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L.IBRARY 
 
 OF THE , ^ 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Class 
 
TEADES' UNIONS 
 
 AND STRIKES t 
 
 THEIR PHILOSOPHY AND INTENTION. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. J. DUNNING. 
 
 SECRETARY TO THE LONDON CONSOLIDATED SOCIETY OF BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 " United to support, but not combined to injure." 
 
 V^ O'^ THE . \ 
 
 'NTTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOE, AND SOLD BY M. HARLEY, 
 No. 5, RAQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. 
 
 18G0. 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 

 V 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following pages were written by the desire of the London Consolidated 
 Society of BookbinderSj as expressed in the following resolution ; 
 
 Lodge Meeting, Nov. 7, 1859, Mr. T. Marston in the Chair. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary of this Society be requested to write an essay on the Philo- 
 sophy of Trades' Unions, in reply to the argument against them, to be published in the form 
 of a pamphlet, explaining their trueohject and intention. 
 
 (Moved by Mr. W. Franklin Seconded by Mr. Robt. Saunders. 
 
 The writer is aware of many imperfections ; and doubtless many more, of which 
 he has not been aware, will be discovered by those who do him the honour of 
 perusal. Having been brought up to the trade, and for many years a workman, 
 he has stated what he knows to be true ; and if it be said that his is only the 
 working man's view of the subject, it may be replied that such view is, of all 
 others, the one most needed ; as the "press" has teemed "with little else than the 
 employers' view of it; and who can form a true judgment when only one side 
 of a question is presented to him ? 
 
 Although not required to do so, he has, previous to their going to the printer, 
 read the whole of the following pages to the Committee of his Society, who, in the 
 following resolution, expressed their opinion cf them : 
 
 Committee Room, January 25th, 1860, 
 Resolved, That the concluding part of the E' say on the Philosophy of Trades' Unions and 
 Strikes, now read, and those read at previous meetings of this Committee, are in its opinion a 
 faithful representation of their views on the subject, and, as they believe, those of their trade 
 generally. 
 
 What is written, it is, perhaps, not too much to saj^, may therefore be taken to 
 set forth, as far as they and those of their trade are to be regarded as a sample, 
 not simply their views, or those of the writer, but those of the working classes 
 generally. 
 
 I^" The members of our Society will doubtless be surprised at these pages 
 being published at their own office, after two or three first-class publishers being 
 named at the meeting which passed the above resolution. But amid the outcry 
 for free trade in labour there does not appear to be free trade in publishing. 
 Although excellent reasons were given for declining to publish this work, and 
 with the greatest civility, we cannot conceal from ourselves that such a work as 
 this is altogether "tabooed" by those who are termed "respectable" publishers; 
 not that they would have any objection ; but as it appears to us, they fear the 
 "public opinion" of the class to which they belong, which we need not say is 
 dead against Trades' Unions. We hope we are mistaken, yet we cannot but think 
 that, however essential it may be to know both sides of a question, that on this 
 subject the middle class do not wish that any but their own side should be known. 
 We, however, should ill deserve, as " English workmen," the high character given 
 of us by the " Quarterly " reviewer, if we felt at a loss from this circumstance. 
 AVe therefore publish the work ourselves. But as we are aware that we cannot 
 do it so effectively as " the trade," we beg the co-operation of those who feel 
 interested in our success. Should there be any difficulty in obtaining this work, 
 twelve postage stamps sent to the publisher will insure it^ transmission, post free, 
 to any part of the United Kingdom. 
 
 No. 5, Raqiiet Court, Fleet-street, E.G. 
 
UNIVEKriTY ?| 
 
 TKADES' UNIONS AND STRIKES, 
 
 The object of this pamphlet is to obtain a hearing on the subject of 
 "Trades' Unions" and "Strikes" from that class who, from their 
 position in society, can only obtain a knowledge of it from the 
 evidence of others. In setting forth the principle which calls Trade 
 Societies into existence, it is not intended to defend all that has been 
 done by Trades' Unions, any more than an advocate of religion would 
 attempt to defend all that has been done in its name by religious pro- 
 fessors. Trades' Unionists, generally, are neither writers, nor, to any 
 great extent, able to employ writers in their behalf, nor, indeed, to the 
 limited extent that they are able, do they at present see the necessity 
 of doing so ; while, on the contrary, those opposed to them., from their 
 wealth and position in society, form a great part of the very class by 
 whom writers are directly and indirectly supported ; hence, while the 
 press newspaper and periodical teems with denunciations against 
 them, scarcely a voice, directly from themselves, is heard through the 
 press in their behalf Indeed, it has been felt by impartial men to be 
 the one great difficulty in the way of understanding the subject, that 
 all they can get hold of on the matter except the merely local state- 
 ments relative to a particular strike or dispute, which may then be 
 pending is exclusively on one side. As far as our limited means and 
 power will enable us, it is intended by this pamphlet to supply that 
 deficiency, by a statement direct from a body of working men, by their 
 accredited agent, of their views on the subject. 
 
 The principal argument against Trades' Unions is professed to be 
 derived from the alleged ignorance of the working classes of Political 
 Economy. As this term is used by many without having a precise 
 idea of what it is, and by different persons in a different sense, w^e will 
 commence by very briefly stating the meaning which we attach to it : 
 Political Economy is the science which treats of the principle of ex- 
 change in its operation in the production of wealth, and its operation 
 and influence on civilised society. 
 
 Man is said to be an animal in contradistinction froni all others 
 that makes exchanges. And it is by the principle of exchange that all 
 the transactions of civilised life are carried on, by which, indeed, 
 civilised society exists and is held together. But if man be an animal 
 that makes exchanges, he undoubtedly retains, in common with the 
 carnivora to which he in part belongs, instincts of a predatory 
 character, and might be defined to be an animal that, besides making 
 exchanges, also steals. The act of exchange embraces every con- 
 
 A 2 
 
4 TRADES UNIONS AND STRIKES. 
 
 ceivable form in which the subject can be treated, and, indeed, is that 
 out of which the science itself is evolved. It is only necessary, there- 
 fore, by analysing this act, to illustrate what we understand by the 
 term Political Economy. By the act of exchange, the four things 
 essential to a civilised community are supposed, without which, indeed, 
 it could not exist, namely. Labour Capital the right of Individual 
 Appropriation, or Property and Security. Labour, to produce the 
 thing exchanged ; Capital, in the accumulated labour, which results 
 in the article exchanged ; the recognition of the right of Individual 
 Appropriation, or property, by which the act of exchange takes place, 
 as distinguished from the act of taking or keeping possession of the 
 article by force ; and Security, which ensures the peaceful continuation 
 of a succession of exchanges to all who have anything to dispose of : 
 the result of the whole, in civilised life, being the four great 
 classes into which society is divided. Labour yielding wages 
 giving support to all who labour (using the term in its most 
 extensive sense) ; capital giving profit the revenue of those who 
 employ capital. The right of individual appropriation, or property, as 
 applied to the land, which, without remark, we take as we find it, gives 
 rent, which gives revenue to landlords. And security supposes taxes, 
 which support those who defend the country, administer its laws, and 
 -s, tax-receivers in general. This last strongly illustrates what is very 
 "^ little noticed, if at all, by political economists namely, the predatory 
 instincts of mankind, the omission of Avhich often leads to very great 
 ' error in the application of rules of political economy, and to none 
 more than to their application to Trades' Unions. And yet these 
 predatory instincts are most unmistakably indicated and provided 
 against by this element of exchange, security, in the absence of Avhich 
 it certainly could not go on, as in communities it requires laws with 
 strong force to support those who administer them and enforce 
 their execution, without which the community could not exist ; and 
 in separate nations, armies and fleets for defence, and, as a 
 stronger illustration, for attack. On these four elements of the 
 principle of exchange, without either of which it could not exist, it 
 will be seen the whole system of civilised society rests. We have thus 
 particularised each element, and its respective result, to show that 
 those who live by labour are, by right, entitled to their revenue by the 
 simple action of the principle of exchange equally with the other three 
 great divisions of society, as opposed to the confused idea of wages 
 being derived from the relation of master and servant, involving a sort 
 of benevolent patronage on the one side, and obligation on the other. 
 And it will be our object to show, that it is only by trade combinations 
 that the free exercise of this principle can be secured to working men. 
 Our business, however, is only with the action of the principle of 
 exchange upon wages. It is usual, with a certain class of poKtical 
 economists, of whom A. Black, Esq., M.P., may be considered a fair 
 exponent, to lecture the working classes on the principles of this 
 science. Accordingly, in his recent lecture in Edinbui'gh, he devotes 
 five, out of the twenty-two pages it comprises, to the consideration of 
 the value of commodities labour being one in its nature like the 
 rest which is determined by demand and supply ; the pernicious result 
 of monopoly ; of capital and labour, and of each being necessary for 
 
WAGES. 5 
 
 the employment of tlie other ; that capital will not be employed unless 
 a profit can be obtained by its employment ; that when the profit of 
 capital is high in any trade or manufacture, so many will be tempted 
 to embark in it that this high profit will soon be reduced to its ordinary 
 level ; and the same with high wages, except they proceed from great 
 skill, which, from the nature of things, must always be rare; and, 
 lastly, if a capitalist has embarked his capital upon the supposition 
 that he has to pay a certain sum for wages, and he is obliged to pay 
 more, his profit will be reduced by that amount, which will be 
 very likely to cause him to withdraw from the business in which he has 
 engaged, and, of course, cease to pay wages, which should be a lesson to 
 workmen not to demand too high wages. 
 
 With due respect for Mr. Black, who doubtless was actuated 
 by a sincere desire to promote what he believed to be the true interests 
 of the working classes, we think, if, instead of puzzling himself and his 
 readers by elaborately explaining the above propositions, which 
 nobody is likely to dispute, and w^hich are, in their enunciation, like 
 that of two and two making four, already at their plainest terms, 
 he had endeavoured to show how it w^as that these things, which 
 almost everybody knows, failed to convince the working classes that 
 Trades' Unions are unnecessary, and Strikes always pernicious, and 
 shown how they were in error : he would then have conferred a real 
 benefit on the working classes. It is a great mistake, in gentlemen of 
 Mr. Black's position, to suppose that working men are practically 
 ignorant of the truths of political economy. With it as a science 
 they may be ignorant; indeed, some of them may not even know 
 that there is such a science. But these gentlemen seem to forget 
 that political economy is only the compilation into a code of rules 
 the practice of all men in all ages who have bought and sold; 
 have been engaged in commercial transactions; or in any way 
 have made use of the principle of exchange. Every costermonger 
 is obliged to regulate what he does in buying and selling by the law of 
 demand and supply, which if explained to him as being a part of 
 the science of political economy, he would be as much surprised that 
 he had, without knowing it, been practising the science all his life, as the 
 honest gentleman in the French comedy was, on his being taught com- 
 position, that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it. 
 Except in the innocent dulness of the latter, which would certainly 
 not belong to the costermonger, the cases are exactly parallel. 
 
 We therefore will endeavour to show why the above propositions 
 fail in convincing Avorking men that they are doing wrong in entering 
 into combination. Not that these propositions arc doubted, but because 
 implicit belief in them is perfectly consistent with the propriety of 
 Trade Combinations. We shall therefore proceed to consider 
 
 I. Wages, and what determines their value. 
 II. Trade Societies, for the protection of wages. 
 III. The means used by them for that purpose. 
 
 I. WAGES. 
 It is superfluous to say that the price of labour, like that of 
 everything else, is determined by the quantity or supply of it perma- 
 
6 TRADES UNIONS AND STRIKES. 
 
 nenthj in tlie market; when tlie supply of it 'permanently much 
 exceeds ils demand, nothing can prevent the reduction of wages; and, 
 conversely, when the demand for it permanently much exceeds its 
 supply, nothing can prevent their rise. In these two extreme points 
 all contention is hopeless. No Trade Society on the one hand, however 
 well organised, can, or ever did, prevent the fall of wages in the first 
 case ; nor, in the other, can, or ever did, the most stringent legislative 
 enactment, of which there have been many instances, prevent their 
 rise. Trade Societies, however, rarely meddle with these two extremes. 
 Leaving. them, we come to the intermediate states that admit the opera- 
 tion of Trade Societies ; and, indeed, which call them into existence. 
 
 In all exchanges, besides the adjustment which takes place in them 
 by the operation of demand and supply, there is always, from the pre- 
 datory instinct inherent in the very nature of man, noticed above, a 
 desire, on one side or the other, to take advantage of the necessities 
 either of the buyer or seller ; and, in proportion as these necessities are 
 immediate and pressing, to press that advantage accordingly. Take, for 
 example, an estate for sale, of which it is known that, come what will, it 
 must be sold in a fortnight for ready money, or what is deemed as 
 good as ready money. If the estate be large, the seller, under these 
 circumstances of necessity, will be sure to lose some thousands of 
 pounds. In wages, besides the rate of wages, which results from the 
 demand for it in proportion to its supply, there is a lower rate which 
 may be the result of the necessities of the workman. For example, in 
 those trades where there is what is called the " Sweating System" 
 practised, the fair result of the demand and supply rate of wages is 
 represented by the amount received by the " Sweater ;"* perhaps, how- 
 ever, his demand, to enable him to get the work, may be somewhat less. 
 He, however, gets the work done lower still ; which is his profit, by 
 employing those whose necessities compel them to work for his price, or 
 starve some of these, perhaps, may be first-rate workmen, Avhose 
 habits of intemperance have reduced them to the lowest state of desti- 
 tution, and who are glad to work for any price. There is, therefore, a 
 Avide difference between the demand and supply rate of wages, or the 
 rate which the fair operation of exchange would give, if the buyer and 
 seller of it were on equal terms, and that which is, or would be, 
 compelled, if the employer dealt with each man " singly," and obtained 
 the reduction which his necessities might dictate. 
 
 The supply of labour in a trade may be greater at one time than 
 another indeed for a time far exceed the demand for it ; and yet that 
 state not be its permanent condition. In other words the trade might 
 be for a good while " slack." If a reduction of Avages took place 
 during this period, this reduction would be very likely to remain when 
 the trade got " busy," the supply of hands not being then greater than 
 the demand ; and yet the temporary " slackness" in itself woidd by no 
 means be adequate to compel this reduction, and ought not to have 
 produced it. The undue competition among employers, bidding each 
 
 * A " Sweafer " \% one who takes out work to do, at the usual rate of wages, and 
 who gets it done by others at a lower price ; the difiference, which is his profit, 
 being *' sweated" out of those who execute the work. Ilence the term " Sweater." 
 
*rRADE SOCIETIES. 7 
 
 under the other, intending to make up the difference out of the wages 
 of their men, not from any compelling necessity in the trade, but 
 from mere rivalry, would inevitably cause a reduction, which, if not 
 checked, might extend to the whole ; not again from any compelling 
 necessity arising from over-supply, but from taking advantage of the 
 immediate necessities of their men being greater than their own. 
 Hence the formation of Trade Societies, which become a necessity, to 
 adjust the bargain for the sale and purchase of labour. 
 
 In all bargains, the buyer wishes to buy as cheap, and the seller to 
 sell as dear, as he can ; but their interests, all being exchangers, and 
 each, from the highest to the lowest, depending upon this principle 
 exchange for his position in life and even for his daily sustenance ; 
 all things being equal, their position is not one of opposition, but of 
 mutual interest ; and neither the one in wishing to get as much, nor 
 the other in wishing to pay as little as possible, can injure the other. 
 But if, as alluded to above, either party possess an advantage over the 
 other in the bargain, this position of mutual interest is changed into 
 one of opposition, in which the weaker party is sure to be deprived of 
 some proportion of what is justly due to him. In this position as 
 bargainers for the sale and purchase of labour, stand the employer 
 and employed. Singly the employer can stand out longer in the 
 bargain than the journeyman ; and as he who can stand out longest in 
 the bargain will be sure to command his own terms, the workmen 
 combine to put themselves on something like an equality in the 
 bargain for the sale of their labour with their employers. This is the 
 rationale of Trade Societies, which is very clearly indicated by Adam 
 Smith in his " Wealth of Nations." 
 
 II.TRADE SOCIETIES. 
 
 The object intended is carried out by providing a fund for 
 the support of its members when out of employ, for a certain 
 number of weeks in the year. This is the usual and regular 
 way in which the labour of the members of a Trade Society is 
 protected, that the man's present necessities may not compel him to 
 take less than the wages which the demand and supply of labour in 
 the trade have previously adjured ; strikes, which we shall hereafter 
 notice, being only resorted to on extraordinary, and, generally speak- 
 ing, most unusual occasions. 
 
 As the object of combinations is thus to correct the disadvantage of 
 position as bargainers with their employers, and as the very element 
 of their existence is public spirit, being held together only by a 
 principle of honour to support each other for a perfectly legitimate^ 
 purpose, they always comprise not only the best workmen, but best ( 
 men in a moral sense that are to be found in the trade. This is stated, ' 
 simply because it is a fact, which has been acknowledged by those who 
 are inimical to trade combinations. As the social position of workmen 
 depends entirely upon the wages they obtain, it is felt by the majority 
 of them to be a sacred duty to adopt this means of protecting their 
 wages. There is no state so abject, and no tyranny so hard to be 
 endured, as that which results from the seller being completely at the 
 
8 trades' unions and strikes SECRET. 
 
 mercy of the buyer. It is to avoid tins state so detrimental to them- 
 selves, and so advantageous to the employers at least so thought by 
 many of them, that working men combine, and that their combi- 
 nations, according to the " Edinburgh " reviewer, contain " about 
 600,000 members, commanding a fund of 300,000." How this 
 fund is disposed of we shall hereafter allude to. This is the 
 reason, at which neither he nor any man need " for the twentieth 
 time wonder," that induces " intelligent workmen" to form themselves 
 into Trades' Unions ; and not, as stated by the same reviewer, after 
 about four pages of vague denunciation and foolish wonder, to 
 "intimidate," "to stint the action of superior physical strength, 
 moral industry, or intelligent skill," or " to apply the fallacies of the 
 protective system to labour ;" their object, on the contrary, being to 
 ensure the freedom of the principle of exchange with regard to labour, 
 by, as before observed, putting the workman in something like an 
 equal position in the bargain for sale of his labour with his employer. 
 If in doing this they sometimes err as who does not? such error does 
 not invalidate the propriety of such a course. 
 
 The same reviewer, in a page which, though placed at the com- 
 mencement, seems to have been written as a kind of summing-up of 
 the whole, asks his readers : " Can it be possible, then, that in Great 
 Britain, too, there is an imperium in impeno as oppressive to those whom 
 it comprehends as any secret society on the Continent, enforcing 
 mysterious laws and arbitrary obligations by the hands of irresponsible 
 authorities, in defiance of the great natural laws of human society ? 
 Eecent events have prepared our readers to take some interest in the 
 inquiry whether the fact is so or not. When they have learned as 
 much as can be known of the Trades' Unions of England, they may 
 judge for themselves whether any existing government in Europe from 
 Constantinople to St. Petersburg or Paris would venture to exercise so 
 stringent a rule over its subjects as a large proportion of our working 
 men submit to from men of their own order. Under the system of 
 irresponsible government, which strives to subject the labour market 
 to its dominion, the characteristic freedom of the English citizen is 
 lost. Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen are unable to say 
 that each man's house is his castle ; that his labour and its rewards are 
 his own property, and that 'live and let live' is the rule of the society 
 in which he dwells." P. 528. 
 
 The sum and substance of the above, divested of its gloss, is that 
 Trades' Unions are, 1st, secret; 2nd, irresponsible; and 3rd, coercive. 
 
 1. SECRET. 
 With respect to the " mysterious laws and arbitrary obhgations," 
 we have only to say that the proceedings of Trades' Unions are 
 no more secret than those of any other societies, to which working 
 men and others belong. When the reviewer talks of " Continental 
 nations from the Mediterranean to the Volga, and from the Black Sea 
 to the Channel, being honeycombed with secret societies, " and in- 
 sinuates that it is a mistake in Englishmen to congratulate themselves 
 that everything with them is " open and above board," and that they 
 have no "spies," " enforced dumbness," and " 5wrt;ez7/ance," while Trades* 
 
SECHET. 9 
 
 Unions exist among tliem ; he insinuates what is false. The insinu- 
 ation, for he does not venture to state it openly, without doubt, gives 
 strength to the alleged tyranny, but it is untrue. That the proceed- 
 ings of Trades' Unions have been unknown is true, but they have 
 only been unknown because they have been considered by the general 
 public, and therefore by the press, too obscure and insignificant to 
 deserve attention. Nothing would serve the cause of the working 
 classes more than a continual ventilation of their proceedings by the 
 public press ; it would tend to procure for them a greater meed of 
 justice than they have hitherto found, and, what is better, it would 
 tend greatly to preserve them from error. There is not a more salu- 
 tary check to injury from your own proceedings, as well as from the 
 proceedings of your opponents, than publicity through the press. 
 This, however, has undergone a change for the better, during the last 
 few years. In the " builders' dispute," as far as the men's proceedings 
 are concerned, it has ceased altogether ; the secresy being entirely on 
 the side of the Masters' Association. 
 
 We have now before us 227 quarto pages, double columns, for the 
 most part in the small newspaper type, of the reports of the proceedings of 
 the men, leading articles, &c., on this dispute, cut from the newspapers, 
 chiefly from the TimeSy while that paper reported them, and when it ceased 
 to do so, from the Morning Advertiser, and other papers. This, in the 
 usual type (not the largest), would make a quarto volume of 671 pages. 
 Where, then, is the secresy ? The masters' proceedings, in their Asso- 
 ciation, have been secret, but not the men's, in their " Trades' Union." 
 
 There are no " secret societies" as " Trades' Unions." The attempt 
 to make them so, in 1834, was utterly abortive, from the refusal of 
 the trades generally to become so. When it -was illegal to combine, 
 they were necessarily secret, not from any inclination, but from the 
 force of the adverse law, which compelled secresy. This enforced 
 secresy generated its usual train of evils, and in some cases the admini- 
 stration of oaths to members. When the laws against combinations 
 were repealed, these practices, and the secresy out of Avhich they grew, 
 ceased, which ought to have been known to the reviewer, before he 
 attempted to write on the subject. 
 
 The ordinary proceedings of a Trade Society are of course too un- 
 interesting for public attention. But in disputes, which in the case of 
 the builders, have occupied so much of the attention of the public, 
 whose fault has it ever been that they have not obtained the same 
 publicity ? Certainly not the men's. During the strike of the masons 
 at the building of the two Houses of Parliament in 1841, the greatest 
 diflSlculty was experienced by the men in getting their statements into 
 the newspapers ; in fact, they were obliged to resort to placards and 
 printed bills, because the newspaper press refused to publish them. 
 The masters found immediate publication in the first-class newspapers 
 for their statements, but the men could not. The present writer had 
 the greatest difiiculty in getting a report of an investigation into a case 
 alleged by the men and denied by the masters, relative to this dispute, 
 into a popular newspaper, that now would publish such a report imme- 
 diately. He with his colleague had to wait upon the editor, who 
 had previouslj^ refused insertion ; and at last it was inserted as he 
 
10 trades' unions and strikes IRRESPOJfSiBLi. 
 
 believes through the intervention of one who was influential in the 
 management of the paper. We go into this detail to show that it has 
 never been the fault of Trades' Unions that their proceedings have been 
 unpublished to the world. But it is said the Committees are secret. 
 It is true their proceedings are not published, but does that constitute 
 a secret Committee? If so, then all meetings of men appointed to 
 transact business, from the Cabinet Council downwards, including all 
 railway and parochial Committees, are secret conclaves. But these are 
 not secret, because the names are known of those composing them ; the 
 first-named to all the nation, and the rest to all whom they concern. 
 And, in like manner, the names of those who form Trade Committees 
 are equally known to those who appoint them ; and, therefore, are not 
 secret. 
 
 2. IRRESPONSIBLE. 
 
 The " irresponsible authorities," by whom we suppose are meant 
 the President, Committee-men, and Secretary, of each and every 
 Trades' Union if the reviewer was so ignorant of such matters as 
 not to know it before these are invariably elected by the Trades' 
 Union to which they belong, to which they are responsible for what 
 they do during their term of office, and who are not slow to find fault 
 and censure them if they do anything displeasing to the body they 
 represent. If he did not know this, the commonest sense of propriety 
 and regard for truth ought to have restrained him from Avriting on the 
 subject until he had obtained this information. But then there could 
 have been no " slashing article" the dull prose of truth would have 
 prevented it. As the responsibility of the " authorities " of Trade 
 Societies will be further shown as we proceed, there is no need here of 
 saying more. 
 
 As to the " characteristic freedom of the English artizan being 
 lost " by this " system of irresponsible government," the reviewer 
 unconsciously, from his ignorance of the subject, has, by the reductio 
 ad ahsurdum^ refuted himself. He describes a state of things which 
 has no existence. We should no more have believed this passage 
 about working men, not knowing whether their " labour and its 
 rewards were their own property," and the rest of it, applied to 
 ourselves as workmen, had we not been told, than we should have 
 known that the French writer meant Shakspere when he called him 
 the " divine Williams." We have shown this passage to several of 
 the " hundreds and thousands of our countrymen " here described, 
 who have one and all, with much laughter, in the most expressive 
 vernacular, and with vigorous expletives, denounced the reviewer as the 
 " biggest of the unwise," and the greatest of the perverters of truth, 
 that they ever heard of When any matter, like the present, has 
 reached its last point of absurdity, there is no more to be said. We 
 therefore take leave of it, especially as our object is not to criticise the 
 ignorance of the reviewer, but to state the truth ; and, having disposed 
 of the secresy and irresponsibility two such powerful adjuncts to the 
 alleged coercion " which strives to subject the labour market to its 
 dominion" we will now proceed to consider the alleged tyranny 
 or coercion itself. 
 
11 
 
 3. COERCIVE. 
 
 As the " coercion," apart from acts of intimidation and violence, 
 said to be exercised by Trades' Unions, has been the theme of accusa- 
 tion, invective, censure, or expostulation, according to the mood of the 
 speaker or writer, with the unanimity of a chorus, from Lord 
 Brougham down to Mr. Buxton, we hope to be excused if w^e enter 
 somewhat largely into the subject. It is not only alleged to indnce 
 men to belong to the Union, but to exist everywhere, in all that 
 Trades' Societies do, or intend to do. Now, it is the tyranny of the 
 majority over the minority ; then, it is the tyranny of the leaders ; 
 or, again, a general undefined tyranny which pervades the whole body ; 
 but always tyranny and coercion. According to the " Edinburgh 
 Review" the tyranny is general, undefined, but pervading everywhere. 
 The Times^ Dec. 9, 1859, gives it to the leaders in the following 
 terms: 
 
 They strike at the bidding of men who deem it necessary to assert a 
 control over the destinies of trade by making a terrible example of em- 
 ployers and employed as often as their secret and imperious commands are 
 disobeyed. Nor does their fault consist in taking too much, but rather in 
 taking too little, interest in their own affairs in permitting themselves to be 
 made mere tools and instruments of the will of others in matters in which 
 it is, above all things, incumbent on them to judge for themselves, and in 
 surrendering their natural liberty, tamely and ingloriously, into the hands of 
 an ignorant and inquisitorial despotism. 
 
 Mr. Black, taking up the subject from the " Edinburgh Review," 
 the said reviewer having used the word " excommunication," says : 
 
 But it is not by illegal violence alone that personal liberty may be 
 encroached upon; there are other means of intimidation that may be as 
 effectual, or even more so. The Pope, by the threat of excommunication, 
 was able to control the most powerful sovereigns. A similar threat is one of 
 the most effective instruments in the hands of the committees of the Unions. 
 When they order a strike, he would be a bold man who would preach the 
 right of private judgment, and act upon it in opposition to the commands of 
 the secret committee ; he would not only be shunned by all his companions, 
 but reproached and denounced as a snob, a nobstick, as unfair, and insulted 
 in other opprobrious terms. By cajolery, molestation, and threatening, the 
 combined leaders strike a general terror into the whole community. P. 21. 
 
 The " Quarterly " reviewer, having more sense, does not harp so 
 much on this string. 
 
 To Mr. Black is due the merit of being definite ; he not only states 
 what is done, but the manner of execution. And we have no doubt 
 but that he has, in the case he has supposed, stated the true impres- 
 sion on his mind, as derived from the " Edinburgh Review," and the 
 statement of various speakers and writers on the same side, who are 
 considered authorities on the subject. We will, thei-efore, analyse it. 
 The " excommunication " is relative to a supposed strike, and he 
 assumes it to be complete and effectual. Now, how can a man be ejected 
 or driven from a community, with "reproaches and denunciations," 
 " shunned even by his friends," unless by the active co-operation of 
 the community itself? and how could such co-operation exist by the 
 community, unless such " excommunication " had its full and hearty 
 approval ? No cajo]s/if^0j3imj^' men, and especially vP^orking men, 
 
 ( ^MVERSITY S 
 
12 TKADES' UNIOXS AND STRIKES. 
 
 do what they have no mind to, and, if the community are willing to 
 eject one of their body so vigorously as here described, with "insult" 
 and "opprobrious" terms, there needs no " cajolery" to induce them to 
 do so. As to the committee, who are as one to fifty, or more, attempt- 
 ing to intimidate the general body to do such a thing by threats, it is 
 too preposterous for argument. Mr. Black here describes the tyranny 
 of the majority over the minority ; and not, as he states, the tyranny 
 of its leaders over the general body. His own case proves that he is 
 entirely mistaken in this respect. It may be, in such a case, that the 
 leaders are compelled to act in obedience to the general voice, as has 
 been the fact, hundreds of times, with more important bodies than 
 Trade Societies. So far from the fact being, as the Times and Mr. 
 Black suppose, that the Committees of Trades' Unions are the 
 agitators and leaders in strikes; it oftener happens than not that they 
 prevent them, by soothing down the angry feelings excited by what 
 the members of their Societies have considered unjust treatment, from 
 foremen or employers. There, however, exists some cause for this 
 error. When men have been asked, by employers, why they have 
 struck or have refused to work for a certain price, they too often, from 
 the fear of compromising themselves, lay it all to " their mates," or to 
 " the Society," or to its " Committee," when perhaps some of those 
 very men have been foremost in setting forth to the meeting of their 
 general body, which unanimously agreed the strike should take place, 
 the absolute necessity of so doing. But, although this cause for error 
 does sometimes exist, it is not the less a great mistake to suppose that 
 the working class are the mere " tools and instruments of the will of 
 others," or that they "surrender their natural liberty " into the hands 
 of their leaders. Those leaders, as before observed, are in all cases 
 elected by the general body, to carry out its views, and therefore 
 cannot be secret. Nor can they do anything against the will of that 
 body. If they were to attempt to do so, they would soon cease to be 
 its leaders, and, consequent^, could not exercise " despotic" rule over it. 
 But it may be asserted that, granting this, the rule of Trades* 
 Unions is nevertheless the tyranny of the majority over the minority. 
 To which w^e reply, where is it that this kind of tyranny does not 
 exist? Mr. Black tells us that there are no "Trades' Unions" or 
 " Strikes " in the United States of America, and we believe he is 
 nearly correct. Where, according to M. de Tocqueville, is the 
 tyranny of the majority over the minority greater than in those states ? 
 To come nearer home, what is the " world's dread laugh " but the 
 tyranny of the majority? What is "public opinion," so potent, and so 
 fatal to those who stand in opposition to it, but the voice of the 
 majority against the minority? who never fail to denounce it as 
 tyranny ; and who generally get laughed at for their folly by the same 
 " public." If this be a crime in Trades' Unions, it is a crime of which 
 the elite of English society are equally guilty ; and not only the elite^ 
 but every grade downwards from it to the working classes. Out of 
 many instances of the way in which it sometimes acts that might be given, 
 we only need mention the following : Mr. Burke, after his expression of 
 opinion on the French Revolution, was, to use his own words, " excom- 
 municated by his party," lost his scat in Parliament, and for his whole 
 
COERCIVE. 13 
 
 life after was reduced to political insignificance. Lord Chancellor 
 Yorke, who took office at the earnest request of the King (George I1I.)> 
 from being supposed by such taking of office to have betrayed his 
 party, was proscribed by that party ; which he took so much to heart, 
 that he lost his reason, and died by his own hand. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel was considered, by the party to which he had for 
 years belonged, to have betrayed it, though it was all the while known 
 that he had a perfect right to change his opinion ; and the event, 
 during his life, proved that it was most beneficial to the nation that he 
 had done so yet with his party he lost caste ; and though he had the 
 approbation of the general public, his public life was embittered to the 
 end even when the aggregate majority was with him by the most 
 bitter attacks that ever assailed a public man; against which the 
 approbation of the general majority was of no avail, such approbation 
 being expressly because he had shattered to pieces the favourite policy 
 of his former party ; or, to use its owm words, betrayed it. 
 
 Messrs. Bright and Cobden, during the late war with Russia, thought 
 proper on the peace question to express what was known previously to 
 be their sincere convictions, and which they had an undoubted right 
 to express, but which w^ere opposed to what was at that time considered 
 to be the public weal ; in short, to the almost wishing success to the 
 enemy with whom the country was at war. All their past services 
 w^ere forgotten, they both lost their seats in Parliament, and, during 
 that Avar, their influence as public men ; and would again imder the 
 same circumstances suffer the same loss, supposing they should, which 
 is very doubtful, ever regain the confidence which the public formerly 
 reposed in them. Pausing for a moment on this phase of the subject : 
 do either of these reviewers, or any one else, require to be told, that 
 a state of combination, whether it be of a political party or a Trades' 
 Union, supposes a united action which is inconsistent with dissent ? or 
 that there are men everywhere, w4io, after the -whole of the fellow^s 
 themselves included have agreed to a certain movement, have frus- 
 trated it by an opposite course of action ? Have not many such been 
 denounced in both reviews as having " betrayed their party," and 
 " their cause ?" Without doubt such men have a right to do as they 
 like, and to be protected from violence and insult ; but it is too much 
 to expect that their fellows should receive them with affection or regard. 
 Do what you will, talk how you like, such men will always be considered 
 by their party, whether it be of the highest or lowest sections of the 
 community, as infamous, and treated accordingly by the majority, whose 
 cause they have betrayed. If this be " tyranny," then it will never be 
 purged from the working or any other class of society, while men are 
 human. When, if ever, they become angelic, it may be different ; but 
 then there wdll be no traitors. 
 
 But to return. What is the end and aim of the " Quarterly and 
 Edinburgh Reviews" as far as politics are concerned, but to excite the 
 public opinion against their opponents ? and the greatest success they 
 hope to achieve is to obtain the general voice against those whom they 
 denounce, or, in short, to create this "coercion" or " tyranny" of the 
 majority against them. What is the " Edinburgh Review" now doing, 
 but, Tight or wrong, endeavouring to excite public opinion against 
 
14 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 Trades' Unions ? What is tbe object of Mr. Black's lecture and Mr. 
 Buxton's letter both compiled from the two reviews in question but 
 to do the same thing ? But we shall be told they all think they are 
 doing right. Do they ? We should be glad to be informed who does 
 not when thus employed ? But, if they think they are doing right in 
 thus invoking public opinion, can there be a more profound acknow- 
 ledgment of its power, and of submission to its voice, than such invo- 
 cation ? It is the acknowledgment of a superior power by appeals 
 to it. If, then, all in their turn acknowledge its power by invoking 
 it, as a rule to Avhich all must submit, how can it be a degrading 
 tyranny when it exercises its force among working men ? 
 
 But what do they want public opinion to do, when all in their turn 
 invoke it, but to bring its force to bear against their opponents ? to 
 bring, if successful, what those opponents would most surely call this 
 tyranny of the majority against them, with all its irresistible forms of 
 coercion ? And this is deemed by all parties not only legitimate and 
 proper, but in the highest degree commendable. Is it, then, only when 
 this formidable power produces the same result among the working 
 classes, that, in the opinion of this reviewer and the rest, it is tyranny 
 and coercion? Take the question as it is put by Lord St. Leonards, in 
 his letter to the Times of December 13, 1859, and the same result 
 will follow namely, that it is by the opinion of the majority that 
 Trades' Unions exist who are said in these unions to coerce all the 
 rest that is, the minority. His lordship, as far as we can understand 
 him, wishes to pat an end to Trades' Unions, and of course describes 
 their action as most imwise and tyrannical. He says that, " If a law 
 were to be passed, placing the free workmen under such a rule, we 
 might expect an insurrection ; and yet vast masses voluntarily place 
 themselves imder a yoke which they would resist in the shape of 
 authority with all their energies." What are the vast masses here 
 alluded to, but the majority f And if they elect to place themselves 
 under what his lordship is pleased to term a " yoke," he may rest 
 assured that they have their own good reasons for doing so, and do 
 not require, however well intentioned, the commiseration of anyone. 
 Here, as in the case put by Mr. Black, to suppose that the " man- 
 dates " of the committees, &c., would for an instant be regarded by 
 the general body comprising the Trade Society, unless those " man- 
 dates " had previously had their sanction and concurrence, is too 
 ridiculous for argument. These officers and committees, once more, 
 do not make laws for the general body, they are made by the general 
 body itself in all cases ; and if it assigns a discretionary power to its 
 officers, it is because it namely, the body at large think that the 
 best course to pursue. It seems to be forgotten that working men 
 are not so "handy" with the pen as lawyers' clerks, and therefore 
 the real fact namely, that it is better to leave to the discretion of the 
 committee the dealing with cases that may arise, than to make rules 
 concerning supposed cases which might, in practice, be wholly inap- 
 plicable is not believed. But, instead, alarm is taken, or pretended to 
 be taken, at the '* irresponsible power " of the committees. Never was 
 alarm more groundless. Only let any committee or officer act in opposi- 
 tion to the wish of the general body, and, as before said, they would 
 
COERCIVE. Id 
 
 speedily find themselves relieved from " the cares of office." But 
 why is all this care for the " vast masses ?" They have never, as we 
 have heard, complained of the "yoke" under which they are said to be 
 bowed down by an " irresponsible and secret tyranny." IS'o complaint 
 of theirs has evoked all this sympathy. Loud have been their com- 
 plaints of the tyranny of the master builders' " lock-oiit," and large 
 have been their contributions to resist it. But not a word against 
 this "yoke," so feelingly alluded to by his lordship. What is the 
 reason of this ? It cannot be because they do not complain when 
 they see a reason : the masters' "lock-out," for instance ? What can be 
 the cause of this silence? We will tell his lordship and the chorus of 
 commiserating reviewers, lecturers, letter-writers, and others. It is 
 because they, that is, the " vast masses," believe that by their organi- 
 sation " yoke" his lordship is pleased to term it they obtain a fair 
 exchange for their labour, which it would be impossible to secure 
 singly as individuals : in other words, that they obtain higher wajres 
 in combination than they could if they were not ; and they are right. 
 Take the engineering trade, in illustration. In Glasgow and Newcastle 
 the custom is, not to belong to the Engineers' Society ; in those two 
 places the wages are low compared with their rate in those districts 
 where the custom is to belong to it. And even in those two places 
 the men who do belong to the society obtain a higher rate of wages 
 than the non-society men. Such instances might be multiplied in 
 every trade. It is, therefore, a matter of surprise that his lordship, 
 knowing, as he does, what men will endure, what risks they will 
 undergo, for increased remuneration, which, as he knows also, they 
 would do for no living man^^ that he should think it extraordinary 
 that the working classes should " voluntarily place themselves under" 
 this " yoke," even at his own estimate of it, to secure the same thing 
 for themselves. 
 
 But all this points with increased force to the fact, that it is the 
 majority, the " vast masses" who determine to combine, and who in 
 combination decide for themselves what course they shall pursue. 
 
 Does his lordship, in alluding to " tens of thousands" of men being 
 suddenly deprived of v/ork as if they had been struck by paralysis 
 allude to the builders' dispute? If so, he should remember that Avas 
 the act of the master builders by their " lock-out.** To this, however, 
 we shall refer elsewhere. Having thus shown that there is no " coer- 
 cion'' necessary to induce men to combine, but that of the " public 
 opinion" of the class who combine ; and that trade combinations are 
 neither secret, irresponsible, nor their rule dependent on the will of 
 their leaders ; it remains only to notice the charges that workmen 
 " coerce" all in their trade to belong to the trade society. 
 
 Whatever may have been the practice formerly, Trades' Unions are 
 not now generally charged with acts of physical violence acts which 
 we deprecate and abhor. On this point we are in perfect accord with 
 both the " Quarterly" and " Edinburgh" reviewers, and those who have 
 compiled speeches, lectures, and letters therefrom. Wherever such 
 acts occur, they are a " heavy blow and great discouragement" to 
 trade societies. Leaving these, as things which happily have now 
 passed away, we need only say in reference to this, that there is no 
 
16 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 other coercion than that of the public o]3inion of the class to which 
 workmen belong. Although we know of many instances to the con- 
 trary in our own trade, to a certain extent men in a society shop are 
 expected to belong to the society, for the very natural reason, that, as 
 it is believed wages are kept from falling below the demand and supply 
 rate, by the contributions of men who belong to the society, those who 
 do not belong are considered in the light of those who wish to enjoy an 
 advantage without contributing their share to sustain it ; nothing 
 being more certain, in the minds of the workmen, that, but for the 
 combination, the immediate necessities of the men would be imme- 
 diately taken advantage of in some part of the trade, which would 
 speedily produce the same result throughout. The predatory instinct 
 belonging to our nature would in these circumstances ensure this 
 result. The men, therefore, naturally expect that every man should 
 pay his quota, for an advantage which he enjoys in common with the 
 rest. And Ave should be glad to be informed how, in these circumstances, 
 it is possible to be otherwise ? It may be considered and especially 
 by those employers who find it most advantageous for their individual 
 profit to deal with the men singly very wrong for the workmen to act 
 thus. But it is for this very employer's reason that the men are 
 anxious that all should be in combination. In fact, whatever is 
 deemed to be the right and proper course for the welfare of 
 all, by the majority of a community or body of men, and 
 adopted by it in the aggregate, will be sure to be considered by 
 that community as the duty of all to support and carry out. In 
 fact, it is its public opinion and how potent public opinion is 
 need not be repeated. And if that course involves a money 
 payment, he who refuses or attempts to shirk that payment will 
 always be, let him be of what class of society he may, "coerced" by 
 its public opinion. It is so everywhere. It may be very wrong, but 
 if it be, men of every grade of intellect and position in society have 
 always done so, and, without doubt, will continue to do so to the end 
 of time. 
 
 But this opinion, in most places, is so universal among working men, 
 that in point of fact there are none to " coerce ;" whether actually in 
 the society or not, scarcely a man doubts the propriety of belonging to 
 it. And where, as in some few districts, it is otherwise, the men do 
 or do not belong to the society, as they please, and consequently there 
 is no " coercion." 
 
 In our ow^n trade those out of the society are, for the most part, 
 either inferior Avorkmen, employed on inferior work at reduced wages, 
 or those who have belonged to it, and been erased. Of these last some 
 left because they did not Avish to pay to it, or indeed to anything else 
 that they could avoid ; and the rest, by far the greatest number are 
 those who have been erased for non-payment through their unfortunate 
 habits of intemperance, wdiich left them no means of paying. The 
 first-named, from their inferior ability as workmen, seldom come to a 
 society shop ; the others, Avhen they obtain Avork in a society shop, 
 generally join, or rejoin; and, as the result of nearly twenty years' ex- 
 perience as Secretary, the present writer can safely afiirm that in no 
 case have those who have so joined, or rejoined, expressed the slightest 
 
UNIFORM RATE OP AVAGES. 17 
 
 complaint of any " coercion ;" on the contrary, where there has been 
 any expression at all, it has always been that they had been out of the 
 society so long, or had not joined it sooner. The practical fact is, the 
 chorus of assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, that the belonging 
 to the society is never by working men, taken generally, deemed a 
 matter of " coercion " at all, but, as a thing for the protection of their 
 wages from undue reduction, highly advantageous for them to do. 
 
 UNIFORM RATE OF WAGES. 
 
 Before discussing this topic, it is necessary to state that the men do 
 not contend for an " uniform " rate of wages. All they contend, or 
 ever have contended for, is a ^^ minimum ^^ rate of wages, leaving the 
 employer to pay for superior skill, or working ability, as much more as 
 he pleases, or the man can obtain. Indeed, as great skill or superior 
 working ability must, from the nature of things, be always rare, what 
 is termed an uniform rate can only mean what is applicable to the 
 general run of men, and in point of fact a minimum rate as regarded 
 by the men, and an " uniform rate " as regarded by the masters. 
 
 To have an "uniform rate" of wages is said to give an unfair pro- 
 tection to the unskilled workman. The " Quarterly " reviewer states 
 it to be "a most dangerous thing for workmen to proclaim that the 
 idle and unskilled shall be paid as the industrious and skilled." This 
 reviewer shows much candour throughout his remarks ; he errs, how- 
 ever, in this matter, from receiving his impression from only one side 
 of the question. 
 
 It is quite true that in most trades, where the work is paid by the 
 day, an uniform rate of wages is paid ; but the above result, which has 
 been so much denounced, certainly is not, and never was, the intention 
 of such uniform rate or the reason why it was established. 
 
 It should here be observed that where the work in any trade is paid 
 for by the "piece" at so much per job as, for example, among the 
 compositors, the type, in London, is for the most part composed at so 
 much per 1,000 letters there is no uniform rate received by the work- 
 men. There is generally an uniform rate, or nearly so, of the price of 
 the various jobs ; but, as workmen of diiferent quickness and skill will 
 do more or less work at the same price per job, their wages may very 
 materially differ in amount. 
 
 But in work by the day there is generally an uniform rate, which is 
 adjusted in the first instance by the principle of demand and supply, 
 which operates like the circulation of the blood without anyone scarcely 
 being aware of it, and the result is a settled rate of wages, which be- 
 comes recognised by both employer and employed as the standard of 
 wages for the general run of workmen in the trade. And it must 
 always be borne in mind that a rate of wages, in any trade, never be- 
 comes what is termed the uniform or standard rate, unless it has had 
 the full consent very often by special agreement of the employers 
 of that trade. It is quite true that some men are able to earn, and do 
 earn, more than others. As the uniform rate is generally made for the 
 general run of men, some men will be worth more and some worth 
 less than its amount. Then the question returns, why not pay the one 
 
18 trades' unions and stkikes. 
 
 more and the other less ? This is sometimes done, when, of course, the 
 rate ceases to be -uniform. But where the uniformity, as a general 
 practice, is kept up, the reason usually is that the employer likes to 
 reap the benefit arising from the man being worth more, and is also 
 afraid that if he increased this man's wages, he would probably be 
 called upon to raise the others; and the men, en the other hand, would 
 be against the man who was not worth the regular rate taking less, 
 lest the others might be reduced to it. And it must be admitted 
 that, so prone are men to take every advantage in their own favour, 
 the apprehension of each class respecting the other is very likely to 
 be correct. But it will be seen in the sequel that this uniform rate 
 operates in a way which is anything but a protection to the idle and 
 unskilled. Employers never fail to retain in their employment the 
 best workmen, and to discharge, at the first opportunity, those whom 
 they consider inferior. In the course of time, by this process, they 
 will have in their employ few but what may be termed superior woik- 
 men, to whom they will pay by the operation of this " uniform rate " 
 of wages only the wages of the general run of workmxen. Digressing 
 for a moment, as far as we can learn, this was actually the case with 
 the master builders, previous to their "lock-out." They had in their 
 employ the elite as workmen of their respective trades. Hence the 
 great loss they have sustained by their " lock-out," w^hich may be 
 thus estimated. The number locked out was under 11,000,* skilled and 
 unskilled. The master builders, when there was reason to believe 
 they still wanted more hands, stated, in a return by their secretary to 
 the Weekly Mail, of Nov. 13, 1859, the numbei in their employ to be 
 upwards of 16,000 (up to Nov. 5, 1859), to whom they would cer- 
 tainly not be paying less per man than they were previously paying 
 the 11,000 for doing the same quantity of work, involving a loss, if 
 wx suppose the average wages of each to be 25s. per week, of upwards 
 of 6,000 a week in wages alone. But to return. Inferior w^orkm en, it 
 will be seen, by the operation of this " uniform rate " are not protected, 
 its result being to give the employer the benefit, as described, of having 
 superior Avorkmen at the ordinary rate of wages. Indeed, it is very 
 seldom that the employers complain of this ; we might almost say 
 never, except when it is intended to reduce w^ages by what might be 
 termed "working the uniform-rate dodge," that is, assuming the 
 rate of the general run of workmen to be that which should only be 
 paid to the very best workmen. This is often done when wages are 
 sought to be reduced. One instance, which will illustrate every other, 
 we select from the Parliamentary Report on Combinations of Work- 
 men, 1838. Mr. Carolin, master builder of Dublin, who, through his 
 reduction of wages, was involved in serious disputes with the workmen, 
 after evading, by a reference to piece work, the question put by Mr. 
 
 * This is the number stated by Mr. Potter and the Building Trades Conference. 
 Wishing to be correct, Mr. Wales, Secretary of the Master Builders' Association, 
 No. 8, Great St. Helens, was written to, requesting him, as a great favour, to 
 state his estimate of the total number of men locked out, skilled and unskilled. 
 As Mr. Wales did not reply, we have no means of coUatiug the above number with 
 "what that of the employers might be. However, from various circumstances, we 
 have good reason to believe the above number to be correct, and our estimate of 
 the loss very much understated. 
 
UNIFORM RATE OF ^yAGES. 19 
 
 O'Connell (7394), ''Do you pay any man more than the minimum 
 stipulated by the body ?" ''Admitted (7348) that he paid 27s. a week 
 to his best men and so downwards." By the evidence of Mr. Eaton, 
 also a master builder of Dublin (7646), the regular wages of the same 
 workmen (carpenters) were 4s. 8d. a day, or 28s. per week, which he 
 paid, " making no difference between superior and inferior workmen," 
 " which he thought fair between master and man," but he added, which 
 illustrates what we have stated, that " he endeavoured to select the 
 best workmen." The one who did not wish to reduce wages sought 
 and obtained the fair advantage which the uniform rate afforded ; 
 while the other, whose only object was to reduce wages, complained of 
 this rate, and gave it only to his best hands. And this is the 
 usual course those who complain of the uniform rate pursue. The 
 reduction of wages is generally their object, and the uniform rate is the 
 mere pretence which they use to effect that object in the way described. 
 
 Indeed, so far from placing " the competent and the incompetent on 
 the same level," this " uniform rate" has been bitterly complained of, 
 as excluding the incompetent altogether. At the late Bradford meet- 
 ing one of the speakers gave as a reason against Trades' Unions that as 
 he was not able to earn the usual rate, and as the Union would not 
 allow any of its members to work for less, while he was a member he 
 could get no employment, and so he left it. In " Chambers' Journal" 
 for April, 1856, this complaint is urged with great energy ; and Sir 
 J. K. Shuttleworth, chairman, at the discussion at Bradford on " Trades* 
 Unions" in reference to the above statement, said, " that nothing was 
 better attested than that Trades' Unions did coerce their members in 
 this matter, and that unless they purged themselves from this taint 
 they would not meet with the sympathy of the public." Knowing as 
 we did that this " uniform rate of wages," which, by the way, is never 
 in any trade without numerous exceptions, and when the work is done 
 " by the piece" does not exist at all ; is never in practice a source of 
 difficulty, as an employer is sure to dismiss the workman who does not 
 suit him and we have known excellent workmen so dismissed, as not 
 being used to the particular kind of work the employer had to execute, 
 though first-rate hands in their own department ; and knowing, also, 
 that this " uniform rate" is rarely complained of by employers, except 
 they wish to reduce wages, or by workmen unless they are arrant 
 bunglers ; we were not a little surprised to hear of it as a matter of 
 grave complaint. It becomes therefore necessary to show, in respect 
 to workmen, as we have previously in respect to employers, how those 
 who thus complain are affected by this uniform rate, and what kind of 
 workmen they are. 
 
 A man may not be worth the regular wages, either because he is slow 
 in doing his work, or because his work is inferior. In the first case, 
 where work by the piece is the custom of the trade, there is and can 
 be no difficulty in the matter, unless, indeed, he be so very slow that 
 no employer will give him room in his shop. Where, however, work 
 in a trade is done by the day, there may be a difficulty ; still if the 
 man's work be well executed, he is sure, in the end^ to get employ- 
 ment where quantity is not so much regarded in the work as its 
 (Quality. But if the man's work be inferior, there is indeed a difficulty, 
 
 b2 
 
20 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 but that difficulty is not in the regulation of the trade, but in the man 
 himself. If there were no regulation as to the rate of -wages, such a 
 man would be restricted to those shops only where inferior work was 
 done, and, if his work were very inferior, even these would be closed 
 against him ; for what master would employ a man to spoil his 
 materials 1 
 
 This kind of incompetence may proceed from imperfect instruction, 
 in Avhicli case the obvious course for the young man is to engage him- 
 self as an improver ; in many cases, however, that we have known, 
 even this has not been necessary. Where there is a natural aptitude 
 to learn, the man acquires more skill at every shop he works at, and 
 ultimately becomes as competent as the best. Where, however, the 
 incompetence from inferior work is the result of inability to learn, and 
 not for the want of proper teaching, there is no remedy ; indeed, 
 such an one has no right to designate himself a workman of any trade, 
 if he is not able to work at it in the style of a workman. But here, 
 again, the difficulty is not in the regulation, but in the man himself. 
 These, however, are the men most likely to complain of this regulation. 
 They will lay their being continuall}^ out of employ to any cause rather 
 than to their own bungling execution of the work entrusted to them 
 to do ; to their not being allowed to work for less than the standard 
 wages ; or to anything but the real cause their own thorough incom- 
 petence. 
 
 The reason why all men in a trade are supposed to be competent to 
 earn and to receive the standard rate of wages is, because, first, the fact 
 is, that, taken as a whole, they are all competent, the exceptions being 
 too few to be appreciable ; and, second, because, from the predatory 
 instinct referred to above, which prevails equally among workmen as 
 among masters, some men, being thoroughly competent, would pre- 
 tend incompetence, that they might supplant their fellow workmen by 
 offi^ring themselves for less than the regular wages. In our own trade, 
 however, where men from age or obvious inability are unable to earn 
 the regular wages, there is not, nor ever has been, any objection to 
 their receiving less. 
 
 In reference to the complaint that this uniform rate stints the action 
 of superior skill or physical strength, such complaint applies, wherever 
 it justly exists, to the employer as much as to the employed. Work- 
 men who are remarkably quick are sometimes paid more, but not 
 always, as the employer mostly likes to reap the benefit of such 
 quickness himself; which generally results in the quick hand subsiding 
 into the regular quantity of work. This is often made the groimd of 
 great complaint against workmen that they discourage skill and celerity 
 in their work. The complaint, however, often should be reversed ; the 
 workman might justly reply that he gets no encouragement. If he 
 were, from rare physical development, to do double the work of an- 
 other, he would be paid no more, or, if he were, it would be by no 
 means in proportion to the additional work he got through. This is 
 the true reason why workmen are accused of not wishing to domore 
 than a certain qiiantity of work in a day, about which the master 
 builders have been so eloquent and so denunciatory. The " Edinburgh 
 and Quarterly Reviews" have in this matter taken up their parable 
 
UI\!!VEn:^lTY 
 
 UNI fWI Jl ATES OP .AvWeS. 2 1 
 
 against the working man as advocates of the employers. But why 
 should the workman do more than the regular quantity of work if he 
 be not paid more ? Would either of these two reviewers write two 
 sheets for the price of one ? To expect them to do more is to desire 
 virtually a reduction of wages, which we have before shown to be at 
 the bottom of all these complaints of the uniform rate of wages. 
 
 When a trade is unusually brisk, it may be that there are no hands 
 to be obtained but the inferior workmen, who from this cause have, 
 until then, remained imemployed ; these receiving the usual rate does 
 not alter the case, as it is with them a question of simple demand and 
 supply, which, in these circumstances, would determine them to be 
 worth it. Many complaints admit of this solution, while nothing is 
 said, when things are exactly the reverse, of superior workmen being 
 obtained from the same cause reversed at the ordinary rate ot 
 wages. 
 
 But, after all, we believe both employers and employed are generally 
 satisfied in respect to this " uniform rate," as it exists in their re- 
 spective trades. During a strike, or dispute, each will say hard things 
 of the other, as men in such circumstances will always do. Apart 
 from this, if there be men, who will not do the proper quantity of 
 work, there are exacting employers who, if their men did double the 
 usual quantity of work, would grudge paying more ; but these do not 
 represent the great body of masters or men in any trade. They are 
 exceptions, of whom it may justly be said, in reference to their re- 
 spective demerits to use the vernacular that " there are six of one, 
 and half-a-dozen of the other," each naturally, and most surely, caus- 
 ing the result of which they both complain. 
 
 But, it is asked, why cannot a man sell his labour for what he likes, 
 as a shopkeeper tickets his goods under the price of those of his 
 neighbour ? They do not interfere with each other, and why should 
 the workman? The shopkeepers here alluded to, Ave beg to reply, are 
 not obliged to be always together, and, therefore, the ill blood, which 
 is often intense, does not cause interference. But, in wages, the matter 
 assumes a very different aspect, as will be seen by putting a case. 
 Suppose, in a shop which employed twelve or any other number 
 of men, whose wages were 30s. per week, a man was to be engaged 
 who thought proper, without being asked, to work for 25s. per week ; 
 not because he was deficient in skill or quickness, but simply because 
 he chose to do so ; or, if the work were done by the piece, to offer to 
 do each job at a corresponding reduction. Would not the rest 
 be very likely to see, as the result of this, a near prospect of their own 
 wages being lowered to this standard, and, in consequence, regard 
 the underworker as a " curry-favour " and a sneak, who sought 
 unfairly to supplant them, and treat him accordingly ? It may be very 
 true, that this man had a riglit to ask what wages he liked for his 
 labour, even to half the above sum ; but, while men are human, 
 Trades' Union or no Trades' Union, he would not be able to do so 
 without feeling his position to be highly disagreeable to himself. 
 We should like to know how those who put the above question would 
 behave if they formed the twelve, or a part of it, above supposed ? 
 
 But it may be replied, this is exactly the reason why Trades' Unions 
 
22 TRADES* U:KI0N3 AND STRIKES PIECliWORlt. 
 
 .'ire objectionable ; tliey unduly interfere with the natural liberty -which 
 such a man as this, for instance, undeniably possesses to work for 
 what he likes. Undoubtedly they do. But the cause of this in- 
 terference is, not in the Trades' Union, but in the natural repugnance 
 which fill men feel to being supplanted, and by such means either 
 turned out of their employment, or forced to work at a lower wage. 
 It is this repugnance, which is 4bund everywhere, that prompts 
 the " undue interference," which w^ould be felt whether the men 
 were in combination or not. Combination might be the effect oi" this 
 feeling and make it more eifectual, but it is not its cause. Its cause is in 
 the commoni instincts of man's nature, which can never be rooted out, 
 nor is it proper that they should be. To suppose that it is the result 
 of combination is to mistake the effect for the cause, which indeed, and 
 the assigning of a wrong cause, are the two great mistakes made by 
 the opponents of Trades' Unions. The ^case is different when a 
 reduction of w^ages proceeds from a falling market, or from what 
 appears to be a decline in the trade or manufacture. The natural 
 repugnance to such reduction here gives place to what is seen to be 
 inevitable. Hence Trades' Unions seldom interfere indeed, never 
 unless through ignorance of the existing cause. This, however, can 
 hardly happen, because, if the men w'ere ever so inclined, no strike 
 can take place when there is little or no work to do. For it will be 
 at once seen, that men who are already unemployed cannot " strike " 
 from their work. When, in the case of the "Luddites" of 1812, 
 nearly a wdiole trade was thrown ojit of employment by the sudden 
 introduction of machinerj^, the disorders which followed were not the 
 result of any Trades' Union combination, but were riots and violence 
 impelled by extreme poverty and hunger coming suddenly upon a large 
 number of people ; which, at any time, is likely to recur under the 
 same circumstances, whether produced by the introduction of 
 machinery, or any other cause. 
 
 PIECEWORK. 
 
 It has been alleged that workmen refuse to work by the piece. This 
 is not correct. There does exist a prejudice against it by some, both 
 of workmen and employers, but it is not general. The compositors of 
 London, as a general rule, work by the piece, time-work being the 
 exception ; wdiile those in the country work by the day, the exception 
 being work by the piece. The shipwrights of the Port of London 
 work by the job or piece, while those of all other ports work by the 
 day. Indeed, the main objection in different trades to working by the 
 piece is in the complaint that, when the men are found to earn good 
 wages at it, the employer wishes to reduce the price of the work, and 
 that it is so often made use of, as a means of reducing wages. There 
 are, as we are inforn;ed, in the engineering trades three modes : first, 
 by the piece at a settled price for the various jobs ; second, the giving 
 out a quantity of work, at a certain price, to one man, who gets others 
 to do it for less, similar to fhe sweating system among the tailors ; 
 and, third, the selecting of a man who possesses superior physical 
 strength and quickness as the principal of several workmen, and 
 
paying him an additional rate, by the quarter or otherwise, with the 
 understanding that he is to exert himself to the utmost to induce the 
 others, who are only paid the ordinary Avages, to keep up to him, 
 by which means is obtained the work of several men, up to the- 
 standard of a workman of superior working strength and quickness, 
 for the payment, except i^ the case of the principal, of the ordinary 
 rate of wages. Without any comment, this will go far to explain 
 many of the complaints of '' stinting the action, superior skill, and 
 working power," made by the employers against their men. / 
 
 IIL STRIKES. 
 
 When a body of men stand out for a price which their employers 
 refuse to give, while this dispute is pending, the position of the work- 
 men is that of a strike. As strikes are the last resort, as they are 
 always expensive, and as they engender mutual ill feeling, they should 
 never be entered into without duly calculating the probabilities of 
 success, nor until all means of amicably settling, the difference have 
 failed. It often happens that workmen have no alternative, but either 
 to submit to a reduction tyrannically enforced, without any reasoning 
 on the matter being allowed, or to cease from labour. Often has a 
 strike thus been precipitated, and ruin inflicted on employer and 
 employed, which might have been averted by a little calm reasoning 
 on the matter. It is the same^when a rise in wages is asked by the 
 men. Both parties are apt to view each^ other as enemies, and in this 
 jaundiced view, which prevails equally on both sides aggravated by 
 the unconciliatory tone . which is sure to result from such a state of 
 feeling reasoning on the subject as the subject, considering the 
 important results to both paHies which are then pending, should be 
 reasoned upon is rendered impossible. The beginning of strife is 
 like the letting out of water that might be, at the commencement, 
 easily stopped. But if there be one thing more than another which, 
 in their turn, both parties in these circumstances often, to all appear- 
 ance, agree in throwing aside, it is the conciliatory spirit which might 
 prevent these ruinous disputes. But while strikes are always to be 
 deprecatad, because they are, for the time, a state of moral warfare, 
 and, like all^ates of hostility, productive of mutual bitterness and 
 because they are carried on at a loss to both parties we are, notwith- 
 standing, clearly of opinion, from long experience of their results to 
 journeymen both of success and defeat, that there is no proper alter- 
 native, in certain cases, than the position of a strike. 
 
 The following extract from a very talented article in the Builder of 
 August 11, 1859, which very clearly sets forth the nature of strikes, 
 as clearly exhibits their rationale : 
 
 Suppose a question of cotton and sugar value instead of labour value 
 how does the seller know whether he is selling too cheap, except by refusing 
 to sell at all below a certain higher rate? If there is but little cotton or 
 sugar, as of course he suspects or affects to suspect there to be, he will sell 
 what he chooses at his own figure ; but if not, he must take the buyer's price 
 for it. Now, the fixed price about ^hicli tiie transaction halts is the strike of 
 the seller against the buyer of the supplier against the demander and pro- 
 vides the only practicable means of arriving at the fair value. 
 
24 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 3 
 
 Against strikes it has been often urged 
 
 1, Their great expense; 
 
 2. That they promote the introduction of machinery, and conse- 
 quently leave the workmen in a tenfold worse position than they were 
 before, 
 
 1. It is admitted that strikes are very expensive. But the expense 
 of anything must be taken in reference to the gain it is intended to 
 procure, or the loss it is intended to avert. It should also be viewed 
 in reference to its result in success or defeat. 
 
 The expense of strikes to prevent a reduction of wages, let it be what 
 it may, is soon equalled by the amount it is intended to take from the 
 men's wages. A reduction of a penny per hour we take this sum, 
 because in our own trade reductions have been attempted which would 
 amount to it, but any other sum can be taken, as the case may be 
 in a day often hours, occurring in a trade of 1,000 men, amounts to 
 250 a week, or 13,000 a year.* This may be called a smaU trade. 
 In a trade of 10,000 men it amounts to 130,000 a year ;f and in a 
 trade of 20,000 men it amounts to 260,000 a year. J Considering 
 the capital these sums per annum represent, it cannot be surprising 
 that workmen are willing to incur a very great expense to prevent loss 
 so enormous. 
 
 But suppose the men to be defeated after incurring great expense 
 the employers' expenses are sure to be fully equal to those of their 
 men, besides the possible loss of business. The fact of its being often 
 very expensive to reduce wages, prevents reductions being attempted 
 which otherwise would be made without hesitation or scruple. Strikes, 
 therefore, even in defeat, have a powerful tendency to prevent a future 
 and further reduction of wages. 
 
 Besides, it might as w^ell be urged because in a comparatively 
 short period millions have been expended in going to law, involving 
 often total ruin to families, loss of reason, and even suicide, that there- 
 fore no unjust aggressive claim should be opposed, and referred to 
 legal decision. 
 
 With respect to the objection, that strikes promote the introduction of 
 machinery : at no time is a strike needed, or indeed is there any stimulus, 
 but the shortening of labour, necessary for its introduction, whenever it is 
 found to answer. It may be true that " mules" and " double deckers'' 
 were introduced during, or about the time of a strike ; but these, if 
 they saved labour, would have been used if there had been no strike. 
 The spinning jenny was not invented in consequence of a strike ; 
 neither was the power-loom. No strike existed when the printing 
 machine was introduced ; nor was there any to occasion its subsequent 
 improvements. Nor has been, or would, the introduction of machinery 
 in any trade be delayed an hour beyond the time it was found to 
 answer. " The ingenuity of our mechanics," alluded to in the " Quar- 
 terly Keview " (p. 504) has never needed the impulse of a strike to call 
 
 * At 5 per cent., 13,000 a year represents a capital of 260,000. 
 + At 5 per cent., 130,000 a year represents a capital of 2,600,000. 
 J At 5 per cent., 260,000 a year represents a capital of 5,200,000. 
 
STPJKES. 25 
 
 it into action ; indeed, tlie fact has been exactly the contrary. It has 
 been more apt to employ itself in the making of machines which 
 were found not to pay, than to require any stimulus, whether of a 
 strike or otherwise, to call it into action. 
 
 Two great mistakes are often committed on both sides in strikes. The 
 first is, in forgetting that the issue joined is simply to prove which of 
 the two parties can stand out longest in a bargain that the dispute is 
 not contending as in a combat, but simply for the adjustment of a 
 certain price for labour. It is quite true, that, where a reduction of 
 wages results from one employer underselling other employers, 
 and who is seeking to make up his profit out of his men's wages, 
 a sense of wrong is felt by the men so reduced, similar to that which 
 prompts a man to repel an injury. And, doubtless, in such a case they 
 think that such an employer is seeking to extend his trade by taking 
 what does not belong to him, but to themselves. And, on the other 
 hand, where a rise in wages is asked, which the employer feels will 
 reduce his profits, and much narrow his operations, he also will feel 
 the same. Nevertheless, to bring such a contest to an issue at the 
 least possible cost to both parties, and the least injury to the trade 
 itself, such feelings ought to be laid aside, and the dispute conducted 
 according to what it really is, simply a bargain, in which the employer 
 is the buyer, and the employed is the seller. Both are standing out 
 against each other's price. If the seller in this case can do without 
 selling, and the buyer can get no labour elsewhere, the workman is 
 sure to win. If the contrary, the employer. It is indispensable, 
 therefore, as the dispute cannot be carried on without great loss to both, 
 that each party should be well informed of every circumstance con- 
 nected with that their true position, both at the outset and from day 
 to day as the dispute proceeds. This, however, is not always done, 
 and is the other mistake often committed. In the builders' strike and 
 " lock-out," if the masters had at all studied their position as to the 
 number of men likely to be available in the precipitated strike at 
 Messrs. TroUope's, they would have found, if their own statements are 
 to be depended on, that there was no occasion whatever for their 
 lock-out, with its great expense to themselves, and suffering to their 
 men. It was, as they expressed it, ''to continue for a month, or until 
 the Messrs. TroUope and Sons were enabled to resume their opera- 
 tions." 
 
 This firm, by its own statement, was enabled to resume operations 
 in a fortnight, without having gained over a single man that had been 
 locked out, either of their own late workmen or those of any other of the 
 combined employers ; and it was the same at the subsequent period, 
 when they announced that they had obtained their full complement of 
 men. And, as the lock-out, therefore, did not achieve this, it was 
 indisputably not needed at all. Their loss of 130,000, as announced 
 in the Weekly Dispatch of January 1, 1860, which, from circumstances 
 not necessary to allude to here, is unquestionably good authority, has 
 therefore been incurred without the smallest occasion for it. ^lany 
 blunders have no doubt been made by workmen in their strikes, but 
 none so great as this, because so entirely without real necessity. 
 
 Both parties, however, are too often blinded by passion, to see 
 
26 TRADES* UNIO>;rS AND STilntt^. 
 
 clearly their way, and being angry, the contest is transformed f*ronl 
 what it really is, merely of a bargain, into that of a combat. Under 
 the influence of this excitement, the leaders of both parties are too 
 often more intent upon setting forth the injuries which their respec- 
 tive audiences imagine they shall sustain, if they abate the least of 
 their original views ; or, what is more mischievous, they feel it a duty 
 to urge that they cannot without disgrace modify, for the purpose of 
 arrangement, the several points in dispute, forgetting all the while 
 that it is only a bargain for which they are contending, in which it is 
 the special business and duty of the seller, if he finds he cannot get his 
 price, and the market is being, or likely to be, supplied, to take the 
 next in value, and in no case to stand out, if he sees the market being 
 supplied without him. Among dealers, he who loses by standing out 
 too long is always an object of derision. This mistake is too often 
 made in a strike. The dogged valour which has so often enabled the 
 sons of toil to conquer in battle is not unfrequently the cause of 
 total defeat in a strike, when, with a little address, considerable ad- 
 vantage might have been gained, or loss prevented. Such address 
 has been considered cowardly and disgraceful, and the affair has ended 
 with the loss of everything. On the other hand, the employers, under 
 the influence of the same feelings and mistake, have often been led to 
 refuse all adjustment or arbitration, and thereby have led, by protract- 
 ing the struggle, to a much greater loss than their victory has achieved 
 gain ; and in some cases, as in the master-builders' lock-out, to im- 
 mense loss, without any substantial gain at all, unless the gratification 
 of their anger be so considered. 
 
 But, after all, the true position of employer and employed is that of 
 amity. They are each, notwithstanding these occasional disagreements, 
 the truest friends of the other, and neither can inflict an injury on the 
 other without its recoiling on himself. Capital and Labour should go 
 hand in hand. Experience has amply proved that the Capitalist can- 
 not injure the Labourer, or the Labourer the Capitalist, without each 
 inflicting injury, and perhaps ruin, upon themselves. 
 
 THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW." 
 
 Many of the charges by this reviewer have already been answered. 
 It is necessary, however, briefly to notice the article. It is written, 
 apparently, to order confessedly, in profound ignorance of the subject. 
 This ignorance may be real or feigned feigned, in order to induce a 
 belief that Trades' Unions were secret societies, similar to those which 
 " honeycomb continental nations," abounding in *' spies," with "forced 
 dumbness," and "-surveillance^^' and " distrust of neighbours on the right 
 hand and left," of which no information could be with certainty ob- 
 tained. This, indeed, he largely insinuates, which is turning his igno- 
 rance, if real, to very good account. And it must be confessed, if this 
 ignorance be feigned, that the acting, if it be not altogether successful, 
 is very effective. Knowing nothing, or being obliged, from the course 
 he has adopted, to pretend to know nothing of the subject, and finding 
 that Adam Smith and McCulloch were dead against him, and Stuart 
 Mill, who was formerly so, having only recently modified his opinion, 
 
"EDIifBURGH REVIEW.^' 27 
 
 and even now enjoining that there should be no encouragement given 
 to the multiplication of labourers, because in the opinion of " farmers," 
 ** Boards of Guardians," and others of the employer class, the checking 
 of such multiplication would make them " too independent," and 
 therefore, besides in other respects, not a presentable authority for his 
 intended article, he with admirable adroitness tells his readers at the 
 commencement that he is " not going to preach political economy." 
 
 Nor was the information respecting Trades' Unions that could be 
 obtained from " Blue Books," namely, the Parliamentary Enquiry on 
 Combinations of 1838, and the Report of the Hand-loom Weavers' 
 Commission suitable for his purpose ; the last, though quoted by him 
 at the end, not being applicable to any extent, as the hand-loom 
 weavers were not Trades' Unionists, which is one reason given in the 
 before-mentioned Enquiry of 1838 (Questions 1418-19) why their 
 wages were so wretchedly low ; while the evidence in the same 
 Enquiry (of 1838), which is divided into two parts, the first containing 
 chiefly the evidence on the cotton-spinners' strike of 1837, and the 
 second the evidence on Iriish Trades' Unions, is too conflicting to be 
 used by him, who only intended to see the employers' side of the 
 question. Indeed, it is so conflicting that the Committee made no 
 report upon it. Besides, the first of these contained the opinions of 
 Sir Archibald Alison on Trades' Unions, whom no one will suspect of 
 having an undue leaning towards them. Apart from intimidation and 
 violence which we are as much against as he could possibly be he 
 expresses himself several times favourable to trades' combinations, in 
 terms similar to the following extract. He is speaking of the Cotton- 
 Spinners' Union of Glasgow : 
 
 " Their combination, I think, might have a very beneficial effect in their 
 own favour, if it was limited to merely legal acts. I think, for example, that 
 it is a very good thing for the cotton- spinners, as well as every other class of 
 labour, to combine, because it enables numbers, to a certain degree, to com- 
 pensate and to enter with equality into the lists with capital ; and therefore I 
 think that combinations are essential to support the rights of labour in the 
 competition with capital." (Question 1956.) 
 
 In this state of things, where it was so essential to shut himself out 
 from using, if he possessed it, any knowledge of the subject, there was 
 nothing for it but to follow the course pursued by Lord Chesterfield 
 when he brought the Bill into the House of Lords for reforming the 
 Calendar. His lordship tells his son, in one of his Letters, that having 
 to bring in this Bill ; knowing nothing of astronomy, and consequently 
 unable to explain the reasons for the change ; he did what he 
 believed his audience would be better pleased with, namely, instead of 
 urging the reason for the alteration from the science which, he fur- 
 ther said, he did not believe his audience would have understood if he 
 had been able to give such explanation he gave a history of the 
 changes made in the Calendar down to the then present time, taking care 
 to flatter the prejudices of his hearers by telling them what he thought 
 they would like to hear, by which they were so delighted that they 
 gave him credit for his profound knowledge of the science ; while 
 another noble lord, who well understood astronomy, and who handled 
 the subject with the learning of a philosopher, was heard with impa- 
 
28 TRADES* UKIOXS AND STRIKES. 
 
 tience. With this example of the advantage of being ignorant of the 
 subject upon which he was about to write, which he betters, by turn- 
 ing his real or assumed ignorance to the account described : he pro- 
 ceeds to give a history of alleged misdeeds of workmen when combined 
 of many of their strikes, in which they are described to be every- 
 thing that is unreasonable, unjust, tyrannical, and absurd, in the hope, 
 as already in part quoted, that his readers will believe of Trades' 
 Unions that 
 
 Their aim and object is, in every case which we have been enabled to in- 
 vestigate, to stint the action of superior physical strength, moral industry, or 
 intelligent skill ; to depress the best workman in order to protect the inferior 
 workman from competition ^ to create barriers which no Society-man can 
 surmount, and which few non- Society men dare to assail; and, in short, to 
 apply all the fallacies of the protective system to labour. Such a system 
 injures, first, the individual, whom it robs of a free market for his labour ; 
 secondly, the class of manufactures to which he belongs, by increasing the 
 cost and diminishing the efficiency of the workmen; and, lastly, the nation 
 at large, by curtailing the productive power, and consequently the wealth of 
 the community. P. 529. 
 
 The only result of his " investigation," as exhibited by himself, has 
 been the .total exclusion of every fact and circumstance that would 
 justify, excuse, or extenuate the proceedings of the men, which, indeed, 
 appears to have been the only object he had in view in setting himself 
 to investigate the matter. 
 
 We have already shown the fallacies of the assertions, upon which 
 this confused argument rests, itself consisting principally of mere 
 assertion. The only part we have not alluded to that might be con- 
 strued into an application of the " fallacies of the protective system to 
 labour," is the insisting, as Trades' Unions do, that all their members 
 should serve an apprenticeship, generally of seven years, to their trade, 
 and of sometimes endeavouring to limit the number of apprentices. 
 This last, however, is not now the general practice, but the exception. 
 It is always a needy or grasping employer who takes an inordinate 
 number of apprentices, and he never cares a straw for " the nation at 
 large," or " the wealth of the community ;" he only aims, in thus 
 using " its productive power," to enrich himself, no matter at whose 
 expense. 
 
 The Act of Elizabeth, requiring an apprenticeship of seven years 
 before exercising a trade, has been repealed nearly fifty years, after 
 having been in force for two centuries and a half The " Quarterly 
 Review," in its late article against Trades' Unions, states that this Act 
 *' unquestionably exercised an important influence on English industry. 
 .It stigmatised and punished the idle and the vagabond, directed the 
 mass of the people to manual occupation as affording the best means 
 of independent subsistence ; and being acted on steadily from genera- 
 tion to generation, it gradually educated a nation of skilled artizans." 
 P. 480. And although the Act has been repealed so long, the 
 practice has not fallen into disuse. In some trades there is, probably, 
 less to be learned than in others ; but there are very few trades in 
 which long experience and practice are not necessary, before the 
 workman is able to compete with those who are considered valuable 
 to the employer. This ability must be acquired at some period, and 
 
"edinblugh review." 29 
 
 what more proper than that in which the individual passes from youth 
 to manhood a time in which, of all others, a facihty of hand, and dex- 
 terity in performing difficult processes, is the easiest acquired. This, 
 then, being the most proper period, and at the same time this also 
 embracing the period Avhen the passions develope themselves, and are 
 the most ungovernable, does it not follow irresistibly that, if ever in a 
 man's life he need the experienced direction and restraint of his elders, 
 it is this period ? An apprenticeship of seven years, from the age of 
 fourteen to twenty-one, whether considered necessaiy to learning a 
 trade, as the best period for acquiring it, or as conducing to the future 
 welfare of the apprentice himself, points itself out therefore as abso- 
 lutely necessary. And this is the reason why the repeal of the Act 
 has made so little difference in the practice, and why Trades' Unions, 
 generally speaking, insist that all their members should have served 
 *' their time as apprentices." The members are most of them fathers, 
 and they know by experience the beneficial effects of the practice, 
 and the mischief that attends the letting boys " do as they like" at 
 this critical period. But we shall be told this is no reason why the 
 *' productive power, and consequently the wealth of the community," 
 should be " curtailed." True. And the same reason exists why the 
 "master villany of the earth, which includes every other villany," 
 and deadly sin slavery, should perpetually continue ; for how else 
 can " the wealth of the community" be so well kept up by supplies of 
 cheap cotton and sugar ? 
 
 By the " nation at large " we suppose is meant what is termed the 
 " public." The public cares very little how things are produced, so it 
 gets them cheap, and the cheaper they become the more the public 
 likes it. The public, however, always respects those who so take care 
 of themselves as to prevent their suffering wrong. All the reasoning 
 in the world, nor all the admonitions of virtue, benevolence, or 
 religion, w^ould prevent the public from preferring slave-grown sugar 
 or cotton all the horrors of the slave trade notwithstanding if it 
 were cheaper and as good as either grown by free labour. But, in 
 justice to the public it must be admitted, that it is also true, that, in 
 the event of men refusing to be slaves supposing such a thing were 
 to happen it would receive with a shout of mingled execration and 
 derision the wailing of those Avho complained that commodities were 
 dear because men Avere no longer enslaved to make them cheap. The 
 reviewer, therefore, has no occasion to make himself uneasy about the 
 " nation at large ;" it never scruples to take care of itself, or fails to 
 respect those who do the same. 
 
 In giving his history of the alleged misdeeds of Trades' Unions, he 
 has not bettered his example. Nothing w^as ever overdone by Lord 
 Chesterfield. Indeed, on second thoughts we begin to doubt whether 
 he ever read the works of that nobleman. He proves too much by 
 his exaggeration; that is, if a jumble of alleged facts, disjointed from 
 all proof that they of necessity belong to Trades' Unions, can be said 
 to prove anything. And it is superfluous to say that he who proves 
 too much proves nothing. He wishes it to be believed that these 
 misdeeds were done by Trades' Unionists in and by their Union. If 
 even they were all true, to make them prove anything against Trade 
 
30 trades' uniojis and strikes. 
 
 Societies it is indispensable that he should also show of each and all 
 that Trades' Unions could not exist without these or similar enormities. 
 This he does not attempt to do ; indeed he has entirely shut himself 
 out from doing so, by his real or assumed ignorance of their action 
 by his own representation that they are secret, and that therefore 
 nothing can be known about them. He seems to have forgotten that 
 his real or pretended ignorance of their nature and action, so con- 
 venient for dark insinuation, makes him incompetent even to argue 
 the subject, much less to prove anything, and consequently worthless 
 as an authority. We have already shown the utter fallacy of his 
 insinuation, that Trade Societies are secret, irresponsible in their 
 government, or tyrannical ; but that, on the contrary, they are insti- 
 tuted for the purpose of correcting the disadvantage inherent to the 
 position of the working man when he bargains singly for the sale of 
 his labour, namely, of being compelled by his immediate necessities to 
 take a price for it below its fair exchangeable value. To assert that 
 they, in any given instances, have been turned to a bad purpose, is 
 only to say of them what may with truth be said of everything human. 
 
 The article consists of thirty-eight pages, out of which twenty-eight 
 are devoted to this history. Some fourteen or sixteen cases are 
 mentioned, which we suppose are by him deemed sufficient proof; and 
 if the careful suppression of everything alleged by the men as the 
 reason of their proceedings, with the aggravation of all that was 
 alleged against them, and the as careful setting forth as patterns of 
 justness and liberality the proceedings of the employers, could achieve 
 a demonstration of truth, the reviewer would be triumphant. It is 
 rare to find so much alacrity, so much con amore readiness to accuse. 
 If the reviewer had been formerly an Unionist a compositor, for 
 instance and, like Hugh Miller, had been affronted by his former 
 associates, he could not be more bitter against Trades' Unions. His 
 zeal against them is as great and as indiscreet as that of an apostate. 
 The most absurd and exorbitant demands, upon the silliest pretences, 
 the most unjust and tyrannical proceedings towards each other, with- 
 out sense or reason, he charges, in the various instances he has 
 given, against the members of Trades' Unions. He refutes 
 himself from the sheer impossibility of such allegations to be 
 true ; or, which is the same thing, to contain the whole truth. Our 
 argument does not rest upon the refutation of particular cases ; it is, 
 therefore, not necessary to follow him through his twenty-eight pages 
 of one-sided statement. It is only necessary to take the first-mentioned, 
 which is the strike of the tin-plate w'orkers, at Mr. Perry's, Wolver- 
 hampton, by which may be judged how^ far he is to be relied upon for 
 the rest. He revels in bitter accusation with the vehemence of female 
 malignity, incapable, like a true virago, of seeing wTong in anything or 
 anybody but the object of her vituperation, recounting each accusa- 
 tion without pause or break in the energy of her volubility, until her 
 vehemence has fairly spent itself. Such is the manner in which the 
 subject is treated, and, as might be expected, the conclusion is 
 destitute of logical sequence. 
 
 After a page or two of uncertain maundering on the Hand-loom 
 Weavers' Commission, which he quotes, and with which he does, and 
 
"EDINBURGH REVIEW." 31 
 
 does not, agree in respect to alterations in the law of combination 
 suggested therein, which he very truly suggests " do not amount to 
 much," the conclusion he comes to is, that there should be a parlia- 
 mentary inquiry into the state of industrial society in England, before 
 a select committee. What, an " inquiry " only after so much violent 
 accusation about the " mysterious tyranny," which has " honeycombed " 
 English society eaten, as it were, into its very vitals like that of 
 Continental nations, with its " spies," '' enforced dumbness," " sm?'- 
 veillance" and " distrust on the right hand and on the left ? " Why, 
 he abjures himself. It is a confession that he has written to the 
 prejudices of his readers, and that ^he is frightened lest they should 
 seriously believe what he himself does not know to be true. Though 
 this is quite apparent from his mode of treating the subject, it is 
 singular that he should virtually confess to the fact. Yet with strange 
 perversity, like a virago, who, no matter how she has destroyed her 
 own credibility, ever returns to her first word, he reiterates as his last 
 word, this time by an assertion, in answer to a roundabout question 
 put by himself, that Trades' Unions are "a secret organisation of 
 trades," which " have undermined the groundwork of society in 
 England 1" 
 
 We now proceed to show how far his version of the first of the cases 
 he says he "investigated" is to be depended on, by giving an account 
 of the same case, chiefly from the same authorities, which he himself 
 consulted in his investigation. The minutes quoted of the Committee 
 of the National Association, to which he had not access, only showing 
 the success with which the defendants were imposed upon, of the 
 imposition itself there was ample evidence in the report of the trial, 
 which the reviewer states he consulted. 
 
 Four pages are devoted to an account of the strike and subsequent 
 trial for conspiracy at Wolverhampton. The strike was at Mr. E. Perry's, 
 tin-plate worker, japanner, &c., of that place, who was afterwards the 
 prosecutor. 
 
 Mr. Perry is said to "have believed" that he was paying "ten per 
 cent, higher wages than the average of his trade in Wolverhampton ; 
 and there seemed to be no conceivable reason why anybody should be 
 troubled about the affairs of the manufactory." According to the men, 
 however, Mr. Perry had been for years attacking their wages ; and, at 
 the time of the strike, so far from his paying 10 per cent, more, he 
 was paying 15 per cent, less than the average wages of the other 
 manufacturers of the place. 
 
 Mr. Perry admitted, in his evidence at the trial, that there had been 
 a strike in his factory in 1842 ; and, after some hesitation, that he had 
 agreed to a " particular " book of prices for his own shop, and that 
 " he had been distinguished in Wolverhampton by having a great deal 
 of opposition brought against his manufactory, by other persons not 
 connected with it." This does not much differ from the men's account of 
 the " opposition " to which he had been subjected through paying lower 
 wages than the other manufacturers of the town. With certain em- 
 ployers, it is never their own men that are dissatisfied ; it is always other 
 people who set them on. To rectify this, the men joined the " National 
 Association for the Protection of Industry," and requested its Committee 
 
32 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 to wait upon Mr. Perry in their behalf. Accordingly, Messrs. Peel 
 and Green, and afterwards Messrs. Green and Winters, in company 
 with *' three or four of his own men,'' waited upon him with a list of 
 prices, to which they wished him to agree. One of this deputation 
 afterwards became his foreman, and was one of the witnesses against 
 the defendants. The other employers, six firms in all, were also waited 
 upon, with the same list of prices, two of whom Mr. W. E. Walton 
 and Messrs. Shoolbred, who were large manufacturers, and who em- 
 ployed more men than all the others put together returned a favourable 
 answer ; one, Mr. Thurston, a conditional acceptance ; the other three, 
 Mr. E. Perry, Mr. R. Perry, and Mr. Fearncomb, entered into a 
 negotiation with the deputation, or professed to do so. In reference 
 thereto, Mr. E. Perry, in a letter to the Daily Neivs, of August 20, 
 1851, writes : " I gave the parties to understand that I required time 
 to examine their proposal, and more especially to look into the book of 
 prices." 
 
 In furtherance of this expressed intention, and to keep up this 
 appearance, ]\lr. E. Perry on several occasions met the defendants, 
 and actually agreed to the price of certain articles; at which time 
 there appeared to be the most perfect accord as to the negotiation. 
 Mr. Peel, as admitted by Mr. E. Perry, said that " he was not for 
 strikes, but for peace," to which Mr. E. Perry replied, that " if a satis- 
 factory arrangement took place, it would be through his (Mr. Peel's) 
 good management." Mr E. Perry also drew up a preliminary agree- 
 ment declaratory of such arrangement, which they that is, Mr. E. 
 Perry, Mr. Peel, and the rest of the defendants who were present, 
 except Rowlands all signed. 
 
 How far the members of the Committee of the National Association 
 were justified in believing themselves, besides being appointed by the 
 journeymen tin-plate workmen of Wolverhampton, to represent them, 
 also fully recognised in that capacity by Mr. E. Perry, Avill appear by 
 the following extracts from the minute-book, written at the time, of 
 the National Association : 
 
 " April 9, 1850. At an interview that Messrs. Peel and Green had 
 with Mr. Perry, it was agreed, in consequence of tlie meeting of the 
 ironmasters then about to take place, to postpone all further proceed- 
 ings for a fortnight ; but still it was deemed necessary that the other 
 employers should be personally visited, Mr. E. Perry, in the meantime, 
 promising to use his influence to obtain a conference with the other 
 employers on the subject." 
 
 "May 3, 1850. Mr. Green reported that Mr. E. Perry had con- 
 sented to a conference of the employers and the men, one from each 
 shop, together with Messrs. Peel and Green, as their advisers and 
 advocates, to arrange the book of prices." 
 
 " May 30, 1850. Mr. Green reported that Mr. Peel and himself 
 had had two meetings with Mr. E. Perry about the preliminaries, and 
 that the conference of the men and the employers would take place on 
 Monday, June 3, 1850." 
 
 " June 5, 1850. Mr. Green reported that the proposed conference 
 between the employers and the men, commenced on ^londay ; that 
 there Avere four employers and six men (one from each shop) pre- 
 
STRIKE OF TIN PLATE WORKERS. 33 
 
 sent, in addition to himself and Mr. Peel, to arrange the book ot 
 prices." 
 
 It was at this meeting that Mr. E. Perry drew up the preliminary 
 agreement declaratory of such arrangement referred to above. 
 
 We give these extracts, not for the purpose of comment, but simply 
 to show that, whatever might be Mr. E. Perry's version of the affair, 
 the two members of the Committee of the National Association had 
 good reason to believe that he was perfectly willing to arrange respect- 
 ing the prices of the men. We may here mention, that, in the end, 
 the two employers, Messrs. Shoolbred and Co., and Messrs. W. E. 
 Walton and Co., whom Mr. E. Perry, in his letter of August 20, calls 
 the two " youngest firms,'* who, as before observed, employed more 
 men than all the other firms of the place put together, agi^eed to the 
 terms of the men. 
 
 To return, however, to Mr. E. Perry. After keeping up this pre- 
 tence of negotiation, with all this apparent good faith and appearance 
 of agreement, for about three months, having employed this time in 
 " forwarding a large amount of orders then unexecuted ; in accumu- 
 lating as large a stock of goods as possible, in anticipation of further 
 orders;" and fortifyinghimself by what he called "protecting his men," 
 in entering into Avritten contracts with sixty of them, for one, two, 
 and three years, he threw off the mask, and " frankly," as he said in 
 the same letter " coolly " we should have thought the most proper word 
 told those with whom he had kept up this farce, that he never intended 
 from the first to agree to the list ; that he was now provided with men 
 under contract, and should decline all further communication Avith them. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the strike took place, and no 
 one can wonder that it was carried on with feelings of bitterness on the 
 part of the men, especially when it was found out by them, so bound, 
 that the contract, while it bound them to Mr. Perry for its full period, 
 whether of one, two, or three years, and six months' notice afterwards, 
 was not binding upon him, who, by its terms, which they had never 
 strictly scanned, was able to turn them off at one month's notice. This 
 was the true reason why several of these men left him. Besid(js, they con- 
 sidered themselves deceived. They imagined they would be employed 
 according to the list then in progress, while it was never intended to 
 be agreed to. This was the reason why the men, in the language ot 
 the reviewer, *' began to disappear ;" this was the reason why there 
 were " shop meetings." The men were irritated by the flagrant de- 
 ception that had been practised, both with regard to the pvices and 
 what they conceived to be the injustice of their contracts. It is sin- 
 gular that Mr. E. Perry should call this " protecting" his men. These 
 men ignorantly thought that contracts so inequitable, and consequently, 
 as they believed, so unjust, could not be legal. This foolish mistake 
 was soon corrected by the magistrate, who sentenced some to impri- 
 sonment for breaking them. This, hoAvever, did not convince them 
 that they Avere morally binding, and they still continued to leave. To 
 put a stop to this practice, Avhich Avas only bringing mischief upon 
 themselves, the " London meddlers," as the reviewer calls them, posted 
 placards, urging these men to return to their Avork ; and in conse- 
 quence many of them did so, 
 
 c 
 
"* trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 t Jph' 'twT T'*' f '"'=ti? r reference to the fact abore men- 
 tioned, tha the two firms of Messrs. Shoolbred and Co., and the 
 Messrs ^Vaton and Co., agreed to the men's list of prices ; and also 
 to the fact that Mr E. Perry, in his evidence on the trial of the men 
 whom he indicted for conspiracy, swore that he was in wages payW 
 tLt*' fVL"!^'" heUtthe same as these firms, except, it mig^ht\f 
 that in 100 he paid under 10s.; that is, not quite /per cent, les 
 than they did. We have already stated how niuch the men said he 
 was paying less. Talang his own sworn testimony, however what 
 motive could there have been for the deceit he practised ? TW poor 
 i per cent, would not^ on part of the men, have stood in the wfyof 
 r^.eenT>,^T"*- u T^"^ knowledge of Messrs. Peel, Winters, Ld 
 Green, the three "London meddlers," enables us to speak positively 
 as to this fact. They would only have been too happy to come to such 
 terms It must if he is to be believed, have been from the pure love 
 of contention and strife. According to his own words-and'^hey are 
 whilt v"", ""'^-^' ^'t " "^ ' ^^"'^ ^^' himself for the strike 
 Tdv,! t^ ^ ' ^' '" *' '^"''S "S^^^^' '^' 'if"dant Green, of 
 advising the apprentices to spoil their work, though urged with great 
 
 he'df; '^"^": ""Ti ^gS--^''-.it is perfectly S 
 the Couit m passing sentence did not believe it, for he was sentenced 
 the same as the rest. Mr Green denied it in an affidavit, and the 
 Court beheved him m preference to the witness. 
 
 That there might have been some acts which came within the scope 
 oi the law, considering the exasperation which the deceit practised 
 ITno'Jrr-']'' ^'r'!y ---'>> -as to be expected; bTthere 
 tW f f ^?le"<=e durmg the whole affair. Nor was the only 
 hreat of personal violence deposed to believed by the jury, as they on 
 the trial expressly stated. There was some " hard swearing" on these 
 
 Wn tr^ r "'^'l *r = "^^ ^''' ^^ *<= defendants who belonged to 
 Wolverhampton^ and the second of the Committee of the National 
 
 tZT^M vt"^' ^^'^^ Wolverhampton Herald, of October 22, 
 1851, that Mr E. Perry was brought before the magistrates of Wol^ 
 
 brothjT'M" TTl ^ ""^"'^^ "^ P^'-J'^^y ^^' '^'^O'^^ trial, 
 brought by Mr. Peel, for swearing that he was seen by him (Mr. E 
 
 Perry) m Wolverhampton on a certain day, and thereby, as there was 
 
 no other evidence against him, causing his conviction; Mr. Peel being 
 
 in London"*"^^ ^ "^ "" ^^^ ^^''''' ''"'^ "'"'^'^ ''^^^ ^^^''' undoubtedly 
 
 wotld Wh "'" 'lfedants had the remotest idea that such evidence 
 
 Ten imZihr'J ^iT'"' '^% ^'"^ ""' ^^^P^^^^ ' ^'^"' i'. ''^^ i' ^^^ 
 
 IS evX?. V"""^ ^^"^T^ ''" ^""-J"" i ti^^- Tl^e effeot of 
 
 presentwn-l 'l''"'\*^'"- ^^'^ ^'* ^ ''^^'^^ Pl^^^^d. The 
 
 bv Mr T,"'^^^'^'^/''7 '\t the time the "Letter" and other books kept 
 
 sawMr p!uT' ^^ ^^""ght two witnesses to swear that they also 
 
 dSd to ommH'Thh f '' *^ T^^'^^'^'' ^''^^^^ * '^^ W 
 eoiined to commit. This decision, however, they said, would not debar 
 
'* QUARTERLY REVIEW." 35 
 
 Mr. Roberts (the solicitor for the prosecution) from proceeding by in- 
 dictment. Mr. Peel, however, did not so proceed, for he very reasonably 
 said, " I know that I was in London at the time Mr. E. Perry swore I 
 was in Wolverhampton ; and so do others too ; but how am 1 to know 
 that, when the indictment is tried, there will not be two more wit- 
 nesses to swear that they also saw me there on that day ?" 
 
 The reviewer is very copious in his account of the alleged spiriting 
 away of the men engaged by Mr. E. Perry, and of the " low intrigue, 
 deceit, drunkenness, and coercion," stated by the witnesses, some of 
 whom would drink to any extent while drink was to be had, 
 "Bumper" Griffiths, one of them, who obtained this cognomen from his 
 frequent inebriety, being a specimen of this class. But the reviewer is 
 entirely silent as to the conduct of Mr. Perry, and of the likely conse- 
 quence of that conduct, unblushingly not only avowed, but made a merit 
 of, and triumphantly boasted of by him, when he threw off the mask. 
 Is intrigue only low, and deceit reprehensible, when alleged against 
 workmen ? The fact was, whatever else there may have been, there was 
 no deceit or intrigue, properly so called, on the part of the defendants 
 at all. The men who did not go to work for Mr. E. Perry, or, having 
 been engaged, did not continue with him, perfectly well knew what 
 they were doing, and were willing to do it. Coercion was, therefore, 
 out of the question. Mr. E. Perry, by his own act, provoked the strike ; 
 and as, according to his own sworn testimony, whatever might have 
 been the real fact, he had little or no advantage to gain by it, it must 
 have been for the sake of the strike itself. What else but a strike 
 could have been expected, after what had passed ? If there is one 
 thing more than another that causes men to feel bitter towards another, 
 it is a sense that they have been deceived. What, therefore, could have 
 been expected but that it should have been carried on with bitterness 
 with not only determined opposition, but with the contemptuous loathing 
 that men always feel towards him who they believe has deceived them? 
 It may reasonably be asked, if there were so little difference between 
 the prices (according to his sworn testimony) paid by Mr. E. Perry, 
 and those paid by the other employers, why did the men continue on 
 strike ? The men asserted, so far from this being true, that he was 
 paying about 15 per cent, less than they did. And when it is considered 
 how nearly flagrantly deceiving his men is allied, from the very 
 fact, to the intention of paying them as little as possible, the 
 statement of the men is the most likely to be correct ; in which case, 
 it will be seen, that this gentleman, after commencing his operations in 
 this affair by the before-mentioned deception, of which he triumphantly 
 boasted, and carrying them on by a series of inequitable contracts with 
 his men, finished victoriously in a court of law, by stating what 
 opponents declared was incorrect. It is not difficult to account for 
 the apparent sympathy in this case of the reviewer ; for was he not 
 himself occupied in suppressing half the truth throughout twenty- 
 eight pages of good octavo print ? 
 
 THE " QUARTERLY REVIEW." 
 
 Capital is said by this reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to 
 be timid, which is very true ; but this is very incompletely stating the 
 
 c 2 
 
36 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as 
 Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, 
 capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent, will ensure its employ- 
 ment anywhere ; 20 per cent, certain will produce eagerness ; 50 per 
 cent, positive audacity; 100 per cent, will make it ready to trample 
 on all human laws ; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which 
 it will scruple nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its 
 owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it 
 will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade has 
 amply proved all that is here stated ; and, what is worse, the slave 
 trade and slavery, by the profit attending them, have so debaiiched 
 the public mind where they exist and be it remembered neither 
 would exist but for the profitable return of capital so employed 
 that it has turned the so-called freest country in the world into a vast 
 slave-pen ; and, worse still, it has set all the pulpits in the " South " of 
 that country to prove from the Word of God that this master crime is 
 sanctioned by the Almighty. This is what capital does, and is doing ; 
 which, alas for human nature! no one can with truth contradict. 
 Now, we do not mention this to cast a stigma on capitalists; for 
 we believe that the evil instinct mentioned at the commencement, 
 from which it all springs, is equally to be found among our own class 
 as the class that employs capital. Our object is to show that, when 
 labour^ and labourers are assailed by all manner of folly, mischief, 
 absurdity, and wickedness, being imputed to them as being done by 
 means of their Trades' Unions, that the same things, and infinitely 
 worse, are justly to be imputed to capitalists in the employment of 
 their capital; and that it is equally absurd to impute to Trades* 
 Unions any of these alleged vices as it is to impute to capital all the 
 crimes we have here enumerated. Capital in itself is good, and so in 
 themselves are Trades' Unions. They are a barrier against undue 
 reduction of wages, which is always prompted to increase immediate 
 profits Avhere there is an immediate opportunity. Without them 
 that opportunity would frequently occur, of which advantage 
 would not fail to be taken. Both may be misused. Capital, we 
 know, is, and our opponents say Trades' Unions are j but that is no 
 argument against either. To charge the enormities above recounted 
 against capital would be as absurd as to charge the " shillala " with 
 which a man's brains have been dashed out, or the blunderbuss with 
 which his head has been riddled with bullets, with the murders com- 
 mitted by the use of them. The same with Trades' Unions. We, 
 therefore, except for mere illustration, do not feel called upon to go 
 into the different cases mentioned by " Quarterly " reviewer. Our argu- 
 ment does not rest upon their refutation or denial. Concerning them, we 
 only assert that they are one-sided, and, consequently, do not convey 
 the whole truth. That a Trades' Union may be so worked as to be 
 pernicious we no more attempt to deny than that capital has also 
 been employed for nefarious purposes. All we contend for is, that 
 such purposes are not the natural and proper uses of either. 
 
 In the instances of strikes and other matters which the reviewer 
 gives, we see no reason to believe that he has, like his brother of the 
 "Edinburgh," imparted to them any bitterness of his own ; he appears 
 
37 
 
 to have taken them just as he found them, with all the abridgments 
 fairly made ; but it must be always remembered that it is the em- 
 ployers' versions that he has used. The men's version of the same 
 transactions would be very different. Take, for example, the Preston 
 strike of 1854. It is alleged that besides the 10 per cent, from the 
 four employers who refused the advance, which had been given by the 
 other thirty-one or thirty-two employers of the place, that the men 
 wanted " to fix a standard of wages throughout the country, and it 
 was upon this point that the strike virtually took place." In reply, it 
 is only necessary to state, that the men from the first were anxious to 
 refer what they wanted to arbitration ; an offer which the employers 
 invariably refused. This fact which is a complete answer to all 
 charges of unreasonable or exorbitant demand on the part of the men 
 the reviewer does not mention. The real state of the case appears 
 to have been this : the firms who had given the advance of 10 per 
 cent, saw in this strike an opportunity, by the process of a " lock- 
 out" of retracting it. When, therefore, the men struck these four 
 factories in the belief that they were serving the employers who had 
 given the advance, these very employers were agreeing with these four 
 employers to defeat the men, and get back the 10 per cent, by locking 
 the men out from all their own factories. This was no doubt considered 
 by them a masterly stratagem, which must ensure success. The work- 
 men, however, perceived it in a different light ; they viewed it as a coup 
 worthy of Mephistophiles. It was indeed what they did not expect ; 
 they never supposed, simple men ! that those, in whose behalf they 
 believed they were contending, would turn in this manner against 
 them. It was their " Leipsic," and what their feelings were likely to 
 have been in these circumstances may be judged from those of the 
 French army in that battle, when their allies went over to the enemy 
 and poured destructive volleys into their ranks. Hence the exasperated 
 and prolonged nature of the struggle. 
 
 It is quite true that according to bargain principle under which 
 aU contests of this kind should be conducted perhaps their true 
 course in these circumstances would have been to refuse to contest the 
 matter farther. But who could expect them to do so ? Men of higher 
 grade, and of far better education, have, under circumstances of less 
 exasperation, pursued what turned but to be a hopeless contest to the 
 end and, if the expression may be allowed, even beyond it with, 
 though losers, the approbation of the whole community. But then 
 they were not "misguided operatives." It must be admitted that 
 they showed gool fight, and also even according to the bargain 
 principle that they had, from the long time it was doubtful which side 
 would win, a good chance of success. Mr. Co well, at the Bradford 
 meeting, stated the cause of their defeat to have been the depression 
 which arose from the uncertainty that preceded the Crimean war, which 
 was then imminent. 
 
 With respect to the fines alleged to have been imposed upon em- 
 ployers by certain Trades' Unions in Manchester (p. 505), we can 
 only say that we hope the reviewer has been misinformed. This is the 
 first time we ever heard of such a thing. If true, it only shows that 
 the evil and folly of our nature will show itself everywhere. The men 
 
38 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 Avho counselled tliis, would, if employers, be as unreasonable and as 
 insolent as tliey, if true, are here described to be as workmen ; pervert- 
 ing tlie true use of their Union, to insult their employers, just because 
 they foolishly thought they had the power to do so. Such men 
 where such there be are the bane of every society into which they 
 come. Impotent for good, but powerful for mischief, they destroy or 
 spoil everything they touch. But this description of persons are to be 
 found everywhere, in every grade of society ; and it would be as unjust 
 to decry Trades' Unions because of their insolence, as to decry^ritish 
 merchants generally because of the impertinence of the four Liver- 
 pool so-called merchants who lately wrote to the Emperor Napoleon, 
 " requesting to know his intention." 
 
 But it is said that the trade of shipbuilding has been driven from 
 Dublin by Trades' Unions and Strikes. 
 
 This charge, made by Mr, O'Connell, is founded on the evidence of a 
 Mr. Fagan, timber merchant (from 1818 to the time he ivas speaking), 
 and Mr. Morton, late a master shipwright (from 1812 to about 1828), 
 both of Dublin, given in the Blue Book on Combinations, 2nd Report, of 
 1838. It does not appear that Dublin was at any time distinguished 
 among the other ports of the United Kingdom for the number and size 
 of the ships built there, or as its natural capabilities deserved. But 
 this in passing. Their joint evidence is to the following effect: 1st. 
 That in consequence of the combinations the men did not earn their 
 wages, and that, therefore, the charges for shipbuilding v.-as so high, 
 that no one who could help it would have their ships repaired there. 
 Ships that wanted repairs were, therefore, only " cobbled up," so as to 
 take them to Liverpool or other ports to be thoroughly repaired. Of 
 the ridiculously high charges an instance is given. 2nd. That, in 
 consequence of apprentices being taken to remedy this, the men struck, 
 waylaid, and murdered one of them who was serving his time to 
 Mr. ^Morton, which was the " finish of the shipbuilding trade." 
 
 It is necessary to state that trade combinations, as described by these 
 and nearly all the other " employer " witnesses examined before this 
 committee, were not Trades' Unions in the proper sense of the word, but 
 always associated with violence ; in short, as so many conspiracies ready 
 at any time to concoct and to perpetrate " assassination beatings," as Mr. 
 O'Connell called them. Apart from violence, there seems, on their part, 
 to have been no objection to combinations. This also was Mr. O'Connell's 
 idea of them. According to these witnesses, violence and intimidation 
 was a sort of " institution " in Dublin and other ports of Ireland, used 
 by all who lived by labour ; by brewers' draymen, canal boatmen, 
 porters in the egg- market, and others, whether belonging to trade 
 combinations or not. It is proper to state that all the " workmen " 
 witnesses most emphatically denied that violence, or incitement thereto, 
 was ever done by their trade combinations. ] . On the first, Mr. Morton 
 said, that while the men received 27s. a week, " half of them were 
 not able to do work worth 2s. a day ; indeed, to some of them he would 
 rather pay 23. a day to stop away." (Questions 5952 to 5955.) The 
 instance of high charges is of a ship of 90 tons, which put in for 
 repairs ; of which, he says, " the shipwright's account for labour was 
 three hundred and odd pounds that is, upwards of 3 (not less than 
 
 I 
 
SillPBUILt)ING, DUBLlK. 39 
 
 3 5s. 6(1.) a ton for repairing the vessel ; and vessels can be bouglit in 
 the north of England for 30s. (for labour) a ton." C5959.) 
 
 In reply to this, it is only necessary to mention London, Sunderland, 
 Liverpool, Glasgow, and Dumbarton, among other ports where ship- 
 building flourishes, and is extending every year ; there are what 
 is called, in this evidence, " strong Unions." Surely it will not be said 
 that the incapacity or idleness described exists in either of these places. 
 And if not, the charge is irrelevant to Trades' Unions. Nor could it 
 be on account of wages ; for in the port of London at this very 
 time (1825), the wages of a shipwright was 6s. a day, which rate 
 continues up to the present date. In respect to the instance given, 
 as a charge, it refutes itself In all the ports in the North of 
 England there are the same " strong Unions." If similar vessels, 
 which in Dublin costs 3 5s. 6d. a ton, for repairs alone, could be 
 bought out-and-out in the North of England for 1 10s. for labour 
 where there are " strong Unions," the charge is refuted out of his 
 own mouth. We do not believe these statements, but such is the 
 evidence. 2. On the second, Mr. Morton says : -After two previous 
 strikes, in 1812 and 1814, there was, in 1825, another, about appren- 
 tices. He took one named Andrew Marchant. "This lad (about 21 
 years of age) was beaten to death by a lot of men at about half-past 
 eight in the morning. He died in two hours." He continued in 
 business three or four years afterwards, when, because trade was bad, 
 and " the number of his apprentices was so extensive," he quitted the 
 business. This is the account he gives of the " break up " of the 
 shipbuilding trade in Dublin. The circumstances that led to which, 
 and probably the murder itself, it will be seen, took place before the 
 repeal of the combination laws. Indeed the acts of violence before 
 their repeal were greater than afterwards. Of this, Mr. Fagan says : 
 " He recollected Mr. Morton; he was completely broken by attempting 
 to put down combination." Of this murder, he continued : " This man 
 was murdered, he thought, about ten o'clock in the morning ; he could 
 not exactly recollect the date ; but that was the complete finish of the 
 shipbuilding." (3913 to 3921.) Shipbuilding had not, however, "been 
 extensive " in his recollection : he recollected seeing two or three 
 vessels on the stocks. (3922.) 
 
 From this account, it appears that the trade was " finished " by 
 a murder in the open day. The murderers all escaped, Mr. Morton 
 said, in such a manner, that there was " no such thing as getting at any 
 of them." (5933.) When it is considered that this crime was com- 
 mitted when " the bell was rung for breakfast,'' and, consequently, 
 when there must have been many persons passing and repassing from 
 the Gasworks and Canal Docks (where it took place being close to both), 
 it is, we submit, most incorrect, to call it a Trade outrage. It was more 
 like an agrarian murder ; it was done in the open day, by the con- 
 nivance of all passers by, who silently agreed to suffer its being done, 
 and to allow the escape of the murderers. 
 
 Of it we can only say, that, if this be a true account, the wonder is 
 not that shipbuilding was annihilated, but that any trade or manu- 
 facture remained where such things could take place. We no more 
 acknowledge any connection between such acts as these and Trades' 
 
40 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 Unions, than we do between a table knife and its use as a murderous 
 weapon. Sucb acts and violence generally, belong equally to all 
 classes, and exist in every place where there is impunity for them, 
 whether there be many to one, as in this instance, or on equal terms as in 
 a faction fight. There are no Trades' Unions in the United States ; yet 
 where are there so many acts of violence, from " tarring and feathering '* 
 up to murder ? Even at Oxford, where one would think such things 
 would not be known, they occur annually or oftener, in which lives have 
 been lost, and will always occur, while the authorities permit them ; for 
 the way in which they are dealt with amounts to permission. Indeed, 
 by the grand display of this pugnacity, on the arrival of his Royal 
 Highness the Prince of Wales as a student, it would appear these rows 
 were also considered an " institution," of which they ought to be proud. 
 But wherever they occur, and of whatever kind, for the continuance 
 of such acts the police are responsible, and it is only by the criminal 
 negligence of the magistracy that they are perpetrated. This was the 
 opinion of Mr. Fagan, who said that his life was threatened, and that 
 for two years he carried pistols (3876) in the daily fear of a murderous 
 assault. He says th|it the murder of Hanlon in the open day was because 
 " no person had been taken up for any outrage before." (3954.) And again, 
 " If the magistrates years ago had been active, and punished the cases 
 brought before them, I do not think the violence would have gone to 
 the extent it did." (3998.) 
 
 From the whole we think, that if these witnesses spoke the truth 
 and they are the sole evidence and that shipbuilding was finished in 
 this way, that it is not in any way to be laid to the use of Trades' Unions, 
 but to their misuse, and it is no more against them than to use a 
 peaceful analogy the misuse of capital in corrupting the electors of 
 Gloucester and Wakefield is against capital. But, after all, we doubt 
 the fact ; the same things happened there in other trades which still 
 went on, though doubtless all would languish in such a state of things. 
 
 It is most painful to read this evidence ; it is one continued recital 
 of wrong and violence from one to the other. Employer against work- 
 man, and workman against employer. In the shipbuilding trade no 
 workman was examined, or there Avould have been a very different side 
 to the question. But in all the other trades there were. 
 
 As the above evidence is a specimen of what is alleged against the 
 workmen, it is only fair to give what the men alleged against their 
 employers. They are accused of the meanness of paying their men in bad 
 halfpence, who, after being bandied about from one to another, did not 
 get good money for them. (6540 to Q55Q.) The following account is 
 an answer to the question why they so ill agreed. The firm of Henry 
 Mullens and McMahon, builders, is spoken of: 
 
 Their practice was, when they entered into a contract, to engage about 
 double the number of men the job would require, w ho w^ere generally sent for 
 from the most distant ports, and, after they had worked a short time at what- 
 ever rate they were engaged, about one-half of them were sitting idle for the 
 want of materials or some other pretext ; but he held on in the hope of being 
 again set to work, until, far from friends and home, they were starved into 
 obedience, when an offer would be made to set them to w ork at reduced 
 wages, which if they accepted, the same or lower wages would be offered to 
 those that were kept at work with them ; and thus they would oblige them to 
 
MB. O'CONNELL AND TRADES* UNIONS. 41 
 
 reduce each other to the lowest terms by which they could support a miserable 
 existence. This plan they pursued at the Dublin Docks and Library, where 
 those outrages commenced, and it was a portion of their own men, ren- 
 dered desperate by disappointment and want, who attempted to wreak their 
 vengeance on those whom necessity obliged to be the immediate cause of 
 their sufferings. (7948). 
 
 Mr. Black will find, p, 209 of this report, his case of the two "help- 
 less orphans," quoted by him from a speech of Mr. O'Connell, com- 
 pletely contradicted by the two " orphans " themselves ; and that their 
 employer, Mr. Mackie, not only " never offered to take them as 
 apprentices, or offered them any protection," but that they served their 
 time under the protection of the men who were thus vilified ; and that 
 the said Mr. Mackie was a most avaricious employer, who used the 
 " truck system much to his own advantage.'' It would have been better 
 if Mr. Black had read this evidence before he gave his lecture. 
 
 There was one homicide by an employer, Mr. Carolin, who killed an 
 Unionist. He was tried and acquitted ; Mr. O'Connell, who was counsel 
 for the prosecution, said, in reference to it, "that every avenue to 
 justice was choked." For the murder of Hanlon four Unionists were 
 executed. This was, doubtless, legally correct ; but the discrepancy 
 remained to rankle in the minds of those already exasperated. There 
 were strikes against what was considered to be an inordinate number of 
 apprentices ; they were used as a means of reducing wages, and resisted 
 on that ground. Many employers of all kinds agreed very well with 
 their men ; but there appears always to have been a certain class who 
 were never at rest unless they were reducing wages. Throughout the 
 whole evidence, amid the confusion of incidents and the wrong detailed 
 on either side and on both sides there was much wrong strange to 
 say, though employers deposed to " assassination beatings " and to 
 going in fear of their lives and to carrying pistols, there does not seem 
 to have been any difference in the course pursued. Perhaps they got 
 used to it. Each class appears to accuse the other of inordinate greedi- 
 ness : the men of acting like the boy in the fable, who killed the 
 golden goose ; and the employers, of being ready from greediness to 
 commit any act of extortionate oppression. There were honourable 
 exceptions, but the leaven of evil was too strong to allow trade to 
 flourish. It is gratifying to add that this state of things has now 
 passed away. 
 
 This reviewer has recorded the singular " admission " of Mr. 
 O'Connell, " that Trades' Unions had wrought more evil to Ireland than 
 even absenteeism and Saxon maladministration ;" but he does not state 
 when this " admission " was made. Did it never occur to him that 
 Mr. O'Connell might, after hearing this evidence, have changed his 
 opinion ? The reviewer could not be ignorant, that in the subsequent 
 public life of Mr. O'Connell not a single act was done by him that 
 would justfy the belief that he retained it. But, on the contrary, if 
 he did retain it, he must have been the vilest of profligate political 
 adventurers to goad, as he did, to the verge of civil war, the passions 
 of his countrymen in the agitation for repeal which he set forth as that 
 which would be the salvation of his country, when he believed the 
 master evil under which she groaned was, in truth, to be laid to a very 
 
4'2 TRADES* UNIOKS AND STKlkfeS. 
 
 different cause than lier union with England. Whatever else may be 
 said of Mr. O'Connell, he was undoubtedly a shrewd man. He pro- 
 cured this committee of inquiry, no doubt, in the belief of what 
 he is said with singular felicity to have admitted ; in the hope of 
 putting a stop to the frightful outrages in fact, murders in the open 
 day which then took place in Dublin and other places in Ireland, by 
 not only artisans who were Trades' Unionists, but by others whom we 
 have mentioned, who appear to have "hung together" Avithout any 
 specific " union " at all. The cause of their continual repetition may 
 be given in one word impunity. From that single cause we repeat 
 the Town and Gown riots at Oxford and the outrages in the United 
 States of America are also continued. And he justly thought that if he 
 could draw public attention to these acts, which were a disgrace to the 
 authorities of that city, boasting as it did of a lord mayor with all the 
 machinery of police authority, these officers would be shamed by 
 public opinion into exertions to put a stop to them. In this he 
 succeeded by this inquiry, for which intention, indeed, more than one 
 of the witnesses complimented him. But when he heard the evidence 
 on both sides, and how the violent acts were provoked by equally 
 violent extortion and oppression on the other, his opinion must have 
 been changed ; he must have seen that the evil was to be attributed to 
 a different cause, namely, not to Trades' Unions, but to the provocation 
 to which the users of these institutions were subject. He could not 
 fail to see that it was not the machine by which the thing was done 
 that was responsible for the mischief, but those who had used it for 
 this purpose. This view must have been entertained also by the com- 
 mittee, for they made no report, nor appended a single opinion to the 
 evidence. 
 
 The cause of the building of ships not flourishing in Dublin is, we 
 think if there be any value in the evidence here adduced obvious 
 enough. Immediately it is, because they can be built and repaired 
 cheaper elsewhere. The cause of this cannot be in Trades' Unions, 
 because in the very places to which they go to be repaired, and in 
 which they are built, there are strong Trades' Unions. It cannot be 
 in the high wages that are paid in Dublin, because as high and 
 higher wages are paid elsewhere, where there are also strong Trades' 
 Unions in which the trade flourishes. It can scarcely be in the 
 violence, for that has occurred in trades that still went on. The case 
 of the ship of 90 tons costing 3 5s. 6d. per ton in labour for repairs, 
 when a ship for labour, from first to last, would only cost 1 10s. in 
 the north of England, if only partially correct, enigma as it is, is a- 
 perfect solution why it is that no ships are likely to be built or 
 repaired in any place where such unaccountable charges exist. 
 
 If the gentlemen who have been so ready to denounce Trades' 
 Unions were to read this evidence, they would see that employers who 
 act as this evidence discloses they acted towards their men, and men 
 who are provoked to act as it also discloses towards their employers, 
 are not on sufficiently good terms, let them be in Ireland, England, or 
 anyAvhere else. Trades' Union or no Trades' Union, to ensure the 
 success of manufactures or commerce. No matter that labour is said 
 by Mr. Buxton to be " plentiful and cheap," " that there is abundance 
 
MasoKs^ strike. 43 
 
 bf water-power and first-rate harbours." Capital and labour must' go 
 hand in hand ; each must be willing to assist the other, or all is of no 
 avail. The predatory instinct of which we have spoken, and which 
 belongs equally to each, must be laid aside or kept down, that each may 
 act in harmony. If employers and employed use this instinct, "as not 
 abusing it," the principle of exchange will flourish ; the employer 
 will give labour its just equivalent, and the employed will return it by 
 good measure pressed down, and running over. By no other course, 
 where labour is free, can manufactures and commerce flourish. A 
 state of mutual irritation, contempt on one side and hatred on the 
 other, is inconsistent with the state of mind essential to the progress of 
 industrial and manufacturing skill. The ability may be present, but 
 it will not be used to any successful purpose ; on the contrary, it will 
 either dwindle away, or take its flight to places more congenial to its 
 exercise. 
 
 MASONS' STRIKE. 
 
 As the " Quarterly " reviewer has recited many instances of strikes to 
 show the alleged animus of Trades' Unions, we quote the following 
 given, it is hoped, with more fairness than his instances to show the 
 alleged animus of certain of the employers. It is abridged from 
 the masons' "Narrative " of the strike, published in 1842. 
 
 Sir Morton Peto is reported to have said that he had, at the ex- 
 pense of 16,000, defeated a strike ; and that he was ready to incur a 
 similar expense to support the " declaration." This gentleman, who is 
 equally distinguished for his patriotism, his piety, and his success in 
 making money, has, no doubt, his own good reasons for being ready 
 to repeat so considerable an outlay. We make no complaint against 
 him for having pursued a course which he believed to be for 
 his own advantage; we only claim an equal right for the men to 
 do the same. The strike to which he refers took place at the 
 building of the Houses of Parliament, in September, 1841. It was 
 of the masons, against the tyranny of their foreman, whose acts of 
 brutality and profane language were made the subject of complaint to 
 his employers, Messrs. Grissell and Peto, July 13, 1841. There was 
 also a complaint that there was not a proper supply of certain tools, 
 and that the men were forced to purchase their beer at a particular 
 public-house (the Horse-shoe and Magpie, Bridge- street, Westminster). 
 Upon these matters a deputation from the men had an interview with 
 Mr. Grissell on the ensuing Monday, when the following complaint, 
 as the most prominent, was entered into : One of the men had re- 
 ceived a letter, informing him of the death of his mother, from 
 Manchester, where she was then lying dead ; and, wishing " to bury 
 her, dispose of her effects, and discharge her little liabiUties," he 
 showed this letter to the foreman, and asked leave of absence for a 
 week or a fortnight, who informed him, with an oath, in reference to 
 the fortnight, that if he wanted his money i.e., his discharge he 
 
 might have it, but he would be d- d if he would keep a place open 
 
 for anybody for that time. The man then asked for a week, which 
 
 the other said was too long a time. He would be " d d," he said, 
 
 " if one day to go to Manchester, one to bury her, and one to come 
 
44 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 back, was not quite sufficient ; and he wouid be d d if lie would 
 
 give any longer time." Without obtaining leave the man went to 
 Manchester, and returned at the end of four working days to his work. 
 Owing to the remonstrance of the men he was not discharged. The 
 foreman, however, would not allow him to return to his usual work, 
 which was of superior description, but put him to the " dirtiest, the 
 coarsest, and the most inferior sort," which, it need not be said, to a 
 superior workman was the most effective mode of insult that could be 
 pursued. Mr. Grissell, after hearing evidence in support of this com- 
 plaint, which the foreman, who was present, did not attempt to refute, 
 affected not to believe it. All that could be got out of him was, that 
 '' the absurdity of the charge refuted itself." With respect to the 
 tools, Mr. Grissell undertook partially to remedy the matters complained 
 of. With this the men, who did not wish to push matters to extremity, 
 were obliged to be content. With respect to the beer, on which subject 
 the men entered into " somewhat fully," Mr. Grissell, it is related, 
 stated, in reply, that " he could not make up his mind to allow the 
 men to have any other beer until he had consulted Mr. Peto, his 
 partner, inasmuch as there existed an understanding between them and the 
 brewers of that beer''' ("p. 14 of the " Stonemasons' Narrative"). Who 
 the brewer was with whom there was this understanding is not stated. 
 Now, if this statement is to be relied on, it is impossible not 
 to admire the skill and astuteness with which the gentlemen of this 
 firm turned every point connected with their business to account. They 
 endeavoured to make their men find their own tiles (for the soft stone) ; 
 they are alleged to employ, and sustain in office, a brutal foreman, who, 
 on the same principle that selects the cruellest man that can be found 
 for a relieving officer "to lessen the rates" for the poor, is supposed to 
 extract the greatest possible amount of labour out of their men ; and, 
 finally, it is said, they endeavoured to turn to account, as far as beer was 
 concerned, their daily wants. No wonder the firm was ready to oppose, 
 at all risk, any alteration in an arrangement so beneficial to themselves. 
 Perhaps, after all, 16,000, which at 5 per cent, is only 800 a year, 
 was well laid out in the endeavour to sustain it. For, if by these 
 appliances sixpence a day additional could have been got out of each 
 of the men, 230 in number, it would have amounted to 32 10s. Od. 
 a-week, or 1,690 a-year; if only threepence, it would have amounted 
 to more than the interest (800) at 5 per cent, of this sum. Many 
 will exclaim that in this view of the question Messrs. Grissell and Peto 
 did right in not discharging so profitable a servant, as it was by his 
 means that so large an amount was obtained that they were 
 justified in retaining him at any risk. Exactly so. But by the same 
 rule, and for the same reason, namely, that they were made to 
 produce an extra quantity of work without being paid for it, and 
 therefore by the true principle of exchange to say nothing of 
 his profane brutality the men were justified in refusing to work 
 under him. 
 
 The men on the whole believed that this interview would have a 
 good effect, and resumed their work. For about six weeks there appeared 
 a change for the better. This, however, did not last, for the foreman 
 reverted to his old courses, with aggravated violence. With respect 
 
masons' strike. 45 
 
 to the beer also, with or without the direction of his employers, 
 finding that the men drank water instead of the beer in question, he 
 locked up the door leading to the pump. The following instances 
 were given of his cruelty and tyranny, to which the men refused any 
 longer to submit : 
 
 One instance was of a labourer who fell from a scaffold in their 
 employ and broke his leg, who, as soon as he was able, returned to his 
 work. The foreman told him to go about his business, as he did not 
 want lame cripples like him. This case was controverted. In an 
 investigation which took place, however, though there were some mis- 
 takes as to tlie individuals mentioned, the fact remained unshaken. 
 
 Another, that of a man Avho was taken ill, and obliged to leave his 
 work for a few days. "When he came back, expecting to resume his 
 employment, the foreman, seeing him not look so well as previously, 
 told him to leave the ground, as he, the foreman, wanted none but 
 sound men there. 
 
 Another was of a man who had obtained leave of the under-foreman 
 to remain at home, as his wife was dying, and who died the same day. 
 When the man came in the morning to resume his work, he was told 
 by this gentleman to " go and die with her, and be damned " (p. 25), 
 and discharged him accordingly. 
 
 They therefore determined no longer to work under such a ruffian, 
 and gave a written notice to Messrs. Grissell and Peto that they would 
 leave unless he Avas removed. This led to a correspondence with the 
 Commissioners of Woods and Forests, under whose superintendence 
 the Houses of Parliament were then building, both on part of the firm 
 and on part of the men, which ended in the said commissioners be- 
 lieving the employers and disbelieving the men,"and acting accordingly 
 which, we regret to say, is too often the case in such matters. 
 
 When Messrs. Grissell and Peto received the notice from the men 
 that they would leave, they stated that they had " every disposition " 
 to remove any real grievance, when " properly represented ;" but they 
 did not see that they were warranted in removing their foreman. 
 They also regretted that the men did not " sufficiently appreciate the 
 consideration they had always experienced from their hands." 
 
 It certainly does seem remarkably cool, after what had passed, that 
 this firm should complain that their men did not " sufficiently " appre- 
 ciate the " consideration" they had received. Did they think the men 
 ought to have remembered their kindness in providing them with beer 
 on an understanding of their own with the brewer? 
 
 The men, 230 in number, left on the 18th. A deputation, at the 
 request of the firm, had an interview with Mr. Grissell, who repeated 
 with much earnestness the promises m.ade in their letter. Upon the 
 men reminding him, however, that similar promises had been made 
 before Avhich had not been fulfilled, he changed his tone, and tearing 
 the workmen's letter of complaint in pieces before them, he most 
 emphatically declared that to complain of his foreman's conduct to 
 him was perfectly useless ; that on works so extensive as those as he 
 (the foreman) superintended, it was necessary that a discipline similar 
 to that maintained in the army or navy should be enforced, and the 
 masons, in not quietly submitting to it, must be bent on ruining the 
 firm ; that the competency of the foreman to superintend such work 
 
46 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 would naturally consist in his being sucli a man as lie was ; that a 
 " college-bred, educated man would not suit him ; a harsh and severe 
 individual would only answer his purpose" (p. 31). 
 
 The relations of buyer and seller of labour, of master and 
 servant, the subordination of the sailor or private soldier to their 
 respective officers, and all but the slave to his driver, are here jumbled 
 together in this gentleman's mind ; but, amid this confusion of ideas, 
 and, probably, its cause, there was one chief thing, namely, the profit 
 of the firm, to which the whole tended, from which there Avas no 
 swerving. All remonstrance was therefore " dictation " as to the 
 " manner in which they were to conduct their business." 
 
 As this firm adopted the conduct of their foreman, the masons 
 employed on all the other works upon which they were engaged left 
 their employment, numbering in all to about 400. The strike lasted 
 from September 13th, 1841, to May 25th, 1842, at the end of which 
 period these 400 men, by obtaining employment elsewhere, were 
 reduced to 80, when, " from the open support given by the Government 
 to the employers, in receiving from them inferior work and materials, 
 and extending the time originally allowed for completion, little hopes 
 remained of removing the foreman " (p. 86). The remaining number 
 resolved " to relieve their fellow- workmen of supporting them " by 
 quitting London in quest of employment elsewhere. During this 
 period (nine months), the " Narrative " states that, of the 400, only 
 five cases of " traitorism" occurred ; " during which, also, not a single 
 breach of the law Avas committed, or a police case occurred." The 
 masons did not succeed in their object, it is true, but then they did 
 without Messrs. Grissell and Peto, and these gentlemen did without 
 the united masons, and so the strike ended. 
 
 BUILDERS STRIKE AND LOCK-OUT. 
 
 Of the nine hours' movement, we are of opinion, though desirous of 
 shortening the hours of labour, that it is one of those things which do 
 not admit of being decided by the issue of a strike. The resolution for 
 the strike had been carried, not by the leaders, but by the body at 
 large, by ballot. The time and place, however, had not been 
 determined ; and consequently, in the absence of further irritation, it 
 might have been postponed indefinitely. It might never have taken 
 place at all. The master builders, however, hastened to supply the 
 irritation requisite, by discharging the four men who each presented a 
 memorial on the subject to four firms, Avho had been addressed 
 separately. Still, the men hesitated until the man had been discharged 
 by Messrs. Trollope and Son, when the strike took place. What 
 followed is so well known that no further notice is required here. 
 
 The master builders replied by a " lock-out" from nearly all the 
 firms in the building trade. This is said to have been done on a wise 
 calculation. The lock-out was continued for a month unconditionally, 
 by which it is clear that the basis of such calculation was revenge. If 
 there had been any proper calm calculation they would have discovered 
 that there was, as we have shown, no necessity for the lock-out at all. 
 They now seek to break up trade combinations in their trades altogether. 
 Among the many extravagantly foohsh things said by the '' Edinburgh" 
 reviewer, he compared the position of the members of the Amalgamated 
 
builders' lock-out. 47 
 
 Society of Engineers as being " very like the case of tlie Maryland or 
 Washington Negroes let out on hire, or Russian serfs under the obrok 
 system" (p. 552). As the applauded advocate of the " declaration" 
 and of the lock-out speaks of slavery and serfdom, it may be worth 
 while to inquire in what they consist. 
 
 We have spoken of the principle of exchange being the root of 
 civilised society; that, in short, civilisation is only the putting into 
 practice the four elements of which it consists. Liberty cannot exist 
 without the right to the use of this principle. A slave cannot as a 
 right demand anything in exchange for his labour ; neither can a serf. 
 The power of free exchange in either would immediately alter their 
 condition to that of free men. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that whatever reduces the power of demanding 
 a right and proper equivalent for his labour, or, indeed, for anything 
 else he may have for sale, brings that man in just such proportion 
 near to one or other of these conditions. Hence the abject state of 
 those whose necessities compel them to take anything offered for what 
 they have to dispose of. And if a man be compelled by another to 
 exchange or sell his labour to him at a disadvantage, he is deprived, in 
 so far, of his natural liberty ; and he is to all intents and purposes a serf 
 to him who so compels him. Indeed, in the enforcing the " declaration" 
 there is very little disguise in the matter. The belonging to a combi- 
 nation makes the men "too independent," "insubordinate," "mutinous ;" 
 all of which expressions indicate a state of serfdom, not of free 
 exchangers, and of approval thereof. And so long as this compulsion 
 is used, and in so far as it extends, the man is to all intents and 
 purposes a serf; and he only is not used so in other respects because 
 such use is impossible in a free country. 
 
 The reviewer admits slavery and serfdom to be as we have stated, 
 only he contends that, what he calls the control of the combination 
 over the sale of their labour reduces the men to this condition. But 
 he forgets that the men use the combination Avhich he so curiously 
 distorts to give them the power of correcting a disadvantage, namely, 
 their immediate necessities when taken singly, that they might exercise 
 this right of free exchange with benefit to themselves; Avhile the 
 *' declaration" by destroying their combination would take away this 
 power, and consequently transfer this benefit from them to their 
 employers. The one is a voluntary arrangement for their own 
 advantage, the other a compulsory one, at their expense, for the 
 advantage of their employers. The reviewer here, besides confounding 
 freedom with compulsion, mistakes the gaining of an advantage for the 
 losing of one. But as the power of free exchange lies at the root of 
 all liberty and right, sq the protection of it is the foundation of all 
 law. There is, therefore, an inconvenience in a free country, where 
 this is acknowledged, attending such enforcement. As no man has a 
 right to prevent another even indirectly, much less directly, from doing 
 that which is lawful and beneficial to himself, there are certain 
 awkward conclusions to which the enforcers lay themselves open. For 
 example, pursuing the same argument, it is said that the lock-out is a 
 great movement, at an immense sacrifice, in favour of " free trade," 
 whatever that may mean, in labour. Free trade is an incomplete 
 
48 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 expression ; let iis, therefore, adopt the more comprehensive term, free 
 exchange, which inchides all honest trade. An exchange, to be free, 
 supposes both parties to be on somewhat equal terms ; , otherwise, it 
 is likely to become swindling or robbery. Advantage taken by one of 
 the other's ignorance, weakness, or necessities, will very soon become 
 one or other of these crimes. For illustration, though one is scarcely 
 needed, suppose an exchange of blows. It would not be a free 
 exchange if one of the parties were to have one arm disabled or tied 
 down while the other had the free use of both. To take such advan- 
 tage would be, and is justly deemed, cowardly and infamous. 
 
 By the " declaration " th6 employer wishes to deal with his men 
 singly, so that he, whenever he pleases, may give the " sweaters' " 
 price for their labour ; their right arm as bargainers being tied down by 
 their necessities in its sale. This he calls free trade, but the freedom 
 is all on his own side. Call it trade, if you will, it is not free exchange. 
 This state of things he Avishes to perpetuate, that his workmen may 
 never be able to prevent him taking this advantage ; never be on 
 anything like equal terms with him in this transaction of exchange. 
 He therefore wishes for his own benefit though in a different form 
 the result commonly following the two peccadilloes mentioned above, 
 which he is quite aware, also follow an exchange that is not free. 
 
 On the cool insolence of refusing to allow their men to combine, 
 when they are in strong combination themselves of the declaring the 
 men's combination illegal, when their own is pronounced by high and 
 hitherto uncontradicted legal authority to be illegal, and other 
 drolleries, it is not necessary to comment. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FUNDS OF TRADE SOCIETIES. 
 The " London Society of Compositors " is a Trade Union ; 2,200 
 paying members; re-established, January, 1848, "to protect the 
 wages of labour, agreeably to the provisions contained in the London 
 Scale of Prices (agreed to by a conference of Master Printers and 
 Compositors in 1847), the Scale of Prices regulating News and 
 Parliamentary Work, and such customs and usages as belong to the 
 profession, not directly mentioned in the said Scales." The terms of 
 admission are, the serving of seven years to the business, either by 
 indenture or patrimony. The weekly payments of each member are 
 "proportioned to his earnings i.e,, under Ids,, nil.; los., and less 
 than 20s., 2d. ; 20s., and less than 30s., 3d. ; 30s. or more, 4d. per 
 week." About 700 members pay an additional 2d. per week to what 
 is called the " Provident Fund," Avhich entitles them to receive a 
 small weekly allowance when out of work ; and on an average of the 
 last ten years, the Society has paid 500 per annum to imemployed 
 members. The Society has a library and reading rooms at 3, 
 Raquet-court, Fleet-street. The library contains more than 4,000 
 volumes, about 1,000 of which are in constant use. The reading- 
 rooms are supplied with all the principal newspapers and periodicals of 
 the day, and are open daily from 9 a.m. till 10 p.m. The librarian, 
 within those hours, will show any respectable person over the premises. 
 The Society is also the medium of considerable sums being raised for 
 the benefit of widows and children of members in distress ; and it 
 
"dictation." 49 
 
 subscribes yearly to a dozen or more of the principal medical 
 charities of the Metropolis, that it may be enabled to give letters of 
 recommendation to sick members or their wives or children. A sum is 
 allowed members whose tools may have been destroyed by fire. The 
 library and reading yoom were established (in 1855) to prevent resort 
 to public houses. 
 
 Our own Society the Bookbinders', established 1787 is similarly 
 constituted, having also a library of about 1,800 volumes, which, for 
 some time, was the only one connected with a Trade Society, and an 
 office, a house of call apart from a public-house, at No. 5, Eaquet- 
 court. Fleet-street. The terms of admission are the same. Number 
 of members about 600. Allowance to members out of employ 8s. 6d. 
 a-week for ten weeks ; and sometimes there is a subscription to give 
 additional relief to their unemployed members. Payment to the 
 Society, 2s. a-month. Eelief to the sick is granted by a levy of 6d. a 
 member upon a " Petition " for such benefit. There are also six 
 pensioners, two at 3s. a-week, and four at 2s. 6d. Amount paid to 
 unemployed members, for the last seven years, 3,055 2s. 6d. In 
 disputes on wages, prices, &c., during the same period, 98 14s. 4d. ; 
 which will show, in ordinary circumstances, the actual proportion that 
 " Strikes " bear to the proceedings of a Trades' Union. For the sick, 
 by "Petition," has been paid, for the same period, 1,309 Is. To 
 the library XIO a-year is applied for the purchase of books. 
 
 These are two Trades' Unions pure and simple ; their benefits for 
 sick being either voluntary or by additional levy. The amount paid 
 by the compositors to their " Widows and Orphan Fund " is quite as 
 much, or more, in proportion to number, as that paid by our own 
 Society to the sick. 
 
 We are not aware that any more is here put down than is paid by 
 any other Trades' Union. By these, as a sample of the rest, the 
 "Edinburgh" reviewer may see how their "Capital" is disposed of. 
 
 " DICTATION." 
 Trades' Unions are brought to bear against employers in disputes 
 for wages. They assert the principle of exchange. Now, without 
 insisting that in all cases they assert this principle wisely, this is the 
 inherent source of their action. They say such and such labour is 
 worth a certain price, which is either agreed to or not by the 
 employers who have need of that labour. Now, how is this demand 
 oftener than not met by opposing employers ? By the reply that they 
 will not be " dictated to," or " interfered with in the way in which 
 they see fit to conduct their business." It is plain, therefore, that 
 into the minds of those who use these expressions the idea of labour 
 being subject to the principle of exchange does not enter. With them 
 it is something which should always be at their command at their 
 own price, resistance to which is " insubordination " and " mutiny." 
 We should be glad to be informed wherein the ideas of such employers 
 differ from those of serf owners in like circumstances ? Would Mr. 
 Black inform us what would be the probable conduct of the sellers of 
 corn or sugar if they were accused of insubordination and mutiny, and 
 treated accordingly by their customers, because the said sellers would 
 not sell at the others' own price ? And yet such, when reduced to its 
 
50 TRADES' UNIONS AND STRIKES. 
 
 true issue, is the idea of the " Edinburgh " reviewer and the numerous 
 class he represents. He and they would put down Trades' Unions, be- 
 cause they, as he asserts, impede the action of those who employ labour 
 they " dictate to" and " interfere with them in the way in which they 
 see fit to conduct their business." Now, conceding to these, and to all 
 employers, the full right to refuse to agree to the wages their work- 
 people demand, we ask, is there anything in the known acts of this 
 class so pure, guileless, and free from blame for oppression, cruelty, or 
 dishonesty, that they should be exempted by law from such " inter- 
 ference," and, as they are pleased to call it, *' dictation ?" Were not 
 certain proprietors of coal mines, who employed females in a state or 
 nudity to work with men in their mines, so impressed with the idea 
 that such was the propter mode of conducting their business, that it 
 required an Act of Parliament to convince them of the contrary? 
 Were not a majority of the cotton manufacturers so thoroughly 
 impressed with the idea that the employment of children of tender years, 
 and for excessive hours, was the only fit and proper way of conducting 
 their business, that it also required an Act of Parliament to restrain 
 them ? Was not the truck system that is, the payment of wages to 
 a great extent, sometimes wholly, in goods, very often of bad quality at 
 the price of good articles, sold by the employer also deemed a fit and 
 proper mode of conducting their business by many employers, until an 
 Act of Parliament was required for its repression? To give all the 
 instances that might be adduced to show the contrary would more 
 than fill this publication ; take, therefore, only the most recent instance 
 in the Hinckley stocking weavers, the employers of which trade let out 
 the frames, which cost 3, at an annual rent of 2 12s. (Is. a week). 
 In the trial, Homer v. Taunton, wherein this came out, it was, as re- 
 ported in the Standard, of Dec. 29, 1859, stated on oath, illustrative 
 of the way in which this rent was exacted : 
 
 "That, when trade was bad, witness only earned Is. lOd. a week, 
 and then his employer took off the full frame rent of Is., and left him 
 IGd." It is true that, after much remonstrance and difiiculty, he got 
 off that week by paying only sixpence out of the Is. lOd. ; but even 
 that shows how rigorously this rent is exacted. Now we do not blame 
 a class for the acts of a certain number of dishonest persons who may 
 happen to belong to it. Our object is to show that the predatory in- 
 stincts of our nature belong to the employer class as well as to every 
 other ; and that, therefore, they have no right to claim exemption from 
 the checks to which they may be subject from their workmen in the 
 matter of wages ; that there is no more reason to suppose that their 
 estimate of what ought to be paid will be just any more than that of 
 their workpeople. 
 
 It has been stated, in the Standard of November 24, 1859, for the 
 information of the " misguided operatives/' that the employers have to 
 struggle against hardships and difficulties no less severe than those, 
 though of a different kind, endured by working men ; instancing 
 in times of panic, when wages are not reduced, that profits are 
 swallowed up in high discounts, when they work not for themselves, 
 but for their bankers ; that they also suffer from bad debts, Mr. Com- 
 missioner Fane having stated that upwards of .50,000,000 annually, or 
 
CONCLUSION. 51 
 
 1,000,000 a week was sacrificed in bad debts ; and as the employed 
 do not pass througb the Bankruptcy Court, the "loss fell on the class 
 of employers," The writer of this article might also, with great pro- 
 priety, have said, for the same reason, that this loss was inflicted on the 
 *' class of employers," not by working men, but by one another. Talk 
 of the expense that now and then a " strike " involves, or the far 
 greater expense of a " lock-out," what is the expense of either, or 
 both put together, to this enormous loss inflicted upon the employer 
 class by the recklessness or dishonesty, or both, of themselves ? 
 
 It certainly is very cool in the writer of this article to suggest, as 
 he does, that their workmen ought to make up, by a reduction of 
 wages, this wholesale plunder of each other. The banker will not 
 forego his claim ; so, from the nature of things, the workmen must, as 
 there is nothing left out of which he can be paid his proper wages. 
 
 It is also very cool of this class, after robbing each other to so 
 enormous an annual amount, to assume a virtuous indignation, and 
 tell their workpeople that their demand of a certain wage is a dishonest 
 one, and that the combination by which such demand is supported 
 shall be put down, and to issue a declaration that they will employ no 
 one who belongs to it. 
 
 The TimeSf of December 20, 1859, has the following in a leading 
 article : 
 
 Well, let us see, the British manufacturer has his virtues, as we know ; his 
 home virtues we will say nothing about, lest Sir Cresswell Cresswell arise to 
 rebuke all universal eulogy. But he also must have his code of trade virtues. 
 He must not forge a trade mark ; he must not send an article out of his 
 warehouse which would kill or maim any one who should use it ; he must not 
 sell a wooden stick and guarantee it to be cotton ; he must not sell cast iron 
 cutlerv and call it steel ; he must not send out a pair of scissors never in- 
 tended to cut, or an axe that would fly to pieces at the first stroke. If there 
 are people who have in the trade a better name than himself, he must never 
 outstep the fair pace of emulation ; it must not enter into his mind to forge 
 their names and destroy their credit by affixing their brand to coarse and 
 worthless goods. These are the very rudiments of commercial morals. Thev 
 are the equivalents to " Thou shalt not kill," " Thou shalt not steal," " Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness." Yet, heaven help us ! these are the very acts 
 which are attributed to these very respectable persons as every-day practices. 
 These are cropping up in our law books and taking rank in our police cases. 
 They are growing into a "custom of manufacturers." They have been 
 solemnly presented to a court of justice for its sanction. 
 
 We make no comment on this extract. We do not cite it, or men- 
 tion anything else belonging to capitalists as a tu quoque^ or as a set-oflT 
 against any misdeeds of which the working class may have been guilty, 
 still less to draw attention to their vices ; for it is written, "There is none 
 that doeth good, no not one." We only ask whether capitalists have any 
 right to claim exemption from the natural check which the assertion 
 of the principle of exchange by combinations gives to their work- 
 people ? or whether it would be conducive to the moral prosperity 
 of the community that the law should, as many of this class desire, 
 so exempt them ? 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In the foregoing pages we have attempted to show that Trades' 
 Unions are necessary to secure to the workmen a free, and conse- 
 
52 trades' unions and strikes. 
 
 quently fair, exchange for liis labour, which, from a disadvantage 
 inherent in his position, he is unable otherAvise to obtain. We have 
 also we hope successfully replied to the various charges brought 
 against them. In doing so we have endeavoured to trace out the cause 
 which leads to the misuse of capital on the one hand, and of Trades' 
 Unions on the other. This we find to be an instinct of evil inherent 
 in the very nature of man, belonging not merely to capitalists and 
 workmen, but to the whole human family, which, for want of a better 
 term, we have called the predatory instinct. Within due bounds this 
 instinct, doubtless, lies at the root of all energy and enterprise; 
 allowed to predominate, it is the source of every evil. To subdue 
 this to its proper use should be the aim of all who would promote the 
 well-being of their own and every other class of society. Applying this 
 to employer and employed, it is of the highest importance that there 
 should be a good understanding between them ; that neither should 
 vex or offend the other. Both are afflicted equally with this evil 
 instinct, and each should learn to bear with the other. Neither class 
 can injure the other without at the same time injuring itself. Both 
 are so essential to each other, and so intimately connected, that one 
 cannot be injured without the other feeling it ; and, consequently, no 
 triumph can be gained at the expense of justice by either class over 
 the other with impunity. While the workmen should weigh well the 
 price they put upon their labour, and endeavour to make themselves 
 acquainted with the principles that determine its value, the employers 
 should act reasonably, and listen to what their men have to say. The 
 " Quarterly " reviewer, whose candour we have before acknowledged, 
 well observes, p. 521 : "At the same time employers ought not to 
 stand too strongly upon their rights, nor entrench themselves too exclu- 
 sively within the circle of their own order. Frankness and cordiality will 
 win working men's hearts, and a ready explanation will often remove 
 misgivings and dissatisfaction. Were there more trust and greater 
 sympathy between classes, there would he less disposition to turn out on 
 the part of men, and a more accommodating spirit on the part of the 
 masters." The italics are ours, as the endorsement of forty years' 
 experience ; for it is certain that the working classes will give their 
 esteem and confidence to those whom they believe to be actuated by 
 similar feelings towards themselves. 
 
 We have before said the true state of employer and employed is that 
 of amity, and that they are the truest friends, each of the other for 
 each derives his revenue from the other. And the fact is, notwith- 
 standing all that has been written to the contrary in the " Quarterly" 
 and " Edinburgh " Reviews, and from them down to the humblest 
 writer who has added his little spark to the general blaze that this 
 state is for the most part their actual condition. Under no other cir- 
 cumstances could the trade and manufactures of the country have so 
 greatly prospered and extended. It should, therefore, be the duty of 
 both to prevent this harmony being interrupted. Each should con- 
 sider this state their true relatioUjj^giL.J^onsider its interruption the 
 greatest of calamities. ^^^Q:Eij^ii^ 
 
 /T OF THE 
 
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