Yorkshire. The trade depression in the Bradford district tempted
disreputable woollen manufacturers to force on their operatives the
products of the factory as part payment of wages. Combers were given
pieces of cloth, workers in shoddy mills bundles of rags. But this
utterly inexcusable fraud, no less than its more specious complement,
the employer's store, was rooted out by inspectors and factory
reformers. Therefore in 1854 the Government's Commissioner was able to
say that in a factory district like Lancashire truck was not only
non-existent but 'impossible'.[61]
He was right as to the factory districts, but not quite right as to
Lancashire. In Prescot, a small Lancashire town on the fringe of the
factory district, the watchmakers in 1871 were being paid in watches.
The masters alleged that they only gave watches to the workers when the
latter had orders for them, but the evidence showed that these orders
only came to hand when the men were asking for fresh work. The
pawnbrokers explained what happened. 'Watches', said a pawnbroker's
clerk, 'pass from hand to hand as a circulating medium until they get
very low in the market and are pawned.'[62] The pawnshop in question
had 700 watches on pledge, most of them belonging to workmen in the
town.
In railway contracting truck was prevalent in the forties. In roving
employment of this type it is difficult to see how some form of
contractor's shop could have been avoided. The navvy needed canteens or
Y.M.C.A. huts, but such things had not been thought of then. However,
when the big period of railway construction came to an end, the question
lost its importance.
South Staffordshire and the Black Country were the ancient strongholds
of truck. The campaigns against truck originated here. The nailers, the
cash-paying masters, and the respectable ratepayers joined together to
promote the Truck Act of 1820. Lord Hatherton, a Staffordshire nobleman,
after three years hammering at the House of Commons, obtained the Truck
Act of 1831. But in 1843, the year of the Midland Mining Commission,
truck was still rife in the coalfields. The well-known Tommy-shop scene
in Disraeli's novel _Sybil_, which was published in 1845, is taken
direct from the Commissioners' Report. Diggs, the butty of the novel, is
Banks, the coal proprietor of the Report. In the novel the people say of
Master Joseph Diggs, the son: 'He do swear at the women, when they rush
in for the first turn, most fearful; they do say he's a shocking little
dog.' In the Report, page 93, the miner's wife says: 'He swears at the
women when the women are trying to crush in. He is a shocking little
dog.' One touch is Disraeli's own. He makes the miners keen to purchase
'the young Queen's picture'. 'If the Queen would do something for us
poor men, it would be a blessed job.' In the Report there is nothing
about this, but there is a section dealing with Chartism.
However, the truck-shop was gradually disappearing. Every year it
became easier to expose evasions, and in good times the workers used
their prosperity to slip away from the Company store. In 1850 a final
campaign was initiated by five local Anti-Truck Associations, backed by
the National Miners' Association under Alexander MacDonald.
Truck-masters were prosecuted and truck was steadily dislodged from the
coalfields and adjacent ironworks. Only in the nail trade did it
survive, for the reason that the complete subjection of the nailers made
it possible to practise the essentials of truck without a formal
violation of the law.
In the remaining colliery districts in 1871 truck was prevalent only in
West Scotland and South Wales.
In West Scotland it was yielding ground before the pressure of the
unions. The companies only maintained it by active coercion. If a miner
held out for money, they had to yield; and if they were malicious, they
marked him as a sloper and dismissed him the first when a depression
came. 'Black lists', said the Truck Commissioners, 'are often kept of
slopers; threats of dismissal were repeatedly proved; and cases of
actual dismissal for not dealing at the store are not rare.'[63]
However, the masters themselves were getting tired of it, since it led
so frequently to strikes.
Truck in South Staffordshire was bound up with the butty system; in
railway construction with the system of contracting and sub-contracting,
and similarly in South Wales, as also in the west of Scotland, it was
bound up with and dependent on the system of long pays. In order to
carry on from one pay day to the next, the men got advances on the
company's store. In this way many lived permanently ahead of their
wages. The thriftless and drunkards were always 'advance men, but the
provident miners hated it and only dealt there on compulsion'.
The Commissioners drew a vivid picture of Turn Book morning in South
Wales at the close of the pay month.
At 1 or 2 a.m. the women and children begin to arrive with their Advance
Books. Perhaps one hundred would be there, wet or fine, sleeping on the
doorsteps or singing ballads until morning.
At 5.30 a.m. the doors opened, and the waiters made a rush for the
counter. Advance Books were produced, and goods handed over up to the
amount of wages which would shortly fall due. Women took their pick of
the articles, groceries, tobacco, occasionally a few shillings.
'It is quite usual', say the Commissioners, 'for shoemakers and
other small tradesmen in the neighbourhood of Abersychan to be
paid by the workmen in goods.... Tobacco in several districts of
South Wales has become nothing less than a circulating medium. It
is bought by the men and resold by them for drink, and finds its
way back again to some of the Company's shops. Packets of tobacco
pass unopened from hand to hand. An Ebbw Vale grocer who took the
Company's tobacco at a discount declared: "For years, when they
were selling it for 1_s._ 4_d._ a lb. I used to give 1_s._; but I
was so much over-flooded with it that I was obliged to reduce the
price to 11_d._ That would not do still, and I had to reduce it
to 10_d._ I told the men to take it to some other shop if they
could get 11_d._ or 1_s._ for it. I was obliged to do that many a
time, in order to get rid of the large stocks I held in hand.
Tobacco will not keep for many months without getting worse."'
Weekly pays, therefore, were the constant demand of the miners' unions.
In Northumberland and Durham, whence truck had disappeared long ago,
pays were fortnightly, and the only objection advanced by the owners
against weekly pays was the practical inconvenience of the pressure on
the pay staff. In the North of England Iron Trade, weekly pays, the
Commissioners found, had just been introduced. In West Scotland some of
the coal-owners were trying to recoup themselves for the loss of their
truck-shop by charging poundage on the men's wages. But this dodge, like
the bigger grievance of truck, was stoutly resisted by the local union.
Indeed, in one coalfield after another the disappearance of truck and
kindred evils coincides with the appearance of strong County Unions.
6. We are given to understand that the miners of South Wales insist on
economics written by sound labour men. We therefore offer them a few
suggestions for a history of the currency in the nineteenth century from
the worker's point of view.
i. In 1800 London relied for small coin on private enterprise.
Every week the Jews' boys collected from the shopkeepers their
bad shillings, buying them at a heavy discount, with serviceable
copper coin forged in Birmingham (_vide_ Patrick Colquhoun, _A
Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis_, 1800, Chapter VII).
The resumption of cash payments in 1819 was injurious; for owing
to the shortage of small coin, the wage-earners were paid in bulk
with large notes, which they had to split at the nearest
public-house. The Truck Act of 1831 prohibited wage-payments in
notes on Banks more than 15 miles distant, but said nothing about
cheques--an oversight which the capitalists repeated in their
Bank Act of 1844.
ii. The general dissatisfaction with the state of the currency
led to attempts to dispense with coin. About 1830 Labour
Exchanges were opened in London for the exchange of goods against
time notes, representing one or more hours of labour. The
originator was Robert Owen, and the failure of the Exchanges was
probably due to the fact that Owen was at heart a capitalist.
The National Equitable Labour Exchange at one time was doing a
business of over 20,000 hours per week, but very shortly after
this, the President (Owen) had to report a serious deficiency of
hours, many thousands having been mislaid or stolen. The Exchange
in consequence had to close its doors.
iii. In the 'forties the centre of interest is the Midlands, and
the period may be termed the Staffordshire or beer period. The
currency was very popular and highly liquid, but it was issued to
excess and difficult to store. More solid surrogates were
therefore tried. A Bilston pawnbroker[64] said that he had in
pawn numerous batches of flour, which the men's wives had brought
from the Truck Shops and turned into money, in order to pay their
house-rents. Flour, however, was not so hard as a Prescot watch.
iv. We come next to the Welsh or Tobacco period, when the
currency was easily transferable, but liable to deterioration.
v. Finally, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the
world of labour attained to a cash basis, and there was no
Cobbett to denounce the resumption.
We shall not be guilty of serious exaggeration if we preface our history
with the motto:
'_In the nineteenth century the Trade Unions and the Trade Unions alone
made the nominal earnings of the working man a cash reality_.'
3. THE SPIRIT OF ASSOCIATION
1. The student of Dicey's Law and Opinion in England is invited to
distinguish three periods:
i. The period of old Toryism or legislative quiescence (1800-38).
ii. The period of Benthamism or individualism (1825-70).
iii. The period of collectivism (1865-1900).
Bentham lived during the first period and his name is rightly given to
the second period.
The student, therefore, comes to wonder if there is anything which is
not Benthamism. Benthamism, he says to himself, stands for
individualism. How then can the period of Benthamism include the
humanitarian legislation which begins with the first Factory Act of 1802
and broadens out during the middle of the century into the elaborate
code regulating from then onwards the conditions of employment in
workshops, factories, and mines? How can a monster beget an angel?
We may perhaps throw light on this difficulty by suggesting that the
_social_ trend from 1825-70 cannot be compressed into a single word.
Individualism may suffice to define the dominant _legal_ trend, but it
conceals the influence exerted on the legislature from without and from
below by the action of voluntary associations. The period of voluntary
association coincides with and overlaps the period of individualism.
2. What Bentham was to individualism, Robert Owen was to voluntary
association. Bentham himself was an admirer of Owen and supported his
philanthropy, but, as expressions of a social attitude, Benthamism and
Owenism were poles asunder. The contrast between the two is admirably
displayed in the evidence given before the Factory Committee of 1816 by
two representatives of the employing class, Josiah Wedgwood of pottery
fame and Robert Owen himself.
'In the state of society,' said Wedgwood, 'in which there is evidently a
progressive movement, it is much better to leave things as they are than
to attempt to amend the general state of things in detail. The only
safe way of securing the comfort of any people is to leave them at
liberty to make the best use of their time, and to allow them to
appropriate their earnings in such way as they think fit.'[65]
Robert Owen thought otherwise. In a couple of answers he exposed the
fallacy of enlightened self-interest. They seem obvious enough to-day,
but in 1816 they were the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He was
asked whether he believed that 'there is that want of affection and
feeling on the part of parents, that would induce them to exact from
their children more labour than they could perform without injury to
their health;' and he replied:
'I do not imagine that there is the smallest difference between the
general affection of the lower order of the people, except with regard
to that which may be produced by the different circumstances in which
they are placed.'[66]
Another question was: 'Do you conceive that it is not injurious to the
manufacturer to hazard, by overwork, the health of the people so
employed?' He replied:
'If those persons were purchased by the manufacturers I should say
decisively, yes; but as they are not purchased by the manufacturer and
the country must bear all the loss of their strength and their energy{;}
it does not appear, at first sight, to be the interest of the
manufacturer to do so.'[67]
Owen had grasped the meaning of social responsibility, and he devoted
his life to social service. But he was too wayward to observe the
conventions of society, and passed beyond the social pale. The factory
reformer became the Socialist. Whether his disciples comprehended his
philosophy we may doubt, but he understood better than any one else
their instinct for association, and he gratified it.
It is not contended that Owen was responsible for all the associative
effort of his generation; for with political and religious associations
he had no sympathy. But the spirit which infected him infected others
after him, rousing them to associate now for this, and now for that
social or religious or political purpose.
3. We may divide associations for social purposes into two classes.
To the first class belong associations formed to secure the abolition of
some abuse. These naturally disappear when their object is attained.
For example, there was the Anti-slavery Campaign in which Joseph Sturge
and other Quakers played so prominent a part. By an organized crusade of
political education the Abolitionists induced an originally hostile
Parliament to emancipate the West Indian negroes in 1833, and to shorten
the period of semi-servile apprenticeship in 1838. Yorkshire was the
home of the Short Time Committees, which organized the campaign against
White Slavery at home. The Ten Hours Movement caused the Ten Hours Bill
to become the law of the land. From Lancashire came the Anti-Corn Law
League, whose story is told in another chapter.
The second class of association was the association for economic
betterment--the Friendly Society, the Co-operative Society, the Trade
Union. Conceived in enthusiasm and self-inspired, these associations
asked only of the State a legal framework in which to develop, but they
did not win it without struggle and delay.
The Government was anxious to encourage thrift, but the development of
the Friendly Societies was impeded for a time by legislation aimed at
political conspiracy. The Corresponding Societies Act of 1799 prevented
the Friendly Societies from forming a central organization with
branches, and the Dorchester Labourers of 1834 discovered the peril into
which the ritual of oaths might lead innocent men.
These deterrents were removed by enabling legislation. In 1829 a central
authority, the Registrar of Friendly Societies, was appointed to
supervise Friendly Societies, and between 1829 and 1875 further
privileges and safeguards were conferred. But the Friendly Society
Movement throughout the nineteenth century was wholly voluntary. In 1911
the situation was suddenly reversed by the passing of the National
Insurance Act.
The Co-operative Societies were more suspect. They crept into legal
recognition as the children of the Friendly Society, under the 'frugal
investments' clause of the Act of 1846, being compelled by the legal
prejudice against association in restraint of trade to adopt this
unnatural mother. Their real nature was recognized in 1852, when they
were brought under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, and in
1862, when they were granted the boon of limited liability. But the
accident of their legal origin still survives; for they are regulated
to-day by the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1893. The
Co-operative Movement is now drawing closer to politics, following the
lead of most of the continental countries, notably Belgium and Germany.
Though we cannot say that there is any indication of the State taking
over the movement, we may note that the growth of municipal trading in
the 'nineties was, in principle, an application of the consumers'
association to monopolies of distribution such as tramways, water,
electricity, and gas.
The State was altogether hostile to the growth of the Trade Union. The
Charter of Emancipation, won by the guile of Francis Place in 1824, was
severely curtailed in 1825. Huskisson[68] depicted in lurid terms the
tyranny of a military trades unionism, 'representing a systematic union
of the workers of many different trades'. It was a 'kind of federal
republic', whose mischievous operations, if not checked, would keep the
commercial classes 'in constant anxiety and fear about their interests
and property'. Arnold, of Rugby, a decade later wrote of them in the
same strain: 'you have heard, I doubt not, of the trades unions; a
fearful engine of mischief, ready to riot or assassinate; and I see no
counteracting power.'[69]
The counteracting power was their own weakness. The early militancy
burnt itself out, and was succeeded at the turn of the century by a 'New
Spirit and a New Model'. The new spirit was anti-militant, and the new
model was a trade union representing the _élite_ of the skilled trades.
The Amalgamated Society of Engineers was founded in 1850 and served as a
model to the Carpenters, Tailors, Compositors, Iron-founders,
Brick-layers, and others. The Trades Unions were now respectable, and in
1867 the State recognized the fact.
The period of collectivism is denoted by the growth of the Labour Party
in Parliament, and the increasing part played by the State in industrial
disputes and the regulation of wages. The nationalization of railways
and the nationalization of mines are burning questions.
4. In all the movements we have described, the spiritual stimulus, the
initial drive, and the solid successes have been provided by voluntary
association. The State has not been the pioneer of social reform. Such a
notion is the mirage of politicians. It has merely registered the
insistent demands of organized voluntary effort or given legal
recognition to accomplished facts. This is the distinctive note of
English social development in the nineteenth century.
FOR REFERENCE
Dicey, _Law and Opinion_.
Robinson, _The Spirit of Association_.
Hovell, _The Chartist Movement_.
Sombart (tr. Epstein), _Socialism and the Socialist Movement_.
[Cd. 9236], _Report of Committee on Trusts_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: From the writer's forthcoming book _Life and Labour in the
Nineteenth Century_, to be published by the Cambridge University Press.]
[Footnote 21: Tooke and Newmarch, _History of Prices_, v. 356.]
[Footnote 22: _Commons Committee on Emigration_, 1827, Q. 1761.]
[Footnote 23: _Commons Committee on the Condition of Labourers employed
in the Construction of Railways_, 1846, Q. 866.]
[Footnote 24: Ibid., Q. 217.]
[Footnote 25: Ibid., Q. 897.]
[Footnote 26: Ibid., Q. 733.]
[Footnote 27: Ibid., Q. 193.]
[Footnote 28: Ibid., Qs. 869-78.]
[Footnote 29: _Report of Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of
Women and Children in Agriculture_ (1843), pp. 20, 25.]
[Footnote 30: Ibid., pp. 299-300.]
[Footnote 31: _Report of Commissioners on the Employment of Young
Persons in Agriculture_, p. 64.]
[Footnote 32: Dr. Cook Taylor, Letter to the _Morning Chronicle_, dated
from Rossendale Forest (Lancashire), June 20, 1842.]
[Footnote 33: _Rural Rides_, i. 219.]
[Footnote 34: _Poor Law Commission of 1834_, Appendix.]
[Footnote 35: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Final Report, 1841_, p.
18.]
[Footnote 36: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Assistant-Commissioner's
Report, 1840_, Part IV, pp. 76-81.]
[Footnote 37: _Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners_,
1836.]
[Footnote 38: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Assistant-Commissioner's
Report_, Part III, p. 551.]
[Footnote 39: _Anti-bread Tax Circular_, No. 91, June 16, 1842.]
[Footnote 40: _First Report of the Factory Commissioners_, 1833, p. 27.]
[Footnote 41: _Report of Commissioner on the Condition of the Framework
Knitters_ (1845), p. 109.]
[Footnote 42: Ibid., p. 115.]
[Footnote 43: William Felkin, _History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery
and Lace Manufactures_ (1867), p. 458.]
[Footnote 44: _Evidence before the Truck Commissioners_ (1871), Q.
37,500.]
[Footnote 45: Pamphlet of 1825, p. 14.]
[Footnote 46: _Home Office Papers_, 40, Letter from R.J. Blewitt, Esq.,
M.P., November 6, 1839.]
[Footnote 47: Richard Fynes, _Miners of Northumberland and Durham_, p.
72.]
[Footnote 48: John Wilson, _History of the Durham Miners' Association_
(1870-1904), p. 40.]
[Footnote 49: _Report of Commissioner on the State of the Mining
Population_ (1846).]
[Footnote 50: These pamphlets are in the British Museum.]
[Footnote 51: _Report of Commissioner on the State of the Mining
Population_ (1850).]
[Footnote 52: Ibid. (1852).]
[Footnote 53: _Royal Commission, First Report_ (_Mines_), p. 27.]
[Footnote 54: Ibid., p. 21.]
[Footnote 55: _Royal Commission, Second Report_ (_Trades and
Manufactures_), p. 147.]
[Footnote 56: Ibid., pp. 155-6.]
[Footnote 57: _Midland Mining Commission, First Report_, p. 34.]
[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 91.]
[Footnote 59: Ibid., p. 44.]
[Footnote 60: _Rural Rides_, ii. 353.]
[Footnote 61: _Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages_ (_Hosiery, 1854_).
Evidence of Mr. Tremenheere.]
[Footnote 62: _Evidence before the Truck Commissioners_, Q. 33,670.]
[Footnote 63: _Truck Commission, 1871. Report_, p. 16.]
[Footnote 64: _Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages in the Hosiery
Manufacture_ (1854), Q. 80.]
[Footnote 65: _Commons Committee of_ 1816, pp. 64 and 73.]
[Footnote 66: Ibid., p. 38.]
[Footnote 67: Ibid., p. 28.]
[Footnote 68: Speech, March 29, 1825.]
[Footnote 69: Letter to the Chevalier Bunsen, 1834, quoted in Strachey,
_Eminent Victorians_, p. 197.]
VIII
ATOMIC THEORIES
PROFESSOR W.H. BRAGG, C.B.E., D.SC., F.R.S.
When a lecture on the progress of Science is given before a conference
concerned largely with historical subjects, it is not inappropriate to
point out that Science has a history of its own and that its progress
makes a connected story. The discovery of new facts is not made in an
isolated fashion, nor is it a matter of pure chance, unaffected by what
has gone before. On the contrary, scientific progress is made step by
step, each new point that is reached forming a basis for further
advances. Even the direction of discovery is not entirely in the
explorer's control; there is always a next step to be taken and a
limited number of possible steps forward from which a choice can be
made. The scientific discoverer has to go in the direction in which his
discoveries lead him. When discoveries have been made it is possible to
think of uses to which they may be put, but in the first instance all
discoveries are made without any knowledge whatever of what use may
afterwards be made of them.