undertake aggressive trade action by itself, and a delegate
meeting in that year attacked the employment of labourers on machines,
“the piece master system,” and systematic overtime, by stringent
resolutions upon which the Executive Committee sitting at Manchester
were directed to take early action.[347] During the following year
accordingly a simultaneous attempt appears to have been made by many
of the branches to enforce these rules. This action led, at Belfast,
Rochdale, and Newton-le-Willows, to legal proceedings by the employers,
and the officers of the society, together with over a score of its
members, found themselves in the dock indicted for conspiracy and
illegal combination.[348] The trial of the twenty-six engineers of
Newton-le-Willows, and the conviction of nine of them, including
Selsby, the General Secretary of the great mechanics’ Union, caused a
sensation in the Trade Union world, and tended to draw closer together
the rival societies in the engineering trade.
The progressive trade policy of the Journeymen Steam-Engine and
Machine Makers’ Society greatly increased the ascendency which its
superiority in wealth and numbers gave it over the numerous other
trade friendly societies in the engineering trades. William Allan,
a young Scotchman, succeeded Selsby in the salaried post of general
secretary when the latter obtained a commercial post in 1848. A close
friend and ardent disciple of William Newton, he quickly manifested,
in the administration of his own society, the capacity and energy
which enabled him in future years to play so important a part in the
general history of the Labour Movement. The cause of amalgamation was
well served by the indefatigable missionary efforts of these two men.
The anniversary dinners and friendly social meetings of the joint
committees of the societies in the Lancashire iron trades were, as
we know from contemporary records, made the occasion of propagandist
speeches, and were doubtless used also by these astute organisers
to talk over the leading men to agreement with their proposals. The
natural jealousy felt by the great provincial centre of Trade Unionism
of the interference of the Metropolis in its concerns was allayed
by Allan’s suggestion that the Lancashire societies should call a
conference of delegates at Warrington in March 1850, for the purpose
of consultation and discussion only. At this meeting, which was
attended only by the representatives of three of the larger societies
(including the Steam-Engine Makers established at Liverpool in 1824,
and the Smiths’ Benevolent, Friendly, Sick and Burial Society,
established in 1830), Newton and Allan succeeded in getting through
the outlines of their scheme of amalgamation. During the next six
months these proposals were the subject of exhaustive discussion at
every joint committee and branch meeting. Meanwhile the leaders had
established in Manchester a weekly journal for the express purpose of
promoting amalgamation, engaging as editor, under a written contract,
Dr. John Watts, afterwards well known as one of the ablest advocates
of co-operation. This journal, the _Trades Advocate and Herald of
Progress_, stated to be “established by the Iron Trades,” discussed
the advantages of union, and incidentally taught the doctrines of Free
Trade and Co-operative Production.[349]
Lancashire converted and conciliated, London could now go ahead.
Under Newton’s influence the London joint committee summoned a second
delegate meeting at Birmingham in September 1850, which was attended
by representatives of seven engineering societies. At this conference
the scheme of amalgamation was definitely adopted; and the Metropolitan
“Central Committee” was charged, as a “Provisional Committee,” to
complete the details of the transfer of the old organisation to the new
body. The tact and skill with which Allan and Newton carried out their
project are conspicuously shown by the way in which the act of union
was regarded by all concerned. There is no trace of suspicion on the
part of the minor societies that they were taking part in anything but
an amalgamation on equal terms. The whole Trade Union world, including
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers itself, has retained the tradition
that this great organisation was the outcome of a genuine amalgamation
of societies of fairly equivalent standing. What happened, as a
matter of fact, was that the society led by Allan and Newton absorbed
its rivals.[350] The new body took over, in its entirety, the
elaborate constitution, the scheme of benefits (with the addition
of Sick Benefit and the adoption of the innovation of an Emigration
Benefit of £6), the trade policy, and even the official staff of the
Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Society,
which contributed more than three-fourths of the membership with which
the amalgamation started, and found itself continued, down to the
minutest details, in the rules and regulations of the new association.
An important addition was, however, the adoption of a definite
trade policy of restricting overtime and preventing piecework; the
institution of District Committees charged to carry out that policy;
and the establishment of a new Strike Pay of 15s. per week.
The conclusions of the Birmingham delegates were not accepted without
demur. Many of the branches in Lancashire and elsewhere objected to
the position obtained by the London Committee, and stood aloof from
the amalgamation. The Manchester Committee showed signs of jealousy at
the transfer of the seat of government to the Metropolis. But the most
important defection was that of the rank and file of the members of the
Steam-Engine Makers’ Society, an association which stood in membership
and funds second only to the Journeymen Steam-Engine Makers and Machine
Makers’ Society. Newton and Allan had succeeded in persuading the whole
of the Executive to throw in their lot with the amalgamation, but the
bulk of the members revolted, and the society maintained a separate
existence down to the end of 1919, when it joined the other societies
in the creation of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Even in Newton’s
own society, in which the main principles of the amalgamation had been
carried by large majorities, a considerable number of the provincial
branches remained hostile. On January 6, 1851, when the Provisional
Committee formally assumed office as the Executive Committee of the
“Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Smiths, Millwrights and
Patternmakers,” scarcely 5000 members out of the 10,500 represented at
the Birmingham Conference were paying to the amalgamated funds.[351]
For some months, indeed, the success of Newton’s ambitious scheme
looked doubtful. Though London had rallied to his help, only one small
society standing aloof, the provincial branches came in very slowly.
It took three months’ persuasion to raise the membership of the
amalgamation up to the level of the parent society. Delegate meetings
of the Steam-Engine Makers and the Smiths’ Societies decided against
amalgamation, though many of their branches broke away and joined the
new society. But towards the end of May the tide turned. The remaining
branches of the Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and
Millwrights’ Society held a delegate meeting, at which it was decided
no longer to oppose the amalgamation; the Smiths’ Society of London and
several other small societies came in; and by October Newton and Allan
were at the head of a united society of 11,000 members paying 1s. per
week each, the largest and most powerful Union that had ever existed in
the engineering trades, and far exceeding in membership, and still more
in annual income, any other trade society of the time.[352]
The successful accomplishment of the amalgamation was followed by a
conflict with the employers, which riveted the attention of the whole
Trade Union world upon the new body. The aggressive trade policy
initiated by Selsby and Allan in Lancashire and Newton in London
had been repeatedly confirmed by the delegate meetings of their
society, and was formally incorporated in the basis of the larger
organisation.[353] The more energetic branches were not slow in acting
upon it. In 1851 the men at Messrs. Hibbert & Platt’s extensive works
at Oldham made a series of demands, not only for the abolition of
overtime, but also for the exclusion of “labourers and other ‘illegal’
men” from the machines. With these demands Messrs. Hibbert & Platt
and other employers had to comply. The private minutes of the London
Executive prove conclusively that the strike to oust labourers from
machines was not authorised by the central body;[354] but as William
Newton, now a member of the Executive, acted as the representative
of the Oldham men in submitting these demands to Messrs. Hibbert &
Platt, the employers, naturally inferring that his action was the
direct outcome of the amalgamation, formed in December 1851 the Central
Association of Employers of Operative Engineers to resist the men’s
Union.
Meanwhile the London Executive had been consulting the whole of
the members on the proposal to abolish systematic overtime and
piecework, and had obtained an almost unanimous vote in favour of
immediate action. A manifesto was issued to the employers, in which
the Executive announced the intention of the society to put an end
to piecework and systematic overtime after December 31, 1851. The
employers replied by an imperious declaration in the _Times_ that a
strike at any one establishment would be met seven days later by a
general lock-out of the whole engineering trade. The men thereupon
offered to submit the question to arbitration, a proposal which the
employers ignored. On January 1, 1852, the members of the Amalgamated
Society refused to work overtime, and on the 10th the masters closed,
as they had threatened, every important engineering establishment in
Lancashire and the Metropolis.
The three months’ struggle that followed interested the general public
more than any previous conflict. The details were described, and the
action of the employers and the policy of the Union was discussed in
every newspaper. The men found unexpected friends in the little group
of “Christian Socialists,” who threw themselves heartily into the fray,
and rendered excellent service, not only by liberal subscriptions,[355]
but also by letters to the newspapers, public lectures, and other
explanations of the men’s position. The masters remained obdurate,
insisting not only upon the unconditional withdrawal of the men’s
demands, but also upon their signing the well-known “document”
forswearing Trade Union membership. The capitalists, in fact, took
up the old line of absolute supremacy in their establishments, and
expressly denied the men’s right to take any collective action
whatsoever.
Notwithstanding the subscription of £4000 by the public and £5000 by
other trade societies, the funds at the disposal of the Union soon
began to run short. The Executive had undertaken to support not only
the 3500 of its own members and the 1500 mechanics who were out, but
also the 10,000 labourers who had been made idle. Altogether over
£43,000 was dispensed during the six months in out-of-work pay. Early
in February the masters opened their workshops. By the middle of March
the issue of the struggle was plain, and during April the men resumed
work on the employers’ terms. Almost all the masters insisted on the
actual signature of the “document” by their men, and most of these,
under pressure of imminent destitution, reluctantly submitted, without,
however, carrying out their promise by abandoning the Union. Judge
Hughes, writing in 1860, describes this act of bad faith by the men as
“inexcusable,” but there is much to be said for the view taken by the
Amalgamation Executive, who declared that they held themselves “and
every man who unwillingly puts his hand to that detestable document
which is forced upon us to be as much destitute of that power of choice
which should precede a contract as if a pistol were at his head and he
had to choose between death and degradation.”[356] A promise extorted
under “duress” carries with it little legal and still less moral
obligation, and whatever discredit attaches to the transaction must be
ascribed at least as much to the masters who made the demand as to the
unfortunate victims of the labour war who unwillingly complied with
it.[357]
It was the dramatic events of 1852 which made the establishment of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers a turning-point in the history of the
Trade Union Movement. The complete victory gained by the employers did
not, as they had hoped, destroy the Engineers’ Union. The membership
of the society was, in fact, never seriously shaken.[358] On the other
hand, the publicity which it gained in the conflict gave it a position
of unrivalled prominence in the Trade Union world. From 1852 to 1889
the elaborate constitution of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers
served as the model for all new national trade societies, whilst old
organisations found themselves gradually incorporating its leading
features. The place occupied in 1830-34 by the cotton-spinners and the
builders was, in fact, now taken by the iron trades.
The “New Model” thus introduced differed, both for good and evil, from
the typical Trade Unionism of the preceding generation. The engineering
societies had to some extent inherited the exclusive policy of the
organisations of the skilled handicraftsmen of the beginning of the
century. Unlike the General Trades Unions of 1830-34 they restricted
their membership to legally apprenticed workmen. Their records bear
traces of the old idea of the legal incorporation of separate trades,
rather than of any general union of “the productive classes.” The
generous but impracticable “universalism” of the Owenite and Chartist
organisations was replaced by the principle of the protection of the
vested interests of the craftsman in his occupation. The preface to the
rules of the parent society expresses this dominant idea by a forcible
analogy:
“The youth who has the good fortune and inclination for preparing
himself as a useful member of society by the study of physic, and who
studies that profession with success so as to obtain his diploma from
the Surgeons’ Hall or College of Surgeons, naturally expects, in some
measure, that he is entitled to privileges to which the pretending
quack can lay no claim; and if in the practice of that useful
profession he finds himself injured by such a pretender, he has the
power of instituting a course of law against him. Such are the benefits
connected with the learned professions. But the mechanic, though he may
expend nearly an equal fortune and sacrifice an equal proportion of
his life in becoming acquainted with the different branches of useful
mechanism, has no law to protect his privileges.”[359] He is therefore
urged to join the society, which aims at securing the same protection
of his trade against interlopers as is enjoyed by the learned
professions.
This spirit of exclusiveness has had, as we shall hereafter discern,
an equivocal effect, not only on the history of the society itself,
but on that of the Trade Union Movement. But the contemporary trade
movements either did not observe or failed to realise the tendency
of this attempt to retain or reconstruct an aristocracy of skilled
workmen. What impressed the working men was not the trade policy which
had brought about the defeat of 1852, but the admirably thought-out
financial and administrative system, which enabled the Union to combine
the functions of a trade protection society with those of a permanent
insurance company, and thus attain a financial stability hitherto
undreamt of. Time proved that this constitution had its peculiar
defects. But for over twenty years no Trade Unionist questioned its
excellence, and the minute criticism and heated abuse which it evoked
from employers and their advocates seemed only another testimony to
its effectiveness. We think it worth while, therefore, at the risk of
introducing tedious detail, to describe the main features of this “New
Model.”
In striking contrast with the Cotton-spinners’ and Builders’ Unions
of 1830-34, with their exclusively trade purposes, the societies
in the engineering trades had, like the trade organisations of the
handicraftsmen of the last century, originated as local benefit clubs.
The Journeymen Steam-Engine Makers’ Society, for instance, had from
the first provided its members with out-of-work pay, a travelling
allowance, a funeral benefit, and a lump sum in case of accidental
disablement. In 1846 it added to these benefits a small sick allowance,
and shortly afterwards an old age pension to superannuated members.
The administration of these friendly benefits was from the outset the
primary object of the organisation. As the local benefit club expanded
into a national society by the migration of its members from town to
town, the extreme difficulty of combining local autonomy with a just
and economical administration of extensive benefits became apparent.
For the society, it must be remembered, was not a federation of
independent bodies, each having its own exchequer and contributing to
the central fund its determinate quota of the expenses of the central
office: it was from the first a single association with a common
purse, into which all contributions were paid, and out of which all
expenditure, down to the stationery and ink used by a branch secretary,
was defrayed. This concentration of funds carried with it the practical
advantage of forming a considerable reserve at the disposal of the
Executive. But so long as it was combined with local autonomy, it was
open to the obvious objection that a branch might dispense benefits to
its own members with undue liberality, and thus absorb an unfair amount
of the moneys of the whole society. And hence we find that in 1838 an
attempt was made to centralise the administration, by transforming the
local officials from the servants of the branches into agents of the
central authority. The inherent love of self-government of the British
artisan defeated this proposal, which would inevitably have led to
local apathy and suspicion, if not to grosser evils. Some other method
of harmonising local autonomy with centralised finance had therefore to
be invented.
Under the constitution which the Amalgamated Society took over from the
Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights, we find
this problem solved with considerable astuteness. The branch elects and
controls its own local officers, but acts in all cases within rules
which provide explicitly for every detail. Each branch retains its own
funds and administers the friendly benefits payable to its own members,
including the allowance to men out of work. The financial autonomy
of the branch is, however, more apparent than real. No penny must be
expended except in accordance with precise rules. The branch retains
its own funds, but these are the property of the whole society, and
at the end of each year the balances are “equalised” by a complicated
system of remittances from branch to branch, ordered by the Central
Executive in such a way that each branch starts the year with the same
amount of capital per member. The cumbrous plan of annual equalisation
is a device adopted in order to maintain the feeling of local
self-government under a strictly centralised financial system.[360]
From the decision of the branch any member may appeal to the Central
Executive Council. The decisions of this Council on all questions of
friendly benefits are, however, strictly limited to the interpretation
of the existing laws of the society. These rules, which include in
equal detail both the constitutional and the financial code, cannot be
altered or modified except by a specially convened meeting of delegates
from every district. Careful provision is, moreover, made against the
danger of hasty or ill-considered legislation even by this supreme
authority. No amendment may be so much as considered without having
been circulated to all the branches six weeks prior to the delegate
meeting, and having thereupon been discussed and re-discussed by the
members at two successive general meetings convened for the purpose.
Thus every delegate comes to his legislative duties charged with a
direct and even detailed mandate from his constituents. Moreover, it is
expressly provided that no friendly benefit shall be abrogated unless
the decision of the delegate meeting to that effect is ratified by a
majority of two-thirds on a vote of the members of the whole society.
As a friendly society, therefore, the Association consists of a number
of self-governing branches acting according to the provisions of a
detailed code, and amenable, in respect of its interpretation, to a
Central Executive.
As a Trade Union, on the contrary, the Association has been from the
first a highly centralised body. The great object of the amalgamation
was to secure uniformity in trade policy, and to promote the
equalisation of what the economists call “real wages”[361] throughout
the whole country. With this view the Central Executive has always
retained the absolute power of granting or withholding strike pay.
No individual can receive strike allowance from his branch except
upon an express order of the Executive. Local knowledge, however, is
clearly needed for the decision in matters of trade policy, and on the
amalgamation “district” committees were established, consisting of the
representatives of neighbouring branches. These committees have no
concern with the administration of friendly benefits, which, as we have
seen, is the business of each branch. Their function is to guard the
local interests of the trade, to watch for encroachments, and to advise
the Executive Council in the administration of strike pay. Unlike the
branches, they possess no independent authority, and are required to
act strictly under the orders of headquarters, to which the minutes of
their proceedings are regularly sent for confirmation.
Not less impressive than this elaborate constitution, with its system
of checks and counter-checks, was the magnitude of the financial
transactions of the new society. The high contribution of a shilling a
week, paid with unexampled regularity by a constantly increasing body
of members, provided an income which surpassed the wildest dreams of
previous Trade Union organisations, and enabled the society to meet any
local emergency without serious effort. A large portion of this income
was absorbed by the expensive friendly benefits, which were on a scale
at that time unfamiliar to the societies in other trades. And when it
was found that the contribution of a shilling a week not only met all
these requirements, but also provided an accumulating balance, which
could be drawn upon for strike pay, the indignation of the employers
knew no bounds. For many years the union of friendly benefits with
trade protection funds, now considered as the guarantee of a peaceful
Trade Union policy, was denounced as a dishonest attempt to subsidise
strikes at the expense of the innocent subscriber to a friendly society
insurance against sickness, accident, and old age.[362]
In scarcely less marked contrast with the current tradition of Trade
Unionism was the publicity which the Amalgamated Engineers from the
first courted. Powerful societies, such as the existing Union of
Stonemasons, had between 1834 and 1850 elaborated a constitution which
proved as durable as that of the Amalgamated Engineers, though of a
slightly different type. But the old feeling of secretiveness still
dominated both the leaders and the rank and file. The _Stonemasons’
Fortnightly Circular_, which, regularly appearing as it has done since
1834, constitutes perhaps the most valuable single record of the Trade
Union Movement, was never seen outside the branch meeting-place.[363]
At the Royal Commission of 1867-8 the employers’ witnesses bitterly
complained of their inability to get copies of this publication and of
a similar periodical circular of the Bricklayers’ Society.[364] As late
as 1871 we find the liability to publicity adduced by some Unions as an
argument against seeking recognition by the law.
The leaders of the Engineers believed, on the contrary, in the power of
advertisement. We have already noticed the two short-lived newspapers
which Newton and Allan published in 1850 and 1851-2, for the express
purpose of making known the society and its objects. For many years
after the amalgamation it was a regular practice to forward to the
press, for publication or review, all the monthly, quarterly, and
annual reports, as well as the more important of the circulars issued
to the members. Representatives were sent to the Conference on Capital
and Labour held by the Society of Arts in 1854, and to the congresses
of the Social Science Association from 1859 onward. Newton and Allan
appear, indeed, to have eagerly seized every opportunity of writing
letters to the newspapers, reading papers, and delivering lectures
about the organisation which they had established.
It is easy to understand the great influence which, during the next
twenty years, this “New Model” exercised upon the Trade Union world.
Its most important imitator was the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters,
which, as we shall see, arose out of the great London strike of
1859-60. The tailors in 1866 drew together into an amalgamated society,
which adopted, almost without alteration, the whole code of the
engineers, and in 1869 the London Society of Compositors appointed a
special committee to report upon “the constitution and working of the
Amalgamated Trades,” with a view to their imitation in the printing
industry--an intention which, in spite of the favourable character of
the report, was not carried out.[365] Scarcely a trade exists which
did not, between 1852 and 1875, either attempt to imitate the whole
constitution of the Amalgamated Engineers, or incorporate one or other
of its characteristic features.
The five or six years following the collapse of the great lock-out of
1852, though constituting a period of quiet progress in particular
societies, are for the historian of the general Trade Union Movement,
almost a blank. The severe commercial depression of 1846-49 was
succeeded by seven years of steadily expanding trade, which furnished
no occasion for general reduction of wages. The reaction against the
ambitious projects of the Trade Union of 1834 continued to discourage
even federal action;[366] whilst the complete failure of the struggle
of the engineers, followed as it was in 1853 by the disastrous strike
of the Preston cotton-spinners for a ten per cent advance, by an
equally unsuccessful struggle of the Kidderminster carpet-weavers,
and by a fierce and futile conflict by the Dowlais ironworkers,[367]
increased the disinclination of the Unions to aggressive trade action
on a large scale. The disrepute into which strikes had fallen was
intensified by the spread among the more thoughtful working men of
the principles of Industrial Co-operation. This new development of
Owen’s teaching took two forms, both, it need hardly be said, differing
fundamentally from the Owenism of 1834. In Lancashire the success of
the “Rochdale Pioneers,” established in 1844, had led to the rapid
extension of the Co-operative Store, the association of consumers for
the supply of their own wants. To some extent the stalwart leaders
of the Lancashire and Yorkshire working men were diverted from the
organisation of trade combinations to the establishment of co-operative
shops and corn-mills. Meanwhile the “Christian Socialists” of London
had caught up the idea of Buchez and the Parisian projects of 1848,
and were advocating with an almost apostolic fervour the formation
of associations of producers, in which groups of working men were to
become their own employers.[368]
The generous enthusiasm with which the “Christian Socialists”
had thrown themselves into the Engineers’ struggle, and their
obvious devotion to the interests of Labour, gave their schemes
of “Self-governing Workshops” a great vogue. Numberless small
undertakings were started by operative engineers, cabinetmakers,
tailors, bootmakers, and hatters in the Metropolis and in other large
industrial centres, and for a few years the Executives and Committees
of the various Unions vied with each other in recommending co-operative
production to their members. But it soon became apparent that this new
form of co-operation was intended, not as an adjunct or a development
of the Trade Union, but as an alternative form of industrial
organisation. For, unlike the Owenites of 1834, the Christian
Socialists had no conception of the substitution of profit-making
enterprise by the whole body of wage-earners, organised either in a
self-contained community or in a complete Trades Union. They sought
only to replace the individual capitalist by self-governing bodies of
profit-making workmen. A certain number of the ardent spirits among the
London and north country workmen became the managers and secretaries
of these undertakings, and ceased to be energetic members of their
respective Unions. “We have found,” say the Engineers’ Executive in
their annual report of 1855, “that when a few of our own members have
commenced business hitherto they have abandoned the society, and
conducted the workshops even worse than other employers.” Fortunately
for the Trade Union Movement the uniform commercial failure of these
experiments, so long, at any rate, as they retained their original
form of the self-governing workshop, soon became obvious to those
concerned. The idea of “Co-operative Production” constantly reappears
in contemporary Trade Union records, but after the failure of the
co-operative establishments of 1848-52 it ceases, for nearly twenty
years, to be a question of “practical politics” in the Trade Union
world.
In spite of this intellectual diversion the work of Trade Union
consolidation was being steadily carried on. The Amalgamated Engineers
doubled their numbers in the ten years that followed their strike,
and by 1861 their Union had accumulated the unprecedented balance
of £73,398. The National Societies of Ironfounders and Stonemasons
grew in a similar proportion. A revival of Trade Unionism took place
among the textile operatives. The present association of Lancashire
cotton-spinners began its career in 1853, whilst the cotton-weavers
secured in the same year what has been fitly termed their Magna Charta,
the “Blackburn List” of piecework rates. But with the exception of
the building trades, Trade Unionism assumed, during these years,
a peaceful attitude. The leaders no longer declaimed against “the
idle classes,” but sought to justify the Trade Union position with
arguments based on middle-class economics. The contributions of the
Amalgamated Engineers are described “as a general voluntary rate in
aid of the Poor’s Rate.”[369] The Executive Council cannot doubt
that employers will not “regard a society like ours with disfavour.
They will begin to understand that it is not intended, nor adapted,
to damage their interests, but rather to advance them, by elevating
the character of their workmen, and proportionately lessening their
own responsibilities.” The project of substituting “Councils of
Conciliation” for strikes and lock-outs grew in favour with Trade
Union leaders. Hundreds of petitions in favour of their establishment
were got up by the National Association of United Trades, then on its
last legs. The House of Commons Committees in 1856 and 1860 found the
operatives in all trades disposed to support the principle of voluntary
submission to arbitration. For a brief period it seemed as if peace was
henceforth to prevail over the industrial world.
The era of strikes which set in with the contraction of trade in 1857
proved how fallacious had been these hopes. The building trades, in
particular, had remained less affected than the Engineers or the
Cotton Operatives by the change of tone. The local branches of the
Stonemasons, Bricklayers, and other building trade operatives, often
against the wish of their Central Committees, were engaged between
1853 and 1859 in an almost constant succession of little strikes
against separate firms, in which the men were generally successful in
gaining advances of wages.[370] These years were, moreover, notable
for the recognition in the provincial building trades of “working
rules,” or signed agreements between employers and workmen (usually
between the local Masters’ Associations and the Trade Unions),
specifying in minute detail the conditions of the collective bargain.
Without doubt the adoption of these rules was a step forward in the
direction of industrial peace; but, like international treaties, they
were frequently preceded by desperate conflicts in which both sides
exhausted their resources, and learnt to respect the strength of the
other party. With the depression of trade more important disputes
occurred. During 1858 fierce conflicts arose between masters and men
in the flint glass industry and in the West Yorkshire coalfield.
The introduction of the sewing-machine into the boot and shoemaking
villages of Northamptonshire led to a series of angry struggles. But
of the great disputes of 1858 to 1861, the builders’ strike in the
Metropolis in 1859-60 was by far the most important in its effect upon
the Trade Union Movement.
The dispute of 1859 originated in the growing movement for a shortening
of the hours of labour.[371] The demand for a Nine Hours Day in the
Building Trades was first made by the Liverpool Stonemasons in 1846,
and renewed by the London Stonemasons in 1853. In neither case,
however, was the claim persisted in. Four years later the movement was
revived by the London Carpenters, whose memorial to their employers was
met, after a joint conference, by a decisive refusal. Meanwhile the
Stonemasons were seeking to obtain the Saturday half-holiday, which
the employers equally refused. This led, in the autumn of 1858, to the
formation of a Joint Committee of Carpenters, Masons, and Bricklayers,
which, on November 18, 1858, addressed a dignified memorial to the
master builders, urging that the hours of labour should be shortened
by one per day, and that future building contracts should be accepted
on this basis. At first ignored by the employers, this request was
eventually refused as decidedly as it had been in 1853 and 1857. The
Joint Committee thereupon made a renewed attempt by petitioning four
firms selected by ballot. Among these was that of Messrs. Trollope,
who promptly dismissed one of the men who had presented the memorial.
This action led to an immediate strike against Messrs. Trollope.
Within a fortnight every master builder in London employing over fifty
men had closed his establishment, and twenty-four thousand men were
peremptorily deprived of their employment. The controversy which raged
in the columns of contemporary newspapers during this pitched battle
between Capital and Labour brought out in strong relief the state of
mind of the Metropolitan employers. Uninfluenced by the progress of
public opinion, or by the new tone of respect and moderation adopted by
Trade Union leaders, the London employers took up the position of their
predecessors of 1834. They absolutely refused to recognise the claim of
the representatives of the men even to discuss with them the conditions
of employment. This attitude was combined with a determined attempt to
destroy all combination, the instrument adopted being the well-worn
Document. The Central Association of Master Builders resolved, in terms
almost identical with its predecessor of 1834, that “no member of this
Association shall engage or continue in his employment any contributor
to the funds of any Trades Union or Trades Society which practises
interference with the regulation of any establishment, the hours or
terms of labour, the contracts or agreements of employers or employed,
or the qualification or terms of service.”
This declaration of war on Trade Unionism gained for the men on strike
the support of the whole Trade Union world. The Central Committee
of the great society of Stonemasons, which had hitherto discouraged
the Metropolitan Nine Hours Movement as premature, took up the
struggle against the Document as one of vital importance. Meetings of
delegates from the organised Metropolitan trades were held in order
to rally the forces of Trade Unionism to the cause of the builders.
The subscriptions which poured in from all parts of the kingdom
demonstrated the possession, in the hands of trade societies, of heavy
and hitherto unsuspected reserves of financial strength. The London
Pianoforte Makers contributed £300. The Flint Glass Makers, who had
just emerged from a prolonged struggle on their own account, sent a
similar sum. “Trades Committees” were formed in all the industrial
centres, and remitted large amounts. Glasgow and Manchester sent over
£800 each, and Liverpool over £500. The newly formed Yorkshire Miners’
Association forwarded £230. The Boilermakers, Coopers, and Coachmakers’
Societies were especially liberal in their gifts. But the sensation of
the subscription list was the grant by the Amalgamated Engineers of
three successive weekly donations of £1000 each--an event long recalled
with emotion by the survivors of the struggle. Altogether some £23,000
were subscribed (exclusive of the payments by the societies directly
concerned), an amount far in excess of any previous strike subsidy.
Such abundant support enabled the men to defeat the employers’ aims,
though not to secure their own demands. The Central Association of
Master Builders clung desperately to the Document, but failed to
obtain an adequate number of men willing to subscribe to its terms.
In December 1859 a suggestion was made by Lord St. Leonards that
the Document be withdrawn, a lengthy statement of the law relating
to trade combinations being hung up in all the establishments as a
substitute. The employers’ obstinacy held out for two months longer,
but finally succumbed in February 1860, when the Platonic suggestion of
Lord St. Leonards was adopted, and the embittered dispute was brought
to an end.
This drawn battle between the forces of Capital and Labour ranks as a
leading event in Trade Union history, not only because it revived the
feeling of solidarity between different trades, but also on account
of the importance of two consolidating organisations to which it gave
birth. Out of the Building Trades Strike of 1859-60 arose the London
Trades Council (to be described in the following chapter) and the
Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, the most notable adoption by another
trade of the “New Model” introduced by Newton and Allan.
The strike had revealed to the London carpenters the complete state of
disorganisation into which their industry had fallen. It was they, it
is true, who had initiated the Nine Hours Movement in the Metropolis,
but the committee which memorialised the employers had represented no
body of organised workmen. George Potter, who was the leader of this
movement, could draw around him only a group of delegates elected
by the men in each shop. There were, indeed, not more than about a
thousand carpenters in London who were members of any trade society
whatsoever, and these were scattered among numerous tiny benefit clubs.
The Friendly Society of Operative Carpenters, which, as we have seen,
was a militant branch of the Builders’ Union of 1830-34, had, like the
Stonemasons’ Society, maintained a continuous existence. Unlike that
society, however, it had kept the old character of a loose federation
for trade purposes only, depending for its finances upon occasional
levies. Perhaps for this reason it had lost its exclusive hold upon
the provinces, and had gained no footing in London. As a competent
observer remarks: “At the time of the 1859-60 strikes the masons alone
of the building trades were organised into a single society extending
throughout England, and providing not only for trade purposes, but for
the ordinary benefits.... The London masons locked out were supported
regularly and punctually by their society, and could have continued the
struggle for an indefinite time; but the other trades, split up into
numerous local societies, were soon reduced to extremities.”[372] The
Carpenters’ Committee saw with envy the capacity of the Stonemasons’
Society to provide long-continued strike pay for its members, and
were profoundly impressed by the successive donations of £1000 each
made by the Amalgamated Engineers. Directly the strike was over, the
leading members of the little benefit clubs met together to discuss
the formation of a national organisation on the Engineers’ model.
William Allan lent them every assistance in adapting the rules of his
own society to the carpenters’ trade, and watched over the preliminary
proceedings. The new society started on June 4, 1860, with a few
hundred members. For the first two years its progress was slow; but in
October 1862 it had the good fortune to elect as its general secretary
a man whose ability and cautious sagacity promptly raised it to a
position of influence in the Trade Union world. Robert Applegarth,
secretary of a local Carpenters’ Union at Sheffield, had been quick to
perceive the advantages of amalgamation, and had brought his society
over with him. Under his administration the new Union advanced by leaps
and bounds, and in a few years it stood, in magnitude of financial
transactions and accumulated funds, second only to the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers itself. Moreover, Applegarth’s capacity brought
him at once into that little circle of Trade Union leaders whose
activity forms during the next ten years the central point of Trade
Union history.
FOOTNOTES:
[308] Between 1850 and 1874 there was (except, perhaps, during the
American Civil War) no falling off in the value of our export trade
comparable to the serious declines of 1826, 1829, 1837, 1842, and
1848. We do not pretend to account for this difference, but may remind
the reader of the coincident increase in the production of gold, the
influence of Free Trade and railways, and, as the bimetallists would
tell us, the currency arrangements which were brought to an end in 1873.
[309] This was an elaborate national organisation with 60 branches,
grouped under five District Boards. But it enrolled only 4320 members,
and broke up in 1847, after numerous local strikes. In June 1849 most
of the provincial branches joined in the Typographical Association,
from which for some time the strong Manchester and Birmingham societies
stood aloof; whilst the London men formed the London Society of
Compositors.
[310] _The Colliers’ Guide, showing the Necessity of the Colliers
Uniting to Protect their Labour from the Iron Hand of Oppression_,
etc., by J. B. Thompson (Bishop Wearmouth, 1843); and see many
reports in the _Northern Star_, from 1843 to 1848; _The Miners of
Northumberland and Durham_, by Richard Fynes, 1873; _A Great Labour
Leader_ [Thomas Burt], by Aaron Watson, 1908, pp. 19-23.
[311] _Northern Star_ for 1843-4; Fynes’ _Miners of Northumberland and
Durham_, 1873, chap. viii.; _Condition of the Working Class in England
in 1844_, by Friedrich Engels, 1892, pp. 253-9.
[312] William Prowting Roberts, the youngest son of the Rev. Thomas
Roberts, of Chelmsford, was born in 1806, and became a solicitor at
Manchester. He was an enthusiastic Chartist, and friend of Fergus
O’Connor, to whose Land Bank he acted as legal adviser. From 1843
onwards his name appears in nearly all the legal business of the
Trade Unions. The collapse of 1848 somewhat damaged his reputation,
but he continued to be frequently retained for many years. In 1867
he organised the defence of Allen, Larking, and O’Brien, the Irish
“Manchester Martyrs,” who were hanged for the rescue of Fenian
prisoners and the murder of a policeman. In later years Roberts retired
to a country house in the neighbourhood of “O’Connorville,” near
Rickmansworth, the scene of one of O’Connor’s colonies, where he died
on September 7, 1871. A pamphlet on the Trade Union Bill of 1871 is the
only publication of his that we have discovered, but he appears also to
have edited a report of the engineers’ trial in 1847, and reports of
some other legal proceedings.
[313] _Flint Glass Makers’ Magazine_, October 1851. The years 1847-8
had witnessed many strikingly vindictive prosecutions of Trade
Unionists. Besides the case of the engineers, to which we shall refer
hereafter, twenty-one stonemasons of London were indicted in 1848 for
conspiracy, but, after repeated postponements, the prosecuting employer
failed to proceed with the case. The Sheffield razor-grinders stood
in greater jeopardy. John Drury, and three other members of their
society, were tried and sentenced to ten years’ transportation at the
instance of the Sheffield Manufacturers’ Protection Association on the
random accusations of two dissolute convicts that they had incited them
to destroy machinery. This monstrous perversion of justice aroused
the greatest indignation. Public meetings were held by the National
Association of United Trades. The indictment was quashed on a technical
point, but a new one was immediately preferred against the defendants.
The local feeling was, however, so great that they were finally, after
a year’s suspense, released on their own recognisances (July 12, 1849).
A Sheffield Trade Unionist declared that “the tyranny of the employers
had been so great,” in perverting the local administration of the
law, “that the men laid their grievances before the Government. Sir
George Grey ordered an inquiry.... Twenty cases of parties who had been
convicted by the magistrates were brought before a Board of Inquiry,
seventeen of which were quashed” (_Stonemasons’ Fortnightly Circular_,
November 23, 1848).
[314] Bill No. 58 of 1844, introduced by William Miles, M.P. (Hansard,
vols. 73 and 74.)
[315] _Potters’ Examiner_, April 13, 1844.
[316] Hansard, vols. 73 and 74. The Bill was lost by 54 to 97 (May 1,
1844); see _Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844_, by
Friedrich Engels, 1892, pp. 283-4.
[317] _The Miners of Northumberland and Durham_, by Richard Fynes,
1873, chap. ix.; _The British Coal Trade_, by H. Stanley Jevons, 1915,
pp. 448-51.
[318] _Rules and Regulations of the Association of United Trades for
the Protection of Industry_ (London, August 2, 1845). There is, as
far as we know, only one copy of these rules in existence, but full
particulars of its establishment and working are to be found in the
_Northern Star_, which it used for a time as its official organ.
[319] Thomas Slingsby Duncombe was the aristocratic demagogue of the
period. An accomplished man of the world, with the habits of a dandy,
he nevertheless devoted himself with remarkable assiduity not only to
the Parliamentary business of the Chartists and Trade Unionists, but
also to the dry details of the committee work of the association of
which he became president. The _Life and Correspondence_ of Duncombe,
which his son published in 1868, describes him almost exclusively as
a fashionable man of the world and House of Commons politician, and
entirely ignores his more solid work for Trade Unionism during the
years 1845-8.
[320] In this document we may perhaps trace the hand of T. J. Dunning,
one of the ablest Trade Unionists of his time. Born in 1799, he became
Secretary of the Consolidated Society of Bookbinders in 1843. In 1845
he joined the National Association of United Trades, but left that
body after a few years. The _Bookbinders’ Circular_, which he started
in 1850, was, during the rest of his life, largely written by himself,
and contains many well-reasoned articles on Trade Union matters. In
1858 Dunning joined the celebrated Committee of Inquiry into Trade
Societies which was appointed by the Social Science Association. He
contributed a history of his own society to the Report, and frequently
took part in the subsequent annual congresses. His chief literary
production is the essay entitled, _Trades Unions and Strikes; their
philosophy and intention_ (1860, 50 pp.), which he wrote for the prize
instituted by his own Union for the best defence of the workmen’s
organisation. This essay, which no publisher would accept, and which
was printed by his society, remains, perhaps--apart from George
Howell’s historical researches in _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_,
and _Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour Leaders_--the
best presentation of the Trade Union case which any manual worker has
produced. He died in harness on the 23rd of December 1873.
[321] Report of London Committee of Trades Delegates to the National
Conference of Trades Delegates, Easter, 1845; preserved in the archives
of the Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons.
[322] _Stonemasons’ Fortnightly Circular_, May 14, 1846.
[323] Minutes of delegate meetings of the “Operative Cotton-spinners,
Self-acting Minders, Twiners, and Rovers,” held every other Sunday. See
July 20, August 3, and December 14, 1845.
[324] _Times_, November 16, 1846.
[325] The tinplate-workers of Wolverhampton had been endeavouring,
ever since they joined the Association in 1845, to obtain a uniform
list of piecework rates. By the influence of the National Association,
such a list was agreed to during 1849 by all the employers except
two. One of these treated the men with exceptional duplicity. Having,
as he thought, adequately prepared himself; he threw off the mask
in July 1850, and flatly refused to continue the negotiations. The
fierce industrial and legal conflict which ensued attracted general
attention. Many of the strikers were imprisoned for breach of contract;
and the struggle culminated in the prosecution of three members of
the committee of the National Association, together with several of
the local Unionists, for conspiracy to molest and intimidate the
employer by inducing men to leave his employment. Owing to legal
quibbles, raised first on behalf of the Crown, and then on behalf of
the defendants, the case was tried no fewer than three times, the
final judgment not being delivered until November 1851, when five of
the prisoners were sentenced to three months’, and one to one month’s
imprisonment. See R. _v._ Rowlands, 5 Cox C. C. p, 436; also Appendix A
to _The Law relating to Trade Unions_, by Sir William Erie, 1869.
[326] Duncombe formally resigned the presidency in 1852. In 1856 its
secretary, Thomas Winters, gave evidence in favour of conciliation
before the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable
Councils, etc.). He stated that the membership then numbered between
5,000 and 6,000, and that the central committee consisted of three
salaried members, who gave up their whole time to the work. A
subsequent secretary (E. Humphries) appeared before a similar committee
four years later, his evidence showing that the association, though
it was still in existence, had taken no part in any of the important
labour struggles of the past seven or eight years. Mr. George Howell
incidentally puts the date of its dissolution at 1860 or 1861 (see
his article “Trades Union Congresses and Social legislation” in
_Contemporary Review_ for September 1889).
[327] _English Stonemasons’ Fortnightly Circular_, December 25, 1845.
[328] The _Potters’ Examiner_, started December 1843, was converted,
in July 1848, into the _Potters’ Examiner and Emigrants’ Advocate_,
published at Liverpool and concerned chiefly with emigration. It ceased
to appear soon after 1851.
[329] See especially the articles on “Wages of Labour and Trade
Societies” in the second, third, and fourth numbers (December 1850 to
February 1851), in which he assumes that the general level of wages is
irresistibly determined by Supply and Demand, but that Trade Unionism,
in providing out-of-work pay, enables the individual workman to resist
exceptional tyranny or exaction.
[330] This journal contains a mass of useful information relating
to the trade, special reports of the Trades Union Congresses, and
well-written articles on industrial and economic problems. It is
marked throughout by moderation of tone and fairness of argument.
Unfortunately, so far as we know, it is not preserved in any public
library, and we were indebted to Mr. Haddleton, Secretary to the
Birmingham Trades Council, who, in 1893, possessed a complete set, for
our acquaintance with its contents.
[331] Opening Address to the Glass Makers of England, Ireland, and
Scotland, No. 1.
[332] Report of London Compositors’ Committee on Amalgamation, 1834;
Annual Report, February 2, 1835.
[333] _Address of Delegate Meeting to the Members of the Friendly
Society of Ironmoulders of England, Ireland, and Wales_, September 26,
1846.
[334] _Fortnightly Circular_, December 25, 1845.
[335] _Ibid._, June 1849.
[336] January 1855.
[337] Letter on “The Evil Consequences of Strikes,” in _Flint Glass
Makers’ Magazine_, July 1850. The suggested alternative--the Strike in
Detail--is discussed in our _Industrial Democracy_.
[338] _Address of the Delegate Meeting to the Members of the Friendly
Society of Ironmoulders_, 1846.
[339] “Emigration as a Means to an End,” _Flint Glass Makers’
Magazine_, August 1854; address of Executive, September 1857.
[340] “Thus if in a depression you have fifty men out of work they will
receive £1,015 in a year, and at the same time be used as a whip by
the employers to bring your wages down; by sending them to Australia
at £20 per head you save £15, and send them to plenty instead of
starvation at home; you keep your own wages good by the simple act of
clearing the surplus labour out of the market” (Farewell Address of the
Secretary, _Flint Glass Makers’ Magazine_, August, 1854). “Remove the
surplus labour and oppression itself will soon be a thing of the past”
(_Ibid._).
[341] Emigration Funds begin to appear in Trade Union Reports about
1843 (see the _Potters’ Examiner_). For thirty years the accounts of
the larger societies include, off and on, considerable appropriations
for the emigration of members. The tabular statement of expenditure
published in the Ironmoulders’ Annual Report shows, for instance, that
£4,712 was spent in this way between 1855 and 1874. In the Amalgamated
Carpenters an Emigration Benefit lingered until 1886, when it was
finally abolished by the General Council; the members resident in the
United States and Colonies strongly objecting to this use of the funds.
But it was between 1850 and 1860 that emigration found most favour as
an integral part of Trade Union policy. The Trade Unions of the United
States and the Australian Colonies addressed vigorous protests to the
officials of the English societies (see, for example, the _Stonemasons’
Fortnightly Circular_, June 1856), a fact which co-operated with the
dying away of the “gold rush,” and the change of Trade Union opinion,
to cause the abandonment of the policy, until it was revived in 1872
for a decade or so, by the Agricultural Labourers’ Unions.
[342] _Flint Glass Makers’ Magazine_, September 1857.
[343] During these years the Executive Committees of the larger
societies were waging war on the “liquor allowance.” In the reports and
financial statements of the Unions for the first half of the century,
drink was one of the largest items of expenditure, express provision
being made by the rules for the refreshment of the officers and members
at all meetings. The rules of the London Society of Woolstaplers (1813)
state that “the President shall be accommodated with his own choice
of liquors, wine only excepted.” The Friendly Society of Ironmoulders
(1809) ordains that the Marshal shall distribute the beer round the
meeting impartially, members being forbidden to drink out of turn
“except the officers at the table or a member on his first coming to
the town.” Even as late as 1837 the rules of the Steam-Engine Makers’
Society direct one-third of the weekly contribution to be spent in
the refreshment of the members, a provision which drops out in the
revision of 1846. In that year the Delegate Meeting of the Ironmoulders
prohibited drinking and smoking at its own sittings, and followed up
this self-denying ordinance by altering the rules of the society so as
to change the allowance of beer at branch meetings to its equivalent in
money. “We believe,” they remark in their address to the members, “the
business of the society would be much better done were there no liquor
allowance. Interruption, confusion, and scenes of violence and disorder
are often the characteristic of meetings where order, calmness, and
impartiality should prevail.” By 1860 most of the larger societies
had abolished all allowance for liquor, and some had even prohibited
its consumption during business meetings. It is to be remembered that
the Unions had, at first, no other meeting place than the club-room
freely placed at their disposal by the publican, and that their
payment for drink was of the nature of rent. Meanwhile the Compositors
and Bookbinders were removing their headquarters from public-houses
to offices of their own, and the Steam-Engine Makers were allowing
branches to hire rooms for meetings so as to avoid temptation. In 1850
the Ironmoulders report that some publicans were refusing to lend rooms
for meetings, owing to the growth of Temperance.
[344] It was the strength of their organisation in London in 1799,
as we have seen, that led to the employers’ petition to the House of
Commons, out of which sprang the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800. See
also the evidence given by Galloway and other employers before the 1824
Select Committee on Artisans and Machinery; also incidental references
in the _Life of Sir William Fairbairn_, 1877, and other works. We
have been unable to discover any documents of engineering societies
prior to 1822. Sir William Fairbairn, in the preface to his _Mills and
Mill-work_, 1861, attributes the supersession of the millwright to the
changes consequent on the introduction of the steam-engine.
[345] William Newton was born at Congleton in 1822, his father, who had
once occupied a superior position, being then a journeyman machinist.
The boy went to work in engine shops at the age of fourteen, joined the
Hanley Branch of the Journeymen Steam-Engine Makers’ Society in 1842,
soon afterwards moving to London (where he worked in the same shop
as Henry James, afterwards Lord James of Hereford, then an engineer
pupil, and later noted for his knowledge of Trade Unionism), and rose
to be foreman. After his dismissal in 1848 for his Trade Union activity
he took a public-house at Ratcliffe, and devoted himself largely to
the promotion of the amalgamation of the engineering societies. In
1852 he became, for a short period, secretary to a small insurance
company. At the General Election of 1852 he became a candidate for the
Tower Hamlets. He was opposed by both the great political parties,
but the show of hands at the hustings was in his favour. At the poll
he was unsuccessful, receiving, however, 1,095 votes. In 1860 he was
presented with a testimonial (including a sum of £300) from his A.S.E.
fellow-members. In later years he became the proprietor of a prosperous
local newspaper and was elected by the Stepney Vestry as its chairman
and also as its representative on the Metropolitan Board of Works. He
became one of the leading members of that body, on which he served
from 1862 to 1876, filling the important office of deputy chairman to
the Parliamentary, Fire Brigade, and other influential committees. In
1868 he again contested the Tower Hamlets against both Liberals and
Conservatives, receiving 2,890 votes; and in 1875 he unsuccessfully
fought a bye-election at Ipswich. He died March 9, 1876, when his
funeral, in which the Metropolitan Board of Works took part, assumed a
public character.
[346] This journal is preserved in the Manchester Public Library (341,
P. 37). It was a well-written 16 pp. 8vo, issued, at first fortnightly
and afterwards monthly, at 2d. No. 1 is dated July 4, 1840.
[347] Minutes of delegate meeting at Manchester, May 12, 1845. An
admirable account of this society, founded on documents no longer
extant, is given in an article by Professor Brentano in the _North
British Review_, October 1870, entitled “The Growth of a Trades Union,”
For some other particulars see the _Jubilee Souvenir History of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers_, 1901.
[348] Executive Circular, 1846, cited in proceedings in _R._ v.
_Selsby_. Two full accounts of the trial were published, viz. a
_Verbatim Report of the Trial for Conspiracy in R._ v. _Selsby and
others_ (Liverpool, 1847, 66 pp.), published under the “authority of
the Executive of the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society,” and a _Narrative,
etc., of the Trial, R._ v. _Selsby_ (London, 1847, 68 pp.). Both
are preserved in the Manchester Public Library, P. 2198. The legal
report is in Cox’s _Crown Cases_, vol. v. p. 496, etc. Contemporary
Trade Union reports contain many references to the proceedings. It
was noticed as an instance of the animus of the prosecution that the
indictment contained 4914 counts, and measured fifty-seven yards in
length. W. P. Roberts organised the defence, which cost the Union
£1800. The firm in whose works the dispute arose became bankrupt within
a few years. See the _Jubilee Souvenir History of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers_, 1901.
[349] _The Trades Advocate and Herald of Progress_ was an 8 pp. quarto
weekly, price 1d., No. 1 being dated June 1850. The volume from June
to December 1850 is preserved in the Manchester Public Library (401
E, 18). An able article by John Burnett in the _Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle_, July 3, 1875, gives a vivid picture of the struggle for
amalgamation.
[350] This was pointed out in Professor Brentano’s article in the
_North British Review_, already quoted.
[351] The organ of the Executive Council was the _Operative_, a
well-written weekly journal, which was set on foot by Newton in January
1851. The price was at first 1½d., and afterwards 1d. per number. The
issues from the beginning down to July 1852, probably all that were
published, are preserved in the British Museum (P. P. 1424, a.m.).
Newton acted as editor, and contributed nearly all the articles
relating to the engineers and Trade Unions generally.
[352] The largest and most powerful of the other Unions in 1851 were
those of the Ironfounders and the Stonemasons, which numbered between
four and five thousand members each. It must be remembered that the
previous ephemeral associations of the cotton-spinners and miners,
which often for a time counted their tens of thousands of members, were
exclusively strike organisations, with contributions of 1d. or 2d. per
week only. The huge associations of 1830-34 had usually no regular
subscription at all, and depended on irregularly paid levies. A trade
society which, like the Amalgamated Engineers, could count on a regular
income of £500 a week was without precedent.
[353] See the resolutions of the Birmingham Delegate Meeting of the
Iron Trades, September 28, 1850, in the _Trades Union Advocate_,
November 1850.
[354] It was resolved: “That we are prepared to assist the workmen at
Messrs. Platt to the utmost of our power, but cannot consent to the men
leaving their situations, because they may not at present be able to
obtain the working of the machines.” The best account of the struggle
is to be found in the _Jubilee Souvenir History of the A.S.E._ (1901),
pp. 34-41.
[355] Lord Goderich, afterwards the Marquis of Ripon, gave the
Executive a cheque for £500 to enable the strike pay to be kept up on
a temporary emergency; one of many generous efforts, during a long
lifetime, to assist the wage-earning class.
[356] Executive Circular of April 26, 1852, in _Operative_, May 1,
1852. A number of the men refused to sign, and many emigrated. E.
Vansittart Neale advanced £1030 to members for this purpose, the whole
of which was repaid by the borrowers.
[357] Among the abundant literature on this great struggle may be
mentioned the _Account_, by Thomas (afterwards Judge) Hughes, in the
_Report on Trade Societies_, by the Social Science Association, 1860;
J. M. Ludlow’s lectures, entitled _The Master Engineers and their
Workmen_, 1852; a pamphlet, _May I not do what I will with my own?_ by
E. Vansittart Neale; _Jubilee Souvenir History of the A.S.E._, 1901;
and the evidence given by William Newton (for the men) and Sidney
Smith (for the employers) before the Select Committee on Masters
and Operatives (Equitable Councils, etc.) in 1856. The employers’
manifestoes will be found in the _Times_ from December 1851 to April
1852; the men’s documents and reports of their meetings in the
_Operative_ (edited by Newton), and in the _Northern Star_, then at its
last gasp.
[358] It ended the struggle with £700 in hand. Its membership at the
end of 1852 had fallen from 11,829 to 9737, but even then it had a
balance in hand of £5382, and within three years the members had
increased to 12,553, and the accumulated funds to the unprecedented
total of £35,695. And unlike all previous trade societies, its record
from 1852 down to the present time has been one of continued growth
and prosperity, the membership at the end of 1919 being 320,000, with
accumulated funds not far short of three million pounds, being greater
in aggregate amount than the possessions of any other Trade Union
organisation of this or any other country.
[359] Preface to Rules of the Journeymen Steam-Engine, Machine Makers,
and Millwrights’ Friendly Society, edition of 1845.
[360] This plan of “equalisation” is, so far as we know, peculiar to
Trade Unions, though we understand from Dr. Baernreither’s _English
Associations of Working Men_, pp. 283-84, that a few branches of some
of the Friendly Societies adopted a somewhat similar system. Its origin
is unknown to us, but the device is traditionally ascribed to the
Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Society,
established in 1826. It was also in early use by the Steam-Engine
Makers’ Society, established in 1824. Until the Trade Union Act of 1871
it had a positive use. Depending, as Trade Unions were obliged to do,
upon the integrity of their officers, there were great advantages in
the wide distribution of the funds and the local responsibility of each
branch for the safe keeping of its share.
[361] That is to say, local differences in the cost of living have
always been taken into account.
[362] Such protests were frequent in the evidence before the Royal
Commission of 1867-68, and form the staple of the innumerable
criticisms on Trade Unionism between 1852 and 1879. A good vindication
of the Trade Union position is contained in Professor Beesly’s article
in the _Fortnightly Review_, 1867, which was republished as a pamphlet,
_The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners_, 1867, 20 pp.
[363] The unique collection of these circulars, containing not only
statistical and other information of the society, but also frequent
references to the building trades and the general movement, was
generously placed at our disposal for the purpose of this work, and we
have found it of the utmost value.
[364] See, for instance, the evidence of Mault, Questions 3980 in
Second Report and 4086 in Third Report.
[365] Report of Special Committee, 1869.
[366] The National Association of United Trades continued, as we have
already seen, in nominal existence until 1860 or 1861, but after 1852
it sank to a membership of a few thousands, and played practically no
part in the Trade Union world.
[367] _Times_, June to December 1853.
[368] A more detailed account of these developments will be found
in _The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain_ (1891; second
edition, 1893), by Beatrice Potter (Mrs. Sidney Webb); _Co-operative
Production_, by Benjamin Jones, 1894; and in the Report of the Fabian
Research Department on Co-operative Production, published as a
supplement to _The New Statesman_, February 14, 1914.
[369] _Address of the Executive Council of the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers to their Fellow-Workmen_, 1855.
[370] See _The Strikes, their Extent, Evils, and Remedy, being a
Description of the General Movement of the Mass of the Building
Operatives throughout the United Kingdom_, by Vindex (1853), 56 pp. One
consequence of this renewed outburst of strikes was the appointment
in 1858 by the newly formed National Association for the Promotion
of Social Science of a Committee to inquire into trade societies and
disputes. This inquiry, conducted by able and zealous investigators,
resulted in 1860 in the publication of a volume which contains the
best collection of Trade Union material and the most impartial account
of Trade Union action that has ever been issued. As a source of
history and economic illustration this _Report on Trade Societies and
Strikes_ (1860, 651 pp.) is far superior to the Parliamentary Blue
Books of 1824, 1825, 1838, and 1867-68. Among the contributors were
Godfrey Lushington (afterwards Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department), J. M. Ludlow (afterwards Registrar of Friendly Societies),
Thomas (afterwards Judge) Hughes, Q.C., Mr. G. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards
Lord Eversley), F. D. Longe, and Frank Hill. The Committee was presided
over by the late Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, and amongst its other
members may be mentioned W. E. Forster, Henry Fawcett, R. H. Hutton,
Rev. F. D. Maurice, Dr. William Farr, and one Trade Union secretary, T.
J. Dunning, of the London Bookbinders.
[371] See the account of it in _Labour Legislation, Labour Movements,
and Labour Leaders_, by G. Howell, 1902.
[372] Prof. E. S. Beesly, _Fortnightly Review_, 1867.