more thoughtful working-men leaders. Lloyd Jones, writing in 1874,
warns “working men of the danger there is in a principle that wages
should be regulated by market prices, accepted and acted on, and
therefore presumably approved of by Trades Unions. These bodies, it is
to be regretted, permit it in arbitration, accept it in negotiations
with their employers, and thus give the highest sanction they can to
a mode of action most detrimental to the cause of labour.... The first
thing, therefore, those who manage trade societies should settle is a
minimum, which they should regard as a point below which they should
never go.... Such a one as will secure sufficiency of food and some
degree of personal and home comfort to the worker; not a miserable
allowance to starve on, but living wages.... The present agreements
they are going into on fluctuating market prices is a practical placing
of their fate in the hands of others. It is throwing the bread of their
children into a scramble of competition where everything is decided by
the blind and selfish struggles of their employers.”[489] “I entirely
agree,” writes Professor Beesly, “with an admirable article by Mr.
Lloyd Jones[490] in a recent number of the _Beehive_, in which he
maintained that colliers should aim at establishing a minimum price for
their labour, and compelling their employers to take that into account
as the one constant and stable element in all their speculations. All
workmen should keep their eyes fixed on this ultimate ideal.”[491]
Nor was this view confined to friendly allies of the Trade Union
Movement. We shall have occasion to notice how forcibly both the Cotton
Operatives and the Boilermakers protested against the dependence of
wages on the fluctuations of the market. Alexander Macdonald himself,
though he approved of Joint Committees, instinctively maintained
an attitude of hostility to the innovating principle of a sliding
scale.[492] And, as we shall hereafter see, the conflict between
Macdonald’s teaching with regard to both wages and the hours of labour,
and the economic views of the Northumberland and Durham leaders,
presently divided the organised miners into two hostile camps.
The Trade Union world of 1871-75 was therefore more complicated, and
presented many more difficult internal problems than was imagined,
either by the alarmed employers or the triumphant Trade Unionists. It
needed only the stress of hard times to reveal to the Trade Unionists
themselves that they were not the compact and well-organised army
described by the National Federation of Associated Employers, but
a congeries of distinct sections, pursuing separate and sometimes
antagonistic policies.
The expansion of trade, under the influence of which Trade Unionism,
as we have seen, reached in 1873-74 one of its high-water marks,
came suddenly to an end. The contraction became visible first in the
coal and iron industries, those in which the inflation had perhaps
been greatest.[493] The first break occurred in February 1874, when
the coal-miners of the East of Scotland submitted to a reduction of
a shilling a day. During the rest of the year prices and wages came
tumbling down in both these staple trades. In January 1875 a furious
conflict broke out in South Wales, where many thousand miners and
ironworkers refused to submit to a third reduction of ten per cent.
The struggle dragged on until the end of May, when work was resumed
at a reduction, not of ten, but of twelve and a half per cent, with
an understanding that “any change in the wage rates ... shall depend
on a sliding scale of wages to be regulated by the selling price of
coal.”[494] In the following year the depression spread to the textile
industries, and gradually affected all trades throughout the country.
The building trades were, however, still prosperous; and the Manchester
Carpenters chose this moment for an aggressive advance movement. The
disastrous strike that followed early in 1877, and lasted throughout
the year, resulted in the virtual collapse of the General Union of
Carpenters and Joiners, at that time the third in magnitude among the
societies in the building trades, and left the Manchester building
operatives in a state of disorganisation from which they never fully
recovered. In April 1877 the Clyde shipwrights demanded an increase
of wages, to which the employers replied by a general lock-out of all
the operatives engaged in the shipbuilding yards, in the expectation
that this would cause pressure on the shipwrights to withdraw their
claim. For more than three months the main industry of the Clyde was at
a standstill, the dispute being eventually ended, in September 1877,
by submission to the arbitration of Lord Moncrieff, in which the men
were completely worsted. In July 1877 a conflict broke out between the
stonemasons and their employers, in which Bull & Co., the contractors
for the new law courts in London, caused the bitterest resentment
by importing German workmen as blacklegs. The demand had originally
been for an increase of wages and reduction of hours for the London
men; but as the obstinate struggle progressed it became, in effect, a
battle between the Stonemasons’ Union and the federated master builders
throughout the country. Large levies were raised, and over £2000
collected from other trade societies; but in March 1878, after eight
months’ conflict, the remnant of the strikers returned to work on the
employers’ terms. The cotton trade, too, was made the scene of one
of the greatest industrial struggles on record. After several minor
reductions of wages during 1877, which resulted in local strikes, in
March 1878, as the _Times_ reports, “all the way through a centre of 70
miles, where 250,000 cotton operatives are employed, notices have been
posted giving a month’s notice of ten per cent reduction in wages.”
A colossal strike ensued, which brought into prominence the rival
theories of the cotton operatives and their employers. It was conceded
by the men that the millowners were losing money, and that some change
had to be made. But as the employers admitted that their losses
arose from the glutted state of the market, the operatives contended
that the proper remedy was the cessation of the over-production;
and they therefore offered to accept the 10 per cent reduction on
condition that the mills should only work four days a week. A heated
controversy ensued, but the millowners persisted in their demand for
the unconditional surrender of the men, and refused all proposals for
arbitration. The cause of the men was unfortunately prejudiced by
serious riots at Blackburn, at which the house of Colonel Raynsford
Jackson, the leader of the associated employers, was looted and burnt.
After ten weeks’ struggle the men went in on the employers’ terms.[495]
The great struggles of 1875-78 were only the precursors of a general
rout of the Trade Union forces. The increasing depression of trade
culminated during 1878-79 in a stagnation which must rank as one
of the most serious which has ever overtaken British industry. The
paralysis of business was intensified, especially in Scotland, by the
widespread ruin caused by the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank.
From one end of the kingdom to the other great firms became bankrupt,
mines and ironworks were stopped, ships lay idle in the ports, and a
universal feeling of despondency and distrust spread like a blight
into every corner of the industrial world. Every industry had its
crowds of unemployed workmen, the proportion of men on the books of
the Trade Unions rising, in some cases, to as much as 25 per cent. The
capitalists, as might have been expected, chose the moment of trial for
attempting to take back the rest of the concessions extorted from them
in the previous years. “It has appeared to employers of labour,” stated
the private circular issued by the Iron Trade Employers’ Association
in December 1878, “that the time has arrived when the superfluous
wages which have been dissipated in unproductive consumption must be
retrenched, and when the idle hours which have been unprofitably thrown
away must be reclaimed to industry and profit by being redirected
to reproductive work.” The result is reflected in the Trade Union
reports. “All over the United Kingdom,” states the Monthly Report of
the Amalgamated Carpenters for January 1879, “notices of reductions in
wages and extended hours of labour come pouring in from employers with
an eagerness and audacity which contrast strangely with the lessons of
forbearance and moderation so incessantly dinned into the ears of the
British workman in happier times.” “At no time in our history,” reports
the Executive Council of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, “have we
had such a number of industrial disturbances throughout the country.
Bad trade has prevailed; and our employers, now better organised than
ever before, seem to have made it their aim to raise as many points of
contention with us as ever possible. In one place sweeping reductions
of wages would be carried out or attempted; and in others the rates
paid for overtime were sought to be reduced, while in many cases
the hours of labour have been attacked, and in the Clyde district
successfully, three hours being, as a result, added to the week’s work
all over Scotland.... Another notable feature of the depression has
been the continued oppression by the employers of the men in the most
submissive districts, where conciliatory measures were adopted, and
where little objection was made to any innovation. The Clyde district
has been a notable example of this fact, passing in the first instance
through two considerable reductions of wages almost passively, only
to be almost immediately after the victims of desultory attacks upon
the hours question. Irregular attack appears almost to have been the
system adopted by the employers in preference to the development of
any general movement by their Associations.”[496] The years 1878-1880
witnessed, accordingly, a great increase in the number of strikes in
nearly all trades,[497] most of which terminated disastrously for the
workmen. Sweeping reductions of wages occurred in all industries. The
Northumberland miners, whose normal day’s earnings had been 9s. 1½d.
in March 1873, found themselves reduced, in November 1878, to 4s. 9d.
per day, and in January 1880 to 4s. 4d. Scotch mechanics suffered an
even more sudden reduction. The Glasgow stonemasons, for instance, who
had been earning 9d. and 10d. per hour during 1877, dropped by the end
of 1878 to 6d. per hour, and found it difficult to find employment
even at that figure. A still more dangerous encroachment was made in
connection with the hours of labour. Employers on all sides sought to
lengthen the working day. The mechanics on the Clyde lost the fifty-one
hours week which they had won. The Iron Trades Employers’ Association,
whose circular we have quoted, resolved upon a general attack on the
Nine Hours Day. “It has been resolved,” writes the secretary, “by a
large majority of the Iron Trades Employers’ Association, supported
by a general agreement among other employers, to give notice in their
workshops that the hours of labour shall be increased to the number
prevailing before the adoption of the nine hours limit.”[498] The
concerted action of the associated employers was, however, baulked by
the energy of John Burnett, then General Secretary of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers. Placed in possession of the Circular for a couple
of hours, he promptly reproduced it in an ably reasoned appeal to his
own members, which was sent broadcast to the press. Publicity proved
fatal to the employers’ plans, and no uniform or systematic action was
taken. Isolated attempts were, however, made in all directions by the
master engineers to revert to fifty-seven or fifty-nine hours per week;
and only by the most strenuous action was the normal fifty-four-hours
week retained in “society shops.”
Other trades were not equally successful in maintaining even their
nominal day. In many towns the carpenters had two or three hours per
week added to their working time.[499] More serious was the fact
that in numerous minor trades the very conception of a definitely
fixed normal day was practically lost. Even among such well-organised
trades as the Engineers, Carpenters, and Stonemasons the practice of
systematic overtime, coupled with the prevalence of piecework, reduced
the normal day to a nullity.[500] In the abundant Trade Union records
of these years we watch the progress and results of these economic
disasters. The number of men drawing the out-of-work benefit steadily
rises, until the societies of Ironfounders and Boilermakers, which
in 1872-73 had scarcely 1 per cent unemployed, had in 1879 over 20
per cent on their funds. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers paid
away, under this one head, during the three years 1878-80, a sum of
no less than £287,596. The Operative Plumbers had to exclude, in the
two years 1880-82, nearly a third of their members for non-payment of
contributions. The Ironfounders, who in 1876 had accumulated a fund of
over £5 per member, paid away every penny of it by the end of 1879,
and were only saved from actual stoppage by the numerous loans made to
the society by its more prosperous members. The Stonemasons’ Society
drained itself equally dry, and resorted to the same expedient to avoid
default. The Scottish societies had to meet the crisis in an even more
aggravated form. The total collapse which followed the City of Glasgow
Bank failure absolutely ruined all but half a dozen of the Scotch Trade
Unions, a blow from which Trade Unionism in Scotland did not recover
for the rest of the century.
The year 1879, indeed, was as distinctly a low-water mark of the Trade
Union Movement as 1873-74 registered a full tide of prosperity. The
economic trials through which Trade Unionism passed in 1879 are only
to be paralleled by those through which it had gone in 1839-42. But
the solid growth which we have described prevented any such total
collapse as marked the previous periods. The depression of 1879
swept, it is true, many hundreds of trade societies into oblivion.
The Unions of agricultural labourers, which had sprung up with such
mushroom rapidity, either collapsed altogether or dwindled into
insignificant benefit clubs. Up and down the country the hundreds of
little societies in miscellaneous trades which had flourished during
the good years, went down before the tide of adversity. Widespread
national organisations shrank up practically into societies of local
influence, concentrated upon the strongholds of their industries.
The great National Union of Miners, established, as we have seen, in
1862-63, survived, after 1879, only in Northumberland, Durham, and
Yorkshire. Its younger rival, the Amalgamated Association of Miners,
which had, up to 1875, dominated South Wales and the Midlands, broke up
and disappeared. The National Amalgamated Association of Ironworkers,
also established in 1862, which in 1873 numbered 35,000 members in all
parts of the country, was reduced in 1879 to 1400 members, confined
to a few centres in the North of England.[501] In some districts, such
as South Wales, Trade Unionism practically ceased to exist.[502] The
total membership of the Trade Union Movement returned, it is probable,
to the level of 1871. But despite all these contractions the backbone
of the movement remained intact. In the engineering and building trades
the great national societies, though they were denuded of their reserve
funds, retained their membership. Nor was it only the trade friendly
societies that weathered the storm. The essentially trade organisations
of the cotton operatives, and of the Northumberland and Durham miners,
maintained their position with only a temporary contraction of
membership. The political organisation of the movement was, moreover,
unaffected. The local Trades Councils went on undisturbed. The annual
Trades Union Congress continued to meet, and to appoint its standing
Parliamentary Committee. In short, though many individual Unions
disappeared, and many others saw their balances absorbed and their
membership reduced, the trials of 1879 proved that the Trade Union
Movement was at last beyond all danger of destruction or collapse, and
that the Trade Union organisation had become a permanent element in our
social structure.
We see, therefore, that the work which Allan and Applegarth had done
towards consolidating the Trade Union Movement had not been fruitless.
But along with increasing consolidation and definiteness of purpose
had come an increasing differentiation of policy and interest. Each
trade was working out its own industrial problems in its way. Whilst
the miners and the cotton operatives, for instance, were elaborating
their own codes of legislative regulation of the conditions of labour,
the engineering and building trades were becoming pledged to the
legislative _laissez-faire_ of their leaders. Under the influence
of the able spokesmen of the northern counties the coal-miners and
ironworkers were accepting the principle that wages must follow prices;
whilst the cotton operatives, and to some extent the boilermakers,[503]
were making a notable stand for the contrary view that the Standard
Rate of Wages should be a first charge on industry. And while the
miners and cotton operatives regarded their organisations primarily
as societies for trade protection, there was growing up among the
successors of the Junta in the iron and building trades a fixed belief
that the really “Scientific Trade Unionism” consisted in elaborate
friendly benefits and judiciously invested superannuation funds. So
long as trade was expanding, and each policy was pursued with success,
no antagonism arose between the different sections. The cotton
operatives cordially approved the Nine Hours Movement of the engineers,
whilst these, in their turn, supported the Factory Bill desired by the
Lancashire spinners. The miners applauded the gallant stand made by the
cotton operatives against the reductions of 1877-79, whilst the cotton
operatives saw no objection to the acquiescence of the miners in the
dependence of wages on prices. And though all Trade Unions regarded
with respect the high contributions and accumulated funds of the
Amalgamated Engineers, they were equally respectful of the success with
which the Northumberland coal-miners, through bad times and good, had
for half a generation maintained a strong Union with exclusively trade
objects. Thus the divergences of policy, which were destined from 1885
onward to form the battle-ground between what has been once more termed
the “Old” Unionism and the “New,” did not at first prevent cordial
co-operation in the common purposes of the Trade Union Movement. It was
in the dark days after 1878-79, when every Union suffered reverses,
that internal discontent as to Trade Union policy became acute, and
a new spirit of criticism arose. Not until the purely trade society,
on the one hand, had been found lacking in stability, and the trade
friendly society, on the other, had been convicted of apathy in trade
matters; not until the Lancashire and Yorkshire coalminers had been
driven to protest against the constant reductions brought about by
the sliding scales, and some of the leaders of the Lancashire cotton
operatives hesitated in their advocacy of the legal day; finally, not
until a powerful section of the miners opposed any further extension of
the Mines Regulation Acts, and a section of the engineers and building
operatives began to advocate the legal fixing of their own labour
day--do we find it declared that “the two systems cannot co-exist; they
are contradictory and opposed.”[504]
In more than one direction, therefore, the depression of trade was
bringing into prominence wide divergences of opinion upon Trade
Union policy. But the adverse industrial circumstances of the time
were revealing, in certain industries, a more invidious cleavage.
As manufacturing processes develop and change with the progress of
invention and the substitution of one material for another--iron
for wood in shipbuilding, for instance--the skilled members of one
trade find themselves superseded for certain work by the members of
another. A modern Atlantic liner, practically a luxuriously-fitted,
electric-lighted floating hotel, built of rolled steel plates,
would obviously not fall within the work of a shipwright like Peter
the Great. But the old-fashioned shipwright naturally refused to
relinquish without a struggle the right to build ships of every
kind. The depression of 1879 was severely felt in the shipbuilding
and engineering trades, every one of which had a large percentage of
its members unemployed. The societies found, as we have seen, the
out-of-work donation a serious drain on their funds, and were inclined
to look more narrowly into cases of “encroachment” upon the work which
each regarded as the legitimate sphere of its own members. Disputes
between Union and Union as to overlap and apportionment of work become,
in these years, of frequent occurrence; and to the standing conflict
with the employers was added embittered internecine warfare between
the men of one branch of trade and those of another. The Engineers
complained of the monopoly which the Boilermakers maintained of all
work connected with angle-iron. The Patternmakers protested vigorously
against the Carpenters presuming to make any engineering patterns.
At Glasgow the Brassfounders objected to the Ironmoulders continuing
to make the large brass castings which the workers in brass had at
first been unable to undertake. The line of demarcation in iron
shipbuilding between the work of a shipwright and that of a boilermaker
was a constant source of friction. The disregard of the ordinary
classification of trades by the authorities of the Royal Dockyards
created great discontent among the Engineers, who saw shipwrights
put to do fitters’ work, and Broadhurst brought the matter in 1882
before the House of Commons.[505] Nor were the disputes confined to
the puzzling question of the lines of demarcation between particular
trades. In 1877 the recently formed Union of “Platers’ Helpers”
complained bitterly to the Trades Union Congress that the whole
force of the Boilermakers’ Society had been used to destroy their
organisation. The Platers’ Helpers, it may be explained, constitute
a large class of labourers in shipbuilding yards, who are usually
employed and paid, not by the owners of the yards, but by members of
the Boilermakers’ Society. In the building trades numerous cases of
friction were occurring between bricklayers and masons on the one
hand, and the builders’ labourers on the other. The introduction of
terra cotta led to a whole series of disputes between the bricklayers
and the plasterers as to the trade to which the new work properly
belonged. Disputes of this kind were, of course, no new thing. What
gave the matter its new importance was the dominance of the great trade
friendly societies in the skilled occupations. The loss of employment
by individual members became in bad times a serious financial drain on
Unions giving out-of-work pay. In place of the bickerings of individual
workmen we have the conflicts of powerful societies, each supporting
the claim of its own members to do the work in dispute. “When men are
not organised in a Trade Union,” says the general secretary of a large
society, “these little things are not taken much notice of, but the
moment the two trades become well organised, each trade is looking
after its own particular members’ interests....”[506]
We have in our _Industrial Democracy_ analysed the history, character,
and extent of this rivalry among competing branches of the same
trade. Here we need do no more than record its result in weakening
the bond of union between powerful sections of the Trade Union world.
The local Trades Councils, which might have attained a position
of political influence, were always being disintegrated by the
disputes of competing trades. The powerful Shipping Trades Council
of Liverpool, for instance, which played an important part in Samuel
Plimsoll’s agitation for a new Merchant Shipping Act, was broken up in
1880 by the quarrel between the separate societies of Shipwrights,
Ship-joiners, and House Carpenters over ship work. The minutes of
every Trades Council, especially those in seaports, relate innumerable
well-intentioned attempts to settle similar disputes, almost invariably
ending in the secession of one or other of the contending Unions.
These quarrels prevented, moreover, the formation of any effective
general federation. An attempt was made in 1875 by the officers of the
Amalgamated Engineers’, Boilermakers’, Ironfounders’, and Steam-Engine
Makers’ Societies to establish a federation for mutual defence against
attacks upon the Nine Hours System. After a few months, the disputes
between the Engineers and Boilermakers on the one hand, and between the
members of the Amalgamated Society and the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society
on the other, led to the abandonment of the attempt.[507] A similar
movement initiated by the Boilermakers in 1881 equally failed to get
established.[508]
Wider federations met with no better success than those confined to
the engineering and shipbuilding trades. The Trades Union Congress
repeatedly declared itself in favour of universal brotherhood among
Trade Unionists, and the formation of a federal bond between the
different societies. But the inherent differences between trade and
trade, the numerous distinct types into which societies were divided,
the wide divergences as to Trade Union policy which we have been
describing, and, above all, the rivalry for members and employment
between competing societies in the same industry, rendered any
universal federation impossible. After the Sheffield Congress in
1874, representatives of the leading Unions in the iron and building
trades set on foot a “Federation of Organised Trade Societies,”
which all Unions were invited to join for mutual defence. But the
Cotton-spinners, with their preference for legislative regulation,
refused to have anything to do with a federation which contemplated
nothing but strike benefits. The whole scheme was, indeed, more a
project of certain Trade Union officials than a manifestation of any
general feeling in favour of common action. Each trade was, as we have
said, working out its own policy, and attending almost exclusively to
its own interests. Under such circumstances any attempt at effective
federation must necessarily have been still-born. Nevertheless the
Edinburgh Congress of 1879 called for a renewed attempt; and the
Parliamentary Committee circulated to every Trade Union in the
kingdom their proposed rules for another “Federation of Organised
Trade Societies,” To this invitation not half a dozen replies were
received.[509] At the Congress of 1882, when the resolution in favour
of a universal federation was again proposed, it found little support.
The representatives of the local Trades Councils urged that these
bodies furnished all that was practicable in the way of federation.
Thomas Ashton, the outspoken representative of the cotton-spinners,
was more emphatic. “For years,” he said, “the Parliamentary Committee
and others had been trying to bring about such an organisation as
that mentioned in the resolution, but it had been found utterly
impossible.... It was all nonsense to pass such a resolution. It was
impossible for the trades of the country to amalgamate, their interests
were so varied and they were so jealous with regard to each other’s
disputes.”[510]
The foregoing examination of the internal relations of the Trade Union
world between 1875 and 1879, though incomplete, demonstrates the extent
to which the movement during these years was dominated by a somewhat
narrow “particularism.” From 1880 to 1885 the various societies were
absorbed in building up again their membership and balances, which
had so seriously suffered during the continued depression. The annual
Trades Union Congress, the Parliamentary Committee, and the political
proceedings of these years constitute practically the only common bond
between the isolated and often hostile sections. In all industrial
matters the Trade Union world was broken up into struggling groups,
destitute of any common purpose, each, indeed, mainly preoccupied with
its separate concerns, and frequently running counter to the policy or
aims of the rest. The cleavages of interest and opinion among working
men proved to be deeper and more numerous than any one suspected. In
the following chapter we shall see how an imperfect appreciation of
each other’s position led to that conflict between the “Old Unionists”
and the “New” which for some years bade fair to disintegrate the whole
Labour Movement.
FOOTNOTES:
[442] Address of Alexander Macdonald to the Leeds Conference, 1873.
Alexander Macdonald, the son of a sailor, who became a miner in
Lanarkshire, was born at Airdrie in 1821, and went to work in the pit
at the age of eight. Having an ardent desire for education he prepared
himself as best he could for Glasgow University, which he entered in
1846, supporting himself from his savings, and from his work as a
miner in the summer. Whilst still at the University he became known
as a leader of the miners all over Scotland. In 1850 he became a mine
manager, and in 1851 he opened a school at Airdrie, an occupation which
he abandoned in 1855 to devote his whole time to agitation on behalf
of the miners. On the formation, in 1863, of the National Union of
Miners, he was elected president, a position which he retained until
his death. Meanwhile he was, by a series of successful commercial
speculations, acquiring a modest fortune, which enabled him to devote
his whole energies to the promotion of the Parliamentary programme
which he had impressed upon the miners. He gave important evidence
before the Select Committee of 1865 on the Master and Servant Law. In
1868 he offered himself as a candidate for the Kilmarnock Burghs, but
retired to avoid a split. At the General Election of 1874 he was more
successful, being returned for Stafford, and thus becoming (with Thomas
Burt) the first “Labour Member.” He was shortly afterwards appointed
a member of the Royal Commission on the Labour Laws, and eventually
presented a minority report of his own on the subject. He died in 1881.
A history of the coal-miners which he projected was apparently never
written, and, with the exception of numerous presidential addresses and
other speeches, and a pamphlet entitled _Notes and Annotations on the
Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1872_ (Glasgow, 1872, 50 pp.), we have found
nothing from his pen. A eulogistic notice of his life by Lloyd Jones
appeared in the _Newcastle Chronicle_, November 17, 1883, most of which
is reprinted in Dr. Baernreither’s _English Associations of Working
Men_, p. 408.
[443] Address to the Miners’ National Conference at Leeds, 1873.
[444] The Conference appointed a sub-committee to compile and publish
its proceedings, “a thing,” as the preface explains, “altogether
unparalleled in the records of labour.” And indeed the elaborate
volume, regularly published by the eminent firm of Longmans in 1864,
entitled _Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal,
Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds, November
9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863_, with its 174 pages, its frontispiece
representing the pit-brow women, and its motto on the title-page
extracted from the writings of W. E. Gladstone, formed a creditable and
impressive appeal to the reading public.
[445] For this militant Chartist (1805-79), see _Life of Joseph Rayner
Stephens_, by G. J. Holyoake, 1881.
[446] _Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal,
Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds, November 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863_, p. 14.
[447] _Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal,
Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds, November 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863_, p. 17. In Northumberland and Durham the
hewers very largely work in two shifts, whilst there used to be only
one shift of boys.
[448] Section 29 of Mines Regulation Act of 1860.
[449] Normansell _v._ Platt. John Normansell, the agent of the South
Yorkshire Miners’ Association, stands second only to Macdonald as a
leader of the miners between 1863 and 1875. The son of a banksman,
he was born at Torkington, Cheshire, in 1830, and left an orphan at
an early age. At seven he entered the pit, and when, at the age of
nineteen, he married, he was unable to write his own name. Migrating
to South Yorkshire, he became a leader in the agitation to secure a
checkweigher, which the local coal-owners conceded in 1859. Normansell
was elected to the post for his own pit, and rapidly became the leading
spirit in the district. After the lock-out of 1864 he was elected
secretary to the Union, then counting only two thousand members. Within
eight years he had raised its membership to twenty thousand, and built
up an elaborate system of friendly benefits. Normansell was the first
working-man Town Councillor, having been triumphantly elected at
Barnsley, his Union subscribing £1000 to lodge in the bank in his name,
in order to enable him to declare himself possessed of the pecuniary
qualification at that time required. On his death the amount was voted
to his widow. Normansell gave evidence in 1867 before the Select
Committee on Coal-mining, and before that on the Master and Servant
Law, in 1868 before the Royal Commission on Trade Unions, and in 1873
before that on the Coal Supply.
[450] The best and indeed the only exact account of these cotton lists
is that prepared for the Economic Section of the British Association by
a committee consisting of Professor Sidgwick, Professor Foxwell, A. H.
D. (now Sir Arthur) Acland, Dr. W. Cunningham, and Professor J. E. C.
Munro, the report being drawn up by the latter. (_On the Regulation of
Wages by means of Lists in the Cotton Industry_, Manchester, 1887; in
two parts--Spinning and Weaving.) See _History of Wages in the Cotton
Trade during the Past Hundred Years_, by G. H. Wood, 1910; _A Century
of Fine Cotton Spinning_, by McConnel & Co., 1906; and _Standard Piece
Lists and Sliding Scales_, by the Labour Department of the Board of
Trade, Cd. 144, 1900.
The principles upon which the lists are framed are so complicated that
we confess, after prolonged study, to be still perplexed on certain
points; and though Professor Munro clears up many difficulties, we are
disposed to believe that even he, in some particulars, has not in all
cases correctly stated the matter. We have discussed the whole subject
in our _Industrial Democracy_.
[451] _Bolton and District Net List of Prices for Spinning Twist,
Reeled Yarn or Bastard Twist, and Weft, on Self-actor Mules_ (Bolton,
1887; 85 pp.).
[452] Birtwistle was, in 1892, at an advanced age, appointed by the
Home Secretary an Inspector in the Factory Department, under the
“particulars clause” (sec. 24 of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1891),
as the only person who could be found competent to understand and
interpret the intricacies of the method of remuneration in the weaving
trade.
[453] _Beehive_, February 23, 1867. The circular announcing the
resolution is signed by the leading officers of the Cotton-spinners’
and Cotton-weavers’ Unions of the time.
[454] Report of the Parliamentary Committee to the Trades Union
Congress, January 1873.
[455] Circular of December 11, 1871, signed on behalf of the
preliminary meeting by Thomas Mawdsley--not to be mistaken for James
Mawdsley, J.P., a subsequent secretary.
[456] Thomas Ashton, J.P. (died 1919), then secretary of the Oldham
Spinners, often made this statement. On the 26th of May 1893 the
_Cotton Factory Times_, the men’s accredited organ, declared, with
reference to the Eight Hours Movement, that “now the veil must be
lifted, and the agitation carried on under its true colours. Women and
children must no longer be made the pretext for securing a reduction of
working hours for men.”
[457] Speech at Trades Union Congress, Bristol, 1878.
[458] “From what I have heard,” writes Professor Beesly in the
_Beehive_, May 16, 1874, “I am inclined to think that no single fact
had more to do with the defeat of the Liberal Party in Lancashire at
the last election than Mr. Fawcett’s speech on the Nine Hours Bill in
the late Parliament.”
[459] Report of Trades Union Congress, Sheffield, January 1874.
[460] John Burnett, who was born at Alnwick, Northumberland, in 1842,
became, after the Nine Hours Strike, a lecturer for the National
Education League, and joined the staff of the _Newcastle Chronicle_.
In 1875, on Allan’s death, he was elected to the General Secretaryship
of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. He was a member of the
Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress from 1876 to
1885. In 1886 he was appointed to the newly-created post of Labour
Correspondent of the Board of Trade, in which capacity he prepared
and issued a series of reports on Trade Unions and Strikes. On the
establishment of the Labour Department in 1893 he became Chief Labour
Correspondent under the Commissioner for Labour, and was selected to
visit the United States to prepare a report on the effects of Jewish
immigration. He retired in 1907 and died 1914.
[461] A full account of this conflict is given by John Burnett in
his _History of the Engineers’ Strike in Newcastle and Gateshead_
(Newcastle, 1872; 77 pp.). A description by the Executive of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers is given in their “Abstract Report”
up to December 31, 1872. The _Newcastle Daily Chronicle_, from April
to October 1871, furnishes a detailed contemporary record. The leading
articles and correspondence in the _Times_ of September 1871 are
important.
[462] See the _Times_ leader of September 11, 1871. This leader, which
pronounced “the conduct of the employers throughout this dispute as
imprudent and impolitic,” called forth the bewildered remonstrance of
Sir William (afterwards Lord) Armstrong, writing on behalf of “the
Associated Employers.” “We were amazed,” writes the great captain of
industry, “to see ourselves described in your article as being in a
condition of hopeless difficulty; and we really felt that, if the
League themselves had possessed the power of inspiring that article,
they could scarcely have used words more calculated to serve their
purposes than those in which it is expressed. The concurrent appearance
in the _Spectator_ of an article exhibiting the same bias adds to our
surprise. We had imagined that a determined effort to wrest concessions
from employers by sheer force of combination was not a thing which
found favour with the more educated and intelligent classes, whose
opinions generally find expression in the columns of the _Times_”
(_Times_ September 14, 1871).
[463] Here the “International” was of use. At Burnett’s instigation,
Cohn, the Danish secretary in London, proceeded to the Continent to
check this immigration, his expenses being paid by the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers.
[464] With regard to overtime, Burnett informed us that “it was found
impossible to carry a Nine Hours Day pure and simple at the time of the
strike of 1871, and that overtime should still be worked as required
was insisted upon as a first condition of settlement by the employers.”
[465] Meeting of London pattern-makers to seek advance of wages,
_Beehive_, October 21, 1865.
[466] Letter from “Amalgamator,” _Beehive_, January 19, 1867.
[467] The rank and file were more sympathetic than the Executive.
The machinery for making the collections was mostly furnished by the
branches and committees of the Society.
[468] An “Assistant Secretary” was subsequently added, and eventually
another. But these assistants were, like the General Secretary himself,
recruited from the ranks of the workmen, and however experienced they
may have been in trade matters, were necessarily less adapted to the
clerical labour demanded of them. The great Trade Friendly Societies of
the Stonemasons, Bricklayers, and Ironfounders long continued to have
only one assistant secretary, and no clerical staff whatever.
[469] Question 827 in Report of Trade Union Commission (March 26, 1867).
[470] _Bookbinders’ Trade Circular_, January 1866.
[471] In 1892 the Amalgamated Engineers provided themselves, not only
with district delegates, like those of the Boilermakers, but also with
a salaried Executive Council. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters
has since started district delegates, and the other national societies
gradually followed suit.
[472] Mention should here be made of the Manchester and District
Association of Trade Union Officials, an organisation which grew out
of a joint committee formed to assist the South Wales miners in their
strike of 1875. The frequent meetings, half serious, half social,
of this grandly named association, known to the initiated as “the
Peculiar People,” served for many years as opportunities for important
consultations on Trade Union policy between the leaders of the numerous
societies having offices in Manchester. It also had as an object the
protection of Trade Union officials against unjust treatment by their
own societies (see _History of the British Trades Union Congress_, by
W. J. Davis, vol. i., 1910, p. 89)
[473] Report of the Trades Union Congress, Sheffield, 1874. A table
printed in the Appendix to the present volume gives such comparative
statistics of Trade Union membership as we have been able to compile.
[474] “Statement as to Formation and Objects of the National Federation
of Associated Employers of Labour,” December 11, 1873, reprinted by the
Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress. This Federation
comprised in its ranks a large proportion of the great “captains of
industry” of the time, including such shipbuilders as Laird and Harland
& Wolff; such textile manufacturers as Crossley, Brinton, Marshall,
Titus Salt, Akroyd, and Brocklehurst; such engineers as Mawdsley, Son &
Field, Combe, Barbour & Combe, and Beyer & Peacock; such ironmasters as
David Dale and John Menelaus; such builders as Trollope of London and
Neill of Manchester, and such representatives of the great industrial
peers as Sir James Ramsden, who spoke for the Duke of Devonshire, and
Fisher Smith, the agent of the Earl of Dudley.
[475] The immediate publicity given to the agitation was due, in the
first place, to the sympathy of J. E. Matthew Vincent, the editor of
the _Leamington Chronicle_, and secondly, to the instinct of the _Daily
News_, which promptly sent Archibald Forbes, its war correspondent,
to Warwickshire, and “boomed” the movement in a series of special
articles. A contemporary account of the previous career of Joseph
Arch is given by the Rev. F. S. Attenborough in his _Life of Joseph
Arch_ (Leamington, 1872; 37 pp.). See also _The Revolt of the Field_,
by A. W. Clayden (1874), 234 pp.; and “Zur Geschichte der englischen
Arbeiterbewegung im Jahre 1872-1873,” by Dr. Friedrich Kleinwächter in
_Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, 1875, and Supplement
I. of 1878; “Die jüngste Landarbeiterbewegung in England,” by Lloyd
Jones, in Nathusius-Thiel’s _Landwirthschaftliche Jahrbücher_, 1875;
_The Romance of Peasant Life_, 1872, and _The English Peasantry_, 1872,
by F. G. Heath; _The Agricultural Labourer_, by F. E. Kettel, 1887;
_Joseph Arch, the Story of his Life, told by Himself_, 1898; _A History
of the English Agricultural Labourer_, by Dr. W. Hasbach, 1908; “The
Labourers in Council,” a valuable article in _The Congregationalist_,
1872; “The Agricultural Labourers’ Union,” in _Quarterly Review_,
1873; “The Agricultural Labourers’ Union,” by Canon Girdlestone, in
_Macmillan’s Magazine_, vol. xxviii.; “The Agricultural Labourer,”
by F. Verinder, in _The Church Reformer_, 1892; and others in this
magazine during 1891-93; _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_, by G.
Howell, 1878 and 1890 editions; _Labour Legislation, Labour Movements
and Labour Leaders_, by the same, 1902; and _Village Trade Unions in
Two Centuries_, by Ernest Selley, 1919.
[476] Other Labourers’ Unions sprang up which refused to be absorbed
in the National; and the London Trades Council summoned a conference
in March 1873 to promote unity of action. Considerable jealousy was
shown of any centralising policy, and eventually a Federal Union of
Agricultural and General Labourers was formed by half a dozen of the
smaller societies, with an aggregate membership of 50,000.
[477] The Birmingham Trades Council, for instance, issued the following
poster:
“Great Lock-out of Agricultural Labourers!
“An Appeal. Is the Labourer worthy of his Hire?
“This question is to all lovers of freedom and peaceful progress,
and it is left for them to say whether that spark of life and hope
which has been kindled in the breasts of our toiling brothers in the
agricultural districts shall be extinguished by the pressure of the
present lock-out. The answer is No! and the echo resounds from ten
thousand lips. But let us be practical; a little help is of more
value than much sympathy; we must not stand to pity, but strive to
send relief. The cause of the agricultural labourer is our own;
the interests of labour in all its forms are very closely bound up
together, and the simple question for each one is, How much can I help,
and how soon can I do it? If we stay thinking too long, action may
come too late; these men, our brethren, now deeply in adversity, may
have fallen victims when our active efforts might have saved them. The
strain upon the funds of their Union must be considerable with such
a number thrown into unwilling idleness, and that for simply asking
that their wages, in these times of dear food, might be increased from
13s. to 14s. per week. Money is no doubt wanted, and it is by that
alone the victory can be won. Let us therefore hope that Birmingham
will once again come to the rescue, determined to assist these men to
a successful resistance of the oppression that is attempted in this
lock-out.
“The great high priest and deliverer of this people now seeks our
aid. We must not let him appeal to us in vain; his efforts have been
too noble in the past, the cause for which he pleads is too full of
righteousness, and the issues too great to be passed by in heedless
silence. Let us all to work at once. We can all give a little, and each
one may encourage his neighbour to follow his example. The conflict
may be a severe one. It is for freedom and liberty to unite as we have
done. We have reaped some of the advantages of our Unions; we must
assist them to establish theirs, and not allow the ray of hope that now
shines across the path of our patient but determined fellow-toilers
to be darkened by the blind folly of their employers, who, being in a
measure slaves to the powers above them, would, if they could, even
at their own loss, consign all below them to perpetual bondage. This
must not be. We must not allow these men to be robbed of their right to
unite, or their future may be less hopeful than their past. Let some
one in every manufactory and workshop collect from those disposed to
give, and so help to furnish the means to assist these men to withstand
the powers brought against them, showing to their would-be oppressors
that we have almost learned the need and duty of standing side by side
until all our righteous efforts shall be crowned by victory.
“All members of the Birmingham Trades Council are authorised to collect
and receive contributions to the fund, and will be pleased to receive
assistance from others.
“By order of the Birmingham Trades Council,
“W. Gilliver, Secretary.”
[478] _Queen’s Regulations for the Army for 1873_, Article 180; the
whole correspondence is given in the Report of the London Trades
Council, June 1873.
[479] The rival Kent Union, which had become the Kent and Sussex
Agricultural and General Labourers’ Union, enrolling all sorts of
labourers, claimed in 1889 still to have 10,000 members, with an annual
income of £10,000 a year, mostly disbursed in sick and funeral benefits.
[480] See _Die Strikes, die Co-operation, die Industrial Partnerships_,
by Dr. Robert Jannasch (Berlin, 1868; 66 pp.).
[481] Amid the great outburst of feeling in favour of Co-operative
Production it is difficult to distinguish in every case between the
investments of the funds of the Trade Unions in their corporate
capacity, and the subscriptions of individual members under the
auspices, and sometimes through the agency, of their trade society. The
South Yorkshire Miners’ Association used £30,000 of its funds in the
purchase of the Shirland Colliery in 1875, and worked it on account of
the Association. In a very short time, however, the constant loss on
the working led to the colliery being disposed of, with the total loss
of the investment. The Northumberland and Durham Miners in 1873 formed
a “Co-operative Mining Company” to buy a colliery, a venture in which
the Unions took shares, but which quickly ended in the loss of all the
capital. Some of the Newcastle engineers on strike for Nine Hours in
1871 were assisted by sympathisers to start the Ouseburn Engine Works,
which came to a disastrous end in 1876. In 1875 the Leicester Hosiery
Operatives’ Union, having 2000 members, began manufacturing on its own
account, and bought up a small business. In the following year a vote
of the members decided against such an investment of the funds, and
the Union sold out to a group of individuals under the style of the
Leicester Hosiery Society. It became fairly successful, but scarcely
a tenth of the shareholders were workers in the concern, and it was
eventually merged in the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Innumerable
smaller experiments were set on foot during these years by groups of
Trade Unionists with more or less assistance from their societies,
but the great majority were quickly abandoned as unsuccessful. In a
few cases the business established still exists, but in every one of
these any connection with Trade Unionism has long since ceased. In
later years renewed attempts have been made by a few Unions. Several
local branches of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, for
instance, have taken shares in the Leicester Co-operative Boot and
Shoe Manufacturing Society. The London Bassdressers, the Staffordshire
Potters, the Birmingham Tinplate Workers, and a few other societies
have also taken shares in co-operative concerns started in their
respective trades. Full particulars will be found in the exhaustive
work of Benjamin Jones on _Co-operative Production_, 1894.
[482] In one other respect the Trade Union expansion of 1872-74
resembled that of 1833-34. Both periods were marked by an attempt
to enrol the women wage-earners in the Trade Union ranks. Ephemeral
Unions of women workers had been established from time to time, only to
collapse after a brief existence. The year 1872 saw the establishment
of the oldest durable Union for women only--the Edinburgh Upholsterers’
Sewers’ Society. Two years later Mrs. Paterson, the real pioneer of
modern women’s Trade Unions, began her work in this field, and in 1875
several small Unions among London Women Bookbinders, Upholsteresses,
Shirt and Collar Makers, and Dressmakers were established, to
be followed, in subsequent years, by others among Tailoresses,
Laundresses, etc. Mrs. Emma Ann Paterson (_née_ Smith), who was born
in 1848, the daughter of a London schoolmaster, served from 1867 to
1873 successively as an Assistant Secretary of the Working Men’s Club
and Institute Union and the Women’s Suffrage Association, and married,
in 1873, Thomas Paterson, a cabinetmaker. On a visit to the United
States she became acquainted with the “Female Umbrella Makers’ Union
of New York,” and strove, on her return in 1874, to promulgate the
idea of Trade Unionism among women workers in the South of England.
After some newspaper articles, she set on foot the Women’s Protective
and Provident League (now the Women’s Trade Union League), for the
express purpose of promoting Trade Unionism, and established in the
same year the National Union of Working Women at Bristol. From 1875 to
1886 she was a constant attendant at the Trades Union Congress, and
was several times nominated for a seat on the Parliamentary Committee,
at the Hull Congress heading the list of unsuccessful candidates. An
appreciative notice of her life and work appeared in the _Women’s
Union Journal_ on her death in December 1886; see also _Dictionary of
National Biography_, and _Women in the Printing Trades_, edited by J.
R. MacDonald (1904), pp. 36, 37.
[483] Speech quoted in _Capital and Labour_; June 16, 1875.
[484] It must be remembered that the words “arbitration” and
“conciliation” were at this time very loosely used, often meaning no
more than a meeting of employers and Trade Union representatives for
argument and discussion. The classic work upon the whole subject is
Henry Crompton’s _Industrial Conciliation_, 1876. It receives detailed
examination in the various contributions of Mr. L. L. Price, notably
his _Industrial Peace_ (1887) and the supplementary papers entitled
“The Relations between Industrial Conciliation and Social Reform,” and
“The Position and Prospects of Industrial Conciliation,” published
in the _Statistical Society’s Journal_ for June and September 1890
(vol. liii. pp. 290 and 420). For an American summary may be consulted
Joseph D. Weeks’ _Report on the Practical Working of Arbitration and
Conciliation in the Settlement of Differences between Employers and
Employees in England_ (Harrisburg, 1879), and his paper on _Labour
Differences_ (New York, 1886). The working of arbitration is well set
forth in _Strikes and Arbitration_, by Sir Rupert Kettle, 1866; in A.
J. Mundella’s evidence before the Trade Union Commission, 1868; in his
address, _Arbitration as a Means of Preventing Strikes_ (Bradford,
1868; 24 pp.); and in the lecture by Dr. R. Spence Watson entitled
“Boards of Arbitration and Conciliation and Sliding Scales,” reported
in the _Barnsley Chronicle_, March 20, 1886. An early account of
the Nottingham experience is contained in the paper by E. Renals,
“On Arbitration in the Hosiery Trades of the Midland Counties”
(_Statistical Society’s Journal_, December 1867, vol. xxx. p. 548).
See also the volume edited by Dr. Brentano, _Arbeitseinstellungen und
Fortbildung des Arbeitvertrags_ (Leipzig, 1890), and _Zum socialen
Frieden_, by Dr. von Schulze Gaevernitz (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1892). The
whole subject of the relation between Trade Unions and employers is
fully dealt with in our _Industrial Democracy_. For the latest British
Official reports on the subject see Cd. 6603, 6952, and 9099.
[485] The course of prices after 1870 demonstrates how disastrously
this principle would have operated for the wage-earners had it been
universally adopted. Between 1870 and 1894 the Index Number compiled by
the _Economist_, representing the average level of market prices, fell
steadily from 2996 to 2082, irrespective of the goodness of trade or
the amount of the employers’ profits. Any exact correspondence between
wages and the price of the product would exclude the wage-earners, as
such, from all share in the advantages of improvements in production,
cheapening of carriage, and the fall in the rate of interest, which
might otherwise be turned to account in an advance in the workman’s
Standard of Life. On the other hand, in an era of rising prices,
when these influences are being more than counteracted by currency
inflation, increasing difficulty of production, or a world-shortage of
supply, an automatic correspondence between money wages and the cost
of living would be useful, if it did not lead to the implication that
the only ground for an advance in wages was an increase in the cost of
living. The workmen have still to contend for a progressive improvement
of their Standard of Life whatever happens to profits.
[486] Executive Circular, October 12, 1874.
[487] _Ibid._, October 21, 1879; as to the Sliding Scales actually
adopted, see Appendix II.
[488] _Miners’ Watchman and Labour Sentinel_, February 9, 1878--a
quasi-official organ of the Northern Miners, which was published in
London from January to May 1878.
[489] “Should Wages be Regulated by Market Prices?” by Lloyd Jones,
_Beehive_, July 18, 1874; see also his article in the issue for March
14, 1874.
[490] Lloyd Jones, one of the ablest and most loyal friends of Trade
Unionism, was born at Bandon, in Ireland, in 1811, the son of a small
working master in the trade of fustian-cutting. Himself originally a
working fustian-cutter, Lloyd Jones became, like his father, a small
master, but eventually abandoned that occupation for journalism.
He became an enthusiastic advocate of Co-operation, and in 1850 he
joined Thomas Hughes and E. Vansittart Neale in a memorable lecturing
tour through Lancashire. A few years later we find him in London, in
close touch with the Trade Union leaders, with whom he was on terms
of intimate friendship. From the establishment of the _Beehive_ in
1861 he was for eighteen years a frequent contributor, his articles
being uniformly distinguished by literary ability, exact knowledge of
industrial facts, and shrewd foresight. From 1870 until his death in
1886 he was frequently selected by the various Unions to present their
case in Arbitration proceedings. At the General Election of 1885 he
stood as candidate for the Chester-le-Street Division of Durham, where
he was opposed by both the official Liberals and the Conservatives,
and was unsuccessful. In conjunction with J. M. Ludlow, he wrote _The
Progress of the Working Classes_, 1867, and afterwards published _The
Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen_, to which a memoir by his son,
Mr. W. C. Jones, has since been prefixed.
[491] _Beehive_, May 16, 1874.
[492] This information we owe to personal friends and colleagues of
Macdonald, Thomas Burt, M.P., and Ralph Young, who, as we have seen,
differed from him on this point, and also on the allied question
of regulation of output according to demand, to be preached by the
coal-miners as well as by the colliery companies, which Macdonald,
throughout his whole career, persistently advocated. See, for instance,
his speech at the local conference on the Depression of Trade, _Bristol
Mercury_, February 13, 1878.
[493] A useful summary of these events is given in Dr. Kleinwächter’s
pamphlet, _Zur Geschichte der englischen Arbeiterbewegung in den Jahren
1871 und 1874_ (Jena, 1878; 150 pp.).
[494] _Beehive_, June 5, 1875.
[495] The operatives’ case is well put in the Weavers’ Manifesto of
June 1878:
“Fellow-workers--We are and have been engaged during the past nine
weeks in the most memorable struggle between Capital and Labour in the
history of the world. One hundred thousand factory workers are waging
war with their employers as to the best possible way to remove the
glut from an overstocked cloth market, and at the same time reduce
the difficulties arising from an insufficient supply of raw cotton.
To remedy this state of things the employers propose a reduction of
wages to the extent of ten per cent below the rate of wages agreed
upon twenty-five years ago. On the other hand, we have contended that
a reduction in the rate of wages cannot either remove the glut in the
cloth market or assist to tide us over the difficulty arising from the
limited supply of raw material. However, this has been the employers’
theory, and at various periods throughout the struggle we have made the
following propositions as a basis of settlement of this most calamitous
struggle:
“1. A reduction of ten per cent, with four days’ working, or five per
cent with five days’ working, until the glut in the cloth market and
the difficulties arising from the dearth of cotton had been removed.
“2. To submit the whole question of short time or reduction, or both,
to the arbitrement of any one or more impartial gentlemen.
“3. To submit the entire question to two Manchester merchants or
agents, two shippers conversant with the Manchester trade, and two
bankers, one of each to be selected by the employers and the other
by the operatives, with two employers and two operatives, with Lord
Derby, the Bishop of Manchester, or any other impartial gentleman, as
chairman, or, if necessary, referee.
“4. To split the difference between us, and go to work unconditionally
at a reduction of five per cent.
“5. Through the Mayor of Burnley, to go to work three months at a
reduction of five per cent, and if trade had not sufficiently improved
at that time, to submit to a further reduction.
“6. And lastly, to an unconditional reduction of seven and a half per
cent.”
[496] Amalgamated Society of Engineers, etc., Abstract Report of the
Council’s Proceedings, 1878-79, p. 18.
[497] See _The Strikes of the Past Ten Years_, by G. Phillips Bevan
(March 1880, _Stat. Soc. Journal_, vol. xliii. pp. 35-54). We have
ascertained that the strikes mentioned in the _Times_ between 1876 and
1889 show the following variations:
1876 17 1877 23 1878 38 1879 72 1880 46 1881 20 1882 14 1883 26 1884 31
1885 20 1886 24 1887 27 1888 37 1889 111
[498] Secret circular from the London Secretary (Sidney Smith) of the
Iron Trades Employers’ Association, December 1878; republished in
Circular of Amalgamated Society of Engineers, January 3, 1879, and in
Report of Executive Council for 1878-79, p. 31.
[499] At Manchester, Bolton, Ramsbottom, Wrexham, Falmouth, Aldershot,
etc., the hours were thus lengthened.
[500] To the ordinary reader it may be desirable to explain that the
Unions have, in most trades, succeeded in establishing the principle
of the payment of higher rates for overtime. But in most cases this is
limited to workers paid by time, no extra allowance being given to the
man working by the piece.
It will be obvious that if a workman, ostensibly enjoying a Nine Hours
Day, is habitually required to work overtime, and is paid only at the
normal piecework rate for his work, he obtains no advantage whatever
from the nominal fixing of his hours of labour. To many thousands of
men in the engineering and building trades the nominal maintenance
of the Nine Hours Day meant, in 1878 and succeeding years, no more
than this. See for the whole subject of “the Normal Day,” _Industrial
Democracy_, by S. and B. Webb.
[501] The lowest point reached in the statistics of the annual Trades
Union Congresses was in 1881, when the delegates claimed to represent
little more than a third of the numbers of 1874. These statistics of
membership are, however, in many respects misleading. The Congress
of 1879 was attended by a much smaller number of delegates than any
Congress since 1872, and the number of Unions represented was also the
smallest since that date.
[502] “Four years ago,” writes the President of the Bristol Coopers’
Society in 1878, “upwards of 40,000 workmen were in combination in
these valleys [South Wales], and to-day not a single Union is in
existence throughout the entire district.” (Paper at Local Conference
on the Depression of Trade, _Bristol Mercury_, February 13, 1878).
[503] See the injunctions of the General Secretary, Monthly Report,
March 1862; Annual Reports, 1882 and 1888. Robert Knight consistently
opposed “violent fluctuations of wages, at one time a starvation
pittance, at another exorbitantly high.”
[504] _Trade Unionism, New and Old_, by George Howell, M.P. (1891), p.
235.
[505] House of Commons Journals, Motion of March 14, 1882: “That in the
opinion of this House it is detrimental to the public service, fatal
to the efficiency of our war ships, and unjust to the fitters in Her
Majesty’s Dockyards, that superintending leading men should be placed
in authority over workmen with whose trades they have no practical
acquaintance, or that men should be put to execute work for which they
are unsuited either by training or experience.” See _Henry Broadhurst,
the Story of his Life from a Stonemason’s Bench to the Treasury Bench_,
by himself, 1901.
[506] Evidence of Mr. Chandler, then general secretary of Amalgamated
Society of Carpenters and Joiners (Labour Commission, 1892, vol. iii.
Q. 22,014).
[507] Abstract Report of Amalgamated Engineers, June 30, 1876.
[508] In 1890, however, Robert Knight, who had been throughout the
foremost worker for federation, succeeded in establishing a Federation
of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades of the United Kingdom,
described in our _Industrial Democracy_, from which the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers has held aloof. A large part of the work of the
Federal Executive consisted, for many years, of adjusting disputes
between Union and Union with regard to overlap and apportionment of
work. For the whole subject, see our _Industrial Democracy_, 1897.
[509] When, in 1890, the project of universal federation was revived,
the draft rules of 1879 were simply reprinted.
[510] Report of Manchester Congress, 1882; see also _History of the
British Trades Union Congress_, by W. J. Davis, vol. i., 1910.