1872, deepened into anger by the sentence of twelve months’
imprisonment passed upon the London gas-stokers. These men were found
guilty of “conspiracy” to coerce or molest their employers by merely
preparing for a simultaneous withdrawal of their labour. The vindictive
sentence inflicted by Lord Justice Brett was justified by the governing
classes on the ground of the danger to the community which a strike of
gas-stokers might involve; and the Home Secretary refused to listen
to any appeal on behalf of the men.[426] The Trade Union leaders did
not fail to perceive that no legal distinction could, under the law as
it then stood, be drawn between a gas-stoker and any other workmen.
If preparing for a strike was punishable, under “the elastic and
inexplicable law of conspiracy,” by twelve months’ imprisonment, it was
obvious that the whole fabric of Trade Unionism might be overthrown by
any band of employers who chose to put the law in force. The London
Trades Council accordingly summoned a delegate meeting “to consider
the critical legal position of all trade societies and their officers
consequent upon the recent conviction of the London gas-stokers.”
Representation after representation was made to the Government and to
members of Parliament; and the movement for the repeal of the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1871 was widened into a determined attempt to get
rid of all penal legislation bearing on trade disputes.[427]
Rarely has political agitation been begun in such apparently
unpromising circumstances, and carried so rapidly to a triumphant
issue. The Liberal administration of these years, like the majority
of both parties in the House of Commons, was entirely dominated by
the antagonism felt by the manufacturers to any effective collective
bargaining on the part of the men. The representations of the
Parliamentary Committee found no sympathy either with Henry Bruce or
with Robert Lowe, who succeeded him as Home Secretary. Gladstone, as
Prime Minister, refused in 1872 to admit that there was any necessity
for further legislation, and utterly declined to take the matter
up;[428] and during that session the Parliamentary Committee were
unable to find any member willing to introduce a Bill for the repeal of
the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
The Trade Union leaders, however, did not relax their efforts.
Allan, Guile, Odger, and Howell were strongly reinforced by the
representatives of the miners, cotton-spinners, and ironworkers.
Alexander Macdonald and John Kane, themselves men of remarkable
ability, had behind them thousands of sturdy politicians in all the
industrial centres. The agitation was fanned by the publication of
details of the prosecutions under the new Act. Effective _Tracts for
Trade Unionists_ were written by Henry Crompton and Frederic Harrison.
Congresses at Nottingham in 1872, at Leeds in 1873, at Sheffield
in 1874 kept up the fire, and passed judgment on those members of
Parliament who treated the Parliamentary Committee with contumely. As
the time of the General Election drew near, the pressure on the two
great political parties was increased. Lists of questions to candidates
were prepared embodying the legislative claims of labour; and it was
made clear that no candidate would receive Trade Union support unless
his answers were satisfactory.
It will be a question for the historian of English politics whether
the unexpected rout of the Liberal party at the election of 1874 was
not due more to the active hostility of the Trade Unionists than to
the sullen abstention of the Nonconformists. The time happened to be a
high-water mark of Trade Unionism. In these years of good trade every
society had been rapidly increasing its membership. The miners, the
agricultural labourers, and the textile operatives in particular had
swarmed into organisation in a manner which recalls the rush of 1834.
The Trades Union Congress at Sheffield, held just before the General
Election of 1874, claimed to represent over 1,100,000 organised
workmen, including a quarter of a million of coal-miners, as many
cotton operatives, and a hundred thousand agricultural labourers.
The proceedings of this Congress reveal the feeling of bitter anger
which had been created by the obtuseness to the claims of labour of
the Liberal leaders of that day. Not content with turning a deaf ear
to all the representatives of the workmen, they had, with blundering
ignorance, retained as Secretary of the Liberal Association of the City
of London the Sidney Smith who had, since 1851, been the principal
officer of the various associations of employers in the engineering and
iron trades.[429] As such he had proved himself a bitter and implacable
enemy of Trade Unionism. We may imagine what would be the result to-day
if either political party were to face a General Election with Mr.
Laws, the organiser of the Shipping Federation, as its chief of the
staff. And whilst the Liberal party was treating the new electorate
with contumely, the Conservative candidates were listening blandly to
the workmen’s claims, and pledging themselves to repeal the obnoxious
law.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the old idea of
Trade Union abstention from politics gave way to a determined attempt
at organised political action. Nor were the Trade Unionists content
with merely pressing the organised political parties in the House of
Commons. The running of independent Labour candidates against both
parties alike was a most significant symptom of the new feeling in
Labour politics. The Labour Representation League, composed mainly
of prominent Trade Unionists, had for some years been endeavouring
to secure the election of working men to the House of Commons; and
the independent candidatures of George Odger during 1869 and 1870 had
provoked considerable feeling.[430] At a bye-election at Greenwich
in 1873, a third candidate was run with working-class support against
both the great parties, with the result that Boord, the Conservative,
gained the seat. In what spirit this was regarded by the organised
workmen and their trusted advisers may be judged from the following
leading article which Professor E. S. Beesly wrote for the _Beehive_,
then at the height of its influence: “The result of the Greenwich
election is highly satisfactory.... The workman has at length come to
the conclusion that the difference between Liberal and Tory is pretty
much that between upper and nether millstone. The quality of the two is
essentially the same. They are sections of the wealth-possessing class,
and on all Parliamentary questions affecting the interests of labour
they play into one another’s hands so systematically and imperturbably
that one would suppose they thought workmen never read a newspaper or
hear a speech.... The last hours of the Session were marked by the
failure of two Bills about which workmen cared infinitely more than
about all the measures put together for which Mr. Gladstone takes
credit since his accession to office--I mean Mr. Harcourt’s Conspiracy
Bill and Mr. Mundella’s Nine Hours Bill. As for Mr. Mundella’s Bill
for repealing the Criminal Law Amendment Act, it has never had a
chance. For the failure of all these Bills the Ministry must be held
responsible....
“This being the case, it is simply silly for Liberal newspapers to
mourn over the Greenwich Election as an unfortunate mistake.... There
was no mistake at all at Greenwich. There was a ‘third party’ in the
field knowing perfectly well what it wanted, and regarding Mr. Boord
and Mr. Angerstein with impartial hostility. I trust that such a third
party will appear in every large town in England at the next General
Election, even though the result should be a Parliament of six hundred
and fifty Boords. Everything must have a beginning, and workmen have
waited so long for justice that seven years of Tory government will
seem a trifling addition to the sum total of their endurance if it is a
necessary preliminary to an enforcement of their claims.”[431]
The movement for direct electoral action remained without official
support from Trade Unions as such until at the 1874 Congress Broadhurst
was able to report that the miners, ironworkers, and some other
societies had actually voted money for Parliamentary candidatures.
At the General Election which ensued no fewer than thirteen “Labour
candidates” went to the poll. In most cases both Liberal and
Conservative candidates were run against them, with the result that
the Conservatives gained the seats.[432] But at Stafford and Morpeth
the official Liberals accepted what they were powerless to prevent;
and Alexander Macdonald and Thomas Burt, the two leading officials of
the National Union of Miners, became the first “Labour members” of the
House of Commons.
It is significant of the electioneering attitude of the Conservative
leaders that, with the advent of the new Conservative Government,
the Trade Unionists appear to have assumed that the Criminal Law
Amendment Act would be instantly repealed. Great was the disappointment
when it was announced that a Royal Commission was to be appointed
to inquire into the operation of the whole of the so-called “Labour
Laws.” This was regarded as nothing more than a device for shelving
the question, and the Trade Union leaders refused either to become
members of the Commission or to give evidence before it. Thomas Burt
absolutely refused a seat on the Commission. It needed the most
specific assurances by the Home Secretary that the Government really
intended the earliest possible legislation to induce any working man
to have anything to do with the Commission. Ultimately Alexander
Macdonald, M.P., allowed himself to be persuaded to serve, together
with Tom Hughes; and George Shipton, the Secretary of the London Trades
Council, Andrew Boa, the Secretary of the Glasgow Trades Council, and
a prominent Birmingham Trade Unionist gave evidence. The investigation
of the Commission was perfunctory, and the report inconclusive. But
the Government were too fully alive to the new-found political power
of the Unions to attempt to play with the question. At the beginning
of 1875 the imprisonment of five cabinetmakers employed at Messrs.
Jackson & Graham, a well-known London firm, roused considerable
public feeling, and led to many questions in Parliament.[433] In
June the Home Secretary, in an appreciative and conciliatory speech,
introduced two Bills for altering respectively the civil and criminal
law. As amended in Committee by the efforts of Mundella and others,
these measures resulted in Acts which completely satisfied the Trade
Union demands. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871 was formally
and unconditionally repealed. By the Conspiracy and Protection of
Property Act (38 and 39 Vic. c. 86), definite and reasonable limits
were set to the application of the law of conspiracy to trade disputes.
The Master and Servant Act of 1867 was replaced by an Employers and
Workmen Act (38 and 39 Vic. c. 90), a change of nomenclature which
expressed a fundamental revolution in the law. Henceforth master and
servant became, as employer and employee, two equal parties to a civil
contract. Imprisonment for breach of engagement was abolished. The
legalisation of Trade Unions was completed by the legal recognition
of their methods. Peaceful picketing was expressly permitted. The old
words “coerce” and “molest,” which had, in the hands of prejudiced
magistrates, proved such instruments of oppression, were omitted from
the new law, and violence and intimidation were dealt with as part of
the general criminal code. No act committed by a group of workmen was
henceforth to be punishable unless the same act by an individual was
itself a criminal offence. Collective bargaining, in short, with all
its necessary accompaniments, was, after fifty years of legislative
struggle, finally recognised by the law of the land.[434]
The paramount importance of the legal and Parliamentary struggle
from 1867 to 1875 has compelled us to relegate to the next chapter
all mention of striking contemporary events in Trade Union history.
The sustained efforts of this decade, too often ignored by a younger
generation of Trade Unionists, are even now referred to by the
survivors as constituting the finest period of Trade Union activity.
For over eight years the Unions had been subjected to the strain of a
prolonged and acute crisis, during which their very existence was at
stake. Out of this crisis they emerged, as we have seen, triumphantly
successful, “liberated,” to use George Howell’s words, “from the last
vestige of the criminal laws specially appertaining to labour.”[435]
This tangible victory was not the only result of the struggle. In order
to gain their immediate end the Trade Union leaders had adopted the
arguments of their opponents, and had been led to take up a position
which, whilst it departed from the Trade Union traditions of the past,
proved in the future a serious impediment to their further theoretic
progress. To understand the intellectual attitude of the Junta and
their friends, we must consider in some detail the position which they
had to attack. From the very beginning of the century the employers
had persistently asserted their right to make any kind of bargain with
the individual workman, irrespective of its effect on the Standard of
Life. They had, accordingly, adopted the principle, as against both
the Trade Unionists and the Factory Act philanthropists, of perfect
freedom of contract and complete competition between both workers and
employers. In order to secure absolute freedom of competition between
individuals it was necessary to penalise any attempt on the part of the
workmen to regulate, by combination, the conditions of the bargain.
But this involved, in reality, a departure from the principle of legal
freedom of contract. One form of contract, that of the collective
bargain, was, in effect, made a criminal offence, on the plea that,
however beneficial it might seem to the workmen, it cut at the root of
national prosperity. It will be obvious that in urging this contention
the employers were taking up an inconsistent position. Their pecuniary
interest in complete competition outweighed, in fact, their faith in
freedom of contract.
Meanwhile the astute workmen who led the movement were gradually
concentrating their forces upon the only position from which they
could hope to be victorious. They had, it must be remembered, no means
of imposing their own view upon the community. Even after 1867 their
followers formed but a small minority of the electorate, whilst the
whole machinery of politics was in the hands of the middle class.
Powerless to coerce or even to intimidate the governing classes, they
could win only by persuasion. It was, however, hopeless to dream
of converting the middle class to the essential principle of Trade
Unionism, the compulsory maintenance of the Standard of Life. In the
then state of Political Economy the Trade Unionists saw against them,
on this point, the whole mass of educated opinion in the country.
John Bright, for instance, did but express the common view of the
progressive party of that time when he solemnly assured the working man
that “combinations, in the long run, must be as injurious to himself as
to the employer against whom he is contending.”[436] Lord Shaftesbury,
the lifelong advocate of factory legislation, was praying that “the
working people may be emancipated from the tightest thraldom they have
ever yet endured. All the single despots, and all the aristocracies
that ever were or ever will be, are as puffs of wind compared with
these tornadoes, the Trade Unions.”[437] The Sheffield and other
outrages, the rumours of constant persecution of non-Unionists, the
hand-workers’ perpetual objection to machinery, the restrictions on
piecework and apprenticeship--all these real and fancied crimes had
created a mass of prejudice against which it was hopeless for the Trade
Unionists to struggle.
The Union leaders, therefore, wisely left this part of their case
in the background. They avoided arguing whether Trade Unionism was,
in principle, useful or detrimental, right or wrong. They insisted
only on the right of every Englishman to bargain for the sale of his
labour in the manner he thought most conducive to his own interests.
What they demanded was perfect freedom for a workman to substitute
collective for individual bargaining, if he imagined such a course to
be for his own advantage. Freedom of association in matters of contract
became, therefore, their rejoinder to the employers’ cry of freedom of
competition.
It is clear that the Trade Unionists had the best of the argument.
It was manifestly unreasonable for the employers to insist on the
principle of non-interference of the State in industry whenever they
were pushed by the advocates of factory legislation, and at the same
time to clamour for the assistance of the police to put down peaceful
and voluntary combinations of their workmen. The capitalists were, in
short, committed to the principle of _laissez-faire_ in every phase
of industrial life, from “Free Trade in Corn” to the unlimited use of
labour of either sex at any age and under any conditions; and what the
workmen demanded was only the application of this principle to the wage
contract. “The Trade Union question,” writes, in 1869, their chosen
representative and most powerful advocate, “is another and the latest
example of the truth, that the sphere of legislation is strictly and
curiously limited. After legislating about labour for centuries, each
change producing its own evils, we have slowly come to see the truth,
that we must cease to legislate for it at all. The public mind has been
of late conscious of serious embarrassment, and eagerly expecting some
legislative solution, some heaven-born discoverer to arise, with a new
Parliamentary nostrum. As usual in such cases, it now turns out that
there is no legislative solution at all; and that the true solution
requires, as its condition, the removal of the mischievous meddling
of the past.”[438] This doctrine “that all men may lawfully agree to
work or not to work, to employ or not to employ, on any terms that
they think fit,” forms the whole burden of the speeches and petitions
of the Trade Union leaders throughout this controversy. “We do not,”
say the official representatives of Trade Unionism in their memorial
to the Home Secretary in April 1875, “seek to interfere with the free
competition of the individual in the exercise of his craft in his own
way; but we reserve to ourselves the right either to work for, or to
refuse to work for, an employer according to the circumstances of the
case, just as the master has the right to discharge a workman, or
workmen; and we deny that the individual right is in any way interfered
with when it is done in concert.”
The working men had, in fact, picked up the weapon of their opponents
and left these without defence. But in so doing the leading Trade
Unionists of the time drifted into a position no less inconsistent than
that of the employers. When they contended that the Union should be as
free to bargain as the individual, they had not the slightest intention
of permitting the individual to bargain freely if they could prevent
him. Though Allan and Applegarth were able conscientiously to inform
the Royal Commission that the members of their societies did not refuse
to work with non-society men, they must have been perfectly aware
that this convenient fact was only true in those places and at those
periods in which society men were not in a sufficiently large majority
to do otherwise. The trades to which Henry Broadhurst and George
Howell belonged were notorious for the success with which the Unions
had maintained their practice of excluding non-society men from their
jobs. The coal-miners of Northumberland and Durham habitually refused
to descend the shaft in company with a non-Unionist.[439]
We have shown, in our _Industrial Democracy_, that this universal
aspiration of Trade Unionism--the enforcement of membership--stands,
in our opinion, on the same footing as the enforcement of citizenship.
But, however this may be, it is evident that the refusal of the
Northumberland miners to “ride” with non-society men is, in effect,
as coercive on the dissentient minority as the Mines Regulation Act
or an Eight Hours Bill. The insistence upon the Englishman’s right
to freedom of contract was, in fact, in the mouths of staunch Trade
Unionists, perilously near cant; and we find Frederic Harrison himself,
when dealing with other legislation, warning them that it would be
suicidal for working men to adopt as their own the capitalist cry of
“non-interference.”[440] The force of this caution must have been
evident to the Junta, who had had too much experience of the workings
of modern industry not to realise the need for a compulsory maintenance
of the Standard of Life. No Trade Unionist can deny that, without some
method of enforcing the decision of the majority, effective trade
combination is impossible.
It must not be inferred from the above criticism of the theoretic
position taken by the men who steered the Trade Union Movement through
its great crisis that they were conscious of their inconsistency with
regard to State intervention, or that they deliberately set to work to
win their case upon false premises. No one can study the history of
their leadership without being impressed by their devotion, sagacity,
and high personal worth. We must regard their inconsistency as a
striking instance of the danger which besets a party formed without any
clear idea of the social state at which it is aiming. In the struggle
of these years we watch the English Trade Unionists driven from their
Utopian aspirations into an inconsistent opportunism, from which they
drifted during the next generation into the crude “self-help” of
an “aristocracy of labour.” During the whole of this process there
was no moment at which the incompatibility of their Individualist
and Collectivist views was perceived. Applegarth and Odger, for
instance, saw no inconsistency in becoming leading officials of the
“International” on a programme drafted by Karl Marx, and at the same
time supporting the current Radical demand for a widespread peasant
proprietorship. But it was inevitable that the exclusive insistence
upon the Individualist arguments, through which alone the victory of
1875 could be won, should impress the Individualist ideal upon the
minds of those who stood round the leaders. Other influences, moreover,
promoted the acceptance by the Trade Unionists of the economic
shibboleths of the middle class. The failure of the crude experiments
of Owen and O’Connor, the striking success of the policy of Free Trade,
the growing participation of working men in the Liberal politics of the
time, and, above all, the close intimacy which many of them enjoyed
with able and fertile thinkers of the middle class, all tended to
create a new school of Trade Unionists. In a subsequent chapter we
shall describe the results of this intellectual conversion upon the
Trade Union Movement. First, however, we must turn to the internal
development of these years, which our description of the Parliamentary
struggles of 1867-75 has forced us temporarily to ignore.[441]
FOOTNOTES:
[373] William Allan was born of Scotch parents at Carrickfergus,
Ulster, in 1813. His father, who was manager of a cotton-spinning mill,
removed to a mill near Glasgow, and William became in 1825 a piecer in
a cotton factory at Gateside. Three years later he left the mill to be
bound apprentice to Messrs. Holdsworth, a large engineering firm at
Anderston, Glasgow. At the age of nineteen, before his apprenticeship
was completed, he married the niece of one of the partners. In 1835 he
went to work as a journeyman engineer at Liverpool, moving thence, with
the railway works, to their new centre at Crewe, where he joined his
Union. On the imprisonment of Selsby, in 1847, he became its general
secretary, retaining this office when, in 1851, the society became
merged in the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. For over twenty years
he was annually re-elected secretary of this vast organisation, dying
at last in office in 1874.
[374] The celebrated “International Association of Working Men,” which
loomed so large in the eyes of Governments and the governing classes
about 1869-70, had arisen out of the visit of two French delegates to
London in 1863, to concert joint action on behalf of Poland. It was
formally established at a meeting in London on September 28, 1864, at
which an address prepared by Karl Marx was read. Its fundamental aim
was the union of working men of all countries for the emancipation of
labour; and its principles went on to declare that “the subjection
of the man of labour to the man of capital lies at the bottom of all
servitude, all social misery, and all political dependence.” Between
1864 and 1870, branches were established in nearly all European
countries, as well as in the United States, the majority of trade
societies in some European countries joining in a body. The central
administration was entrusted to a General Council of fifty-five
members sitting in London, which was composed of London residents of
various nationalities, elected by the branches in the countries to
which they belonged. The General Council had, however, no legislative
or other control over the branches, and in practice served as little
more than a means of communication between them, each country managing
its own affairs in its own way. The principles and programme of the
Association underwent a steady development in the succession of annual
international congresses attended by delegates from the various
branches. The extent to which English working men really participated
in its fundamental objects is not clear. In 1870 Odger was president
and Applegarth chairman of the General Council, which included Benjamin
Lucraft, afterwards a member of the London School Board, and other
well-known working-men politicians. But few English Trade Unions (among
them being the Bootmakers and Curriers) joined in their corporate
capacity; and when, in October 1866, the General Council invited the
London Trades Council to join, or, that failing, to give permission
for a representative of the International to attend its meetings, with
a view of promptly reporting all Continental strikes, the Council’s
minutes show that both requests were refused. The London Trades Council
declined indeed to recognise the International even as the authorised
medium of communication with trade societies abroad, and decided to
communicate with these directly. Applegarth attended several of the
Continental congresses as a delegate from England, and elaborately
explained the aims and principles of the Association in an interview
published in the _New York World_ of May 21 1870. After the suppression
of the Commune the branches in France were crushed out of existence;
and the membership in England and other countries fell away. The annual
Congress held in 1872 at The Hague decided to transfer the General
Council to New York, and the “International” ceased to play any part
in the English Labour Movement. An interesting account of its Trade
Unionist action appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for November 1870,
by Professor E. S. Beesly.
[375] Robert Applegarth, the son of a quartermaster in the Royal Navy,
was born at Hull on January 23, 1833. At the age of eleven he went to
work as errand boy, eventually drifting into the shop of a joiner and
cabinetmaker, where, unapprenticed, he picked up the trade as best he
could. In 1852 he moved to Sheffield; but in 1855, on the death of his
parents, he emigrated to the United States, returning to Sheffield
in the following year, as the health of his wife did not allow her
to follow him to the land of promise. Joining the local Carpenters’
Union, he quickly became its most prominent member, and brought it
over in a body when the formation in 1861 of the Amalgamated Society
of Carpenters and Joiners offered a prospect of more efficient trade
action. Elected general secretary in 1862, he retained the office
until 1871, when, in consequence of various personal disputes in the
society, he voluntarily resigned. In 1870, on the formation of the
London School Board, he stood as a candidate for the Lambeth division,
but was unsuccessful, though he received 7600 votes. In the same year
he was invited to become a candidate for Parliament for the borough of
Maidstone, but he retired in favour of Sir John Lubbock. In 1871 he was
appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases
Act. On resigning his secretaryship he turned for a time to journalism,
and acted as war correspondent in France for an American newspaper.
Shortly afterwards he became foreman to a firm of manufacturers of
engineering and diving apparatus, eventually becoming the proprietor
of this flourishing business and retiring with a small competence.
Mr. Applegarth, who is (1920) the sole survivor of the “Junta” of
1867-71, still retains his membership of the Amalgamated Society of
Carpenters and his interest in Trade Unionism, about which he has
given us valuable documents and reminiscences. See _The Life of Robert
Applegarth_, by A. W. Humphrey, 1915.
[376] Daniel Guile was born at Liverpool, October 21, 1814, the son of
a shoemaker. Bound apprentice to an ironfounder in 1827, he joined the
Union in June 1834. In 1863 he became its corresponding secretary, a
position he retained until his retirement at the end of 1881. He was
a member of the Parliamentary Committee, 1871-5, and died December 7,
1883.
George Odger, the son of a Cornish miner, was born in 1820, at
Rouborough, near Tavistock, South Devon, and became a shoemaker at
an early age. Tramping about the country, as was then customary, he
eventually settled in London, becoming a prominent member of the
Ladies’ Shoemakers’ Society. His first important public action was
in connection with the meetings of delegates of London trades on the
building trades lock-out in 1859. On the formation of the London
Trades Council in 1860 he became one of its leading members, and from
1862 until the reconstruction of the Council in 1872 he acted as its
secretary. As one of the leaders of London working-class Radicalism he
made five attempts to get into Parliament, but was each time baulked by
the opposition of the official Liberal party. At Chelsea in 1868, at
Stratford in 1869, and at Bristol in 1870 he retired rather than split
the vote, but at Southwark in 1870 he went to the poll, and failed of
success only by 304 votes, the official Liberal, Sir Sidney Waterlow,
being at the bottom with 2966 votes as against 4382 given for Odger. At
the General Election of 1874 he again stood, to be once more opposed
by both Liberals and Conservatives with the same result as before. He
died in 1877, his funeral, which was attended by Professor E. Beesly,
Professor Fawcett, and Sir Charles Dilke, being made the occasion of a
remarkable demonstration by the London working men. An eulogy of him
by Professor Beesly appeared in the _Weekly Despatch_, March 11, 1877.
A brief biographical sketch was published under the title of _The Life
and Labour of George Odger_, 1877.
[377] John Kane was born at Alnwick, Northumberland, in 1819. Sent
to work at seven, he served in various capacities until the age of
fifteen, when he moved to Newcastle-on-Tyne, and entered the ironworks
of Messrs. Hawke at Gateshead. Here he took part in the Chartist and
other progressive movements, making a vain attempt in 1842 to form a
Union in his trade. Not until 1863 was a durable society established,
and when in 1868 the Amalgamated Ironworkers’ Association was formed
on a national basis, John Kane became general secretary, a position he
retained until his death in March 1876.
[378] The first permanent committee of the nature of a Trades Council
appears to have been, according to our information, the Liverpool
“Trades Guardian Association,” which was established in 1848 with the
object of protecting Trade Unions from suppression by the employers’
use of the criminal law. From its printed report and balance sheet
for 1848, and the references in the _Fortnightly Circular_ of the
Stonemasons’ Society for November 23, 1848, we gather that it took
vigorous action to protect the Sheffield razor-grinders from malicious
prosecution, and to help the Liverpool masons who had been indicted
for conspiracy. Of its activity from 1850 to 1857 we possess no
records, but in August 1857 it subscribed £400 in aid of the Liverpool
cabinetmakers, and in 1861 it was assisting the London bricklayers’
strike. In July of that year it was merged in a “United Trades
Protection Association,” formed upon the model of the newly established
London Trades Council. In Glasgow there appears to have been, since
1825, an almost continuous series of joint committees of delegates for
particular purposes. An attempt was made in 1851 to place these on a
permanent footing, but the trades soon ceased to send delegates. A
renewed attempt in 1858, made at the instance of Alexander Campbell,
met with greater success; and the Council then established, composed
principally of the building trades, was in 1860 enjoying a vigorous
life. Sheffield, too, had long had ephemeral federations of the local
trades, which came near having a continuous existence. One of these,
the “Association of Organised Trades,” established in 1857 with the
special object of assisting the Sheffield Typographical Society in
defending a libel action, became the permanent Trades Council. Other
towns, such as Dublin and Bristol, had almost constantly some kind of
Council of the local trades. An appeal of the Trade Defence Association
of Manchester, signed by representatives of nine thousand operatives on
behalf of the dyers’ strike, occurs in the _Stonemasons’ Fortnightly
Circular_ for 1854. In London, as may be gathered from George Odger’s
evidence before the Master and Servant Law Committee in 1867, the
meetings of “Metropolitan Trades Delegates” had been particularly
frequent since 1848. In 1852, for instance, as we discover from the
_Bookbinders’ Trade Circular_ (November 1853), a committee of the
London trades took the case of the Wolverhampton tinplate workers out
of the hands of the somewhat decrepit National Association of United
Trades, and bore the whole cost of these expensive legal proceedings.
No sooner had the task of this committee been completed, when another
committed was formed to assist the strike of the Preston cotton
operatives. It was to this committee, sitting at the Bell Inn, Old
Bailey, the historic meeting-place of London Trade Unionism, that Lloyd
Jones, in March 1855, communicated his fears that a certain Friendly
Societies’ Bill, then before the House of Commons, would make the legal
position of trade societies even more equivocal than it then was. A
“Metropolitan Trades Committee on the Friendly Societies’ Bill” was
accordingly formed, the printed report of which is reviewed by Dunning
in his _Circular_ for December 1855. From this we learn that it was
presided over by William Allan, and that it included his old friend
William Newton, as well as the general secretaries of the Stonemasons’
and Bricklayers’ Societies, and representatives of the Compositors and
Bookbinders. It was supported by eighty-seven different Trade Unions
with forty-eight thousand members, who contributed a halfpenny per
member to cover the expenses. Its Parliamentary action seems, to have
been vigorous and effective. The objectionable clauses were, by skilful
Parliamentary lobbying, dropped out of the Bill, and what seemed at the
time to be an important step towards the legislation of trade societies
was, through the help of Thomas Hughes and Lord Goderich, secured.
Between 1858 and 1867 Trades Councils were established in about a
dozen of the largest towns. The Trade Union expansion of 1870-73 saw
their number doubled. But their great increase was one of the effects
of the great wave of Trade Union organisation which swept over the
country in 1889-91, when over sixty new councils were established, and
those already in existence were reorganised and greatly increased in
membership.
[379] Second Annual Report of London Trades Council, March 31, 1862.
[380] No copy is preserved in the British Museum nor among the archives
of the Trades Council itself. Mr. Robert Applegarth kindly presented us
with a copy, which is now in the British Library of Political Science
at the London School of Economics. The only other one known to us is in
the Goldsmiths’ Library at the University of London.
[381] On receipt of a memorial from the operatives asking for the
introduction of the Nine Hours Day, three of the principal London
builders gave notice that henceforth they would engage their workmen,
not by the day, but by the hour. “This arrangement,” they added, “of
payment by the hour will enable any workman employed by us to work any
number of hours he may think proper.” This specious proposal involved
a total abandonment of the principle of Collective Bargaining. What
the master builders proposed was, in effect, to do away with the
very conception of a normal day, and to revert, as far as the hours
were concerned, to separate contracts with each individual workman.
The workmen realised, what they failed clearly to explain, that
the proffered freedom was illusory. In the modern organisation of
industry on a large scale there can be no freedom for the individual
workman to drop his tools at whatever moment he chooses. Without a
concerted normal day, each workman must inevitably find his task
continue as long as the engines are going or the works are open. The
real question at issue was how the common hours of labour should be
fixed. The master builders of 1861 rightly calculated that if each
man was really free to earn as many hours’ wages in the day as they
chose to offer him, the hours during which the whole body would work
would, in effect, be governed, not by the general convenience, but
by the desire and capacity of those willing to work the longest day.
On this, the essential issue, the men maintained their position. The
normal day in the London building trades was tacitly fixed according
to the prevailing custom, and has since been repeatedly regulated and
reduced by formal collective agreement until the average working week
throughout the year consists of less than 48 hours. The minor point of
the unit of remuneration was gradually conceded by the men, and the
Hour System, guarded by strict limitation of the working day, has come
to be preferred by both parties.
[382] The letters were drawn up by Frederic Harrison and Godfrey
Lushington, after personal investigation and inquiry, and were signed
also by T. Hughes, J. M. Ludlow, E. S. Beesly, R. H. Hutton, R. B
Litchfield, and T. R. Bennett. They appeared in July 1861.
[383] Many of the local Birmingham Trade Unions became directly
affiliated to the National Reform League. But with the exception of two
small clubs at Wolverhampton, and the West End Cabinetmakers (London),
no other Trade Union appears to have joined the League in a corporate
capacity, though its Council included Allan, Applegarth, Coulson,
Cremer, Odger, Potter, and Conolly.
[384] The obligation to proceed by warrant was at first universal, as
the Act of 1824, 4 Geo. IV. c. 34, gave the magistrate no discretion.
By that act the master was to be served with a summons at the instance
of the workman, whilst the workman was to be arrested on a warrant on
the complaint upon oath of the master. But, in 1848, Jervis’s Act, 11 &
12 Vic. c. 43, gave justices power in all cases to issue a summons in
the first instance. The practice was accordingly gradually introduced
in England of summoning the workman; and the issue of a warrant was in
general confined to cases in which the workman had gone away, or had
failed to appear to a summons. Jervis’s Act, however, did not apply
to Scotland, so that summary arrests of workmen on warrants continued
until 1867; and this was one of the principal grievances adduced by the
Glasgow representatives. Even in England warrants were occasionally
granted by vindictive magistrates. In 1863 a dispute took place at a
Durham colliery, and the employer proceeded against the miners under
the Master and Servant Law. “In the middle of the next night twelve of
them were taken out of their beds by the police and lodged in Durham
lock-up, on the charge of deserting their work without notice” (Letter
by Professor E. S. Beesly in _Spectator_, December 12, 1863).
[385] See Question 864, Master and Servant Law Select Committee, 1866;
Unwin _v._ Clarke, 1 Law Reports, Queen’s Bench, p. 417; and Second
Report of Labour Laws Commission, c. 1157 (1875), p. 7.
The enactments rendering the workman liable to imprisonment for simple
breach of a contract of service are historically to be traced to the
period when the law denied to the labourer the right to withhold his
service or to bargain as to his wages. Any neglect or abandonment
of his work was, therefore, like a simple refusal to work at all, a
breach, not so much of contract, as of a duty arising out of status
and enforced by statute. The law on the subject dates, indeed, back to
the celebrated Statute of Labourers of 1349 (23 Ed. III.), the primary
object of which was to enforce service at the rates of hiring that
existed prior to the Black Death. The second section of this law enacts
that if a workman or servant depart from service before the time agreed
upon he shall be imprisoned. The same principle was asserted in the
Statute of Apprentices in 1563 (5 Eliz. c. 4), which consolidated the
law relating to all artificers and labourers, and expressly applied it
to workers by the piece, who were rendered liable to imprisonment if
they left before completing their job. During the eighteenth century,
which abounded, as we have seen, in enactments dealing with particular
trades, a long series of statutes made the provisions of law more
definite and stringent in the industries in question. The principal
English Acts were 7 Geo. I. st. 1, c. 13 (tailors); 9 Geo. I. c. 27
(shoemakers); 13 Geo. II. c. 8 (all leather trades); 20 Geo. II. c. 19;
27 Geo. II. c. 6; 31 Geo. II. c. 11 (various trades); 6 Geo. III. c. 25
(agreements for a term); 17 Geo. III. c. 56 (textiles, etc.); 39 & 40
Geo. III. c. 77 (coal and iron); 4 Geo. IV. c. 34 (all trades); 10 Geo.
IV. c. 52 (general); 6 & 7 Vic. c. 40 (textiles).
The intolerable oppression which these laws enabled unscrupulous
employers to commit was, at the beginning of the century, scarcely
inferior to that brought about by the Combination Laws. This was
strongly urged by the authors of _A few Remarks on the State of the
Laws at present in existence for regulating Masters and Workpeople_
(preserved among the Place MSS. 27804), which George White, the
prompter of Peter Moore, M.P., published in 1823. The pieceworker
clause of the Statute of Apprentices was particularly oppressive. “This
clause,” says White, “has been much abused, as in many businesses
they never finish their work, as the nature of the employment is such
that they are compelled to begin one before they finish another, as
wheelwrights, japanners, and an infinite number of trades; therefore
if any dispute ariseth respecting the amount of wages, and a strike
or turn-out commences, or men leave their work, having words, the
master prosecutes them for leaving their work unfinished. Very few
prosecutions have been made to effect under the Combination Acts, but
hundreds have been made under this law, and the labourer or workman
can never be free, unless this law is modified. The Combination Act
is nothing: it is the law which regards the finishing of work which
masters employ to harass and keep down the wages of their workpeople;
unless this is modified nothing is done, and by repealing the
Combination Acts you leave the workman in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred in the same state you found him--at the mercy of his master”
(p. 51). But, in spite of this somewhat exaggerated protest, neither
Place nor Hume took up the amendment of the law relating to contracts
of service. Their paramount concern was to secure for the workman
freedom to enter into a contract, and oppressive punishment for its
breach attracted, for the moment, little attention.
Besides White’s Manual, the following may be referred to for the
history of the law, and of its amendment: _Report of Conference on the
Law of Master and Workman under the Contract of Service_ (Glasgow,
1864); the Reports of the Select Committee on the Law of Master and
Servant, 1866, and of the Royal Commission on the Labour Laws, 1875;
_The Labour Laws_, by James Edward Davis (1875); and Stephen’s _History
of the Criminal Law_, vol. iii.
[386] Alexander Campbell, who had been a prominent disciple of Robert
Owen, and whom we have already seen as secretary to the little
Glasgow Carpenters’ Union of 1834, was, in 1863, editing the _Glasgow
Sentinel_, which became the chief organ of Macdonald and his National
Association of Miners. Campbell is described as having been, in 1858,
the virtual founder of the Glasgow Trades Council.
[387] The Memorial, which contains an exact statement of the law and
suggestions for its amendment, is preserved in the _Flint Glass Makers’
Magazine_, December 1863.
[388] Among those present were Robert Applegarth, George Odger, Daniel
Guile, T. J. Dunning, Alexander Macdonald, William Dronfield, Alexander
Campbell, Edwin Coulson, and George Potter. The societies represented
included the London Trades Council, Glasgow Trades Committee,
Sheffield Association of Organised Trades, Liverpool United Trades
Protection Society, Nottingham Association of Organised Trades, and the
Northumberland and Durham United Trades and Labourers; the Amalgamated
Societies of Engineers and Carpenters, the National Societies of
Bricklayers, Masons, Ironfounders, Miners, and Bookbinders, the London
Society of Compositors, the Scottish Bakers, Sheffield Sawmakers, etc.
[389] Afterwards Earl of Wemyss.
[390] Minutes of meeting of London Trades Council, March 1864.
[391] It must not be supposed that the lock-out was a new invention.
Place describes its use by the master breeches-makers at the end of
the last century: _Life of Francis Place_, by Professor Graham Wallas
(1918).
[392] _Report of Conference of Trade Delegates at Sheffield_ (June
1866), p. 22.
[393] “An Ironmaster’s View of Strikes,” by W. R. Hopper, _Fortnightly
Review_ (August 1, 1865).
[394] “Measures for Putting an End to the Abuses of Trades Unions,” by
Frederic Hill, Barrister-at-Law: Paper in Sessional Proceedings of the
National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1867-68, p.
24. The popular middle-class sentiment is reflected in Charles Reade’s
novel, _Put Yourself in his Place_ (1871).
[395] See, for instance, the speech of George Newton, the secretary
of the Glasgow Trades Committee: “A great many strikes, and perhaps
lock-outs, too, have arisen from a stubborn refusal on the part of
both sides to look the question honestly and fairly in the face....
Let us examine ourselves and see if there be any wicked way in us that
contributes to this unsatisfactory state of things, and if we discover
that we are not blameless, then we ought, first of all, to set our own
house in order.... Then let us examine the opposite side of the camp
and see how they stand, and if we find that they have not done all that
they ought to have done with a view to prevent these serious evils,
let us undisguisedly and in plain language point out where we consider
they have erred, and by increasing public opinion in a healthy way
against tyranny--some people call it, but perhaps a milder word would
be better--against the unwise policy used, it will do much to repress
it in future” (_Conference Report_, Sheffield, 1866).
[396] Rules adopted at Manchester Conference, 1867 (Sheffield, 1867, 12
pp.).
[397] The Alliance was always administered by an executive elected
by the Sheffield trades, the leading men amongst which had been
active in its formation. The veteran secretary of the Typographical
Society, William Dronfield, was the first general secretary. Among the
trades represented were the South Yorkshire and Nottingham Miners,
the Amalgamated Tailors, Boilermakers, Cotton-spinners, Scottish
Associated Carpenters, Yorkshire Glass-bottle Makers, North of England
Ironworkers, and the trades of Wolverhampton. The minute books from
1867 to 1870, and its printed _Monthly Statement_, show that the
Alliance at first supported the men in numerous lock-outs, especially
among the tailors, miners, and ironworkers, but that there were
constant complaints of unpaid levies. Dronfield informed us that the
Judicial Committee and the Executive experienced great difficulties
from the absence of any control over the constituent Unions, and the
impossibility of accurately defining a lock-out. The first conference
of the Alliance was held at Manchester from the 1st to the 4th of
January 1867, when fifty-three trades had been enrolled, numbering
59,750 members. The “Rules” adopted at this conference contain an
interesting address by Dronfield upon the principles and objects of
the federation. The next conference was at Preston in September 1867,
when the membership had fallen to 23,580, in forty-seven trades,
the Boilermakers, among others, formally withdrawing (_Minutes of
Conference at Preston_, Sheffield, 1867, 16 pp.).
[398] The town of Sheffield had long been noted for the custom of
“rattening,” that is, the temporary abstraction of the wheelbands or
tools of a workman whose subscription to his club was in arrear. This
had become the recognised method of enforcing, not merely the payment
of contributions, but also compliance with the trade regulations
of the club. The lawless summary jurisdiction thus usurped by the
Sheffield clubs easily passed into more serious acts of lynch law
if mere rattening proved ineffectual. Recalcitrant workmen were
terrorised by explosions of cans of gunpowder in the troughs of their
grinding wheels, or thrown down their chimneys; and in some cases
these explosions caused serious injury. The various Grinders’ Unions
(saw, file, sickle, fork, and fender) enjoyed an unhappy notoriety
for outrages of this nature, which had, from time to time, aroused
the spasmodic indignation of the local press, notably in 1843-4.
An attempt, in 1861, to blow up a small warehouse in Acorn Street
provoked a special outburst of public disapproval; and the minutes of
the London Trades Council record that already on this occasion the
Council publicly expressed its abhorrence of such criminal violence.
After this date there was for three or four years a diminution in the
number of serious acts of violence committed; but the years 1865-6 saw
a renewal of the evil practices, especially in connection with the
Saw-Grinders’ Union. The explosion in New Hereford Street in October
1866 was afterwards proved to have been instigated by this Union in
order to terrorise a certain Thomas Fernehough, who had twice deserted
the society, and was at the time working for a firm against whom the
saw-handle makers, as well as the saw-grinders, had struck.
[399] Among other societies, the Amalgamated Engineers and Carpenters
and the national Unions of Boilermakers and Ironfounders appear to have
deposited their rules.
[400] _Beehive_, January 26, 1867.
[401] Along with these, in helping and advising the Trade Unions at
this time, were Vernon Lushington, Godfrey Lushington (afterwards
Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department), J. M.
Ludlow (afterwards Registrar of Friendly Societies), Neate (formerly
Professor of Political Economy and then M.P. for Oxford), Sir T. Fowell
Buxton, M.P., and A. J. Mundella.
[402] The Junta did not, however, confine its efforts to action before
the Commission. One of the taunts constantly thrown by the press at
the Trade Union leaders was that they did not themselves know what
they wanted. Partly as a reply to this, but also as a manifesto to
consolidate the Unionist forces, in the autumn of 1867 a Bill was
prepared by Henry Crompton and laid before the Junta, and after
considerable discussion adopted by them and by a delegate meeting
of Trades held at the Bell Inn. It was introduced into the House of
Commons early in the following session, and served as basis of the
Trade Union demand at some of the elections in 1868, notably that of
Sheffield when A. J. Mundella first was candidate.
[403] The Broadhead disclosures created a great stir, and Professor
Beesly, who had ventured to point out “that a trades union murder was
neither better nor worse than any other murder,” was denounced as an
apologist for crime, and nearly lost his professorship at University
College, London, for his sturdy defence of the principle of Trade
Unionism. See his pamphlet, _The Sheffield Outrages and the Meeting
at Exeter Hall_, 1867, 16 pp.; and that by Richard Congreve, _Mr.
Broadhead and the Anonymous Press_, 1867, 16 pp.
[404] _Times_ leader, July 8, 1869. The occasion was the epoch-marking
speech of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brassey, in which, speaking as the son
of a great contractor, he declared himself on the side of the Trade
Unions, and asserted that, by exercising a beneficial influence on the
character of the workmen, they tended to lower rather than to raise the
cost of labour (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, July 7, 1869). The
speech was afterwards republished, with some additions, under the title
of _Trade Unions and the Cost of Labour_, by T. Brassey, 1870, 64 pp.
[405] The Sheffield Outrages and the Royal Commission produced a large
crop of literature, most of which is of little value. The Commission
itself presented no fewer than eleven reports, with voluminous evidence
and appendices. The Examiners appointed to investigate the outrages at
Sheffield and Manchester presented separate reports, which were laid
before Parliament. The mass of detailed information about strikes and
other proceedings of Trade Societies contained in these reports has
been the main source of all subsequent writings on the subject. _The
Trade Unions of England_, by the Comte de Paris, 1869, 246 pp., and
_The Trade Unions_, by Robert Somers (Edinburgh, 1876, 232 pp.), are,
for instance, little better than summaries, the former friendly, the
latter unfriendly, of the evidence before the Commission. The chapters
relating to Trade Unionism in W. T. Thornton’s work _On Labour_, 1870,
which made so permanent an impression on the economic world, are
entirely based upon the same testimony. Among other publications may
be mentioned _Trades Unions Defended_, by W. R. Callender (Manchester,
1870, 16 pp.); and _Measures for Putting an End to the Abuses of Trades
Unions_, by Frederic Hill, 1868, 16 pp.
[406] _Report of the Trades Conference_, 1867, 32 pp.
[407] _Beehive_, June 13, 1868.
[408] _Ibid._, August 28, 1869.
[409] _Beehive_, January 26, 1867.
[410] _Fortnightly Circular_, June 1868.
[411] See, for instance, _Some opinions on Trade Unions and the Bill
of 1869_, by Edmund Potter, M.P., 1869, 45 pp.; also the _Observations
upon the Law of Combinations and Trades Unions, and upon the Trades
Unions Bill_, by a Barrister, 1869, 64 pp.
[412] In his _Letters to the Working Classes_, 1870, Professor Beesly
gives a graphic account of the shuffling of the Government, and advises
political action. The annual report of the General Union of House
Painters (the “Manchester Alliance”) for 1871 shows how eagerly the
advice was received: “Away with the cry of no politics in our Unions;
this foolish neutrality has left us without power or influence.” See
also, for the whole episode, _Robert Applegarth_, by A. W. Humphrey,
1912, pp. 138-170; _Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour
Leaders_, by G. Howell, 1902, pp. 156-172.
[413] 32 and 33 Vic. c. 61 (1869). This provisional measure was
bitterly opposed in the House of Lords by Earl Cairns, who argued that
its universal protection of the funds of all Unions alike, without
requiring the abandonment of their objectionable rules, was in direct
opposition to the majority report of the Royal Commission. No such
surrender to the Trade Unions was, in his opinion, necessary, as
their funds had, in the previous year, been incidentally protected
by an “Act to amend the law relating to larceny and embezzlement”
(31 and 32 Vic. c. 116), passed at the instance of Russell Gurney,
the Recorder of London. This act had no reference to Trade Unions
as such, but it enabled members of a co-partnership to be convicted
for stealing or embezzling the funds of their co-partnership. Its
possible application to defaulting Trade Union officials was perceived
by Messrs. Shaen, Roscoe & Co., who have for three generations acted
as solicitors of the leading Unions. At their instance a case was
submitted to the Attorney-General of the time (Sir John Karslake),
who advised that a Trade Union could now prosecute in its character
of a partnership. Criminal proceedings were accordingly taken by the
Operative Bricklayers’ Society against a defaulting officer who had set
the Executive at defiance, with the result that the prisoner was, in
December 1868, sentenced to six months’ hard labour. This successful
prosecution was widely advertised throughout the Trade Union world,
and was frequently quoted as showing that no further legislation was
needed. But, as was forcibly pointed out by Frederic Harrison and
other advisers of the Junta, Russell Gurney’s Act, though it enabled
Trade Unions to put defaulting officials in prison, gave them no power
to recover the sums due, or to take any civil proceedings whatever,
and did not remove the illegality of any combinations of workmen “in
restraint of trade.” See Harrison’s article, “The Trades Union Bill,”
in _Fortnightly Review_, July 1, 1869, and the leaflet published by the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers, on Russell Gurney’s Act, December,
1868.
[414] See, for instance, the report of the Leeds meeting of the Master
Builders’ Association to object to the Bill, _Beehive_, March 11, 1871.
[415] A short Act had been passed in 1859 (22 Vic. c. 34) which
excluded from the definition of “molestation” or “obstruction” the
mere agreement to obtain an alteration of wages or hours, and also
the peaceful persuasion of others without threat or intimidation to
cease or abstain from work in order to obtain the wages or hours aimed
at. The Act was passed without discussion or comment, probably with
reference to some recent judicial decisions, but its actual origin
is not clear. The Stonemasons’ Society refused to have anything to
do with it, and referred sneeringly to its promoters as busybodies.
Alexander Macdonald alluded to it in his speech on the Employers and
Workmen Bill on June 28, 1875 (Hansard, vol. 225, pp. 66-7), as having
been enacted at the instance of himself and others in order to permit
men to persuade others to join combinations, and that it had had a
most beneficial effect. An obscure pamphlet, entitled _Letters to
the Trades Unionists and the Working Classes_, by Charles Sturgeon,
1868, 8 pp., gives the only account of its origin that we have seen.
“Some of the judges had decided that the liberty to combine was only
during the period he was not in the employ of any master (_i.e._ while
on tramp). So obvious a misreading, under which the working men were
getting imprisoned, while their masters combined at their pleasure,
created numerous petitions for relief, which lay as usual on the table;
however, the Executive of the National Association of United Trades
assembled in my rooms in Abingdon Street, and we drew a little Bill of
nine lines in length to explain to the judges how they had failed to
explain the views of the legislator.... I introduced our friends to the
late Henry Drummond, Thomas Duncombe, and Joseph Hume, two Radicals and
an honest Tory, and, strange to say, they worked well together when in
pursuit of justice. After fighting hard against the great Liberal Party
for four or five years, we passed our little Bill (22 Vic. c. 34), to
the great joy of the working classes and chagrin of the Manchester
Radicals.” But the decision of the R. _v._ Druitt and R. _v._ Bailey in
1867 showed that it did not serve to protect pickets from prosecution.
[416] Henry Crompton gives the following account of the practice of
picketing:--“Picketing is generally much misunderstood. It occurs in
a strike when war has begun. The struggle, of course, consists in the
employer trying to get fresh men, and the men on strike trying to
prevent this. They naturally do their best to induce all others to
join them. Very often the country is scoured by the employers, and men
brought long distances who never would have come if they had known
there was a strike. Men do not wish to undersell their fellows. A man
is posted as a picket, to give information of the grievances complained
of, and to urge the fresh comers not to defeat the strike that is going
on.
“Not only is this justifiable, but it is far better that this should be
legal and practised in full publicity than that it should be illegal
and done secretly, for, if done secretly, then bad practices are sure
to arise. No doubt it is done with a view to coerce the employers, just
as the lock-out is with a view to coerce the employed.
“Picketing has other uses and effects. It enables those on strike to
know whether the employers are getting men, and what probability there
is of the strike being successful, to check any fraudulent claims for
strike pay. Besides this, the publicity which the system of picketing
gives does, doubtless, exercise a considerable influence upon men’s
conduct. Those on strike naturally regard any one acting contrary
to the general interests of the trade with disfavour, just as an
unpatriotic man is condemned by those imbued with a higher sense of
national duty. Picketing is justified on these grounds by the workmen,
but all physical molestation or intimidation is condemned. The workmen
have never urged that such proceedings should not be repressed by penal
law.” (See _The Labour Law Commission_, by Henry Crompton, adopted and
published by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress.)
[417] Baron Bramwell’s view of the law excited much animadversion even
among lawyers. See Stephen’s _History of the Criminal Law_, vol. iii.
pp. 221-2. R. _v._ Druitt is reported in 10 Cox, 600.
[418] R. _v._ Hewitt, 5 Cox, 162 (1851). Compare also the observations
of Mr. Justice Hannam as to the mere act of striking being in itself
sometimes criminal, in Farrer _v._ Close, 4 L.R.Q.B. 612 (1869).
[419] R. _v._ Hewitt, 5 Cox, C.C. 163 (1851).
[420] See Walsby _v._ Anley, 30 L.J.M.C. 121 (1861); Skinner _v._
Kitch, 10 Cox, 493 (1867); O’Neil _v._ Kruger, 4 Best and Smith,
389 (1863); Wood _v._ Bowron, 2 Law Report, Q.B. 21 (1866); R. _v._
Rowlands, 5 Cox, C.C. 493 (1851).
Compare on the whole subject the Appendix to our _Industrial
Democracy_, 1897; _The Law of Criminal Conspiracies and Agreements_,
by R. S. (afterwards Mr. Justice) Wright (1873); Sir William Erle’s
_Law Relating to Trade Unions_ (1873); and Stephen’s _History of the
Criminal Law_, vol. iii. chap. xxx.
[421] Whilst the constant meetings of the Junta, the informal cabinet
of the movement, grew out of the great Amalgamated Societies, the
Trades Union Congress, or “Parliament of Labour,” took its rise in
the Trades Councils. We have already described the special Conference
held in London in 1864, on the Master and Servant Law, which was
convened by the Glasgow Trades Council, and its successor, summoned by
the Sheffield Trades Council in 1867 to concert measures of defence
against lock-outs. But the credit of initiating the idea of an Annual
Conference to deal with all subjects of interest to the Trade Union
world belongs to the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, who issued
in April 1868 a circular (fortunately preserved in the _Ironworkers’
Journal_ for May 1868, and printed at the end of this volume)
convening a Congress to be held in Manchester during Whit-week, 1868.
This Congress was attended by thirty-four delegates, who claimed to
represent about 118,000 Trade Unionists. The place of meeting of the
next Congress was fixed at Birmingham, and the delegates were in due
course convened by the Birmingham Trades Council. This second Congress,
which met in August 1869, included forty-eight delegates from forty
separate societies, having, it was said, 250,000 members. But although
these general congresses were attended by some of the most prominent
of the provincial Trade Unionists, they were rather frowned on by the
London Junta. The thirty-four delegates at the Manchester Congress
included indeed hardly any Metropolitan delegates other than George
Potter. Half a dozen representatives from London societies went to
the Birmingham Congress, including Odger and George Howell, but when
a Parliamentary Committee was appointed Odger refused to serve upon
it, regarding it apparently as an unnecessary rival of the Conference
of Amalgamated Trades. The next Congress was appointed for London in
1870, but the London leaders took no steps to convene it, until it
became necessary, as we have seen, to call up all forces to oppose
the projected legislation of 1871. The London Congress of March 1871
was, in fact, the first in which the real leaders of the movement took
part, and the Parliamentary Committee which it appointed, acting at
first in conjunction with Applegarth’s Conference, naturally took the
place of this on its dissolution. The 1872 Congress at Nottingham was
attended by seventy-seven delegates, representing 375,000 members.
Reports of the earliest four congresses must be sought in the _Beehive_
and (as regards those of Manchester, Birmingham, and Nottingham) in
the contemporary local newspapers. From 1873 onward the Congress has
issued an authorised report of its proceedings. A useful chronological
record has now been published by W. J. Davis, entitled _A History of
the British Trades Union Congress_, vol. i. 1910; vol. ii. 1916.
[422] 34 and 35 Vic. c. 31 (Trade Union Act), and 34 and 35 Vic. c. 32
(Criminal Law Amendment Act).
[423] See, for instance, the article by Henry Crompton in the
_Beehive_, September 2, 1871.
[424] The Operative Bricklayers’ Society (London), of which Coulson was
general secretary, stands No. 1 on the Register.
[425] _Digest of the Labour Laws_, signed by F. Harrison and H.
Crompton, and issued by the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary
Committees, September 1875.
[426] They were, however, eventually released after a few months’
imprisonment; see _Henry Broadhurst, the Story of His Life_, by
himself, 1901, pp. 59-64; _Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and
Labour Leaders_, by G. Howell, 1902, pp. 237-53.
[427] See letter to _Beehive_, January 11, 1873.
[428] Hansard, vol. 212, p. 1132, July 15, 1872.
[429] This formed the subject of bitter comment in the _Beehive_,
January 1874, just before the General Election.
[430] The following letter, addressed to Odger by John Stuart Mill,
will be of interest in connection with the perennial question of the
expediency of “independent” candidatures. It will be found in the
_Beehive_ for February 13, 1875:--
“Avignon, _February 19, 1871_.
“Dear Mr. Odger,--Although you have not been successful, I congratulate
you on the result of the polling in Southwark, as it proves that you
have the majority of the Liberal party with you, and that you have
called out an increased amount of political feeling in the borough. It
is plain that the Whigs intend to monopolise political power as long
as they can without coalescing in any degree with the Radicals. The
working men are quite right in allowing Tories to get into the House
to defeat this exclusive feeling of the Whigs, and may do it without
sacrificing any principle. The working men’s policy is to insist upon
their own representation, and in default of success to permit Tories to
be sent into the House until the Whig majority is seriously threatened,
when, of course, the Whigs will be happy to compromise, and allow a few
working men representatives in the House.
John Stuart Mill.”
[431] _Beehive_, August 9, 1873; see also that of August 30.
[432] Halliday, the Secretary of the Amalgamated Association of Miners,
offered himself as Labour candidate for Merthyr Tydvil. A fortnight
before the polling day he was indicted at Burnley for conspiracy in
connection with a local miners’ strike, but nevertheless went to the
poll, receiving the large total of 4912 votes (_Beehive_, January 31,
1874). Among the other “third candidates” were Broadhurst (Wycombe),
Howell (Aylesbury), Cremer (Warwick), Lucraft (Finsbury), Potter
(Peterborough), Bradlaugh (Northampton), Kane (Middlesborough), Odger
(Southwark), Mottershead (Preston), and Walton (Stoke). See _History of
Labour Representation_, by A. W. Humphrey, 1912.
[433] See House of Commons Returns, No. 237 of the 2nd, and No. 273 of
the 23rd of June 1875.
[434] It is not surprising that this sweeping Parliamentary triumph
evoked great enthusiasm in the Trade Union ranks. At the Trade Union
Congress in October 1875, such ardent Radicals as Odger, Guile, and
George Howell joined in the warmest eulogies of J. K. (afterwards
Viscount) Cross, whose sympathetic attitude had surpassed their utmost
hopes. “The best friends they had in Parliament,” said Howell, “with
one or two exceptions, never declared for the repeal of the Criminal
Law Amendment Act. He, with some friends, was under the gallery of the
House of Commons when the measure was under discussion, and they could
scarcely believe their ears when they heard Mr. Cross declare for the
total repeal of the Act.” And Odger paid testimony to the “immense
singleness of purpose” with which the Home Secretary “had attended
to every proposition that had been placed before him,” and accorded
them “the greatest boon ever given to the sons of toil.” An amendment
deprecating such “fulsome recognition of the action of the Conservative
party” received only four votes (Report of Glasgow Congress, 1875).
Some minor amendments of the law relating to the registration and
friendly benefits of Trade Unions were embodied in the Trade Union Act
Amendment Act of 1876 (39 and 40 Vic. c. 22). See the _Handybook of
the Labour Laws_, by George Howell, 1876, and his _Labour Legislation,
Labour Movements and Labour Leaders_, 1902, pp. 156-72.
[435] Speech at Trades Union Congress, Glasgow, October 1875.
[436] In his letter to a Blackburn millowner, November 3, 1860. _Public
Letters of John Bright_, collected and edited by H. J. Leech, 1885, p.
80.
[437] Letter to Colonel Maude, quoted by Professor Beesly in his
address to the London Trades Council, 1869, reported in _Bricklayers’
Circular_, March 1870.
[438] _Fortnightly Review_, July 1, 1869. “The Trades Union Bill,” by
Frederic Harrison.
[439] William Crawford, the trusted leader of the Durham miners,
and a steadfast opponent of the Eight Hours Bill, in a well-known
letter of later date (of which we have had a copy), emphatically
urges the complete ostracism of non-society men. “You should at least
be consistent. In numberless cases you refuse to descend and ascend
with non-Unionists. The right or wrong of such action I will not now
discuss; but what is the actual state of things found in many parts of
the country? While you refuse to descend and ascend with these men, you
walk to and from the pit, walk in and out bye with them--nay, sometimes
work with them. You mingle with them at home over your glass of beer,
in your chapels, and side by side you pray with them in your prayer
meeting. The time has come when there must be plain speaking on this
matter. It is no use playing at shuttlecock in this important portion
of our social life. Either mingle with these men in the shaft, as you
do in every other place, or let them be ostracised at all times and
in every place. Regard them as unfit companions for yourselves and
your sons, and unfit husbands for your daughters. Let them be branded,
as it were, with the curse of Cain, as unfit to mingle in ordinary,
honest, and respectable society. Until you make up your minds to thus
completely and absolutely ostracise these goats of mankind, cease to
complain as to any results that may arise from their action.” Compare
_A Great Labour Leader_ [Thomas Burt], by Aaron Watson, 1908.
[440] See his letter on the Government Annuities Bill, 1864: “Lastly,
we are told of Government dictation and interference. I cannot believe
men of sense will say this twice seriously.... Leave it to the
political economists to complain.... Let working men remember that
whenever a measure in their interest is proposed to Parliament, or
suggested in the country--whether it be to limit excessive hours of
labour, to protect women and children, to regulate unhealthy labour,
to provide them with the means of health, cleanliness, or recreation,
to save them from the exactions of unscrupulous employers--it is
universally met with opposition from one quarter, that of unrestricted
competition; and opposed on one ground, that of absolute freedom of
private enterprise. We all know--at least, we all explain--how selfish
and shallow this cry is in the mouth of unscrupulous capitalists who
resist the Truck System Bill or the Ten Hours Bill. Is it not suicidal
in working men to raise a cry which has ever been, and still will
be, the great resource of those who strive to set obstacles to their
welfare? The next time working men promote a Short Time Bill of any
kind they will be told to stick to their principle of non-interference
with private capital” (_Beehive_, March 19, 1864).
[441] From 1861 to 1877 the principal working-class organ was the
_Beehive_, established by a group of Trade Unionists who formed a
company in which over a hundred Unions are said to have taken shares.
The editor and virtual proprietor during its whole life appears to
have been George Potter, who was assisted by a Consulting Committee,
on which appeared, at some time or another, the names of all the
leading London Trade Unionists. Potter, as we have already mentioned,
was a man of equivocal character and conduct, who at no time held any
important position in the Trade Union world, though his London Working
Men’s Association made a useful start of the movement for Trade Union
representation in the House of Commons. Under his editorship the
_Beehive_ became the best Labour newspaper which has yet appeared. This
was due to the persistent support of Frederic Harrison, Henry Crompton,
E. S. Beesly, Lloyd Jones, and other friends of Trade Unionism who,
for fifteen years, contributed innumerable articles, whilst such Trade
Union leaders as Applegarth, Howell, and Shipton frequently appeared in
its columns. These contributions make it of the greatest possible value
to the student of Trade Union history. Unfortunately, the most complete
file in any public library--that in the British Museum--begins only in
1869. Mr. John Burns possesses a unique set beginning in 1863, which
he kindly placed at our disposal. In 1877 it was converted into the
_Industrial Review_, which came to an end in 1879.
The place of the _Beehive_ was, in 1881, to some extent taken by the
_Labour Standard_, a penny weekly established by George Shipton, the
Secretary of the London Trades Council. It ran from May 7, 1881, to
April 29, 1882, and contained articles by Henry Crompton and Professor
E. S. Beesly, together with much Trade Union information.