UNION OF MEN.
As soon as it was ascertained that, though many of the masters declined
committing themselves by signing their names, most or all of them would
attend the desired meeting, Clack took upon himself to issue a placard,
whose large red and black letters attracted the eyes of all who could
read. It made known the intention of the masters to meet at the York
Hotel, on the Wednesday afternoon, and of the Committee of the men to
hold a previous meeting at the Spread Eagle, in the morning, in order to
prepare resolutions to be laid before the masters. The Committee was to
be escorted to and fro by a circuitous route by a procession; and the
place appointed where those were to meet who wished to make a part of
the show, was St. George’s Fields. The placard began and ended by an
appeal to the people to guard their rights against oppression. Many were
surprised at the anxiety of the leading men among the spinners to disown
this placard. It seemed to the crowd very spirited and eloquent, and
they began to look out their decorations for the procession.
Bray was one of the first on the spot, piping, drumming, and shaking his
bells at the appearance of every new group. Other musicians joined the
train, flags were displayed, the women gathered to look on, the children
cheered and brought green boughs, and all had the appearance of
rejoicing, though it would have been difficult for any one to say what
there was to rejoice about. Many had no clear idea of what was doing or
going to be done: some had no idea at all, and those who knew best
thought it a pity that such a display should have been made as might
bear the appearance of being intended to intimidate the masters. The
Committee were so generally of this opinion, that they did not attend,
but went quietly, one by one, to the Spread Eagle; so that, in fact, the
procession was formed to escort Clack, and nobody else. This was all the
more glorious for him, he thought; and he walked proudly just behind the
chief musician, Bray, now shaking hands from side to side, now bowing
with his hand on his heart, now bidding all halt and giving the signal
for groans or cheers. There were three groans at Mortimer and Rowe’s,
and three cheers at Elliott’s, which were received with infinite disdain
by that gentleman as he sat at his breakfast table, balancing his
egg-spoon and glancing at the newspaper. The procession next overtook
Mr. Wentworth in Chancery Lane, pacing to business on his gray pony. All
eyes were turned to Clack for a signal whether to groan or cheer. There
was, in the meanwhile, a faint beginning of each, at which the pony
looked more astonished than his master, who only chuckled and murmured
in his usual manner as he looked upon the assemblage with a quiet smile.
“What do you expect to get by this fine show?” said he to a youth near
him.
“Cheap bread! Hurrah!” cried the lad waving his bludgeon, and wishing
there was a loaf on the top of it.
“And you, and you, and you?” said Mr. Wentworth to one and another as
they passed.
“No potato peelings! Reform and good wages! Liberty and cheap bread!”
cried they, according to their various notions. The children’s only idea
was (and it was the wisest) that it was a holiday, with a procession and
a band of music.
When Clack had got a little a-head of the slow-moving pony and its
rider, he decided to halt and hold a short parley. Advancing with a bow,
he said,
“You call yourself the poor man’s friend, I believe, sir?”
“No man’s enemy, I hope,” replied Mr. Wentworth.
“Then allow us the honour of giving you three cheers on your pledge to
support our interests this evening. Hats off!”
“Better wait awhile,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Cheers will keep, and I
dislike unnecessary pledges.”
Clack looked suspicious, and nods and winks went round.
“We might differ, you know, as to what your interests are, and then I
might seem to break my word when I did not mean it.”
“Let him go free,” said a bystander. “He knows the consequences if he
opposes us.”
“That is rather a strange way of letting me go free,” observed the
gentleman, smiling. “However, friend, threats are empty air to a man who
knows his own mind; and my mind is made up to consider the interests of
all, come groans, come cheers.”
“It is not everybody, sir, who would speak so independently,—to our
faces too.”
“True, friend. All the masters and all the men have not my years, and
have not learned to look steadily in honest faces; and that is why I am
sorry to see this parade, which looks too much like intimidation. Come
now, be persuaded. I will give you house-room for your flags, and my old
friend Bray there shall not lose his job; he shall make it a holiday to
the children in my factory.”
It was too much to ask of Clack. He could not give up his procession,
and so made haste to march on. As Mr. Wentworth turned in at his factory
gate in Ancoats Street, every man in the long train bowed respectfully.
In his case, the regard of his neighbours was not measured by the rate
of wages he paid.
The procession, having deposited Clack at the Spread-Eagle, was by no
means so ready to depart as to arrive. They insisted that it should be
an open meeting, and that they should have a voice in the demands to be
offered to the masters. They rushed through the house to the
skittle-ground behind, caused a table with paper and ink to be placed in
an arbour, and, setting the Committee entirely aside on the plea that
this was a special occasion, began to call aloud for Allen to take the
chair. Allen was nowhere to be found on the premises, for the good
reason that he was at his work, and knew little of what was going on.
Being sent for, he presently appeared and asked what he was wanted for.
“To take the chair.”
But Allen was too modest to accept the honour at a word; he drew back,
and urged his being totally unused to come forward at public meetings,
and named several who understood the management of that kind of business
better than himself. Those that he named were all single men; for he
bore in mind,—and this certainly added to his reluctance,—that the sin
of taking a prominent part in a combination of workmen, is apt to be
remembered against the sinner when the days of trouble are over; and he
felt that a family man was not the one who ought to be made to incur the
risk.—When further pressed, he did not scruple to declare this to be one
of his objections; but the people were in the humour to overcome
objections, and they promised faithfully that he and his family should
not be injured; that if discharged from the factory, they should be
maintained by the Union; and that as no one knew so much of their
affairs as Allen, as he could express himself with moderation in speech,
and with ease on paper, he was the man to be at the head of their
affairs, and that it was his bounden duty to accept the office.
Allen could not deny this, and did not, therefore, dally with his duty;
but it cost him a bitter pang. While Clack listened and looked on with a
feeling of jealousy, and thought it a moment of triumph such as he would
fain have enjoyed himself, he little knew how little Allen was to be
envied. He could not guess what feelings rushed on Allen’s mind at the
moment that he took the decisive step into the arbour and seated himself
at the table, and received the pen into his hand. Thoughts of the dismay
of his timid wife, of the hardships to which he might expose his
children, of the difficulties of his office, and the ill-will which its
discharge must sometimes bring upon him,—thoughts of the quarrels in
which he must mediate, and of the distress which, in case of a turn-out,
he must witness, without much power to relieve,—might have overcome a
man of firmer nerve than Allen; but though they distressed, they did not
conquer him, convinced as he was that he ought not to evade the choice
of the people. His fellow-labourers allowed him a few minutes to collect
his thoughts before addressing them, and while he was seemingly
arranging the papers before him, they packed themselves and one another
closely, in order to leave room for new comers, without creating a noise
and bustle. Those who stood nearest the arbour hung the flags so as to
make a sort of canopy over it, and a few of the most efficient of the
standing Committee took their places on each side of Allen.—His address
was in natural accordance with the feelings which had just passed
through his mind:—
“Combinations are necessary, my fellow-labourers, when one set of men is
opposed to another, as we are to our masters. The law could not prevent
combinations, even when severe punishments visited those who were
engaged in them; which was a clear proof that men must combine, that the
law was of no use, and ought therefore to be done away. Let me
congratulate you that these severe laws are done away; that a man cannot
now be shut up in prison for many months together for agreeing with his
companions to withhold their labour in order to increase its price. Let
me congratulate you that when a man cannot be caught in the trap of the
combination laws, he can no longer be punished under a law against
conspiracy, which was made long before such a thing as combinations of
workmen were thought of. We can now meet in the face of day, and conduct
our bargains with our masters either by agreement or opposition, without
any one having a right to interfere, as long as we keep the peace. Evils
there are, indeed, still; and such a thing is still heard of as
persecution in consequence of a combination; but such evils as are
inflicted by the crushing hand of power light on a few, and the devotion
of those few secures the exemption of the rest. It is certainly an evil
to a peaceably disposed man to see himself regarded with a fierce eye by
those to whom he no longer dares touch his hat lest he should be accused
of suing for mercy. It is certainly an evil to a man of independent mind
to be placed under the feet of any former enemy, to receive his weekly
subsistence from the hands of his equals, and to fancy that the whisper
is going round—‘This is he who lives upon our gathered pence.’—Such
evils await, as you know, him who comes forward to lead a combination;
but they belong to the state of affairs; and since they can neither be
helped, nor be allowed to weigh against the advantages of union, they
should be, not only patiently, but silently borne. Well is it for the
victim if he can say to himself that now is the time for him to practise
the heroism which in grander scenes has often made his bosom throb. He
may even esteem himself honoured in his lot being somewhat of the same
cast,—though his own consciousness alone may perceive the
resemblance,—something of the same cast, I say, with that of venerated
statesmen who have returned to the plough to be forgotten in their own
age, and remembered in another,—with that of generals who have held out
the decrepit hand with a petition to the gay passers by to give a
halfpenny to the deliverer of their country.—Nay, no cheers yet! Your
cheers only recall me with shame to that which I was going to say when
my personal feelings led me away,—led me to compare that which is
universally allowed to be moving because it is noble, with that which,
if moving at all, is so only because it is piteous. As I was saying,
combinations are ordered by laws more powerful than those which, till
lately, forbade them; and this shows the wisdom of the repeal of the
latter. If it had been wished to prevent our meeting for caprice or
sport, laws might have availed. If their object had been to hinder the
idle from meeting to dissipate their tediousness, or the gamesome from
pursuing that on which no more valuable thing was staked than their
present pleasure, these laws might have been successfully, though
somewhat tyrannically, enforced. But such are not they who form
combinations: but rather such as have their frames bowed with over-toil,
and their brows knit with care, such as meet because the lives and
health of their families, their personal respectability, and the bare
honesty of not stealing a loaf from another man’s counter, are the
tremendous stake which they feel to be put to hazard. Sound and wise
laws can restrain the fiercest passions of the few, because, being sound
and wise, they are supported by the many; and it is therefore clear that
when laws give way like cobwebs before the impulse of a body of men too
united to be brought together by caprice, those laws are neither wise
nor sound. Such were the combination laws, and therefore were they
repealed. Never again will it be attempted to set up the prohibition of
parliament against the commands of nature,—a threat of imprisonment
against the cravings of hunger. Security of person and property being
provided for, (as, indeed, they were already by former laws,) we are
left free to make the best agreement we can for the sale of our labour,
and to arrange our terms by whatever peaceable methods we choose.
“Combination on our part is necessary from power being lodged unequally
in the hands of individuals, and it is necessary for labourers to
husband their strength by union, if it is ever to be balanced against
the influence and wealth of capitalists. A master can do as he pleases
with his hundred or five hundred workmen, unless they are combined. One
word of his mouth, one stroke of his pen, can send them home on the
Saturday night with a blank prospect of destitution before them; while
these hundred or five hundred men must make their many wills into one
before his can even be threatened with opposition. One may tremble,
another may mourn, a third may utter deep down in his heart the curses
he dares not proclaim; but all this is of no avail. The only way is to
bring opposition to bear upon the interests of the master; and this can
only be done by union. The best of the masters say, and probably with
truth, that their interests demand the reductions under which we groan.
Be it so: we have interests too, and we must bring them up as an
opposing force, and see which are the strongest. This may be,—allow me
to say, must be—done without ill-will in any party towards any other
party. There may be some method yet unknown by which the interests of
all may be reconciled; if so, by union we must discover it. But if,
indeed, interests must continue to be opposed, if bread must be fought
for, and the discord of men must for ever be contrasted with the harmony
of nature, let the battle be as fair as circumstances will allow. Let
the host of pigmies try if they cannot win a chance against the regiment
of giants by organizing their numbers, and knitting them into a phalanx.
The odds against them are fearful, it is true; but more desperate
battles have been sustained and won. I have not indeed, as the friend at
my elbow reminds me, represented our case so favourably as I might have
done. Many here think that the power is in our own hands; some that the
chances are equal, and the least sanguine, that the chance is fair.—I
have spoken of the general necessity of union, and not with any
intention of taking for granted that we are on the eve of an express
struggle. This depends on circumstances yet to be disclosed. Some
change, and that a speedy one, there ought to be in the condition of the
working classes: they cannot go on long labouring their lives away for a
less recompense than good habitations, clothing, and food. These form
the very least sum of the just rewards of industry; whereas a multitude
are pinched with the frosts of winter, live amidst the stench of
unwholesome dwellings in summer, have nearly forgotten the taste of
animal food, and even sigh for bread as for a luxury. The question to be
debated, and to be put to the trial if necessary,—and I wish every
master in Manchester was here to take down my words for his further
consideration, is whether a social being has not a right to comfortable
subsistence in return for his full and efficient labour.”—Allen’s pause
was interrupted by a voice from behind the crowd, declaring,—
“No doubt, no doubt, my good fellows: a clear right, and I wish with all
my heart you may win your right.”
It was Rowe, who had entered as if for the purpose of convincing the men
that he was on their side. An opening was made from the table to the
outskirts of the crowd; but Rowe slunk back in opposition to all
attempts to push him forward. The fact was, he saw another person
present whom he little expected to meet, and before whom he was sorry to
have committed himself. Mr. Wentworth advanced through the opening, with
his memorandum book in his hand:—
“I am willing to put down your question, Allen, for further discussion,
provided you add a clause to it:—‘Whether a member of society has not a
right to a comfortable subsistence in return for full and efficient
labour, _provided he does not, by his own act, put that subsistence
beyond his reach_?’”
Allen smiled, and all within hearing stared at Mr. Wentworth’s
simplicity in adding this clause which nobody could dispute.
“We have certainly nothing to object to your addition, sir,” said Allen.
“Only I cannot think it necessary.”
“Let it stand, however, for my satisfaction; and now go on with what you
have to say.”
A seat was offered to Mr. Wentworth, and proclamation was made of one
for Mr. Rowe, who, however, had disappeared, Allen proceeded:—
“I have only a few words to add respecting the terms on which I will
consent to resume my present office on any future occasion, or to accept
of any power you may wish to put into my hands. I must be supported by
you in all measures taken to preserve our own peace and that of the
masters; and to this end, there must be the utmost strictness in the
full performance of all contracts. Whether the present dispute be
amicably settled this very evening, or whether it be protracted, or a
partial or a general strike should take place,—none of these things can
set aside a contract previously entered into. Integrity must be our rule
as much as liberty is our warrant and justice our end. The first man who
deserts the work he has pledged himself to perform, puts the weapon of
the law into the hands of our opponents; the first who is legally
convicted of a breach of contract, brands our cause with indelible
disgrace. We want no truants here, and we will own none but honest
labourers to be of our company; and unless I am aided in preserving the
reputation of our cause, I declare,—whatever may be thought of the
importance of the threat,—that from that moment I withdraw my
countenance and my help. If at the period of any strike, any part of my
contract with my employers is undischarged, I shall hold it to be my
duty to work for them during the stated number of hours, even if I
should repair from their factory to preside over a meeting like the
present; and the same is expected of every man who enrols himself in our
bands. Honour towards our masters is as necessary as fidelity to each
other.”
The meeting having signified an unanimous assent to what Allen had said,
he proceeded to draw up a statement of wages to be presented to the
masters. A great number of men pushed and jostled one another in order
to get near the table and state their grievances; for some under every
firm supposed their wages to be the lowest. It was found to be as the
deputies had stated, that Mortimer and Rowe paid the lowest wages, and
Elliott the highest.—Mortimer and Rowe were therefore to be requested to
answer this evening, yes or no, whether they would give Elliott’s rate
of wages. Allen, Clack, and Gibson were deputed to wait on the masters
with the written demand.
The meeting broke up for a while, and the quietest and most industrious
of the men went home, while the rest prepared to parade again through
the streets.
Allen withdrew one of the last, as he wished to see the place quiet
before he left his post. As he turned from the door of the public-house,
his hands in his pockets and his eyes bent on the ground in deep
thought, he was startled by some one taking his arm. It was his wife,
who had been watching and lingering in the neighbourhood till she was
tired and frightened.
“Why, Mary,” said her husband, smiling, “you will make me lose my good
name. This is the way wives haunt the public-house when their husbands
are given to drink.”
Mary could trust her husband for soberness if ever woman could; but she
feared his being drawn in to join against the masters, and bring ruin on
his family.
Allen answered that he was not the man to be _drawn in_ to do what his
wife knew he disliked as much as she could do; but he might of his own
free choice determine to do what she feared; and, in that case, he
trusted the discharge of his public duty would not be embittered by
domestic opposition and discontent. His prospect was not a very cheering
one, however, in this respect. When fairly seated in his own home, his
wife seemed prodigiously inclined to lock the door and pocket the key;
and she cried so piteously at the bare idea of a strike and its
distresses, that Allen longed to go to sleep, and forget all that had
been done, and all that was in prospect.
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