THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 i^: 
 
 f^ 
 
 THE 
 
 • TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 BY 
 
 M. LE COMTE DE PARIS. 
 
 TRANSLATED UNDER THE AUTHORS DIRECTION BY 
 
 NASSAU J. SENIOE, M.A. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1869.
 
 pc2/3£ 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 «^ We owe a word of explanation to the reader who takes 
 
 >- 
 
 ^ the trouble of perusing these pages. They may appear 
 
 PC 
 
 E full of special details ; the subject itself will doubtless 
 seem altogether technical. But we hope that he, like 
 ourselves, will see that there is a general and imme- 
 diate interest in this question, which we, for our parts, 
 J^ have spent much time in investigating. 
 ^ In speaking of the work accomplished by the masons, 
 Cji the iron-workers, or the tailors, and in examining scru- 
 pulously the financial organization of their Unions, we 
 do not undertake to write either an essay on industry 
 or a table of statistics. Our object will be to study, 
 trf without prejudice, a subject which it is important to 
 o discuss from an exclusively practical view. We take 
 ac great interest in following the development of Trades' 

 
 IV AUTHOR S PREFACE. 
 
 Unions, because it is necessary, on the one hand, to 
 face without illusion the dangers which may arise from 
 a state of things henceforth inevitable ; and, on the 
 other hand, because we are convinced that in spite of 
 these dangers their development may be useful, not only 
 to those who expect from it a legitimate bettering of 
 their condition, but also to society at large. We think 
 that this new application of the prolific principle of 
 association will not only cause material profit and 
 an increase of general wealth, but will also jdeld to 
 society through its moral influence still more important 
 services. It will help to remove the specious and 
 fatal notion that the interests of capital and labour are 
 opposed. We shall show these, the two elements of 
 public prosperity in every country, at one time engaged 
 in an unnatural struggle, at another time, on the con- 
 trary, regaining all their influence by a happy alliance. 
 
 The examples we shall produce will, we hope, prove 
 how completely these elements are bound together, and 
 then, perhaps, our labour will not have been in vain. 
 When a ship is overtaken by fog in the midst of 
 breakers, soundings are taken incessantly, and the 
 smallest objects brought up by the lead from the bottom
 
 AUTHOR S PREFACE. V 
 
 ave carefully examined as a guide for tlie course to 
 be taken. Iii the midst of the uncertainty which 
 envelops the future of France, we cannot take too 
 frequent soundings in the track of our neighbours, 
 whose course is beset by the same dangers as ours. 
 But if these inquiries are to be of any use, we must 
 take into consideration all the details which can throw 
 light upon this important question, which affects us as 
 much as them. 
 
 Having, in the course of this inquiry, seen how 
 institutions work in a free country, we have done our 
 best to make an impartial use of the right, common to 
 every one, of judging acts which have been the subject 
 of public discussion between the parties interested. 
 We hope we have succeeded in doing justice both to 
 the powerful manufacturers, who by their intelligence 
 contribute to the real progress of civilization, and also 
 to the honest and laborious working-class, whose stead- 
 fast qualities are the strength and the honour of all 
 
 great nations. 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE D'ORLEANS. 
 
 Twickenham, March 15, Ibtili.
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The book, a translation of which is here given to 
 English readers, was first published in Paris in the 
 spring of this year. It has already passed through 
 six editions in France, and a German translation is 
 in the press. These facts alone would surely make it 
 well worth the attention of those who are studying 
 the labour question here, in the country which has fur- 
 nished the subject discussed in its pages. Even if its 
 success across the Channel is set down to the name 
 of the author, the case is not altered. It is not every 
 day that we find young men of the very highest rank 
 ready to undergo the severe, and somewhat tedious, 
 labour of endeavouring to master the greatest and most 
 difficult problem of our time. Many of us, who have 
 been long engaged in the same study, are well aware
 
 Vlll EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 — and, I hope, are always ready to acknowledge — 
 how much they owe to members of the French emi- 
 gration of 1848 and 1851 for the light which their 
 experience has cast on many sides of the labour ques- 
 tion in England. Hitherto, however, that light had 
 come from political writers, or students of the profes- 
 sional or working-classes, such as M. Louis Blanc or 
 M. Nadaud. It must be now admitted that the balance 
 has been set right, and that the French royal family has 
 earned an equal claim to our gratitude. And this on 
 two grounds : first, because the Count of Paris's book 
 is in itself a very valuable contribution to the English 
 literature on this great controversy ; and, secondly, 
 because it comes at a most opportune moment, when 
 the attention of Parliament is to be called once again, 
 after a lapse of nearly half a centur}% to the state of 
 our law respecting combinations of members of the 
 working-class for the 'purpose of influencing the labour- 
 market. 
 
 The testimony of a foreigner, if only he brings with 
 him patience, and a clear head to the study of this 
 question, is in some respects worth more than that 
 of any Englishman of equal ability. At home we are all
 
 EDITOE S PREFACE. IX 
 
 more or less biassed by our sympathies and associations ; 
 or, if not in fact so biassed, shall certainly never get the 
 credit of strict impartiality from those who take the 
 opposite side. If any men could claim such immunity 
 surely Mr. Mill and Mr. Thornton might be held to 
 deserve it : that they have not obtained it, is clear 
 enough from the reception which has been given in 
 many quarters to recent publications of theirs. The 
 fairest and ablest Englishman will always be counted 
 a partisan ; foreigners who have taken a leading part in 
 the discussion in their own country would lie under the 
 same imputation ; but in the present author we have 
 one who brings to his work all the requisites for form- 
 ing s, perfectly impartial judgment. His rank places 
 him altogether outside the controversy, while his long 
 residence in England has made him familiar with our 
 habits and methods of speech, and thought, and action. 
 He is, moreover, avowedly wTiting for his own people, 
 and not for us ; and has no conceivable purpose to 
 serve in England by taking one side or the other, or 
 allowing himself any licence in deepening or shading 
 away the colours in the picture which he has under- 
 taken to paint of our industrial life. The question
 
 X EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 of course still remains, has he made a fair use of 
 his peculiar position, and unrivalled opportunities ? 
 His book must answer for itself, and I at least cannot 
 but feel that it does so, and that very emphatically, 
 in the affirmative. In all that has been written on 
 the subject of Trades' Unions, there is no clearer 
 or more exhaustive summing-up in a short compass 
 of the arguments for and against them, and of the 
 view of the Unionists as to the objects and principles 
 of their societies, than mil be found at the end of the 
 4th chapter of this book. The analysis which it contains 
 of the voluminous evidence taken by the Royal Com- 
 mission on Trades' Unions is the best and most 
 complete which has appeared, and may safely be 
 recommended to that great majority of English readers 
 who will never have the patience to consult the original 
 blue-books. Here and there in his statement of the law 
 applicable to Unions, and of the effect of some recent 
 decisions, slight inaccuracies may be detected by those 
 who are conversant with the subject, but such persons 
 will be the first to admit, that on such points the gravest 
 diiferences exist amongst our own most able lawj-ers. 
 "We should all at once allow Sir "William Erie to be,
 
 EDITOR S PREFACE. XI 
 
 if not the highest, at any rate almost the highest, 
 authority in the realm on such questions as how far the 
 Common Law doctrines of "conspiracy" and "restraint 
 of trade" are applicable to combinations of employers or 
 workmen ; but we know that his conclusions have been 
 criticized and even denied by those who have made 
 a special study of this branch of our law. The only 
 wonder is that a foreigner, however able and industrious, 
 should not have made far more serious blunders when 
 venturing (as he could not help doing) upon such 
 technical and difficult ground. 
 
 The most interesting and valuable part of the book, 
 however, will be found in the concluding chapters on 
 " The Remedy for Strikes," and " The Future of 
 Trades' Unions." Here the author is in complete 
 accordance with the best and ablest thinkers on social 
 subjects, amongst ourselves. Strikes and locks-out, he 
 likens to "the Japanese duel, in which each combatant 
 is obliged to put himself to death with his own hand." 
 — (p. 198.) At the same time he does not attempt to 
 deny that, under certain circumstances, they are at 
 present as inevitable and as justifiable as the battles 
 between regular armies. He sees as clearly as any of
 
 Xll EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 US that councils of conciliation and Ijoards of arbitration, 
 while they will assuredly decrease the number of strikes, 
 and establish a far better feeling than at present exists 
 between employers and their workmen, can never solve 
 the labour question. They imply two camps, and what 
 is needed is one only. So long as the two camps exist 
 no system of arbitration can work satisfactorily, if, 
 indeed, it can work at all, without some such organiza- 
 tion as Trades' Unions — (p. 204-5). But our author 
 looks forward to the time as rapidly approaching when 
 the Unions mil become " a new element of productive 
 power, and an earnest pledge of peace " — (p. 197). 
 They will prove, he thinks, " the future centre of co- 
 operative associations " — (p. 229), and he looks upon 
 these associations, and industrial partnerships, such as 
 that of Messrs. Briggs (of which an excellent sketch 
 will be found at page 214,) as the true solution of the 
 labour question, and the end for which all social 
 reformers should be striving. 
 
 There will of course be much difference of opinion 
 amongst English readers as to the conclusions at which 
 the French Prince arrives in considering the future of 
 Trades' Unions in this country, but assuredly there will
 
 EDITORS PREFACE. XUl 
 
 be nothing but hearty agreement and sympathy with 
 him when he turns to his own people, with a longing, 
 as touching as it is manly, for the time when they too 
 may work out the problem of the future of labour by 
 means of public meeting, free discussion, and an un- 
 shaclded press. "A light, brilliant as that of the sun, 
 and like it, composed of innumerable different shades, 
 is needed to arrive at a right understanding of political 
 and social questions ; such a light can proceed only 
 from the full and free expression of public opinion in 
 all its shapes," is the end of the whole matter, for the 
 author of this book. That such a light is beginning 
 once again to break through rifts in those heavy clouds, 
 " this dangerous twilight," which have so long brooded 
 over France, must be plain enough to all who note, 
 however carelessly, the signs of the times. We can 
 only watch, and hope that the light may spread over 
 that fair land, and the clouds disperse, without the 
 terrors of a thunderstorm — the recurrence of one of 
 those crises, to use our author's words, " when minds 
 are disturbed, passions inflamed, and material prosperity 
 rudely shaken." But through whatever ordeal she may 
 have to pass before the twilight is rolled away, we may
 
 XIV EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 surely be pardoned for earnestly hoping that, when that 
 time comes, the men who have spent these long 
 dreary years of exile so honourably amongst us, be they 
 Republicans, Royalists, Orleanists, — princes, journalists 
 or workmen, — may find their own place again in their 
 own land ; and while they add vigour to her political 
 life, and strength to her counsels, may retain a kindly 
 feeling for the temporary home in which they have been 
 able to study to such good purpose the questions which 
 they must help to solve for France. 
 
 T. HUGHES. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, June 19, 1869.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Sheffield Outrages 1 
 
 II. I. — The Origin of Traces' Unions 21 
 
 II. — The Legal Position of Trades' Unions 26 
 
 III. The Organization of Trades' Unions 34 
 
 IV. The Building Trade 54 
 
 V. The Iron Trade 81 
 
 VI. The Coal Trade 113 
 
 VII. The Iron Ship-building Trade 144 
 
 VIII. Various Trades 1 67 
 
 I. The Tailors' Trade 169 
 
 II. The Glass-makers 174 
 
 III. The Printers 178 
 
 IV. The Cotton- Spinners 184 
 
 IX. The Remedy for Strikes 194 
 
 I. Arbitration 200 
 
 II. Co-operation 213 
 
 The Colliery of Briggs and Company 214 
 
 The Assington Agricultural Society 224 
 
 X. Political Libertt and the Future Prospects of 
 
 Unions 228 
 
 Appendix 239 
 
 Postscript 245
 
 THE 
 
 TRADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 
 
 Everybody now admits tlie advantages which the 
 working-classes may derive from association, and no 
 one disputes their right to make use of it ; hut 
 experience alone can teach them how to handle an 
 instrument, which is at the same time so powerful and 
 so delicate. Accordingly it concerns every nation to 
 take into consideration the attempts made by their 
 neighbours in this direction, in order to discover what 
 should be imitated, and what avoided. 
 
 In France the logical nature of the people has led 
 to a preference for the form of association, which is the 
 most perfect in itself, but, at the same time, the most 
 difficult of application, viz, co-operative societies of 
 production. Germany is already covered with a net-
 
 Z THE TRADES UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 work of tliose admirable institutions, savings-banks, to 
 wliicli Mr. Schulze-Delitscb has given his name. Lastly, 
 in England the co-operative societies for sale, so well 
 described by M. Jules Simon, are growing and developing 
 themselves.' These admit customers to a share in the 
 profits of the retail dealer, thereby making it possible 
 for the working-man, whose whole wage was before 
 absorbed in his daily expenses, to save money. 
 
 But it is not our object to show the advantages of 
 these different institutions ; they are already well known 
 and appreciated. We now propose to discuss another 
 sort of workmen's associations, very powerful in England, 
 but which neither came out under the same happy 
 auspices, nor have since obtained among all ranks the 
 same sympathies as the institutions above referred to. 
 We mean the Trades' Unions, those vast coalitions of 
 workmen which are endowed with a complete and 
 permanent organization, and whose influence on British 
 industry has, in these days, become so important as to 
 be well worth our attention. 
 
 Created in the midst of the fatal struggles called 
 strikes, they have preserved their warlike character. 
 Accordingly, they have been both attacked and defended 
 with equal %dolence. Those who most clearly see their 
 power are those who most fear them. Attempts have 
 been made to hold them responsible for some isolated 
 crimes; they have been condemned without mercy for
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. b 
 
 holding some erroneous economical doctrines : in short, 
 it has never occurred to any one whether this furious 
 charger might not he harnessed to the plough, and thus 
 yield valuable service to Society. 
 
 But public opinion in England never confirms hasty 
 judgments. Before deciding it insists on having all the 
 light that serious and exhaustive discussion can throw 
 on a subject. Special circumstances have occurred to 
 call forth this discussion and to attract universal atten- 
 tion to the subject. The fact is, that, on the one hand, 
 the Keform, by which England has enlarged the base of 
 her national representation, will gradually invest the 
 working-classes with great influence, and, therefore, gives 
 new importance to everything that concerns them. On 
 the other hand, the Government, in obedience to the 
 unanimous wish of the nation, has intervened by pro- 
 moting an inquiry, in which both parties shall be heard, 
 into the question of Trades' Unions. A Commission of 
 Inquiry has been appointed, composed of men holding 
 the most opposite opinions ; the result of their labours 
 has been published faithfully eveiy month, and has 
 thrown a new light upon this question ; and it is to the 
 result thus obtained that we propose to direct our 
 attention. 
 
 The origin of this inquiry may be traced back to 
 two circumstances, which at first sight appear rather 
 of a private nature than of public importance, but
 
 4 THE TRADES UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ^^'llicll became, tlirougli their consequences, remarkable 
 events. 
 
 The town of Sheffield was the scene of the first. 
 The active and populous capital of the steel manu- 
 factory is situated in the centre of England, in the 
 neighbourhood of several coal-pits, at the bottom of a 
 deep valley, and in the midst of smoke. The most 
 powerful steam-hammers in England, and the immense 
 Bessemer converters — gigantic retorts, in which five or 
 six tons of iron are bubbling — may be seen here. Here, 
 too, cannons and plates for ships' armour are cast. By 
 the side of these modern inventions, cutlerj', the old trade 
 of Sheffield, thrives. The trade, however, has lost its 
 ancient monopoly. In some of its branches it has had 
 to stand a ruinous competition, and among them no one 
 has suffered more than the saw manufactory. The 
 working cutlers, who are few in number, and both 
 jealous and exclusive, have formed Trades' Unions in 
 every branch of the trade, hoping thereby to obtain a 
 rise in their moderate wages. They have not suc- 
 ceeded, and frequent quarrels between them and their 
 masters is the result. A workman named Fearnhough 
 had seceded from one of these societies, the Saw-Grinders' 
 Union, to which he belonged. In the eyes of his 
 fellow-workmen this was deserting in the face of the 
 enemy. On the 8th of October, 1866, a violent explo- 
 sion shook the small house he occupied with his family,
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. O 
 
 causing great damage ; and the inhabitants escaped 
 oul}' by a miracle. A box of gunpowder, placed with a 
 lighted match in the cellar, had burst against the house. 
 The author of the crime remained undiscovered. Public 
 opinion was the more excited because this was not the 
 first attempt of the sort. In the course of a few years 
 Sheffield had been the scene of more than ten similar 
 explosions, several cutlers had fallen victims, and in not 
 one of these cases had justice been satisfied. In 1859 a 
 workman named Liuley was killed in the middle of a 
 room fall of people by a ball, without any report, fired 
 doubtless from an air-gun, and no one had been able to 
 discover the assassin. As all these attacks had been 
 directed against persons hostile to Trades' Unions, the 
 public naturally came to attribute them to those societies. 
 The Unions indignantly repelled this accusation. That 
 to which Fearuhough had belonged distinguished itself 
 beyond all the others by the zeal it displayed in helping 
 the authorities to discover the author of the explosion of 
 the 8th of October. Its secretary, Broadhead, even 
 headed a subscription for increasing the reward promised 
 to the informer ; but all was in vain : the mystery was 
 not cleared up, distrust increased, and the agitation of 
 the public continued. 
 
 A short time afterwards, however, quite another sort 
 of affair came to occupy public attention. 
 
 On this occasion the Unions instead of being the
 
 6 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 objects of more or less yague accusations found them- 
 selves in the position of plaintiffs. The treasurer of one 
 of these societies embezzled a few pounds from the cash- 
 box. He was arraigned before the Bench at Bradford and 
 acquitted. The magistrates decided that inasmuch as 
 the constitution of the Union contained rules contrary to 
 law, they could not recognize its right to hold property. 
 The Court of Queen's Bench, on appeal, confirmed this 
 decision on the 16th of January, 1867. This judgment 
 fixed the law on the subject : great, accordingly, was the 
 alarm of the Unions, who thus learned that their funds, 
 consisting sometimes of many thousands, were at the 
 mercy of a dishonest treasurer. It is greatly to the 
 credit of the humble officers of these great associations 
 that not one of them has, since this judgment, betrayed 
 his trust.* Still the position of the Unions was unbear- 
 able ; they would have either to break up, or to get their 
 interests recognized by the law. At this juncture they 
 requested the Crown to appoint a commission of inquiry 
 with a view to legislation. 
 
 No delay is allowed in a free country after public 
 opinion has once taken up a question. Accordingly by 
 the 12th of February the Commission was appointed, 
 and held its first public sitting in London on the 
 
 * There have been several similar attemiDts since the decision of 
 Hornby v. Close, the case referred to in the text ; but, on the whole, 
 the tiibute here paid by the Author has been well deserved. — Editor's 
 Note.
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTBAGES. / 
 
 18tb of March. lu the meantime, however, people 
 called to mind the outrages at Sheffield, others were 
 mentioned as having been committed at Manchester 
 under similar circumstances : and the enemies of the 
 Unions maintained that the whole system of trade 
 societies was responsible for these crimes. It was 
 impossible to lie under the weight of such a charge. In 
 order to afford the Unions the means of justifying them- 
 selves, Parliament authorised the Home Office to appoint 
 two sub-Commissions for the purpose of investigating 
 the origin of the outrages at Sheffield and Manchester, 
 and to facilitate this object invested them with extra- 
 ordinary powers. These different Commissions, in 
 conducting the inquiry confided to them, heard the 
 arguments on both sides, and by their impartiality, 
 patience, and discernment, have been of great service to 
 England. They have enabled the public to distinguish 
 what was good from what was evil, and to shake off more 
 than one prejudice ; and they have given the opportunity 
 to interests supposed to be directly antagonist, of stand- 
 ing face to face, of oiferiug mutual explanations, and not 
 seldom of making some advance towards reconciliation. 
 
 Before we study the history and the organisation of 
 the Unions as revealed in the sittings of the Royal 
 Commission in London, it is necessary to reduce the 
 charges which hung over them to their just proportions, 
 and for this purpose to begin by accompanying the sub-
 
 8 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Commissioners in their inquiry at Sheffield and at 
 Manchester. 
 
 The Sheffield inquiry had a sin^^jularly difficult task : 
 it had to discover the truth where all the researches of 
 the police had been in vain. But it was greatly assisted 
 by the extraordinary powers it had received, which gave 
 it the authority of a court of justice. One of the 
 merciful rules of criminal procedure in England is that, 
 a witness, being on his oath to declare the truth to the 
 court, cannot, if he accuses himself, be prosecuted for a 
 confession thus obtained. The Commission had power 
 to grant this immunity to the witnesses called before it ; 
 and this power became in its hands a much more potent 
 instrument than it can ever be in those of an ordinary 
 court ; because, in the first place, there was no limit to 
 the scope of its inquiries, and also because, ha^dug no 
 judgment to give and no prisoner to sentence, the 
 Commission at once summoned as witnesses all those 
 to whom the vague suspicions of public opinion pointed. 
 If their confession was sincere and complete, the Com- 
 missioners were to give them a certificate of indemnity, 
 specifying the crimes or ofi"ences of which they had 
 been found guilty. If they denounced any of their 
 accomplices, the latter could, by taking the same course, 
 obtain the same indemnity. But a witness who in a 
 single instance perjured himself, or who kept back any 
 portion of the truth, was to be exposed to the utmost
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. » 
 
 rigour of the law. The Commission, which was 
 composed of three barristers (Messrs. Overend, Earstow, 
 aud Chance), opened its sittings at Sheffield on the 
 3rd of June, 1867. Two other barristers also attended, 
 one of whom represented the employers, who combined 
 to assist in the inquiry, the other the Unions, who had 
 asked for the creation of this tribunal. 
 
 There was great agitation in Sheffield ; no one 
 believed in any discovery. But such was the tact and 
 discretion with which the inquiry was conducted, that at 
 the very commencement of the proceedings a corner of 
 the veil was raised ; and the double inducement held 
 out, viz., punishment for the obstinate, impunity for 
 confessions, soon enabled the Commission to tear it com- 
 pletely aside. Then during twenty-five days the strange 
 spectacle was presented of criminals relating their mis- 
 deeds, and taking the greatest care not to omit a 
 single detail. In some instances, after having accused 
 themselves, they made it at first a point of honour not to 
 Ijetray their accomplices ; but soon finding themselves 
 compromised by subsequent passages in their evidence, 
 if they did not tell the whole truth, they made a clean 
 l)reast of it in order to obtain the promised indemnity. 
 The secret bond which ran through all these crimes was 
 at last discovered, the guilty came out in their true 
 colours, and the contriver and executors of these out- 
 rages, with their accomplices, who happily were to be
 
 10 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 found among a few only of the Unions, were all brought 
 to light. These discoveries provoked the indignation of 
 the public, hut as the truth gradually came out the 
 vague suspicions, which had embraced the whole system 
 of Trades' Unions, began to disperse, and at the last 
 sitting their representative was able to declare publicly 
 that they gloried in having joined in the call for this 
 inquiry. There is something very striking even in the 
 dry report of this last sitting. The offenders or their 
 representatives appear one after the other before the 
 Commissioners to receive their certificate, and if any 
 one of their crimes is not mentioned in it, they call 
 attention to it, and urgently demand its insertion. 
 They are free henceforth, and safe from the pursuit of 
 human justice ; but if, like Cain, they are inviolable, like 
 him, they carry on their foreheads the mark of infamy. 
 
 Such was the winding up of this strange drama. 
 To follow the details and to understand the motives of 
 so many crimes which had hitherto appeared inexplicable, 
 it is necessary to know the circumstances which gave 
 rise to them, to take into consideration the prejudices 
 rife among the Sheffield workmen, and the passions 
 which, gaining the mastery over perverted natures, led 
 them on even to murder. Most of the cutlers' Unions, 
 imbued with the spirit of monopol}', handed down to 
 them from the guilds of the middle ages, were not 
 satisfied with merely supporting strikes — which was the
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 11 
 
 avowed object of tlieii* existence — but claimed to 
 exercise absolute influence over the trade, to force the 
 masters to submit to all the wishes of the majority of 
 their members, to bring the minority under the same 
 subjection, and for this purpose to oblige all workmen to 
 enter their ranks. Whoever refused was considered an 
 enemy. The Unionists looked upon independent labour, 
 or any resistance to their tyrannical orders, as an actual 
 sin ; and most of them sincerely believed that they were 
 treated with great injustice because the law gave them 
 no power to punish disobedience. To take the law 
 into their own hands was the next step, and this was 
 constantly done. The tools of non-Unionists were 
 secretly stolen in order to punish or intimidate them : 
 this is called rattening. The victims of these thefts 
 knew perfectly well who the authors of them were : if 
 they resisted, the persecutions continued ; but if they 
 submitted, the secretary of the Union immediately 
 returned the objects stolen. An immense majority 
 who approved of these measures would have drawn back 
 in horror at the idea of being led on into crime ; but 
 the more violent and unscrupulous among their leaders, 
 having once transgressed the law, had no notion of 
 being stopped by any considerations of this sort. 
 
 One of them, Broadhead, was destined to infamous 
 celebrity. He it was who, on the occasion of the attempted 
 assassination of Fearnhough, had made the greatest
 
 12 THE TKADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 display of sympathy with the general agitation excited. 
 The reason why the author of that attempt remained 
 undiscovered was that Broadhead himself was guilty of 
 it. Broadhead pointed out the victim, and paid the 
 assassin charged with the execution of the deed. But 
 this crime was only the last of a frightful series of 
 outrages deliherately ordered by him, which he unfolded 
 before the Commission. In 1854 a workman named 
 Parker received a gunshot wound : Broadhead paid and 
 posted the assassin. He caused the death of Liuley. 
 His principal agent, named Crookes, had received orders 
 to wound Linley with an air-gun by way of warning. 
 On the occasion of the first attempt the victim was hit, 
 but the wound was considered too slight. Crookes 
 tried again in 1859, but this time his aim was too 
 sure, and Linley fell mortally wounded. Broadhead, 
 after this, adopted a new system ; and the explosion at 
 Fearuhough's house was the ninth attempt at blowing 
 up of which he admitted he was the author. Crookes, 
 who was almost always charged with whatever had to be 
 done, chose his own accomplices. Broadhead paid them 
 from 41. to 20/. for each job, according to circumstances. 
 The expense was always charged to the funds of the 
 Union, of which he was treasurer, for no personal 
 enmity seems to have inspired any of these attempts : 
 it was supposed to be for the advantage of the Union 
 that the members of the same trade, who resisted its
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 13 
 
 orders, sliould be persecuted. Two hundred pounds so 
 spent figure iu the accounts ; some under fictitious 
 headings, some under none at all ; and not one of the 
 persons, whose duty it was to audit the accounts, seems 
 to have inquired how this money was spent, an evident 
 proof of their connivance. But this connivance, instead 
 of being dangerous to the assassins, helped them to 
 obtain the object they had in view. The motives of the 
 crime were intended to be apparent under the mystery 
 which concealed the agent. In this they succeeded per- 
 fectly. The hand of the Union was always recognized ; 
 men Avhispered to one another that another rebel would 
 next day be added to the list of victims, and the Union 
 reigned by means of the terror it inspired. It might 
 even be compared to the famous Yehm-Gericht tribunals, 
 which pronounced judgments, the execution of which 
 remained always enveloped in mystery.* 
 
 * Although the revelations of the Commission have opened the 
 eyes of all those who had indirectly and involuntarily encouraged 
 these crimes by approving of the minor persecutions directed against 
 non-Unionists, and although they have inspired a Mholesomc fear in 
 those who might now he disposed to renew these attempts, nevertheless 
 some of the Unions who were most compromised in these deplorable 
 affairs have shown the spirit which animates them by openly defying 
 public o]jinion and morality. The Saw-handle ilakers' Union persists 
 in retaining as Treasurer a man who confessed to having contributed 
 £7 10s. towards payment of the would-be assassins of Fearnhough. It is 
 therefore to be feared that this system of murders has not been entirelj' 
 abandoned. But if any fresh crimes similar to those already perpetrated, 
 and whose origin is now well known, should unhappily have to be 
 added to the list, it will not excite public oi)inion to the same degree
 
 14 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Broadhead, however, found rivals in other Unions ; 
 two murders, and fifteen attempts at personal violence 
 and blowing up, all instigated in the course of ten years 
 by the officers of the different Unions, were brought 
 under the notice of the Commission ; and if it has not 
 been proved that the Unions themselves, as a body, were 
 priA^ to these outrages, it is only because for the most 
 part they made haste to destroy their books, which, 
 doubtless, contained compromising evidence against 
 them.* 
 
 The Manchester Commission of Inquiry sat fifteen 
 days, from the 4th to the 21st of September. The 
 crimes and offences, into the origin of which it had to 
 inquire, were almost all caused by quarrels between the 
 working brickmakers and their employers. Attacks 
 were directed more fi-equently against the property than 
 against the persons of the masters, in order to 
 intimidate those among them who resisted the will of 
 the Unions. Horses had their throats cut, cows were 
 poisoned, hay-ricks burnt, brick-kilns destroyed ; and it 
 was only in the nocturnal fights arising out of these 
 guilty acts, that one murder and numerous acts of 
 violence were committed. The Stockport Brickmakers' 
 
 as before ; nor will those, whose innocence has teen proved by the 
 Commission, be hehl answerable for them. — Author's Note. 
 
 * All these societies except one, that of the Brickmakers, are 
 formed out of the different branches of the cutlery trade. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 15 
 
 Union was the only one con\dcted of having openly 
 countenanced these depredations. Some others \drtually 
 admitted their guilt h}^ destroying the evidence which 
 might have compromised them. One of these, for 
 instance, refused to deliver up its hooks : in the end, 
 the five chests in which the hooks were kept were 
 seized, and brought in triumph before the Commission : 
 the treasurer was allowed twenty-four hours to come 
 and open them, and then they were broken open. 
 The chests were empty ! Either before or after the 
 seizure some skilful hand had withdrawn all the 
 documents contained in them. Public opinion pointed 
 to one Kay, as the leader in, and contractor for, these 
 nocturnal expeditions, by which he was said to make a 
 good living ; but, as he had no wish to imitate the 
 cynical confessions of Broadhead, he disappeared from 
 Manchester ; and, by so doing, confirmed the revela- 
 tions about to be made by his accomplices. Neverthe- 
 less, with these exceptions, the only fault to be found 
 with the Manchester Brickmakers' and Masons' Unions, 
 is that, by their absurd trade rules, they encouraged a 
 feeling of hostility on the part of the workmen towards 
 the masters, which led several members of them to 
 commit the deeds of violence we have just mentioned. 
 
 We have dwelt thus long upon the unpleasing 
 aspects of our subject, because we are persuaded that 
 in approaching the examination of an institution such
 
 16 THE TRADKS' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 as that we are now studying, it is most necessary to 
 keep the eyes open to all possible dangers that may 
 ai'ise from it. But we should not have undertaken this 
 work had we not thought that it would give us an 
 opportunity of showing how far only the evils of the 
 system extend, and also of correcting once for all much 
 exaggeration. In writing of Trades' Unions we shall 
 have to mention some more isolated deeds of violence, 
 to blame many more errors, many prejudices, much 
 abuse of the power of combination ; but we believe that 
 men of impartial minds, and insensible to false alarms, 
 will see in these excesses no motive for pronouncing 
 unqualified condemnation on a vigorous institution, 
 which is as yet only -groping for and feeling its way. 
 
 No party spirit entered into the composition of the 
 Royal Commission. It contained all the materials for 
 a complete and exhaustive discussion ; for its members, 
 ten in number, under the presidency of Sir AVilliam 
 Erie, one of the most honoured judges of England, 
 held the most opposite opinions. The House of Lords 
 was represented by Lord Lichfield, distinguished for 
 the part he took in endeavouring to reconcile the 
 u'onmasters with their men in 1865. The House of 
 Commons supplied four members, only one of whom. 
 Sir Daniel Gooch, a director of the Great AYestern 
 Railway, and best known for the important part 
 he took in laying the Trans-Atlantic Cable, was a
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OL'TEAGES. 17 
 
 supporter of the Goyernmeut ; the three others were 
 Lord Elcho, a Liberal Conservative ; Mr. Roebuck, the 
 eloquent lawj^er, an Independent Radical ; and Mr. 
 Thomas Hughes, the popular writer, professing demo- 
 cratic opinions. To these were added Mr. Harrison, a 
 barrister, the intimate friend of Mr. Hughes ; Sir 
 Edmund Head, ex-Governor-General of Canada ; Mr. 
 Booth, Mr. Merivale, one of the under-secretaries in 
 the India Office, and Mr. Mathews, ironmaster, as the 
 representative of the great trade interest. Divergencies 
 of opinion showed themselves from the very beginning 
 at the meetings, and even in the questions put to the 
 witnesses summoned. As each member had the right 
 of asking questions, the witnesses always found them- 
 selves, after their first, or examination in chief, sub- 
 jected to a cross-examination put by some Commissioner 
 anxious to criticise the value of their evidence, and to 
 make out its weakness, where it happened to tell against 
 his own views. Accordingly the commission, which 
 has not yet ended its labours, will probably be eventually 
 divided in opinion, and will not be able to agree in sign- 
 ing an unanimous report ; * but surely this is much better 
 than if the inquiry had been conducted in a one-sided 
 
 * This prediction was verified. Lord Lichfield and Messrs. Hughes 
 and Harrison sent in a separate Report, and Lord Elcho and Mr. 
 Merivale, while signing the Report of the majority, expressed tlieir 
 dissent from it on important points. — Ed. 
 
 2
 
 18 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 manner, which would have destroyed all its influence. 
 During this long procedure, which has lasted nearly 
 two years, the Commission listened to witnesses of all 
 classes and all professions. Masters and workmen have 
 heen called to appear before the same bar ; in fact both 
 masters and workmen anticipated their summons. The 
 representatives of the Unions would, of course, be the 
 first to come and set forth their position and their 
 wishes ; the masters who had suffered from strikes 
 would not fail to appear and answer them. Both sides 
 endeavom-ed to obtain auxiliaries in the opposite camp. 
 The masters, hostile to the Unions, produced workmen 
 who alleged that they were victims of the societies. 
 The men, who lived on amicable terms wdth their 
 employers, expected their masters to give evidence 
 favourable to the Unions. By obliging both sides to 
 state clearly their grievances, to set forth their objects, 
 and to listen calmly to one another, instead of indulging 
 in vague recriminations, the Commissioners were enabled 
 to soothe animosities, and to accomplish a much more 
 important and lasting work than any laws they might 
 have been instrumental in passing. With all their zeal 
 they could not, by means of the oral testimony submitted 
 to them, gTasp the immense field of inquir}^ open to them. 
 They therefore resolved to confine themselves, first, to 
 studying the principal types common to all Unions, and 
 which have been uuiversallv recognized as the model on
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 19 
 
 wliich the system should be organized ; next, to examine 
 thoroughly into the struggles which have distracted 
 some of the most important trades in England. With 
 these objects the Commission selected four trades : the 
 building, the iron-working, the coal-mining, and the 
 ship-building trades ; and finished its labours by inquiries 
 upon the subject of the solvency of Trades' Unions, the 
 tailors, glass-blowers, and printers' strikes, and the 
 formation of Councils of Arbitration. Lastly, besides 
 the ten folio volumes, containing the report of forty- 
 eight long sittings, in the shape of twenty thousand 
 questions and as many answers, the Commissioners 
 have published other documents : at their request the 
 great manufacturers and the representatives of the prin- 
 cipal Unions have filled up a form comprising the most 
 important subjects to which their labour was directed ; 
 and Lord Stanley has collected and published a series of 
 despatches by the representatives of England abroad, 
 containing much valuable information on the subject of 
 the Trades' Unions in the different countries to which 
 they relate. 
 
 The Royal Commission, therefore, has furnished all 
 the materials necessary for the study of Trades' Unions 
 in England. We have only to follow it step by step 
 guided by its impartial and patient researches. The 
 work may at times prove somewhat hard, and we begin 
 by craving our readers' indulgence. We shall take
 
 20 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 things in the order in which we find them arranged in 
 the proceedings of the Commission ; this will lead us to 
 describe the working of a great number of strikes one 
 after the other, which may, we fear, be sometimes 
 monotonous for our reader : but it is absolutely 
 necessary if we wish to discover the i^rofound difier- 
 ences, which, under an apparent uniformity, distinguish 
 each one of these struggles from any others of them, 
 and to understand the various bodies of workmen who 
 maintained the contest.
 
 ( 21 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. THE ORIGIN OF TRADES* UNIONS. 
 
 The claim to regulate the rate of wages, without refer- 
 ence to the variations in the labour-market, which is 
 the charge now-a-days urged against Trades' Unions, is 
 a legacy from the legislature of the middle ages ; and 
 it was expressly in order to resist this tp-anny that the 
 first workmen's combinations were formed. Therefore, 
 in order to trace their origin, we must for a short space 
 go back to the period of these oppressive laws. 
 
 The terrible plague of 1348 carried ofi" one-quarter 
 of the population, and plunged the remainder into a 
 state of frightful misery ; but, as is generally the case 
 in the course of human affairs, the evil brought its own 
 remedy. The scarcity of labour soon increased its value, 
 and would have secured to the survivors the means of 
 retrieving their losses, had not Parliament taken the 
 alarm and intervened. ParHament wanted to restore 
 the same scale as had prevailed before the ravages of the
 
 22 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 disease, and thought hy fixing a maximum rate of 
 wages to escape one of the most fatal consequences of 
 the plague. Its successors in the generations fol- 
 lowing went still further in the same path, and laws 
 were passed more and more restrictive. In order to 
 balance the maximum imposed on the artisans, it be- 
 came necessary also to fix a maximum value on raw 
 material and on articles of consumption, in order that 
 the price of these might be within the means of the 
 artisans. Next, it became necessai-y to protect them 
 against competition, by putting eveiy sort of obstacle 
 in the way of those who wished to join their rajiks : 
 thence arose the severe rules of apprenticeship, the 
 latest form of slavery, which modern society has found 
 it so difficult to get rid of. But though trade in 
 England was subjected to the fatal system of the 
 maximum, on the other hand it escaped the absolute 
 monopoly which the guilds exercised in France by 
 means of the exclusive trade privileges granted to the 
 freemen only by the wardens of companies,* In Eng- 
 land these privileges were for the most part limited 
 to the particular town, and once beyond the borough 
 boundaries labour enjoyed comparative freedom. The 
 stagnation which has fallen upon so many old English 
 towns is no doubt owing to this difference between 
 
 * In the original, " monopole .... exerce .... par les maitrises 
 et les jurandes." — Translato)-'s Note.
 
 THE ORIflIN OF TRADES' UNIONS. 23 
 
 the two systems. Their growth was stopped, and they 
 fell into the state of decrepitude which has given rise 
 to the expression of "rotten boroughs ; " while, in the 
 meantime, life and activity was spreading in mere 
 villages, which, by reason of their recent origin, were 
 not represented in Parliament before 1832, but which 
 are now known by the celebrated names of Bir- 
 mingham, Manchester, Leeds, &c. Trade in England, 
 though fettered, was flourishing, and became, as it 
 grew, more and more alive to the difficulties under 
 which it laboured. Accordingly, secret societies for 
 removing these obstacles and raising wages soon sprung 
 up. Severe laws were enacted against them. Under 
 Edward VI. any man convicted for the third time of 
 having joined them, had an ear cut off. These societies 
 nnd the laws condemning them, survived after the 
 maximum had fallen into disuse. The last restrictions 
 imposed on the liberty of contract were not abolished till 
 the beginning of this century, and it was not until the 
 year 1824 that Trades' Unions ceased to be persecuted, 
 and that the offence of combination, which was main- 
 tained as such in France till 1864, disappeared from the 
 English code. Nevertheless, thanks to political liberty 
 and commercial prosperity, these societies, in the years 
 which preceded their enfranchisement, increased to such 
 a degree, in numbers and in strength, as to exercise a 
 serious influence upon trade. At this iinu' most of the
 
 24 THE trades' unions of England. 
 
 outrages occurred. Their members, from Leiiig obliged 
 to act as conspirators in preparing and managing strikes, 
 naturally became intolerant, and had no notion of resort- 
 ing to any argument but force. Deprived of the exercise 
 of their natural rights, they bound themselves to one 
 another by cabalistic forms, by eccentric ceremonies, and 
 by illegal oaths. Crime increased, and there was more 
 than one obscure predecessor of Broadhead among them. 
 The history of the Nottingham workmen, among many 
 others, proves that the law, which allowed them to 
 combine openly, far from irritating their hostility against 
 the masters, has helped to bring about the happy under- 
 standing which now prevails. 
 
 In 1811 the hosiery trade of Nottingham was at a 
 very low ebb. The workpeople were not only badly 
 l)aid, but had to give an exorbitant price for the use of 
 the looms belonging to their employers, for whom they 
 worked at home. The introduction of machinery, which 
 threatened to reduce their wages still lower by com- 
 peting with the system of working in their own houses, 
 brought on an explosion. The masters, as is generally 
 the case on such occasions, were just at this time almost 
 ruined themselves, and therefore not in a position to 
 make any concessions to their workmen. The result 
 was, not a strike, but an actual insurrection. The 
 workmen met at night in secret council, declared war 
 against the new machinery, and organized armed bands
 
 THE ORIGIN OF TEADES' UNIONS. 25 
 
 to destroy it. All the manufactories were attacked, 
 many of them sacked or burnt ; the contagion spread 
 to the neighbouring counties, and before long the 
 Luddites (so called from the name of one of the leaders 
 of these gangs) committed their ravages on a grand 
 scale. Their secret was so well kept that they escaped 
 for some time the most active search. They appeared at 
 intervals during six years, notwithstanding the execution 
 of most of the leaders. Eighteen of them were hung at 
 York in the year 1813. From that time till 1817 they 
 were treated with the same severity, and the penalty 
 of death was awarded to whomsoever should be convicted 
 of breaking a loom. At last the Luddites, hemmed in on 
 every side, sunk into common plunderers, and, finally, 
 disappeared. But this severe suppression brought no 
 remedy to the suiferings of the population at Nottingham, 
 half of whom lived in 1812 upon public relief. Then it 
 was that numerous workmen's associations were founded 
 in the town, which developed into Trades' Unions after 
 the combination laws were repealed. This act of justice, 
 however, could not destroy the hostihty based on the 
 remembrance of past wrong : it continued to exist for 
 forty years, accompanied by incessantly renewed quarrels 
 on the Avages question. However, in the course of the 
 last three or four years, a marvellous change has come 
 over the former home of Luddism, now a model town, in 
 wliich all England may appreciate the happy effects of
 
 20 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 reconciliatiim by tlie liarmony prevailing among former 
 enemies. 
 
 We have only to add, not to multiply examples, that 
 several of the Unions noAv existing, such as those of 
 the printers in London, and of the iron-founders in 
 Staffordshire, date from the first years of this century, 
 some of them under the form of associations, whose 
 objects were lawful, others as secret societies. 
 
 II. — THE LEGAL POSITION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 
 
 As we have already observed, Parliament abolished 
 
 all the combination laws in 1824 ; but on the masters 
 
 complaining that this measure enabled the workmen to 
 
 break their contracts with impunity, it was modified, so as 
 
 to meet' this objection, by an Act passed the following 
 
 year. But even after the Act of 1824, the traces of the 
 
 ancient inequality, which had so long weighed heavy on 
 
 the working-classes, were by no means expunged from the 
 
 statute book. For instance, the " Master and Servant 
 
 Act " — by which the assertion of the master was always 
 
 to be held entitled to more credit than that of the servant 
 
 — was abolished only last year ; * and the definition of the 
 
 limits within which combination must be kept in order not 
 
 to incur legal penalties is still very vague. Jurisprudence 
 
 * The " Master and Servant Act " of last year abolished the in- 
 equality in the penalties for breach of contract in the case of employer 
 and emploj-ed. Up to that time, the workman could be imprisoned, 
 while the master could onlv be fined in the first instance. — Ed.
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 27 
 
 itself has not yet succeeded in fixing these limits. In 
 fact, the law connects with acts evidently criminal, such 
 as violence and threats, " all that can act in restraint of 
 trade," and all that it calls " conspiracy." An instance 
 can alone make the sense of this word intelligihle, which 
 does not correspond to the ordinary meaning of the term 
 conspiracy. The simple fact of endeavouring to persuade 
 a workman to refrain from lahour is a j>erfectly legitimate 
 act ; but in 1867, the leaders of the tailors' strike were 
 declared guilty of " conspiracy," for having combined to 
 organize a system of pickets, who confined themselves to 
 informing the workmen that such and such a shop was 
 under strike. Again, if a master breaks his agreement with 
 a workman, the latter can only claim damages ; whereas, 
 rice versa, the master, besides the civil action, which is 
 always open to him, may bring a criminal indictment 
 against the workman, and have him condemned to three 
 months' imprisonment.* Lastly, as we have already said, 
 the law refuses to recognize or protect any society 
 designed to support strikes. This last provision forms 
 one of the principal grievances ; the following circum- 
 stances gave rise to it : — 
 
 Since the Act of 1824, the formation of an Union 
 
 * This inequality of penalty has been abolished by the " Master and 
 Servant Act" of 1867.— £r/.i 
 
 [1 The author is now aware that this is the case, and the slight 
 ciTor in the text will be corrected in a new edition about to appear 
 almost immediately. — Translator's Note.l
 
 28 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 lias uo longer been illegal ; but, nevertheless, these 
 societies are not regarded as corporations, nor, like joint- 
 stock companies, invested with the right of holding 
 property. This distinction escaped the notice of their 
 founders. They took alarm at last, some years ago, 
 when an Act was passed granting this privilege to 
 mutual benefit societies, provided they were registered, 
 and had received the approval of a public officer specially 
 appointed for the purpose. The same privileges were 
 granted to all other societies registered in the same 
 manner, whose objects were not illegal ; but these latter 
 had to obtain the approval of the Home Office. The 
 English spirit of association is far too independent to 
 submit willingly to preliminary control, however im- 
 partial may be the authority intrusted to exert it. The 
 Trades' Union leaders were certain of obtaining minis- 
 terial sanction for all their societies in Great Britain ; 
 but a number of these associations have spread to 
 Ireland, and the Irish Government, it was feared, 
 might refuse to sanction them. Two members of the 
 House of Commons, Lord Goderich (now Earl De 
 Grey) and Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, in concert with the 
 representatives of the principal Unions, and especially 
 with Mr. Allan, Secretary of the Amalgamated Engi- 
 neers, had a clause drawn for insertion in the Friendly 
 Societies Consolidation Act, then before the House, 
 which should enable Trades' Unions to be established
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 29 
 
 legally, and to be registered according to the same forms 
 as mutual benefit societies, providecl always there was 
 nothing illegal in any of their rules. This clause, which 
 gave rise to a keen controversy at the time in the 
 press, was passed by both Houses. Corporate privileges 
 on certain conditions were granted to trade societies ; 
 but high legal authorities — among them Sir Alexander 
 Cockburn (now Chief Justice) and Baron Eolfe (after- 
 wards Lord Chancellor, by the title of Lord Cranworth) 
 — had, the former in consultation, the latter in giving 
 judgment, spoken out so plainly as to lead the 
 unionists to believe that the mere act of organizing 
 a strike would not bring them under the dissolving 
 powers qf the Act. They thought it impossible that 
 both Houses should, with their ejea open, pass a clause 
 which took away from them with one hand what it 
 gave them with the other. Believing, therefore, that 
 they were under the full protection of the law, they 
 were greatly astonished when, in 1867, after having spent 
 several years in this conviction, the Court of Queen's 
 Bench came to the decision which we have mentioned 
 above. The reasons given for this decision increased 
 its importance. The common law of England declares 
 every engagement "opposed to the common weal " null 
 and void, and the decisions of the Courts have settled 
 that all combinations, either of masters or workmen, 
 with the view of controlling the labour-market, are in
 
 30 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 restraint of trade, and " opposed to the common weal." 
 For this reason, the Court refused to grant the Unions 
 the privileges which they thought they already pos- 
 sessed. The result is that, though they have ceased 
 since 1824 to be illegal associations, they still remain 
 unrecognized b}^ law. * 
 
 These restrictions, which irritate without disabling, 
 have helped to keep up the ancient feeling of enmity 
 on the part of the workmen towards the masters ; time 
 and amendments of the law can alone remove this : 
 nor must it be forgotten that the impartiality of the 
 bench and pubHc opinion act as two powerful correctives 
 to them. 
 
 For foiiy-eight years the English workman has 
 enjoyed the right of disposing of his labour as freely 
 as the merchant disposes of his goods, or the manu- 
 facturer of his produce. The army of workmen now 
 enrolled under the flag of Trades' Unions may vie with 
 those of the most powerful States on the Continent : 
 it numbers more than 800,000 volunteers. No one 
 
 * The position of Trades' Unions is somewhat improved by a 
 temporary Act passed in 1868, defining in what respects their rules are 
 to be regarded as acting in restraint of trade, and confining this to the 
 regulations M-hich compel members to conduct theii* labour only in a 
 certain mode, as for instance, by the day, or the obligation to leave off 
 work after a certain number of hours. This new law, though insufficient, 
 is nevertheless an important security to the unions, and enabled one 
 of them, on the 19th of December, 1868, to obtain the conviction of 
 a dishonest ti-easurer. — Author's JVote.
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 31 
 
 even among its ill-wishers can hope to scatter it : to 
 do that it would be necessary to go back to the old 
 tyrannical laws which sanctioned the serfdom of the 
 working-classes. With a force so numerous and so 
 well organized it is necessary to come to terms, the 
 interests of all classes are concerned in persuading it 
 to lay down its arms, and in showing it that it may 
 find a much better use for its power than the fruitless 
 struggles in which it has been hitherto engaged. 
 
 France cannot remain indifferent to this spectacle, 
 nor ought she merely to seek to make a temporary 
 profit out of the disturbed conditions of industry which 
 these contests may cause among our neighbours ; for 
 what nation can be sure of escaping them ? England 
 will perhaps see her sails swelled by a favourable breeze, 
 while around us the tempest is raging. In fact, the 
 advance of wages, whatever may be the means used to 
 obtain it, is the object of the working-classes equally 
 in all countries ; and as long as their labour is bought 
 as a mere commodity, and not admitted to share in 
 trade profits, it is natural that they should think only 
 of increasing its value in the market, without caring 
 for what may be the ulterior efi"ects of such increase. 
 As soon as the Legislature released the working-classes 
 from the unjust fetters which hindered them from the 
 free use of their labour, a strike first presented itself 
 as the instrument whereby to defend their interests ;
 
 32 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 to keep up a strike a fund must be raised for the 
 support of men out of work, and between this and an 
 Union there is only the difference between a provisional 
 institution and a permanent system. 
 
 Mr, Hewitt, an American ironmaster, and, like 
 most of his countiymen, neither the slave of routine 
 nor wedded to arbitrary theories, states in his evidence 
 that " the uneasiness which exists among the labouriner- 
 men all over the world, and especially among those who 
 are more enlightened, arises from two causes : one of 
 these is the general introduction of machineiy, by which 
 production has been enormously increased, without (as 
 the people believe) a corresponding re-arrangement of 
 the laws of distribution of the proceeds. It is a feeling 
 arising out of the belief that the profits of industry are 
 not distributed fairly. That is the first cause. Secondly, 
 the large introduction of gold from California and 
 Australia has disturbed the relations of value, and 
 labour, among other commodities, has had its value 
 disturbed. It is reaching an adjustment, which it 
 would reach without the Trades' Unions, but which 
 these working-men believe they will reach more readily 
 by the Trades' Unions." They know that intei-national 
 relations and intercourse are so frequent and easy that 
 they can never hope to obtain on this account any 
 lasting advantages, which would not, in a short time, 
 be shared by the labouring-classes of other countries :
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF TRADES UNIONS. 
 
 33 
 
 and when the English manufacturers reproach their 
 workmen with exacting an increase of wages, favour- 
 able to foreign competition, the latter retort that the 
 workmen on the Continent will in their turn soon get 
 a rise, and that, if need be, they will help them to it ; 
 and so it will be all fair again. 
 
 The importance, then, of Trades' Unions must be 
 evident to every one. We propose, first, to give a 
 sketch of their general characteristics ; and then to 
 point out, adopting the same order as the Commission, 
 that which gives them peculiar features in each trade. 
 With this view we shall describe the part they played 
 in Trade disputes. Lastly, we shall endeavour to dis- 
 cover, with the aid of some recent examples, how they 
 may be either disarmed or what can be found to take 
 their place, or, which would be best of all, in what way 
 they may be employed in doing good service to society 
 at large. 
 
 
 ■/CAL-U 
 
 -+—
 
 34 THE TKADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OEGANIZATION OP TRADES' UNIONS. 
 
 Trades' Unions are, above all things, a bank for the 
 relief of men out of work. 
 
 As a general rule there is an entrance fee, sometimes 
 rather high ; afterwards the members pay a subscription 
 varying from a penny to one, or in some cases as much 
 as two, shillings a week. A reserve fund is thus created, 
 which increases rapidly in prosperous years, and which 
 is designed to support the members of the association 
 when they are out of work, either from want of employ- 
 ment, or in consequence of a strike. The subscription 
 is the same for all members,* and this equality is a 
 groundwork of the institution, since it implies the equal 
 right of all the members to support when out of work : 
 during a strike it matters not whether a man's earnings 
 had been large or small, whether he is a skilful or unskilful 
 
 * Except in the case of two or three societies, which have two scales, 
 and in the London Printers' Union, in which alone the subscriptions arc- 
 graduated according to the wages of each individual member. — 
 Author's Note.
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES UNIONS. 3i> 
 
 workman, the Union must keep him from starving. Tlie 
 amount of relief secured to him by the Union depends 
 solely, if he is married, on the number of mouths he has 
 to feed. 
 
 This relief naturally varies a good deal according to 
 the trade and the resources of each society. It has more 
 than once happened, in the course of a prolonged strike, 
 that a Union, seeing its funds melting away, has been 
 obliged to diminish the allowances of the members, till at 
 last its resources have been completely exhausted. It is, 
 therefore, the duty of the leaders of the different Unions 
 never to engage in a struggle with the masters without 
 having first deliberately weighed the chances. 
 
 The society is managed by a superintending or 
 executive council, annually elected by ballot by all the 
 members, and including a president, a treasurer, and a 
 secretary. The government of the society, all intercourse 
 with the masters, decisions as to strikes, the allowance 
 of relief, together with the admission and the expulsion 
 of members, all belong exclusively to the council. A 
 general meeting is held for the discussion of grand 
 financial affairs, such as the question of imposing an 
 extraordinary subscription, called a lev}-, on all members, 
 in cases where there has been a branch strike, and 
 the normal resources of the society are insufiicient to 
 support it. 
 
 But the more important Unions, such as the
 
 36 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Amalgamated Engineers, the Amalgamated Society of 
 Carpenters and Joiners, tbe Masons, the two great 
 Societies of Ironworkers of Staffordshire and the North 
 of England, the Society of Ironfounders, the Lancashire 
 Sjunners, the National Association of Miners, which 
 numbers over 35,000 members, and many others besides, 
 have a more complicated organization, and are each 
 divided into a great number of branches. Each branch 
 or lodge, which is composed of the workmen inhabiting 
 the same district, elects its own committee, and has its 
 special fund, of which it has the entire management, but 
 for which it has to account every year to the central 
 council. The central council is composed of delegates 
 elected for six months by the different branches, in 
 proportion to the number of members in each branch, 
 and also of two officers, a secretary and a treasurer, 
 appointed directly by the whole body of members.* 
 
 It is the business of the branches to admit candidates, 
 who must first be proposed by two members ; they also 
 have to decide, in the first instance, upon rejections, 
 relief, and local strikes. But the central authority may 
 always be appealed to against their decisions ; and if any 
 branch were to go on strike without ha-vang obtained this 
 authority's sanction, it would not be supported by the 
 
 * In some Unions no general executive power is elected, but the 
 committee of each branch takes it in turn to act in that capacity. — 
 Author's Note.
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 37 
 
 Union. Lastly, voting levies and hearing appeals from 
 branches against the decisions of their central councils, 
 is the business of general meetings. The Amalgamated 
 Engineers have 308 branches, of which eleven are in 
 America ; and some are composed of English workmen 
 settled in France and in Australia ; the Amalgamated 
 Carpenters and Joiners have I'JO ; the Masons 278, and 
 another society of Carpenters 150. In some of these 
 associations, as, for instance, in the two first named, the 
 balance in the hands of each branch is at the end of 
 every year carried to a common fund, which is then 
 divided among all the branches according to the number 
 of their members ; by this means the expenses of the 
 Union are assessed equally upon the whole body. Others, 
 on the contrary, allow their branches complete indepen- 
 dence in the disposal of their finances, subject always to 
 the liabihty of contributing, if necessary, to the funds of 
 any branch needing assistance. If a member changes 
 his abode, he acquires the right to be admitted at the 
 end of a year into the branch established in his new 
 residence ; a simple card supplied by the branch he has 
 left procures him admission into the other.* 
 
 * A particular colour, red, is reserved for the cards of men who have 
 been discharged for drunkenness or bad conduct. Accordingly, the 
 holder of a red card, though still retaining the right of admission, 
 is viewed with suspicion by his future companions : a blue card is 
 reserved for members admitted within the year. The best of all is a 
 black card. — Autltur's Note.
 
 38 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 The expulsions, which are ver}^ numerous, (in the 
 Amalgamated Engineers' Association they amount to 
 one-third of the numher of admissions,) are almost 
 always the result of voluntary resignation, intimated by 
 ceasing to subscribe. A workman changes his residence, 
 and does not always care to become a member of another 
 society, or sometimes he neglects even to obtain admis- 
 sion into another branch of the same society. It 
 frequently happens that a man, whose means have 
 been exhausted by a long strike, and who has lived 
 some time upon the allowance from his Union, either 
 cannot or ^\dll not continue his subscription, and resigns. 
 Or sometimes the association or branch decrees the 
 expulsion of an unwoi-thy member, or of one who has 
 transgressed the rules. Any man continuing to work 
 for a master, against whom his Union had decided to 
 strike, would of course be expelled, unless he anticipated 
 this sentence by immediate resignation.* 
 
 The fund for the assistance of men out of work is 
 the principal feature in the Union Budget ; but a few 
 
 * We may here take passing notice of a society called the London 
 Working-Men's Association, which is under the direction of ^Ir. Potter, 
 and aspires to be considered the general representative of all the Trades' 
 Unions combined. It is composed of delegates appointed by some 
 among them. But it appears not to exercise much influence, if one may 
 judge by the manner in which the chief leaders of the unionist movement 
 spoke of it before the Commission. They accused it, in particular, of 
 having encouraged strikes by holding out promises that it was not, and 
 never could have been, able to perform. — Author's Note.
 
 THE OEGAXIZATIOX OF TSADES' L'XIOXS. 39 
 
 of them, called specially " Trade Societies," confine 
 the employment of their revenues to the support of 
 strikes. These are not, in general, important societies. 
 The others offer their members certain additional 
 advantages borrowed fi'om the mutual benefit societies : 
 these are — a vs'eekly allowance iu case of accident, and 
 almost always in case of sickness also, funeral expenses 
 to the amount of 81. or l'2l., and often half these 
 respective sums for the burial of their wives. Some 
 associations insure their members against the loss of 
 their tools, and three of them secure a pension to old 
 men and invalids. 
 
 The combination of these two aims, viz., at acting 
 both as a strike fund and as a benefit society, has been 
 violently attacked by the adversaries of Trades' Unions ; 
 while, on the other hand, their supporters look upon it as 
 not only advantageous but even necessary to the exist- 
 ence of them. It will, therefore, be useful to consider the 
 discussions which took place on this subject before the 
 Commission. 
 
 The two chief charges brought against these 
 societies (called " mixed Unions ") are these : — First, 
 that of winning over, by the advantages they hold out, 
 many men natm-ally disposed to stand aloof from trade 
 quarrels, but who are afterwards obliged to join in them 
 against their wish for fear of losing all the benefit 
 of their accumulated subscriptions. Secondly, that of
 
 40 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 fixing their budgets on such a scale as, in the long run, 
 to render it impossible for them under any circum- 
 stances to meet the engagements which they have 
 contracted with their members. 
 
 To the first charge, the Union leaders reply that very 
 few men are attracted by the advantages offered by the 
 benefit fund only, because in all associations in which 
 the members are allowed to choose whether they will 
 contribute to this fund, or limit their payments to the 
 fund for the assistance of men out of work, the 
 subscriptions are very few in number. They allege, 
 moreover, that the mixed Unions ofi"er to the public in 
 general, to the masters themselves, and, above all, to 
 the workmen, who are always the first to suffer from a 
 strike, much better security for prudent management than 
 the pure trade societies. These latter, which include 
 all the SheSield Cutlers' Unions, have always been 
 notorious for their intolerance and violence. 
 
 The moment they found themselves in possession of 
 a common fund intended for strike pui-poses exclusively, 
 their natural tendency would be to seek employment for 
 it with or without reason. In mixed Unions, on the 
 contrary, all strike expenses are so much drawn out of 
 the relief fund, and a man who knows that every day's 
 idleness is causing him a loss of so much future benefit 
 on which he counted, is much less inclined to leave oft" 
 work than one who could be kept in idleness out of a
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 41 
 
 special fund of which, if he did not, another would take 
 advantage. Mixed Unions, therefore, cannot he said to 
 employ enticements to enlist men who are not naturally 
 disposed to join in trade quarrels ; hut while they offer 
 to the frugal and prudent section of the working-classes 
 the means of supporting a contest when inevitahle, they 
 tend greatly to diminish the numher of strikes, and to 
 encourage general moderation. 
 
 The second charge leads us to examine the financial 
 organization of these societies. Upon this their whole 
 future depends. They are nothing but a dangerous 
 snare, unless they succeed in establishing in the hands 
 of the workmen a power callable of counterbalancing that 
 possessed by the masters in their capital. This question 
 gave rise to a long and keen argument before the 
 Commission, between Mr. Applegarth, Secretary' of the 
 Amalgamated Association of Carpenters and Joiners, 
 and Mr. Tucker, the actuary of a great Life In- 
 surance Company, who was summoned by the com- 
 missioners to give evidence on this point as an 
 expert. 
 
 Mr. Tucker, after examining all the accounts of 
 Mr. Applegarth's great Union, and submitting them to 
 the rules laid down for the calculation of life insurances, 
 tontines, and mutual benefit societies, declared that the 
 science of numbers condemned it utterly, and that all 
 other societies organized on the same plan were on the
 
 42 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 high road to inevitable bankruptcy, which would be the 
 more irreparable the longer it was put off. 
 
 We will take this society as a model of the mechanism 
 and resources of these great associations. Its members 
 have to pay five shillings entrance-money to begin 
 with, and a shilling a week afterwards and three- 
 pence a quarter in addition ; this brings the annual sub- 
 scription up to 2/. 13s. The sums so collected are 
 carried to a common fund for defraying the whole 
 expenditure of the society. These may be divided into 
 three heads, viz. — I. Mutual assistance ("benefits"). 
 II. Trade purposes. III. General expenses. 
 
 I. Benefits are subdivided thus : 
 
 1st. Assistance in sickness — twelve shillings a week 
 for twenty-six weeks, and after that six shillings a week 
 as long as needed. 2nd. Superannuation — five shillings 
 a week for those wdio have been over twelve years, seven 
 shillings a week for those who have been over eighteen, 
 and eight shillings a week for those who have been over 
 twenty-five j-ears members. 3rd. Funeral expenses, 
 dl. lOs. for those who have belonged less, 12?. for those 
 who have belonged more, than six months to the 
 society. 
 
 II. Trade expenses consist of — 1st. Support of strikes 
 sanctioned by the association. Each member while on 
 strike receives ten shillings a week for the first twelve, 
 and six shillings a week for the twelve following weeks.
 
 THE OKGANIZATION OF TEADES' UNIONS. 43 
 
 2nd. Support of members out of work. This is fixed at 
 fifteen shillings a week in cases where they have not been 
 discharged for misconduct. 3rd. Insurance to their full 
 value against the loss of tools for those who can count 
 more than six months' membership, for those who 
 cannot the amount recoverable under this head is 
 limited to 5?. 4th. An emigration bounty of 61., or 
 more if the resources of the society will permit it. 5th. 
 Relief in case of accidents.* 6th. Aid granted to other 
 societies to help them in supporting strikes. 
 
 III. General expenses, which amount to a large pro- 
 portion of the whole, include the fixed salary of the 
 secretaries, attendance fees of delegates and members of 
 the council on certificate of presence, the hire of offices 
 and of rooms to hold meetings in, and printing numerous 
 documents, which last forms a large item. 
 
 The expenditure under these three heads amounted 
 in 1865 to 1,635Z., 2,790L, and 2,307L respectively, 
 making a total of about 6,742L, omitting fractions. The 
 receipts amounted to 10,488Z., leaving a balance of 
 3,746L, which is paid into a reserve fund kept to meet 
 any possible future increase of the " benefit " charges.f 
 
 * In the Society's accounts this expense appears under the second 
 head, though it would seem to belong rather to the first, — Author's 
 Note. 
 
 f In order to show the relative imjwrtance of these three divisions 
 of exiK'nditure, the secretary of the Union has made a calculation 
 showing the jiroportiouAvhich each one of them bears to the sum total of
 
 44 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Rather more than half the gross income, therefore, is 
 either spent in affording present relief, or is set aside 
 to supply future wants under this head. 
 
 It was upon this calculation that Mr. Tucker 
 undertook to prove the insolvency of the Society. 
 
 Relying upon the tables prepared for the calculation 
 of annuities and life insurances, he asserts that, sup- 
 posing the average age of members on admission to be 
 thirty years, the whole amount of the weekly shilling 
 subscriptions would hardly cover the expenditure in- 
 curred under the first head ("Benefits"): and sup- 
 posing the average age on admission to be forty-five, the 
 subscription would have to be doubled : whereas it 
 really is only sixpence a week, because only half the 
 revenues are devoted to the expenses under the first 
 head. It is most unjust, he says, to oblige all members, 
 without distinction of age, to pay the same quota. A 
 young man, who has probably thirty years of health before 
 
 income, taking the figure 100 to rcitresent that sum total. According 
 to this calculation 
 
 The Reserve balance will be 35-80 j 
 
 The "Benefits" 15-59 I 
 
 The " Trade purposes " . .26-61 I 
 
 The " General Expenses " . 2200 j 
 
 and the balance, or excess of income over expenditure, placed to the 
 reserve fund, added to the sum actually spent in ''benefits," -which 
 represents the sum total spent in relief, will be in the proportion 51-49 
 to 100, that is to say, rather more than half the whole expenditure. — 
 Author's Note.
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 45 
 
 him before lie will need assistance from the Society, 
 will have to pay ten times dearer for this assistance 
 than one already in the decline of life when admitted, 
 and for this reason more exposed to disease and on the 
 brink of old age. The danger which threatens mixed 
 unions will appear only with time. Composed at first 
 starting of healthy strong men, their expenses in the 
 beginning are small ; their receipts are enormously 
 in excess of their expenditure ; the members who have 
 the luck (if we mny say so) to fall ill during this first 
 period are liberally assisted. But in time the gene- 
 ration which founded a society grows old ; some of 
 them die, and their funeral expenses must be paid; 
 others get sick or become infirm, and must be supported. 
 These no longer contribute to the receipts, the reserve 
 fund melts away, and the succeeding generation finds 
 itself obliged to bear part of these burdens. So long as 
 the number of members goes on increasing the enlarged 
 receipts thereby secured will cover the additional outlay, 
 but the radical defect becomes apparent as soon as the 
 society has reached its normal limits. The regular 
 subscriptions are no longer sufficient, extraordinary 
 levies are needed to meet the wants of those who did not 
 pay enough when they were young. To escape these 
 fresh charges the young and active members will with- 
 draw and seek admission into a more recent and appa- 
 rently more prosperous society ; but this one also, like
 
 46 THE trades' L'NIOXS of ENGLAND. 
 
 the other, must infallibly end its career in the bank- 
 ruptcy court. 
 
 Much was alleged by the advocates of Trades' Unions 
 to rebut these gloomy anticipations. Mr. Applegarth 
 began by pointing out various sources of income over- 
 looked by Mr. Tucker. Among these are the sums 
 received in fines imposed on members whose subscrip- 
 tions are in arrear ; 400?. was derived from this source 
 in 1866 ; all relief is withheld from these members until 
 they have paid up ; this again represents a saving (in the 
 same year) of 250L ; lastly and principally, the expul- 
 sion of all members whose subscriptions have fallen in 
 arrear beyond a certain fixed time ; more than 1,000 
 members were expelled for this reason in 1866, by 
 which a gain of 2,0001. accrued to the Society, viz. from 
 the benefit expenditure saved to the paid-up subscrip- 
 tion capital, and from the entrance fees that a number 
 of members had to pay on a second and even a third 
 admission. 
 
 Besides all this, the sanitary influence exercised over 
 one another by the workmen is much greater than in a 
 mutual benefit society. Trades' Unions are engines of 
 war as well as benefit societies, and therefore admit none 
 but strong healthy men within their ranks : false pre- 
 texts for asking assistance would be detected at once 
 by a man's fellow- workmen, accordingly the average of 
 sickness is very low. Lastly, the outgoings under each
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 47 
 
 head have abeady reached the normal proportion to 
 income, except those of the superannuation fund. 
 
 Mr. Applegarth himself admits that this last may 
 increase to such an extent as to cause alarm for the 
 future, unless the difficulty is obviated either by 
 increasing the subscription or reducing the pensions. 
 But it must be remembered that of all the Unions, 
 \Wth which the Commission was concerned, only three 
 provide superannuation pensions ; consequently all the 
 others escape the dangers pointed out by Mr. Tucker. 
 
 His arguments nevertheless, as may be supposed, 
 caused great excitement among the advocates of Trades' 
 Unions, and notwithstanding the dryness of the subject 
 the discussion was continued with great spirit. 
 
 Mr. Applegarth was followed by the Secretary of the 
 Amalgamated Engineers. Mr. Allan represents one of 
 the most powerful Unions in England ; its members are 
 more than 30,000 in number, and in 1865 its income 
 was 86,886L, its expenditure 49,17'2Z., and its reserve 
 fund amounted to 140,000L Mr. Allan can point to 
 the experience of sixteen years,* during which time the 
 uninterrupted prosperity of the Association has enabled 
 
 * This experience, in fact, goes mucli further back ; for the Amal- 
 gamated Association, in its present form, rejiresents several mucli older 
 societies, the whole of whose liabilities it took upon itself. This accounts 
 for its starting saddled with superannuation pensions, notwithstanding 
 that by the rules it is necessary to have been eighteen years a member 
 before acquiring a right to a pension.— Author'n Note.
 
 48 THE trades' rXIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 it gradually to augment its scale of allowances, although 
 the deductions for this purpose from the annual sub- 
 scription of 2L 12s. paid by each member, amounted, in 
 1866, only to eight shillings and threepence for the 
 sick, three shillings and twopence for superannuation, 
 three shillings and twopence for funeral expenses, and 
 elevenpence-halfpenny for accidents ; that is to say, 
 fifteen shillings and twopence- farthing for the whole 
 expenditure under the head of '*' Benefits." He rebuts 
 the charge of injustice brought by Mr. Tucker against 
 the system of uniform subscriptions, by pro\dng that 
 the uniformity is balanced by the varying scale of 
 entrance fees ; these are graduated according to the 
 age of the member and the value of the pension 
 secured, of which the amount depends upon the number 
 of years during which the pensioner has paid his sub- 
 scriptions. He asserts moreover both that the number 
 of expulsions conduces to maintain a low average age 
 among the members, which has not varied in the 
 course of the last ten years, and also that the average 
 of sickness and infirmity adojited by Mr. Tucker, on 
 which he relies to prove that the Society must become 
 insolvent -without a capital of 679,734?., is greatly 
 exaggerated. 
 
 These arguments were confirmed by the repre- 
 sentatives of other Unions in the course of the inquiry. 
 We shall only quote Mr. Harnott, the Secretary of a
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 41) 
 
 Masons' Association, wliicli has been in existence for 
 thirty-three years, and consisted in 1866, of 17,762 
 members.* In the end a most important, because 
 thoroughly impartial -authority, came forward, and 
 reduced Mr. Tucker's alarming predictions to their 
 true value. 
 
 Mr. Finlaison, an officer high in the public debt 
 department, and entrusted with much statistical work 
 by Government, has, in a report handed in to the 
 Commission three months after the close of the discus- 
 sion upon this subject, examined and reduced to their 
 exact value the arguments which had been advanced on 
 both sides. As this is a question of great importance 
 to all countries, we give, in the appendix at the end of the 
 volume, an analysis of the calculations which he made 
 on the budgets of the two societies selected as specimens, 
 that of the Amalgamated Engineers and the Amalga 
 mated Carpenters and Joiners. It will there be seen 
 that after having weighed and calculated all the circum- 
 stances favourable to the Unions, he declares that if, 
 omitting strike expenses, the weekly subscription was 
 raised from one shilling to eighteenpence, they would 
 ofier all the guarantee necessary to ensure their stability. 
 
 * A peculiar feature of this Association is tliat members, who wish 
 to contribute only to the fund for the relief of men out of work, pay a 
 diminished subscription, but have no right to participate in any of the 
 benefits secured under the second head, " Trade-purposes." — Author's 
 Note.
 
 50 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 « 
 
 And if the reader will follow these calculations to the 
 end, it will be clear to him that, without renouncing 
 a strike fund, which is the principal object of their 
 existence, but by a slight addition (say of threepence 
 farthing) to the amount above fixed for the weekly 
 subscription, and an inconsiderable reduction (say of 
 one-eighth) of the charges under the first head 
 " benefits," the Unions will be able in the future, as 
 heretofore, to meet their engagements to the satisfaction 
 of the most cautious accountants.* 
 
 However this may be, the advocates of Unions rise 
 above these calculations, and take up higher ground. 
 An Union, they say, is not a mutal insurance office, 
 with fixed rules, whose only duty is to receive, in 
 order to distribute them, the contributions of persons 
 absolutely strangers to one another ; it must always be 
 borne in mind that it is the common fund of an associa- 
 tion of persons united by the same interests, who always 
 reserve to themselves entire liberty of disposing of it, 
 but never irrevocably engage themselves to employ it in 
 any particular manner. Its first duty is to meet the 
 expense of strikes, and of assisting men out of work ; 
 and if, thanks to larger subscriptions, its funds are 
 sufficient to relieve the wants which sickness, accidents, 
 old age or death may cause among its members, the 
 degree to which it can do this must depend entirely 
 * See Appendix.
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF TRADES' UNIONS. 51 
 
 upou its resources at the moment. The United 
 Engineers have gi-adually increased their scale of 
 allowances ; but if a large portion of their reserve fund 
 were absorbed by a strike, they would have to reduce 
 the scale in proportion, and no one would have any 
 right to complain. In this way the benefit system, 
 when restored to its proper place in the Union, acts as 
 an elastic and supplementary spring, which, while 
 increasing the power of the association and not divert- 
 ing it from its main object, regulates without shackling 
 its energies. 
 
 This is the part assigned by the workmen them- 
 selves to the vast societies which we have merely 
 sketched in outline, and which they support with such 
 unanimity and perseverance by their subscriptions. 
 This is all they ask from the principle of association in 
 exchange for so many sacrifices. The greatness of 
 these sacrifices, as shown by the figures we have just 
 quoted, is an eloquent proof of the resolution and spirit 
 of enterprise possessed by those who made them. Such 
 associations are clearly not the work of a few picked 
 men ; they are the work of a whole population, which 
 every week sets aside part of its wages in order to con- 
 tribute to the common cause. We shall presently see 
 with what energy the workmen endure the cruellest 
 hardships, when, for a more or less just cause, war is 
 declared against the masters by strike ; at such times
 
 52 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 the heat of battle keeps up their strength : but real 
 determination and force of will is shown, when a work- 
 man, who is peaceably earning his living, is seen willing 
 to raise a sum large in proportion to his small means, and 
 to carry it to a fund, to which perhaps he will never need 
 to have recourse himself, and which finds favour in his 
 eyes only by appealing to his es2}rit de corps. 
 
 Every shilling which goes into this fund — in which 
 millions are accumulated yearly — represents a certain 
 amount of privation endured by a workman's family for 
 a week. The number of workmen's families, to be sure, 
 is large : but rents are high, and meat, bread, and coal are 
 dear. A mechanic or joiner, who has to keep his wife and 
 perhaps four or five children out of his wages, earns from 
 twenty-six to thirty-six shillings a week. But such a man, 
 in calculating his resources, ought to deduct at least one 
 quarter from his weekly receipts to allow for occasional 
 intervals of slackness. He cannot, therefore, reckon upon 
 his income ever rising, according to the respective rate 
 of his weekly wages, above All. or 70Z. in the year : the 
 last amount is seldom reached ; even iron-workers, 
 whose work is more severe than any, do not earn, even 
 in good years, more than 52Z., and this may be taken as 
 a very fair average of the English artisan's annual 
 income. And yet out of this 52Z. he manages to set 
 aside 2L 12s. — a sum representing more than two weeks' 
 wages — for the benefit of his Union.
 
 THE OrtGAXIZATEON OF TRADES' L'XIOXS. 53 
 
 Although the advantages it offers him are both 
 distant and uncertain, he nevertheless willingly accepts 
 the sacrifice and regularly pays in his subscription, in 
 order that in times to come he or his children may 
 enjoy the advantages derived from the protection of a 
 powerful association, together with the good interest, in 
 the form of an advance of wages, which is not infre- 
 quently obtained from investment in the Union. 
 
 As soon as the unproductive outlay on strikes has 
 ceased to absorb the greater part of this painfully 
 accumulated capital, it will become a new element of 
 property in the hands of the workmen.
 
 54 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 
 
 We have described the organization of Trades' Unions 
 in general. We shall proceed to show how they work 
 in the principal trades into which the Commission 
 examined, and in the same order. 
 
 The building trade was the first selected. This is, 
 next to agriculture, the most important industry in 
 England, from the number of persons — nearly 900,000 
 — employed in it. Twenty-six witnesses, ten employers, 
 and sixteen workmen, were examined, and the minutes 
 of the meetings which were taken up with hearing their 
 evidence fill four folio volumes. 
 
 The peculiar circumstances of this trade cause the 
 separation between employers and employed to be wider 
 than that which prevails in any other. It has no 
 foreign or even local competition to fear, as the bricks 
 of which all the great towns in England are built are all 
 made in their immediate neighbourhood ; but for some
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 55 
 
 years past the expansion of the raihva}- system has, hx 
 holding out prospects of large immediate returns, given 
 a prodigious impulse, and thereby attracted an excess of 
 capital to the trade. Under these circumstances there 
 was a twofold competition : first, that between the various 
 private persons who wanted to build, but were able to 
 draw their supply of labour only from a limited area ; 
 secondly, that between the various contractors, who were 
 urged on by the rivalry of then- ever-increasing capital. 
 This double demand, instead of acting as a counterpoise, 
 caused a general rise of prices ; first in the value of 
 building materials, and then in that of labour. The 
 workmen being in great request, and free to move from 
 place to place just as they pleased, took the opportunity 
 of obtaining an advance of wages. But it cost them 
 many severe contests, and more than one disaster 
 interrupted the course of their success. 
 
 In order to support these contests a number of 
 Unions has been formed in each one of the callings 
 connected with the building trade, such as carpenters 
 and joiners, house-painters, brick-makers, stone-cutters, 
 plasterers, bricklayers, stonemasons, and day labourers. 
 Some of these Unions have branches spread all over 
 England ; others are entirely local, and sometimes even 
 fight one another from town to town. It is difiicult to 
 ascertain the exact number of their members ; one 
 master reckons it at ten and a half per cent of the total
 
 56 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 number of men employed in the trade, which woukl 
 make it 90,000 ; but this estimate is strongly disputed, 
 and probably more than one-third of the adult healthy 
 artisans are Union men. 
 
 There are two ways in which an advance of wages, 
 — the great object of all these associations, — may be 
 brought about : either directly, when an employer pays a 
 workman a higher price for a day's work, or for a 
 particular job ; or indirectly, when the number of w^ork- 
 ing hours is diminished without any corresponding 
 reduction of the day's wages. Under every shape, and 
 in every trade, the Unions will be found always pursuing 
 this double object. But the customs and rules which 
 they endeavour to enforce as. tending to procure these 
 advantages vary greatly, and are sometimes based on 
 quite opposite principles. In the building trade piece- 
 work, which is certainly more equitable in theory, and 
 more consistent with individual liberty than work by the 
 day, is allowed only among the painters and brick- 
 makers ; all the other branches of the trade accuse 
 the masters of employing it only to save expense 
 by exciting among the men a spirit of rivalry, which 
 shall lead to the lowering of wages and the lengthening 
 of the day's work; and accordingly they are violently 
 opposed to it. The fact that the leading contractors are 
 agreed on this point with their men, and prefer paying 
 them by the day, proves that it is both difficult and
 
 THE BUILDING TEADE. 57 
 
 dangerous to apply tlie piecework system to this trade. 
 But although payment by the day is the plan generally 
 accepted by both sides, the method of applying it is 
 nevertheless a frequent cause of disputes. The men 
 claim the right of subjecting it to various rules, which 
 the masters refuse to acknowledge. Above all, they 
 accuse the masters of engaging certain labourers with 
 the understanding that they are indirectly to be allowed 
 all sorts of advantages on the condition of getting over 
 their work more speedily, so as to act as an example 
 and incentive to the rest. These workmen are called 
 hell horses, and are the special object of dislike to their 
 companions. Some Unions, especially that of the 
 bricklayers, are not satisfied with resisting piecework 
 only, but attempt to limit the amount of work to be 
 done by each man, so as to arrive at perfect uniformity 
 of wages. The system of payment by the day does not 
 prevent men of known skill and activity from obtaining 
 higher wages than others : of this just advantage it is 
 sought to deprive them by obliging them to enter into 
 the unfair engagement not to perform each day more 
 than a certain fixed average of work. 
 
 Other Unions, though less despotic, nevertheless fix 
 the minimum wage which it shall be lawful for their 
 members to accept. They say that, unless this is done, 
 the masters take advantage of a workman's poverty to 
 offer him a reduced salary, and then, as soon as the
 
 58 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 opportunity offers, lower their wliole scale of payments 
 accordingly. To this the masters reply that this 
 minimum is really a maximum ; and that, in order to 
 make up for the amount paid to bad workmen above the 
 just remuneration of their labour, they are obliged to 
 refuse good workmen the advantages which otherwise 
 they would have bestowed on the deserving by way of 
 encouragement. It is easy to see that in this question 
 the selfishness of both sides plays a more important 
 part than their material interests ; for the average of 
 men's labour generally is so uniform that it can only 
 be excelled by a few quite exceptional workmen, who, 
 under any circumstances, are sure always to be able to 
 make good terms for themselves. 
 
 Unionist workmen, always with a view to the advance 
 of wages, attach special importance to what they call 
 protection of trade. This expression is popular just 
 because it is vague, and because everyone can interpret 
 it as he pleases. Mixing views as to monopoly, worthy 
 only of a bygone time, with some just and equitable 
 ideas, Unionists assert, as a trade privilege, the right of 
 limiting the number of apprentices, and of forbidding all 
 who have not passed through a regular apprenticeship 
 to practise their trade. In default of legal sanction 
 they ask the Unions to intervene in support of these 
 claims. 
 
 In most branches of the building trade a bemnner
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 59 
 
 must still be bound by indentures to a master, whereby 
 lie engages to serve him, at a reduced salary, for five or 
 six years. He pays for his instruction, which is in fact 
 his capital, by working for his master, after he has 
 gained experience in his craft, at this reduced rate ; but 
 the men, with whom he has worked, say then, and not 
 without reason, that seeing they have employed part of 
 their time in teaching him, they, and not the master, 
 ought to be paid for it. They say " if we are to get 
 nothing for teaching him, we have at least the right to 
 refuse, or to limit our pupils to the number which 
 suits us." 
 
 The artisan, late apprentice, looks upon the know- 
 ledge which he has purchased by so many years of 
 ill-paid toil as his actual property ; he considers as an 
 intruder and a counterfeit not only any workman who 
 has not gone through the same training as himself, but 
 even any one who, having been apprenticed to a diiferent 
 branch of the trade, should attempt to join that to which 
 he belongs, or even to encroach, in the merest trifle, on 
 what he considers as his special department. " We do 
 not," he says, "ask the law to extend to us the same 
 protection as that granted to the privileges of lawj-ers 
 and doctors, and the other, so-called, liberal professions ; 
 we try to obtain this by the establishment of Unions." 
 It must be owned that this system, which, carried to 
 extremes, would doubtless be fatal to trade, has certainly
 
 GO THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 the advantage of employing no legal intervention to attain 
 its aims. 
 
 We ought to look upon the protective rules of some 
 of the Unions merely as the errors of a power which has 
 not yet gained experience, and is still acting in obedience 
 to old prejudices. Instances of this, which are happily 
 rare, are mostly found among the brickmakers, who are 
 notorious for their intolerance and violence, not to 
 mention the two murders of which they were guilty at 
 Manchester. They go by night to the yards of the 
 masters whom they dislike, and trample upon the 
 unbaked bricks ; this they call " trotting out the blind 
 horse ; " and if they owe a grudge to one of their fellow- 
 workmen, they fill the clay which he has to knead with 
 needles. It is by no means surprising that they should 
 have opposed the introduction of machinery, inasmuch as 
 they believed that it tended to diminish their wages. But 
 this opposition, which was mistaken under any circum- 
 stances, did not cease even when the masters offered 
 them a share in the increased profits which these 
 improvements were certain to realize. They looked 
 upon machinery only as a sort of artificial arms which 
 competed with their labour and reduced the number of 
 men employed : they did not see that increased cheajmess 
 of production, by promoting consumption, must benefit 
 the whole body ; on the contrary, their only object was 
 to oblige the masters to divide a job amoug the largest
 
 THE BUILDING TEADE. Gl 
 
 possible number of men, even if the wages of each man 
 employed suffered from it. Next they attempted to apply 
 a system of local protection by dividing tlie country 
 into districts. Each district was to suffice to itself : 
 the master brickmakers in each were to employ none 
 but the men of the district, were to bake the clay 
 in the district only, and were to sell their bricks only 
 in the district, with the alternative of being put 
 under ban. 
 
 The workmen, relpng upon the strength of their 
 Unions, seek to make the masters both engage to give 
 them one, or several, weeks' previous notice of discharge, 
 and also agree to reduce the hours of work. This 
 reduction, as we have already explained, is only a 
 disguised advance in wages if the day's pay remains the 
 same ; but if the pay is diminished in proportion, — if, for 
 instance, it is fixed at so much an hour, — it becomes 
 merely, either morally or physically, a sanitary question, 
 but one of great importance ; for it is certain that, in a 
 great number of trades, a day's work of twelve or even of 
 ten hours is a hurtful excess. There are mines in which 
 it has been found necessary to fix the maximum at six 
 or seven hours ; and Parliament has had to interfere in 
 order to limit the number of hours in factories. Provided 
 the demand for labour, on which the workman depends 
 for his living, is not diminished by this reduction, his 
 cultivatio]! and intellectual life will derive great advantage
 
 02 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 from it. Although the abandonment of the long day 
 system has doubtless been a public benefit, the Unions 
 never professed to forbid it utterly : all they wanted was 
 that all extension of the hours of work should be 
 regarded as exceptional and carry higher pay, and that 
 any man might be allowed to refuse to work over 
 hours without being held to have broken his agree- 
 ment. 
 
 By way of enforcing their demands, the Unions can 
 at present resort only to a strike ; and, accordingly, the 
 list of strikes in the building trade in the course of the 
 last forty years is innumerable. But from the trade 
 being essentially local, its disputes are generally confined 
 to the spot in which they rose, and seldom attain to 
 large proportions. 
 
 The disastrous ending of one of the earliest and most 
 important of these contests Avas a blow from which the 
 Unions did not for a long time recover. 
 
 In 1833, eight years after the repeal of the Combina- 
 tion Laws, the Unions began to make their power felt at 
 Liverpool : at first they used it to effect considerable 
 improvement in the position of the workmen there, but 
 soon, as might be expected, they began to abuse their 
 newly-acquired power. Not content with resisting them, 
 the masters declared war against the very existence of 
 these societies ; and, in order to fight them, established a 
 combination of their own, and entered into a mutual
 
 THE BUILDING TEADE. 63 
 
 engagement to employ no man who would not solemnly 
 forswear the Union. This at once shut the door to all 
 compromise, and touched the English workman in the 
 most sensitive part, his spirit of independence ; accord- 
 ingly, these terms were unanimously rejected. The 
 masters thereupon closed their establishments by way of 
 anti-strike ; this is called in trade language a " lock-out." 
 The workmen held out, so all business came to a stand- 
 till, and a state of general prosperity was succeeded by 
 ruin among the masters, and a state of frightful misery 
 among the men. The consumption of bricks, in the 
 town of Liverpool alone, fell at once from one million a 
 week to twenty thousand. The contractors had men 
 fetched from other parts of England ; but the Unions 
 placed pickets around their establishments, who exhorted 
 the newcomers not to go in, took them back to the 
 railway station, and paid their fares home. They 
 succeeded thus in preventing the masters from resuming 
 business, but not in enabling their members to resume 
 work without signing the act of repudiation, which was 
 the origin of the quarrel. The support, which they had 
 sought beyond Lancashire, soon failed them. A meeting 
 of delegates from all the Trades' Associations, repre- 
 senting more than 30,000 persons, was held at Manches- 
 ter to uphold their cause, but it separated after having 
 spent a great deal of money and done very little. 
 Nevertheless, as long as they had a penny left, they
 
 64 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 vvoulcT not own tlicy were beaten. At length, after more 
 than six months of extreme poverty, they were obliged to 
 yield. The stoppage of their wages during this period 
 was a loss to the workmen of more than 72,000? ; and, 
 in addition to this, they had to pay nearly 18,000/. for 
 Union expenses. The Unions were relinquished for the 
 moment, but they were sure to be re-established on the 
 first opportunity. 
 
 They re-appeared first in London. Ever since the 
 year 1847, the workmen in the capital had been simulta- 
 neously pursuing the two objects of obtaining a direct 
 advance in wages, and a reduction of the hours of labour ; 
 but their demands ha\-ing been always complied with, 
 the influence of the Unions was not apparent. The 
 day's wage had been raised successively from five shillings, 
 to five and sixpence, and then to six shillings ; besides 
 this, it had been settled that on Saturdays, though paid 
 as for a whole day, they should leave off work at four 
 o'clock ; this was subsequently extended to one o'clock. 
 But the workmen had till then in vain requested that the 
 ordinary day's work might be reduced from ten hours to 
 nine. At last, in 1859, the various Unions combined 
 together under the guidance of the London Working 
 Men's Association and its Secretary, Mr. Potter, and 
 resolved to obtain this fresh concession; nor did they 
 make any secret of their intention, as soon as they had 
 gained this point, of renewing their efi"orts until the day's
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. t)0 
 
 work was limited to eight hours, without any corre- 
 sponding reduction in wages.* 
 
 A great many members of them happened at that time 
 to be out of work ; and they beHeved that, by reducing the 
 day's work from ten hours to nine, ten men wouki be 
 required instead of nine to get through the same work, 
 and that consequently the hands standing idle would 
 have a better chance of obtaining employment. Their 
 calculation would have been right if they would have 
 consented that exactly the same amount of remuneration 
 should be divided among ten as was before received by 
 the nine. But, in order to enable the Unions to saddle, 
 as they wanted, the employer with the expense of the 
 tenth man, the state of the trade ought to have been such 
 as to warrant their being exacting in their demands, and 
 such as to make it more advantageous for the contractors 
 to accept fresh sacrifices than to face a strike. They 
 ought to have understood that the slackness of work, 
 which they wanted to remedy, was the consequence of a 
 
 * This limit has been adopted in Australia, where labour, owing to 
 its scarcity, is able to lay down the law. It is also very much in use 
 in" the United States, in which it has been the subject of sharp discus- 
 sion. Several States — New York among others — have recognized eight 
 hours as the legal day's work, — as that which is to be always under- 
 stood in contracts, unless the contrary is specified ; and the eight hours" 
 system has been recently introduced in the Federal arsenals. But the 
 workmen have not found in it the advantage Avhich they expected ; for, 
 by an inevitable reaction in the market, the masters have reduced rate- 
 ably their payments for the days so curtailed, and the Federal Govern- 
 ment set the first example for taking this step. — Author's Note. 
 
 5
 
 QG THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 stagnation of business, which rendered compliance with 
 their demands impossible. There being no chance, under 
 these circumstances, of an increased demand, the 
 masters would, naturally, prefer even a total cessation of 
 business to an increase of expenditure. 
 
 The men concentrated all their attacks upon the 
 great firm of the Messrs. Trollope ; the workmen 
 employed by them struck for nine hours as the day's 
 work, while the men in the other contractors' firms went 
 on working ten hoars, and subscribed to pay those on 
 strike. They expected to get the better of the Messrs. 
 Trollope, and after that to bring the other firms to terms. 
 The struggle began on July 23, 1859, preceded by 
 tedious negotiations carried on between Mr. Potter and 
 some employers, who represented a society composed of 
 about seventy London firms, which, although established 
 for twenty-five years, had never before been concerned 
 in any dispute about wages. These firms, that of the 
 Messrs. Trollope among them, having decided to resist, 
 had in the month of A.pril previously called a meeting of 
 all the contractors to ask for their support. This 
 meeting resulted in the establishment of a powerful 
 combination, which soon set to work under the name of 
 The Master Builders' Central Association. The Messrs. 
 Trollope having failed, after the lapse of a fortnight, 
 to supply the place of the workmen who had left them, 
 the association declared a lock-out, whereupon all the
 
 THE BUILDIXG TRADE. 67 
 
 master builders discharged their men, to the number of 
 7,856. They not only proclaimed that this harsh mea- 
 sure would be persevered in as long as the strike against 
 the Messrs. Trollope lasted, but they decided, like the 
 masters at Manchester, that henceforth they would 
 employ only men entirely unconnected with any Union. 
 A declaration containing a formal abjuration of these 
 societies was posted up in their workshops, and every 
 man who came in search of employment had to sign it. 
 After a time the Messrs. Trollope succeeded in obtaining 
 four hundred old or fresh workmen, whereupon the other 
 masters removed the lock-out ; but they continued to 
 exact renunciation of the Union. The workmen on 
 strike, in spite of their distress, refused to submit to this 
 condition, and the strike was prolonged until at last 
 mutual tacit concessions put an end to it. The workmen 
 relinquished their demand for the extra hour, and 
 returned in a body to the Messrs. Trollope ; the masters 
 ceased to exact any conditions opposed to the Unions. 
 This contest, therefore, was entirely without results to 
 either side ; the workmen did not succeed in estab- 
 lishing nine hours as the day's work, and the masters 
 could not break up the Unions ; but, happily, in spite of 
 the passions it raised, it was unaccompanied by any 
 acts of violence. The London workmen have been long 
 trained in the practice of association and combination ; 
 they are better educated than their country brethren,
 
 68 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 and anxious to set the latter a good example in all 
 things ; accordingly, their conduct on this occasion was 
 marked by a moderation which excited the admiration 
 even of their opponents. 
 
 There was a temporary lull : the workmen closed 
 up their ranks, while the masters began soon to be 
 divided by competition. In 1861 the nine hours' con- 
 troversy was renewed, but this time with more skill and 
 discretion on the part of the masters. Instead of resist- 
 ing point-blank the demands made upon them, they 
 offered the workmen a slight increase of wages, and sub- 
 stitution of payment by the hour for payment by the 
 day. Up to this time, the question of what ought to be 
 the length of a day's work had never been considered 
 with reference to the amount of a day's pay. These 
 two distinct questions, hitherto confounded, were sepa- 
 rated in this fair proposal, which was accepted, and has 
 since worked to the satisfaction of both sides. Since 
 this time the day's pay has depended upon the number 
 of hours of which the day consists ; and the price by 
 the hour, which was fixed in 1861 at sevenpence, was, 
 without a struggle, raised to sevenpence halfpenny in 
 1865, and to eightpence in 1866. 
 
 The example set by London was not universally 
 followed. The importance of the object aimed at may 
 be held to have justified a strike on that occasion ; but 
 the one which broke out at Manchester in April, 1864,
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 69 
 
 shows that often the more trivial the cause for these 
 struggles the more disastrous they are in their effects ; 
 for, when men are blinded by selfishness to their true 
 interests, obstinacy prevails over reason. The Corpora- 
 tion of Manchester were building assize courts ; now a 
 large and fine edifice, which somewhat relieves the 
 monotony of the smoky city. A foreman named Kettle, 
 who was already unpopular as a stranger in the town, 
 placed a new comer, whom he brought with him, at the 
 head of the journeymen. Usage required that the new 
 comer should rank last, the old hands alone having a 
 right to regular employment. The journeymen pro- 
 tested, and the committee of their Union having in 
 vain applied to Mr. Kettle, they demanded the discharge 
 of this man, first from the contractor, then from the 
 architect ; on this being refused, they struck work. The 
 bricklayers, whose work had been interrupted by this 
 dispute, maintained that Mr. Kettle was the cause of it, 
 and demanded 251. as damages, not getting which, they 
 too went on strike. The struggle then raged with a 
 fierceness which was revived, even in the presence of 
 the Commission, whenever any of the principal actors 
 in it, such as Mr. Kettle, had to give an account of its 
 doings. Men were fetched from London to take the 
 place of those who refused to work, but the London 
 Bricklayers' Association interfered to prevent this, and 
 paid their travelling expenses back. Mr. Kettle searched
 
 70 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 all England for labourers ; eveiywbere he was met by 
 the Manchester Union, resolved, at any price, to carry 
 them off from him. Pickets were posted ; both entreaties 
 and threats were used to the new comers. Mr. Kettle 
 installed them in some unfinished buildings, where he 
 lodged and fed them, and had tliem guarded by police- 
 men ; but it was in vain : the seduction emploj'ed pre- 
 vailed, and very few resisted the bribe of 51. , or, in some 
 cases, 71. 10s., which the Union offered them for going 
 away. All the works which the contractor, who had in- 
 sisted on keeping Mr. Kettle, had in hand were declared 
 under strike. At last, when the bricklayers perceived 
 that, in spite of all their efforts, the masonry of the 
 building would be finished, they bribed the joiners to 
 join in the strike ; but in vain, — the assize courts were 
 completed without them, and in spite of them. 
 
 The Manchester Bricklayers' Union spent 920L in 
 this unhappy contest ; its own committee, which was for 
 this year invested with the executive control of the whole 
 association (of which the Manchester Union is only a 
 branch), drew this sum out of the general treasury. 
 The committee was severely blamed for this violation 
 of rules ; but, subsequently, their proceeding was sanc- 
 tioned by the vote of a general meeting, which alone can 
 authorize any disposal of the common fund of the Society. 
 
 This story shows to what extremes on both sides 
 quarrels founded on a purely personal question may
 
 THE BUILDIXG TRADE. 71 
 
 lead. After a strike Las once begun, unanimity among 
 the workmen is the first condition of success. If some 
 of them go on working for an employer whom others 
 want to lay under an interdict, the privations to which 
 the latter submit are perfectly useless. They must, 
 therefore, obtain not only the co-operation of the dis- 
 ciplined host of Unionists, but also the connivance of 
 their non-Unionist brethren. They often, as we have 
 seen, have to pay an enormous price for this conniv- 
 ance. If they cannot obtain it, it comes very quickly 
 to a quarrel between them. This subject is constantly 
 cropping up in the examinations before the Commission. 
 All the masters and all the workmen have each their 
 word to say, their story to tell, either in accusation or 
 in exculpation of the Unions. 
 
 Among the former, Mr. Mault, secretary of an 
 employers' association at Birmingham, attacked the 
 Unions in a clever and spirited speech. He brought 
 forward against them a good many objectionable prac- 
 tices, and some even guilty acts ; but he seems to 
 us to be too much given to draw general conclusions 
 from solitary instances ; and that he holds the Unions 
 responsible for many opinions which have been pro- 
 fessed, and for many deeds which have been committed, 
 in places where these societies have never existed. 
 
 The two principal charges brought against them 
 are, first, that they render strikes more frequent, and
 
 72 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 lengtlien their clu)-ation ; secondly, that they exercise a 
 threefold tyranny, -viz., over non-Unionists, over Union- 
 ists themselves, and over masters. 
 
 In answer to the first, the advocates of Unions have 
 no difficulty in proving that strikes occur as frequently 
 in districts where these societies are unknown as in 
 those in which they are accused of fomenting them. 
 They maintain that if they do sometimes lengthen their 
 duration, on the other hand they often prevent them 
 from brealdng out. Mr. Williams, secretary of the 
 National Association of Plasterers, a very large and 
 important society, cites the case of a strike at Aberyst- 
 with, in Wales. On this occasion, the plasterers em- 
 ployed in the erection of two hotels took advantage of 
 the pressing nature of the work, and suddenly demanded 
 an advance in wages and a reduction of hours. The con- 
 tractor appealed to Mr. Williams, and the Union, con- 
 sidering that the workmen were in the wrong, not only 
 refused to uphold them, hut provided him with others 
 to supply the place of the deserters. Mr. Williams 
 laid before the Commission a letter, in which a con- 
 tractor expresses his gratitude to Unions, and declares 
 that they are of the utmost ser\dce to the trade. A 
 master at Scarborough, short of labourers, also applied 
 to him : so that here we have the Union performing the 
 part of labour-purveyors. Other examples might be 
 adduced to prove that the executive councils of the
 
 THE BUILDIXG TEADE. 73 
 
 large Unions have often interfered to stoji the strikes 
 of their local branches. 
 
 To the second charge, that of being a despotic 
 minority, which, by its disciplined strength, imposes its 
 will upon a majority indifferent to its aims and un- 
 affected by its interests, the Unionists answer that — 
 First, their number is much more considerable than is 
 generally believed, and that in several branches of the 
 building trade they form, not a minority, but an immense 
 majority ; that they include among their members all the 
 most active and most industrious men in each trade ; and 
 finally, that you must not believe in the alleged hostility 
 or even indifference of non-Unionists toward Unionists. 
 Although not members of the Association and subscribers 
 to its funds, they have the same aspirations, the same 
 wants as their brethren in the Union, and wish them 
 most heartily success in all their undertakings ; for they 
 are well aware that they will themselves profit indirectly 
 by any success obtained by the Union, and in any question 
 of wages they almost invariably make common cause •^•ith 
 it. The reason why non-Unionists are not admitted in 
 workshops where Unionists form a large majority, is, 
 that inasmuch as the association has been the means of 
 raising the wages paid in these establishments, it is not 
 fair that those who have borne no share in its burdens 
 should profit by its efforts. With the exception of the 
 unfortunate occurrences at Manchester and Sheffield,
 
 74 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 none but perfectly lawful measures liave been emploj^ed 
 to enforce tbis exclusion. " If tbe masters are to be 
 free to choose their workmen, if the men are to be free 
 to stand aloof from our association," they say, " we 
 Unionists too have the right to be free to leave both 
 masters and men alone together, if the goings-on in any 
 workshop do not happen to suit us." 
 
 On the other hand, their opponents allege that these 
 demands and this exclusiveness, though founded on the 
 exercise of an indisputable right, may sometimes be 
 carried so far as to justify the application of the old 
 maxim, " Summum jus summa injuria." There are 
 instances of the works of some masters having been 
 deserted (Mr. Howroyd's at Bradford, Mr. Dixon's at 
 Blackpool,) because they employed their own sons, who 
 did not become members of the Union ; or because the 
 number of apprentices allowed in the workshops was 
 too large. Lastly, there is a certain class of workmen 
 frequently alluded to in the Commission, with whom the 
 Union is always in a state of open war. These men, 
 called ** Blacks," are in the habit of taking advantage 
 of a strike to obtain, as long as it lasts, high wages, with 
 the intention of going away and seeking employment else- 
 where, as soon as, on the termination of the struggle, — by 
 the victory or defeat, as the case may be, of the Union, — 
 the establishment in which they have been working is 
 open again to the members of it. In certain trades, and
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 75 
 
 iu certain districts, among the brickmakers in Lanca- 
 shire for instance, these men are exposed to every 
 conceivable outrage. Some Unions cause a regular 
 proscribed list, in which their names are inserted, to be 
 drawn up, this is called " the black list." Whoever 
 figures in this list is under ban, all Unionists are for- 
 bidden to work with him.* In this list are found the 
 names of workmen who have refused to join in a strike, 
 who have quarrelled with the Union for any other 
 reason, or who have broken some rule, and sometimes 
 even of those whose evidence in court has led to the 
 conviction of a companion accused of having carried his 
 zeal for the Union beyond lawful limits. One society of 
 masons is said to have a black list of more than 2,500 
 names, some of which have been kept on it since 1841. 
 The passions aroused by long and painful struggles may 
 account for, but cannot justify these practices. The 
 leading advocates of Unions even, while alleging that 
 the men thus put under ban are generally in themselves 
 unworthy of interest, seek only to prove that these cases 
 are rare, and not infrequently provoked by the conduct 
 of the masters. Allowing, they say, that these may 
 
 * Sometimes, when for any reason the Unionists are afraid of pro- 
 ceeding to this extremity, the pi-ohibition is confined to forbidding all 
 intercourse by word of mouth with the object of their dislike. They 
 call this " sending a man to Coventry." Men have been known to go 
 on working for weeks with companions who would not give them a word 
 in answer to any sort of question. — Author's Note,
 
 76 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 be the liabits of some local branches, still the large 
 societies, instead of approving of them, conduce to the 
 prevalence of a less intolerant spirit. 
 
 Another complaint frequently brought against the 
 Unions is, the oppression which they are said to 
 exercise over their own members. In proof of this the 
 fines are mentioned which they impose for breaking 
 the rules, or even for offending against mere customs, 
 which are condemned by common sense, and sanctioned 
 only by tradition. Such is the custom which forbids a 
 workman to carry more than a certain number of bricks 
 at one load. But it was proved before the Commission 
 that, although some societies allowed these inexcusable 
 attempts at coercion, a great many other Unions never 
 employed the formidable power of inflicting fines except 
 for the moral improvement of the workmen, by punish- 
 ing drunkards and bad characters. Lastly, the Unions 
 are accused of being as tyrannical to the masters as they 
 are to the men. The behaviour of the brickmakers at 
 Manchester was mentioned as one among many examples 
 of this. These men will not allow machinery to be used, 
 and obtained a promise from the masons that the latter 
 should go on strike whenever a contractor wanted to use 
 other than hand-made bricks ; the same promise was 
 made to the stonecutters, who also feared that certain 
 machines might compete with their labour. It is doubt- 
 less true that the Unions have often employed their
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 77 
 
 influence in fettering free action on the part of the 
 masters, whenever, whether rightly or wrongly, they 
 believed that in so doing they were serving the interests 
 of labour. Can it be expected that men, embittered by 
 suffering and struggling, should not now and then abuse 
 a new power created by their hands ? Because a tree 
 needs pruning, should it be accused of bearing only sour 
 fruit, and therefore cut down ? Is there any human 
 institution of which the rise is not marked with arbitrary 
 acts ? Fortunate and rare indeed is the one which has 
 not, at any period of its existence, sought the protection 
 of unjust and oppressive laws. 
 
 It is not, however, the workmen only who have gone 
 beyond the bounds of moderation in these contests. 
 Certain masters' associations have borrowed from the 
 Unions some of the practices for which the latter are 
 most blamed. Some of them, too, as well as some of 
 the workmen's societies, keep their black list, and forbid 
 any of their members to give employment to the man 
 whom they have proscribed by inserting his name in it. 
 Numerous witnesses can prove that leaders of strikes 
 thus marked have gone about from door to door solicit- 
 ing work in vain, and been rejected on all sides as 
 dangerous enemies.* 
 
 * Most of the masters, however, look upon these harsh measures 
 simply as fair retaliation ; but some among them condemn them sevei'ely, 
 and have always refused to join in them. — Author's Note.
 
 78 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Sometimes, too, the influence exercised by these 
 combinations of masters on the rate of wages is quite as 
 adverse to liberty of contract as the most protective 
 rules of the working men's associations ; as, for instance, 
 in cases where they have made all their members enter 
 into a mutual engagement that not one of them shall 
 make any advance in favour of the workmen, in his 
 employ without the joint consent of all. 
 
 It is noteworthy, in the midst of these mutual 
 accusations, that, whenever the raising of wages is 
 discussed, the two sides seem to have changed parts. 
 An advance is the avowed aim of the Unions ; but, 
 instead of blaming them for this, the masters endeavour 
 to prove that the efforts of the men have not con- 
 tributed to it, and that the ordinary course of business 
 would have secured the same advantages to them with- 
 out the heavy costs to which they have been put by 
 their interference with it. The men, on the contrary, 
 maintain that, without the efforts of their associations, 
 the remuneration of labour would be lower than it is 
 now ; and that, consequently, they are answerable for the 
 increased expenses imposed on contractors. Examples 
 may certainly be adduced which confirm the masters' 
 assertion. We will mention one, taken from the 
 evidence of an impartial and experienced man, Mr. 
 Rupert Kettle. A strike occurred at Wolverhampton, 
 just at the time when the Government was having vast
 
 THE BUILDING TRADE. 79 
 
 fortifications built at Portsmouth. The Union sent the 
 workmen, who were standing idle at Wolverhampton, 
 to Portsmouth, where they easily found employment. 
 But the competition caused by their arrival prevented 
 wages from rising at Portsmouth ; while, at the same 
 time, the masters whom they had quitted, being ruined 
 by the stoppage of the works, which they had taken 
 under contract, could make no concession in order to 
 put an end to the strike, and preferred enduring it to 
 submitting to the demands of their workmen. Now, 
 but for the interference of the Union, a competition 
 would naturally have arisen between the Government on 
 the one hand, in haste to get the forts finished, and the 
 masters on the other, not only at Wolverhampton, but 
 in all the great towns in England, who would all have 
 been afraid of losing their workmen and failing in their 
 contracts. This competition must have raised the value 
 of labour. But it will not do to draw general con- 
 clusions from this solitary case. 
 
 A Trades' Union is a two-edged weapon, which at 
 first it seems easy to handle, but which is sure to wound 
 anyone who uses it awkwardly. Every time they have 
 tried directly to violate the laws which rule the balance 
 of trade, they have failed signally. They have never 
 been able to produce a fictitious rise in wages when the 
 market was falling ; but their weight in the scale is one 
 that in these davs cannot be disregarded. Under favour-
 
 80 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 able circumstances they may hasten a rise and cany it 
 to a figure that it would not otherwise have reached ; 
 and when, in consequence of the stagnation of business, 
 the value of labour is falling, they may retard and 
 diminish its depreciation. An unanswerable proof of 
 this influence was brought before the Commission ; viz., 
 that in the same trade, in the same town, and with 
 workmen of equal ability, it often happens that the 
 wages of the Unionists are very much higher than those 
 obtained by non-Unionists. 
 
 In no spirit of barren criticism, but in order to show 
 the dangers which both masters and workmen have to 
 avoid, we have sought out what foundation there was 
 for the mutual charges which they bring against each 
 other. We shall not have to return to this subject in 
 detail, for the abuses, the errors, and the violence, which 
 it has been our duty to point out in speaking of the 
 building trade, are happily of rarer occurrence in the 
 industries which we are about to examine.
 
 ( 81 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 
 
 Everyone knows that the iron trade is one of the 
 principal sources of the power and prosperity of England. 
 The various qualities of the metal, the abundance of 
 coal in the districts where it is found, the facility of 
 communication — everything, in short, favours this great 
 industry. Those who have travelled by night between 
 Birmingham and Liverpool will, doubtless, remember 
 passing through a vast district, which seems completely 
 to realise one of the circles of " Dante's Inferno." All is 
 fire and smoke ; on every side tower high furnaces 
 surmounted with crests of flame which the wind twists 
 and shakes as if it was trying in vain to tear them from 
 their base. Through the lurid glare, which they shed 
 around, the great arms of the lifting and pumping 
 engines are seen tossing about like creatures in 
 torment ; while engines, panting as if breathless from 
 the weight behind them, slowly drag trains of trucks 
 laden with iron -ore along the tramways that cross and 
 
 6
 
 82 THE trades' tnions of exglakd. 
 
 recross each other in every direction. The surface of 
 the earth, deprived of all vegetation, is covered with 
 heaps of refuse from the furnaces, called slags, which 
 from their regular shape resemble the shells of some 
 species of gigantic antedilmian oyster. In some places 
 they lie soaking in pools of inky water ; in others, when 
 fresh from the furnace, they are still red like lava in a 
 state of fusion. This is the " Black Country," which 
 has "Wolverhampton for its capital, and extends over the 
 gi-eater part of Staffordshire and the adjacent districts. 
 A large and industrious population works the rich iron 
 mines of this country. A more valuable property than 
 these mines does not exist in all England. The 
 Staffordshire iron is exported to all parts of the world, 
 and is rivalled only by that from Belgium. They are, 
 for the most part, in the hands of joint stock companies ; 
 but some of them belong to great landed proprietors, of 
 whom Lord Dudley is one. This district is generally 
 divided into North and South Staffordshire. 
 
 The other mineral districts of Great Britain are : 
 in the centre of England, South Yorkshire, of which 
 Leeds is the head-quarters ; in the north, large por- 
 tions of Cumberland, with the districts of Cleveland, 
 Gateshead, and the banks of the Tyne ; in Scotland, 
 Lanarkshire ; and in Wales, the north coast of the 
 Bristol Channel. 
 
 The iron is manufactured on the spot. Many of the
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 83 
 
 owners of mines have attached to them a coal-pit, 
 furnaces, a forge, and a limestone quarry,* so as to 
 unite in one establishment all the chief requirements 
 of the process. Likewise in all the great towns in these 
 districts, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, 
 Wolverhampton, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow, vast 
 iron works are erected, in which the pig-iron produced 
 in the neighbourhood or in other districts is worked, 
 sometimes into wTOUght-iron, sometimes into steel, 
 and afterwards into every shape that the metal is 
 capable of taking. Thousands of workmen are engaged 
 in transforming the metal, glowing with heat and 
 light, in these magnificent establishments. They are 
 the grand monuments of modern civilization, which, 
 if prosaic, is at the same time laborious, intelli- 
 gent, patient and powerful. The workmen are divided 
 into trades, or rather various branches of the whole 
 Industry, according to the different processes in which 
 they are employed. The pig-iron needs to be cleansed 
 from all extraneous matter, and particularly from the 
 silica and coal, which it brought out with it on leaving 
 the blast furnace. It is melted again in a puddling 
 furnace. A workman stirs the melted metal with a 
 long iron bar in order to hasten the combustion of 
 
 * In blast furnaces, a certain proportion of limestone is added to the 
 mixture of coal and ore, in order to purify the cnide or pig-iron. — 
 Author's Note.
 
 84 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 the coal and the separation of the silicates ; gi-adually 
 the iron attaches itself to the bar and thickens, 
 forming in the middle of the now liquid impurities 
 a round mass, which is then withdrawn from the 
 furnace to be placed under the steam-hammer. The 
 repeated blows of this hammer squeeze out the slag 
 still remaining in the dilated pores of the metal. 
 Lastly, if it is intended to make slabs, rail-blooms, or 
 simple bars of wrought-iron, the mass, first heated 
 red hot, is rolled between two rolls brought gradually 
 nearer and nearer together. Hence, the artisans are 
 divided into three classes, the puddlers, the hammer- 
 men, and the rollers ; they all begin by being 
 apprentices, who in this trade join the artisans at 
 work, and are necessary to them by way of assistants. 
 To these must be added a fourth class, that of the 
 labourers, to whom is left the execution of work 
 needing only muscular strength. On penetrating, for 
 the first time, into this hive, where so many strong 
 and intelligent men are subduing both iron and fire 
 by using each against the other, and are working 
 together with such regularity, a stranger is struck only 
 with the triumphs of science and industry. But if 
 he then seeks to discover by what passions, what 
 interests, what hopes all these men, united in a common 
 work, are animated, he will meet with nothing but 
 obscurity. The masters will tell him little, the work-
 
 THE IKON TRADE. 85 
 
 men less. The Commission has the great merit of 
 having made them speak before the whole world, and 
 of having placed them face to face before the eyes 
 of the public. Its fifth volume is devoted to this 
 subject. 
 
 At the first glance the peculiar characteristics of this 
 industry may be distinguished, and it is evident that it 
 is composed of a class of workmen, in whom intel- 
 ligence and a spirit of enterprise have been developed by 
 high wages and piecework. Among them, the first 
 place belongs to the puddlers, because their duties at 
 the furnace enable them to lay down the law ; they 
 13repare the metal which subsequently passes through 
 the hands of the hammermen, the rollers, and the 
 labourers, consequently all these branches are thrown 
 out of work if the puddlers go on strike. Accordingly 
 the representatives of the puddlers and some of the 
 principal iron-masters took the leading part in the 
 discussion before the Commission. This discussion, in 
 which the two powers were brought face to face, is 
 more comprehensive and exhaustive than any we have 
 hitherto followed. It will be found that workmen are 
 inclined to be moderate in their conduct and reasonable in 
 their demands in proportion as they arc conscious of the 
 strength of the association in which they are united ; 
 accordingly, as might be expected, the crimes, which 
 have sometimes disgraced other trades, arc unknown in
 
 86 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 the history of the iron- workers. In discussing the wages 
 question, they showed that they are well acquainted with 
 all the important questions relating to their trade, and 
 that they observe attentively all the circumstances which 
 can exercise any influence over it. This industiy, which 
 supplies the whole world, is, on that veiy account, essen- 
 tially variable, and the labour, which is its principal 
 expense, is paid in proportion to the value of its pro- 
 duce ; it follows, therefore, that the wages in it must 
 constantly vary, and that the workmen are just as much 
 interested as the owners in taking account of all the 
 fluctuations in the price of iron.* 
 
 We find no more discussions on the relative merits 
 
 * The Commission attemi)ted to ascertain the portion which ought 
 to be put do^\'n to wages, out of the total expenditure of an iron factory. 
 The ironmasters gave no effectual assistance in this, doubtless because 
 they were afraid of giving the heads of a calculation which would have 
 afforded a clue to their financial situation. Those who were asked, 
 reckoned this portion at fom-fifths, or nine-tenths of the expenses of a 
 factor)', where the coal-pit, the iron mine, the limestone quarrj', the 
 furnaces, and the forge are all in the same hands ; at two-thirds for 
 one where the pigs have to be bought. But in these figures they 
 included all the fixed salaries of the clerks, book-keepers, porters, &c., 
 as well as the varjing wages of the workmen. Besides, they justly 
 remarked that the proportion of wages to total expenditure varies 
 according to production. There are certain fixed and regular expenses, 
 viz : — the royalty or pemianent rent paid on the mine, the fixed salaries, 
 and the interest of the capital invested in the imdertaking. The profits 
 on one side, the wages on the other, are, therefore, alone directly affected 
 by production, which again regulates the annual sum spent in labour ; 
 and the admixtm-e of fixed with variable elements in a value that is 
 itself variable, is constantly changing the proportion which each bears 
 to the other, — Author's Note.
 
 THE IRON TRADE, 87 
 
 of piecework and work by the day. The latter system 
 of labour, upon which other trades lay such stress, is, 
 among iron-workers, reserved for mere labourers, and 
 considered degrading to an artisan. 
 
 The puddlers, hammermen, and rollers are paid so 
 much for every ton of iron puddled, hammered, or 
 rolled. The rate of this wage by the ton is itself 
 regulated according to the value of iron by means of a 
 sliding-scale, which was introduced in 1847 by Mr. 
 Thorneycroft, an iron-master, and was soon after adopted 
 throughout almost all England. According to this 
 sj'Stem the puddlers get five per cent, and the other 
 artisans ten per cent, on every increase in the price 
 of iron, and when the market falls, their wages are 
 reduced in the same proportion. If, for instance, the 
 value of a ton increases by one pound, the puddler will 
 get one shilling extra for every ton of iron puddled ; the 
 hammerman will get two shillings extra for every ton 
 hammered ; and the roller also two shillings for every 
 ton that -passes through the rolling mill. 
 
 In Staffordshire the masters of the mining district 
 meet every quarter to fix the price of the iron produced 
 by the various works in the district : this, when settled, 
 is published in a printed list, which is taken as the 
 official scale on which wages are to be regulated ; but the 
 fluctuations in the price of iron do not always allow 
 sales to be made at the prices so fixed. Most of the
 
 83 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 iron works are unable to command them ; and only 
 certain qualities of iron of rare excellence, and stamped 
 with the most valued trade-marks, have ever been known 
 to go beyond them. 
 
 In the north of England, where the sliding-scale is 
 also adopted, each master is, to a great extent, free to fix 
 his own prices, and, consequently, also the rate of the 
 wages he pays ; in Wales, on the contrary, wages are 
 very little affected by the fluctuations of the market.* 
 
 The sliding-scale system, though tending to dimi- 
 nish the disputes arising out of the wages question, 
 does not entirely prevent them. Its starting-point may 
 be, and in fact has been, several times modified. Mr. 
 Thorneycroft settled that the puddlers should receive 
 exactly five per cent., or one-twentieth, on the market 
 price of iron ; subsequently the latter succeeded in 
 
 * This peculiarity is not at all surprising in a country so different 
 from England, — different in language, in traditions, in character, in 
 manners, in religion, and in political opinions. Its population, of Celtic 
 origin, and almost republican in feeling, is active and laborious ; but, 
 at the same time, tiu-bulent and fickle. The form which association 
 assumes among the Welsh, offers another instance of their dissimilarity 
 from the Anglo-Saxon race. They are almost all Dissenters, and oppo- 
 sition to the Established Church has caused a large development of 
 religious association among them ; they devote large sums to the 
 support of their ovm forms of worship, which, as is the case with the 
 Catholics in Ireland, depend entirely upon voluntary contril)utions ; but 
 the Welsh miners, and their number is large, have never taken kindly 
 to Trades' Unions. The only Welsh Union mentioned before the 
 Commission was dissolved a short time after its establishment, in conse- 
 of the treasurer making off with the strong bos. —Author^s Note.
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 89 
 
 establishing that, — without altering this percentage of 
 increase or reduction, as the case might be, in their 
 pay, in addition to it, — they should be paid a jBxed sum 
 of sixpence, afterwards raised to one shilling per ton 
 puddled. In this way a ton of iron sold for 8?., by 
 which originally they would have gained eight shillings, 
 would be worth to them eight shillings and sixpence 
 and nine shillings respectively. If its value fell from 
 81. to 71., their pay, suffering a proportionate reduction, 
 would fall to seven and sixpence and eight shillings ; 
 but when it rose to 91., they would get nine and six- 
 pence and ten shillings on it. There were some diffi- 
 culties, however, in carrying out this system. Suppose 
 two lumps of iron weighing a ton each, and exactly 
 alike, to have been turned out by two puddlers, and 
 that one of them, after being hammered, fetches 81., 
 and the other, in consequence of having gone through 
 the process of rolling after the hammering, reaches the 
 increased value of 8/. 10s., on which of these two prices 
 ought the pay of the two puddlers, which evidently 
 ought to be equal, to be calculated ? The rate 
 of this pay does not always immediately follow the 
 fluctuations in the price of iron, as it ought to do 
 according to the principle of the sliding-scale ; and, 
 lastly, the working of this scale has been disturbed by 
 some recent improvements in machinery. Immense 
 steam-hammers of more than twenty-five tons power,
 
 90 THE trades' unions of England. 
 
 which shake the whole neighbourhood at each blow, 
 have been established in Sir John Brown's works at 
 Sheffield, in the Mersey Iron W(n-ks, at Mr. Krupp's 
 works at Essen, and in some of the large factories 
 in France. The manufacture of armour-plates has 
 also led to the construction of rolling mills of immense 
 power. Owing to these machines, which do not require 
 more men to work them, the same quantity of iron 
 can be hammered or rolled in a much shorter time 
 than formerly, while no progress has been made in 
 the puddlers' department, who continue stirring the 
 liquid metal exposed to the burning heat of the furnace, 
 without being able, in the course of their day, to puddle 
 a greater weight than they could twenty years ago. 
 Great inequality therefore must prevail, if the amount 
 of wage payable to all the workmen is to remain fixed 
 according to the same tariff. A few years ago, owing 
 to a new hammer introduced at the Mersey Iron Works, 
 two men, who worked no harder than their companions, 
 made, one of them 400Z., the other 4501. in one year. 
 The ordinary pay of workmen in their position would 
 rarely exceed 50L or 60Z. a year. The masters also are 
 put in a very difficult position ; if they allow this 
 inequality, all the other workmen are certain to demand 
 an increase of pay ; if they try to reduce the rate of wage 
 earned by the men who work this machinery, they are 
 met by the obstinate resistance of the men so employed.
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 91 
 
 Quarrels between masters and men arise also from 
 other causes ; and sometimes the men can allege serious 
 grievances in justification of their complaints. 
 
 The iniquitous institution called the Truck Shop was 
 a grievance of very old standing. This was a shop 
 established by the proprietor on the premises, where he 
 sold to his workmen provisions, meat, groceries, liquor, 
 &c., on credit, and at exorbitant prices, frequently using 
 threats to drive them to increased consumption, and 
 keeping back out of their wages to the amount that he 
 had thus extorted. The more intelligent among the 
 workmen stoutly resisted this exaction, and often even 
 went on strike to oblige the masters to abandon it. 
 Public opinion was aroused; and at last Parliament, 
 struck by the monstrous abuses caused by the system, 
 forbade it absolutely. Even now, however, the work- 
 men are sometimes obliged to resist attempts to 
 re-establish the Truck Shop under a disguised form. 
 
 One condition of piecework is, that if a product is 
 defective, the wages of those out of whose hands it 
 comes are kept back. This rule, although necessary in 
 principle, has sometimes led to ^abuses, of which the 
 workmen complain bitterly. The process of galvanizing 
 a sheet of iron causes certain defects to appear in the 
 quality of the metal, which it was impossible to discover 
 before : if the sheet, under these circumstances, is con- 
 demned, and the wages of the rollers kept back, these
 
 92 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 men have to suffer loss solely from tlie fault of tlie 
 puddler who prepared the metal. The workmen accuse 
 the masters of sometimes withholding the whole of 
 their wages, even when there is not a total loss, but 
 only a reduced profit on a defective product. 
 
 There are also circumstances for which the sliding- 
 scale does not provide. A certain description of pig-iron, 
 very difficult to puddle, may, in the form of bars, fetch 
 less than another easier to work, or where the yield of 
 metal has been larger. The workmen who have prepared 
 the first, think that they have a right to a higher rate of 
 pay than that which is allowed an ordinary puddler. 
 
 The puddlers are sometimes fined, when the pro- 
 ducts turned out by them have been pronounced to be 
 defective. The law forbids this practice ; but a number 
 of workmen asserted before the Commission that it still 
 exists, and that the managers keep back so large a part 
 of their pay to meet these arbitrary fines, that some- 
 times the men get next to nothing : if a man protested, 
 they say, he would be instantly discharged. Such cases 
 must be rare, but it does not take much to arouse the 
 workmen's ever-watchful mistrust. In this, as in all 
 other trades, the mere fact of the existence of Unions is 
 frequentl}^ the origin of many disputes. Some masters 
 afiect to ignore them, and refuse to receive their repre- 
 sentatives. Others go still farther, and rigorously 
 exclude all Union men from their works. Some even
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 93 
 
 have been reproaclied with having, without the excuse 
 of an example first set by the. men, drawn up black 
 lists, the fatal efiects of which we have already pointed 
 out. From all these causes numerous strikes have 
 occurred. There are cases in which workmen have per- 
 secuted their fellows for not joining in strikes, and in 
 which masters have persecuted the men who took a 
 leading part in managing them ; but the evidence col- 
 lected by the Commission, and the discussions held in 
 public before it, both prove that the grievances alleged 
 on both sides were exaggerated. None of the pro- 
 tective rules, which some of the Unions in other 
 trades attempted to enforce,'^ are met with in the iron 
 industry. 
 
 No fixed period of service is imposed on the 
 apprentices, nor is their number limited. Moreover, the 
 members of Unions do not refuse to work in the same 
 establishments with non-Unionists ; in fact they both 
 almost always make common cause together. Lastly, 
 the masters themselves admit that in several instances 
 the Unions have exercised a beneficial influence over the 
 workmen ; they refuse to allow rattening, and they have 
 abolished the fraudulent custom of secreting pieces of 
 iron to throw into the furnace in order to increase the 
 yield. 
 
 The Unions now existing among the iron-workers 
 are all of recent origin. A society was founded in 1845,
 
 94 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 but being unable to resist the masters, who obliged their 
 workmen to abandon it, it was dissolved in 1847. In 
 1857, the year when the first advance of sixpence was 
 made to the rate of pay of the puddlers, no Union 
 existed. The National Association of Iron-workers, 
 composed principally of puddlers, was founded in 1862, 
 and its head-quarters were established in the north, at 
 Gateshead. The society called the Associated Iron- 
 workers of Great Britain, which chose the to-un of 
 Brierley Hill as its head-quarters, was established the 
 following year, in the midst of a strike, whose success 
 it caused. All the puddlers in England entered the 
 ranks of one or other of these societies, those of each 
 district generally di\dding themselves between the two- 
 The Gateshead society comprised 450 members in North 
 Staffordshire ; that of Brierley Hill 350. In June, 1864, 
 the two Unions made an effort to amalgamate ; in this 
 they did not succeed, but they engaged always to stand 
 by one another. The prosperity of the trade just at this 
 time made them very strong ; puddlers were receiving at 
 the rate of ten shillings and sixpence per ton, a higher rate 
 than they have ever obtained either before or since. Most 
 of the rollers were also members of some Union : their 
 most important Union was established also at Gateshead, 
 and consisted of between five and six thousand members ; 
 and, seeing that whenever the Union struck, ten men 
 were thro^Mi out of work for each individual roller on
 
 THE IRON TRADE, 95 
 
 strike, it must have possessed immense influence over 
 the whole trade. The members of Unions in all the 
 branches might be reckoned at about three-fourths of the 
 total number of iron-workers. 
 
 While the men were thus fortifying themselves by 
 means of their associations, the masters had also 
 adopted similiar measures by way of defence. For 
 fifty years a Masters' Association has existed in 
 Staffordshire, designed, among other objects, to regu- 
 late wages and secure their uniformity. In the north 
 of England the proprietors of blast furnaces and those 
 of forges have each their society. That belonging to 
 the forge proprietors, called the North of England 
 Iron Manufacturers' Association, is a genuine Trade 
 Union, with all the features which distinguish the 
 workmen's societies. Each proprietor insures all or a 
 certain number of his puddling furnaces against the 
 effects of a strike by undertaking in writing, on the 
 requisition of the secretary, to pay a sum determined by 
 the number of furnaces so insured, and the amount of 
 yield assigned to each. If his workmen leave him, the 
 Association pays him, according to the sum for which he 
 is insured, 41. or 3L a week for each furnace : this allow- 
 ance is raised out of the funds subscribed by the other 
 members. The funds at the disposal of this Society 
 amounted, on December 1, 186{), to nearly 48,000/. 
 The masters' Unions in Staffordshire, though less
 
 96 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 strongly organized, were animated by the same spirit. 
 No one of the members was allowed to pay his workmen 
 in excess of the tariff which the Association had fixed 
 by the sliding-scale ; they drew together in closer 
 alliance, and eventually, by turning against the work- 
 men their own weapons, succeeded in subduing all 
 resistance to their will. They soon began to take 
 the offensive ; in the Leeds district a lock-out was 
 proclaimed in the spring of 1864, for the purpose of 
 compelling the workmen to abandon the Unions recently 
 introduced among them. The Gateshead and Brierley 
 Hill Associations united to resist this ; but they spent 
 17,000L and kept up the struggle for six months to 
 no purpose. They were conquered by an importation 
 of Belgian workmen, who supplied the place of the 
 men on strike. 
 
 The great prosperity, which enabled the Unions to 
 obtain such high pay for the men in 1863, had but a 
 short run. About the middle of the following year the 
 Staffordshire proprietors found themselves compelled to 
 lower the price of their iron. But, relying on a speedy 
 revival of business, they judged it more prudent not to 
 reduce their payments in proportion : the workmen, 
 therefore, supposed that the rate of wages would not be 
 altered unless the price of iron sunk still lower, so that 
 when the reduction, which had been so unwisely put off, 
 became at last necessary, it was looked upon as a cruel
 
 . THE lEON TRADE. 97 
 
 injustice by the men, who could not have complained if 
 it had been made a few months earlier. The masters had 
 foreseen this resistance, and had prepared for it in 
 December 1864, by entering into an agreement with the 
 manufacturers throughout England that a general re- 
 duction of wages should take place simultaneously all 
 over the country, and that they should all stand by one 
 another in case of need. They accordingly announced 
 that, from and after the 14th of January, 1865, one 
 shilling should be taken off the pay of the puddlers, and 
 that all other wages should be reduced ten per cent. 
 There was a great stir among all the operatives, the 
 puddlers especially. Delegates from the two puddlers' 
 Unions attended a conference held at Sheffield, at which, 
 without agreeing to any common plan of operations, it 
 was decided that, a j&ght being out of the question, the 
 men should do their best to obtain favourable terms, and 
 should, at any sacrifice, avoid an useless strike. A 
 special meeting of delegates from all the branches of the 
 Brierley Hill Society confirmed this decision, and at the 
 same time authorized the North Staffordshire puddlers 
 only, on the ground that living was dearer in their district 
 than in any other, to propose to the masters that the 
 reduction should be limited to sixpence. They thought 
 that this proposal would be accepted ; and, contrary to 
 the wishes of the workmen in the rest of the county, the 
 society promised to support the puddlers if they met witli 
 
 7
 
 1)8 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a refusal. Their offer was refused, and they went on 
 strike on the day appointed for the reduction. All their 
 fellow-workmen in the iron works, who belonged to the 
 Gatesliead Union, did the same ; but this society, in 
 order to mark its disapproval of disobedience to orders, 
 soon ceased to allow them any assistance. Depending on 
 what casual aid they could obtain, they soon came to an 
 open rupture with their association, and allied themselves 
 to the puddlers belonging to the Brierley Hill Society, 
 who helped them as well as they were able out of the 
 small resources at their disposal. In spite of warnings 
 received from the leading men of both associations, in 
 spite of the offer of Lord Lichfield, Lord-Lieutenant of 
 the county, to act as arbitrator, these 800 puddlers 
 persisted obstinately in their course. 
 
 The Brierley Hill Union continuing to assist them, 
 the South Staffordshire masters resolved to put an end 
 to this, and to join their brethren of the north of the 
 county in compelling the resisting workmen to accept 
 the reduction : they closed all their establishments on 
 the 6th of March, and announced that they would not 
 resume work until the men had submitted to the terms 
 proposed. The midland and northern proprietors were 
 requested to come to the support of the factories affected 
 by the strike, which the Gateshead Union was accused 
 of secretly encouraging. These met at York, and pro- 
 claimed a lock-out on the 17th of March. The result
 
 TEE IRON TRADE. 99 
 
 was that all the puddling furnaces in England were 
 extinguished at once ; for a whole fortnight the great 
 iron trade ceased to exist ; it has never completely 
 recovered from the effects of the shock. This state 
 of affairs, however, could not last long. The Gateshead 
 Society, which was always opposed to and had never 
 joined in the strike, had no objection to give the promise 
 exacted by the North of England Iron Manufacturers' 
 Association ; whereupon the latter immediately threw 
 open their establishments. The Brierley Hill Associa- 
 tion, seeing that resistance was useless, had ceased, ever 
 since the lock-out, to give any assistance to the North 
 Staffordshire puddiers, who began the strife, and had, 
 though in vain, recommended them to give in. Upon 
 this, the proprietors in the south of the county, who 
 were bound by their engagements with their brethren 
 in the north, asked their northern brethren's permission 
 also to resume work, without waiting for the strike to 
 come to an end. The fact is, public opinion was 
 beginning to find fault with the lock-out, which 
 threatened not only to ruin the iron trade, but caused 
 extreme distress among a numerous and industrious 
 population, which had never been mixed up in the 
 quarrel and entirely disaj^proved of it. The iron-masters 
 too, had no wish to prolong this state of affairs ; they 
 met accordingly at "Wolverhampton, and, on the oth of 
 April, declared the lock-out at an end.
 
 100 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 For all this, the North Staffordshire workmen 
 persisted : they appealed to the public for subscriptions, 
 and were encouraged by promises from Mr. Potter, and 
 the London Society of which he is the secretary. But 
 no money came in ; until at last, reduced to utter misery, 
 they were obliged to yield. The loss in wages from 
 this strike may be reckoned at 120,000/. ; by the lock- 
 out the iron-masters prevented the men from earning 
 150,000L in South Staffordshire, and 50,000Z. in the 
 North of England : so that the workmen lost 32O,O00L 
 in wages alone by this disastrous struggle, without 
 counting what it cost the funds of their associations. The 
 losings of the masters were as great, and both parties still 
 feel its effects. 
 
 The importance of this strike throws all subsequent 
 strikes into the shade. It will be enough, therefore, 
 merely to give a rapid sketch of a few of them. 
 
 The first we have occasion to mention, broke out 
 among the rollers of North Staffordshire on account of 
 the terms on which they were taken on again after the 
 return of the puddlers to work : they succeeded in . 
 obtaining the wages which they asked for.* 
 
 In May, 1866, the puddlers at the Mersey Iron-works 
 
 * They had taken no part in the puddlers' strike, and belonged to 
 a separate Union of their own, which is a purely trade society, and has 
 one peculiar feature : it has two rates of subscription, and the members 
 get more or less assistance when they are not at work, according to the 
 rate at which they have subscribed. — Author's Note.
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 101 
 
 (Liverpool), were thrown out of work in consequence of 
 a strike among the labourers. The proprietors took 
 advantage of this, and, on work being resumed, exacted 
 from them a promise that they would leave the Union. 
 This they refused to do, upon which the manager of the 
 works, Mr. Clay, undertook to do without them ; he set to 
 work himself, and had men, picked up anywhere, taught 
 to act as puddlers, and was so successful that he managed 
 to set eighteen furnaces going, and obliged the puddlers 
 to capitulate. The leaders were discharged ; the rest 
 were compelled to have their names struck off the list 
 of their association ; and thus, being deprived of all means 
 of defence, they had thenceforth no power of opposing the 
 employers. One day several of these men were absent 
 from the works without having given any previous notice, 
 and on their being acquitted by the court, before which 
 the manager of the works prosecuted them, he immedi- 
 ately closed the establishment, and would take back only 
 those workmen who engaged to give a week's notice 
 before leaving. But the most serious strike in the North 
 of England was one which, beginning on the 14th of 
 July, 1866, lasted five months, and deprived, during its 
 continuance, twelve thousand men of work. All these 
 sufferings were to no purpose ; the trade sunk lower 
 and lower, and they had to accept the reduction of wages 
 which they had previously rejected. 
 
 There are Unions also in the iron-founders' trade
 
 102 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (producers of pig-iron), which is intimately connected 
 Avith the wrought-iron trade, and suppHes the latter with 
 the raw material ; but the former has never been disturbed 
 by strikes on so grand a scale as those we have been 
 describing. The honour of this happy result may be 
 ascribed partly to the chief Union in this trade, called 
 the " Friendly Society of Ironfounders," which is as 
 prudent as it is ancient and powerful. Having been 
 founded fifty-nine years ago, it was, of course, until 
 1824, a secret society. Its members used to choose a 
 dark night for their meetings, which were held on one of 
 the peaty wastes called moors, which spread over the 
 high ground in the midland counties. There they 
 collected the subscriptions towards the common fund ; 
 there they concerted measures for the strike which was 
 to break out without any appearance of a common under- 
 standing among the men ; and there relief was distributed 
 after they had thrown up work. Before the day broke 
 upon these innocent conspiracies, before the early call of 
 the grouse, sole inhabitant of these vast deserts, attracted 
 the sportsman to its haunts, the archives of the society 
 were carefully buried, and every one made his way to the 
 neighbouring town. 
 
 This society is spread now all over England, Ireland, 
 and Wales ; it numbers more than eleven thousand 
 members, and in 1865 its receipts rose to 36,297^ But 
 experience has brought prudence ; it does not despise in
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 
 
 103 
 
 its strength the conditions necessary to ensure success. 
 The secretary himself has declared that a strike ought 
 never to be allowed to last more than six weeks, and 
 that if at the end of that time the workmen have 
 not carried their point, it is best for them to give in. 
 
 It has been already observed that the argument 
 entered into between the two great parties before the 
 Commission related to the highest interests of the great 
 industry by w^hich both earn their living ; and the 
 question of what is a fair rate of wages was the subject 
 discussed by both sides with the greatest eagerness. 
 Each reproached the other with wishing to appropriate 
 exclusively to itself — by unduly raising or unduly 
 lov/ering wages — all the profits, which are the fruit of 
 their joint efforts. The masters accused the Unions 
 of causing the decay of their trade by exacting an 
 excessive and untimely increase of pay. The work- 
 men, on the other hand, reproached the masters with 
 using these complaints only as a veil to conceal the 
 large profits, which they still believe the latter- are 
 making. The conclusion we draw from these argu- 
 ments is that both these opposite imputations are 
 equally unfounded. The decay of the iron trade is an 
 undoubted fact, but the Unions cannot be held answer- 
 able for it. 
 
 The real causes of this decay are, first, the excess of 
 capital invested in the trade, followed by over-produc-
 
 104 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 tion : secondly, and unfortunately simultaneously, a 
 sudden and extraordinary diminution of consumption. 
 It is remarkable that, although there was a large 
 increase in ■ the exports of English iron during the 
 years 1864 and 1865 (the excess of 1865 over pre- 
 ceding years amounted to nearly 1,500,000L), the 
 home consumption during this period diminished in a 
 much larger proportion. This diminution cannot be 
 attributed to the high wages paid, because, if so, the 
 exports would have been the first to be affected ; * it is 
 generally attributed to the stoppage of railway works 
 and of iron shipbuilding, and to the gi-eat financial 
 crisis, which has shaken confidence and caused the 
 suspension of all enterprises in which long credit is 
 required. 
 
 The rate of wages is affected by the Unions only to 
 the extent stated in the preceding chapter : they can, in 
 some degree, regulate its fluctuations ; they can retard a 
 fall, and slightly accelerate a rise ; but it is as impos- 
 sible for them to change the law of these fluctuations 
 as it is for a man on a field of battle to stop with his 
 
 * As it has been asserted that the importation of Belgian iron is 
 a proof of the injury caused by high wages to the trade in England, it 
 is worth while to expose the fallacy of this statement. The ijnports of 
 Belgian iron have been to the value of 1,946/. in 1863 ; 75,848/. in 1864 ; 
 99,950/. in 1865 ; while in 1865 alone the value of English iron exported 
 amounted to the enormous sum of 17,000,950/., that is to say, about 
 18,000,000/. exported, to 100,000/. imported. These figures give one 
 an idea of the importance of this branch of trade. — Auihvr's A^ote.
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 105 
 
 hand one of those spent balls which go turning over 
 and over, smashing everything they touch. Were it 
 otherwise, how comes it that the wages of the ten 
 thousand workmen in Wales, who have no Union to 
 fall back upon, are very little lower than those of their 
 brethren in England ? Every one must admit the 
 importance of the influence which the fluctuations in 
 the rate of wages exert on prices, and on the prosperity 
 of an industry such as the iron trade ; but these fluctua- 
 tions are small. Almost all employers acknowledge that 
 there is a minimum below which wages must not be 
 allowed to drop. Lord Dudley's agent, Mr. Smith, who 
 holds a leading position in the trade, has declared that 
 he will never consent to reduce them below seven-and- 
 sixpence, and that he should prefer the present rate of 
 eight shillings and sixpence to be the minimum. " I 
 do not wish," he very justly remarks, " ever to see a 
 puddler w^orking at a less rate of wages than he is at 
 the present time, even though, unfortunately, the price 
 of iron should have to be reduced ; because the moment 
 you bring a class of men like the puddlers, who are very 
 hard-worked, below a certain rate of wages, that moment 
 you rid the community of the best men." * 
 
 * Iron-masters often go on workinp; at a loss ; they find that as long 
 they are not losing more than ten shillings per ton, this is better than 
 stopping their works. They then, as they are doing now, reduce their 
 ]iroduction to a minimum by working only three days a-week. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 106 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 The employers, moreover, perceive that interests of 
 a higher order forbid, above all things, the excessive 
 depreciation of the value of labour. In short, every- 
 thing proves that the degree to which the men will be 
 steady, well-conducted, and reasonable, is in exact pro- 
 portion to the remuneration which the}^ receive. " I 
 believe," remarks an iron-moulder, " that nothing but 
 England's well-paid artisans maintained our position as 
 a nation during the great struggle and crisis of revolu- 
 tions on the Continent. And you will recollect further, 
 that at the time when the Chartist agitation was going 
 on in this country, their cry was. Only pull down the 
 artisan class of this country to the level of the labourer, 
 and the charter would have to be granted." 
 
 On the other hand, it may be asserted that, taking 
 into account even the highest rate of wages prevailing in 
 times of the greatest prosperity, their general average 
 is decidedly low. The proprietors are able to set aside 
 a certain portion out of their share in the profits as an 
 insurance fund against bad years ; the workman cannot 
 spare out of his share, represented by his wages, any- 
 thing like a relative portion for insurance. The exam- 
 ples of very high wages which have been quoted are 
 exceptions, and arose out of peculiar circumstances. 
 We have already mentioned one of these instances, that 
 of the rollers who earned 400Z. and 450L pounds a-year ; 
 and it was proved that this sudden rise ^\'as owing to
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 107 
 
 improvements in machinery. When, however, a trade 
 makes a sudden advance Hke this, the pubKc do not 
 always immediately profit by the diminished cost of 
 production ; the benefit of this goes either to the 
 masters, if they are not obliged to pay higher wages, 
 or to the workmen, if, as in the case of the rollers, they 
 continue with less labour to obtain the same share in 
 the value of the product. But the balance is soon 
 restored ; and, in the end, the benefits of every invention 
 are always shared between the public and the producers. 
 The masters and the workmen make a fresh division of 
 the share in these benefits accruing to each, regulated 
 by the prices offered and the demand for the article ; 
 and the operatives have never been liable to the charge 
 of monopolizing the whole of such share. 
 
 Other cases, similar to that of the rollers, prove only 
 that, even in this laborious trade, intelligence is a much 
 more valuable quality in a workman than mere muscular 
 strength. The chief hammermen in the Mersey Iron- 
 works are allowed from 3L to 3L 10.s. a week for the 
 work of the apprentices under them, out of which they 
 pay the apprentices only 11. a week. The hammermen 
 themselves, who are paid by the day, earn by their own 
 work from 111. 10s. to 121. 10s. a week ; so that, with 
 this and with what they can make out of the apprentice 
 allowance, their annual income amounts to 700/. or 1)00/. 
 But, at the same time, a great responsibility is laid
 
 108 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 upon them. A single misdirected blow of the steam- 
 hammer may entirely spoil tlie work in hand, which 
 may be an enormous screw-shaft for a great ship of war, 
 worth 2,5001. or 3,500Z. A workman, therefore, on 
 whose skill and correct eye the reputation of the whole 
 factory often depends, has a right to put a high value 
 on his services. But these, as we have said, are rare 
 exceptions. The average of wages earned by a good 
 puddler rarely exceeds 601., and scarcely ever reaches 
 75Z. a year, even under the most favourable circum- 
 stances. With a maximum and a minimum so little 
 apart there is no room for any considerable fluctuations 
 in the value of labour, which, consequently, is but 
 slightly affected by them. 
 
 The speakers, in the course of this discussion, con- 
 stantly appealed, in support of their arguments, to the 
 rules and customs by which trade is governed among 
 other manufacturing nations ; and both masters and 
 workmen being equally anxious that this larger field of 
 inquiry should be included within the scope of the 
 Commission, the Commissioners acquiesced, and by so 
 doing were preserved from taking a too exclusively 
 English view of the wages question. 
 
 Their attention was especially drawn to the position 
 of the Unions in the United States, the only country 
 which has as yet adopted them. Much valuable in- 
 formation is contained in the evidence of Mr. He-^dtt,
 
 THE IRON TRADE. 109 
 
 tlae American iron-master, whom we have quoted before, 
 and who is well known for his kind treatment of his 
 workmen. The American Unions are purely trade 
 societies, and, therefore, do not raise any relief fund.* 
 They are very rarely called upon to resist a reduction of 
 wages, and strikes are almost unknown. The only 
 strike upon record in the iron trade is that of the 
 puddlers in Pennsylvania, among whom, Mr. Hewitt 
 says, there were scarcely any Americans ; they were 
 almost all Irishmen, brought up in the tradition that a 
 strike is the natural weapon of the workman against his 
 master. During the civil war the Federal Government 
 was in such haste to get its orders executed that work- 
 men could obtain almost anything they liked to ask. 
 But the high rate of wages prevailing in America is not 
 to be ascribed to any mere temporary state of affairs like 
 this. The low price of land acts as an infallible remedy 
 to the depreciation of labour. In a country where any 
 man can buy land from the State at an almost nominal 
 price, to be paid in small yearly instalments, the iron 
 worker leaves the forge the moment he has discovered 
 that his pay is less than what he would gain by cultivat- 
 
 * The English law, cancelling all contracts and agreements " in 
 restraint of trade," remains in force in America, but it would appear 
 never to have been applied to the Unions, which there enjoy almost all 
 the rights and privileges for which they are now striving in England. 
 In the state of New York they are recognized as corporations, and may 
 hold property by corporate title. — Author's Note.
 
 110 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ing bis own land. To Americans, without any home 
 or trade ties, the prospect of becoming proprietors in 
 the far west is so dazzling that they can be induced to 
 go on working for wages only by the offer of very pre- 
 ponderating advantages. The result is, that in the 
 iron trade labour is three and four times dearer than in 
 England, although the cost of living is by no means 
 greater in the same proportion. This high price of 
 labour is the cause not only of the necessity for pro- 
 tecting the native manufacture in spite of its magnificent 
 natural advantages, but also of the peculiar part assigned 
 to America in the economy of the civilized world. As 
 the facilities of Transatlantic intercourse increase, the 
 prejudices and traditions which bind down the European 
 to spots in which he finds it hard to earn a living will 
 vanish, and the ties of country, noble as they are, will 
 give way before the sense of unfair treatment and the 
 increasing attractions of the great republic. It will then 
 become necessary, in order to keep men at home, to 
 ensure them the same advantages as they would find 
 in emigration, and thus the balance of wages will be 
 restored naturally on both sides of the Atlantic. The 
 reason why America is for the present obliged to resort 
 to protection is because it is easier to import iron from 
 England than men ; consequently, as the men stay at 
 home and work on lower wages than their American 
 brethren, the iron which they turn out can be sold
 
 THE IRON TRADE. Ill 
 
 cheaper than the products of the Pennsylvanian forges. 
 But emigration is daily tending more and more to make 
 the wages of labour the same in all countries ; * that is 
 to say, of intelligent, experienced and skilled labour, the 
 value of which increases in proportion as the self-acting 
 work of machinery is substituted by the progress of 
 civilization for rude manual labour, requiring only a 
 certain amount of muscular strength. In these respects 
 England is placed, commercially as well as geographically, 
 between America on the one side, and France, Belgium 
 and Germany on the other, — a singularly favourable 
 position to occupy at the present time : she is protected 
 against the formidable competition of America by the 
 high wages prevailing there ; and against that of the 
 continent, where the value of labour and the cost of 
 living is less, and the wants of the workman are fewer 
 than in England, by the difficulties, which the situation 
 of the various beds opposes to the successful working of 
 the mineral wealth contained in them.f 
 
 * Accordingly a great many English Unions raise a special fund for 
 the encouragement of emigration. — Author's A'ote. 
 
 f Belgium, in which minerals abound more than in any other con- 
 tinental state, can compete with only one class of English iron, that 
 produced in Staffordshire. The difficulties of transport, against which 
 mining industry has to struggle in Fnince, are Avell known ; it is 
 satisfactory, therefore, that Mr. Hewitt should have done full justice to 
 it by declaring before the Commission, that the Creuzot establishment 
 was prevented only by these difficulties from yielding products quite 
 equal to the best English specimens, and at lower prices. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 112 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 This tendency to a gi'aclual rise in wages is simul- 
 taneously apparent all over the world. In France the 
 introduction of highly-paid English puddlers has enabled 
 the French puddlers, in the opinion even of foreigners 
 like Mr. Hewitt, to equal the English in skill, and so 
 to command wages as high as those paid at Livei-pool 
 and in Staffordshire. On the other hand, in certain 
 districts in England, where the pay of purely manual 
 labour is very low, it may fairly be expected that the 
 masters will consent to waive the advantage this gives 
 them over the market, and will adopt a fairer scale of 
 remuneration. This advantage was, in fact, obtained 
 only by putting women to the rudest and hardest work ; 
 at the great works at Merthyr Tydvil, for instance, women 
 are employed to stack large bars of iron, after they have 
 been hammered ; for this labour, which no strong healthy 
 man would undertake for less than two shillings and 
 threepence, they are paid a shilling a day. This 
 mischievous practice is condemned by public opinion 
 as unjust both to the women, who receive so poor a 
 return for their hard toil, and to the men, whose wages 
 suffer from their having to compete Avith women.
 
 ( 113 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE COAL TKADE. 
 
 There is a natural connection between the coal and the 
 iron trade, and the population employed in it is quite 
 as interesting a race of men as the iron- workers. 
 
 It has been truly remarked that a lump of coal is a 
 bottled sunbeam : a sunbeam is the varying, indestruc- 
 tible, prolific agent, which we call light, heat, chemical 
 action, electricity and motion. Biit few are aware what 
 toils and dangers have to be undergone by a whole popu- 
 lation, in order to get at these precious remains of a 
 former vegetation buried under the surface of the earth, 
 which, as fuel and gas-light, give back to us the active 
 elements of life which were spread over the globe long 
 before the creation of man. 
 
 Shafts of immense depth form the only communication 
 between the outer world and the labyrinth of low, narrow 
 galleries, through which the hard-working race employed 
 in this branch of labour is incessantly moving. In spite 
 
 8
 
 114 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of all improvements in ventilation, tlie atmosphere in 
 these subterranean hives is stifling, and the terrible fire- 
 damp, leaking through invisible cracks, is ever ready to 
 visit a single moment's negligence with fatal consequences. 
 Against this destructive agent the utmost precautions are 
 of no avail ; it is always liable to break forth from any 
 fresh-made opening, in which it had been shut up for 
 hundreds of centuries. The men are sometimes crushed 
 by the soil falling in, when, after working at a layer of 
 coal as hard as stone, they come suddenly upon a seam as 
 friable as touchwood. The following figures will give an 
 idea both of the importance and the dangers of the miners' 
 calling : — Out of 174,000,000 tons of coal brought into 
 the market in 1867, 101,000,000 came from England. 
 This quantity was the produce of 3,195 mines, in which 
 282,000 men were employed. During this year, 1867, 
 there were 1,190 deaths caused by accident (in 1866 
 there had been 1,484), 286 of which were owing to fire- 
 damp. In one year, therefore, in this dangerous work, 
 one man was killed out of every 280, and a life was 
 sacrificed for every 88,000 tons of coal raised. 
 
 In reading their evidence before the Royal Commis- 
 sion it is impossible not to feel admiration and sympathy 
 for the determined hardy men bred by this life of toil, 
 privation, and risk. We have hitherto refrained, as a 
 rule, from mentioning individuals, confining our atten- 
 tion to the more general features of the subject in hand ;
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 115 
 
 but it would be conveying a very imperfect idea of the 
 influence of Trades' Unions and of the future before 
 them, if we omitted to notice some of their leading men, 
 who are an honour to the cause which they represent. 
 
 One of these, Mr. McDonald, told the story of his life 
 with striking simplicity. He was born in Scotland forty 
 years ago, and at the age .of eight began to work in an 
 iron mine. He was obliged, summer and winter, to get 
 up at two o'clock in the morning, and never returned 
 home till seven o'clock the following evening. For 
 sixteen or seventeen hours he was employed in pushing 
 along trucks in galleries often only eighteen inches high, 
 and so badly ventilated, and charged to such a degi'ee 
 with carbonic acid gas, that three or four lamps placed 
 close together did not afford sufficient light for loading 
 the ore. Not one of the twenty other children, who were 
 McDonald's companions in the mine, lived to grow up. 
 In the second mine in which he worked there were 
 thirty boys, and a good many girls. All these, with the 
 exception of himself and his brother, died quite young, 
 broken down by hard work, and extinguished, like one of 
 their own wretched lamps, by the poisonous atmosphere. 
 Nevertheless, so great was his desire to obtain higher 
 pay and an improved position, that in spite of these 
 terrible trials, and almost before he had fairly attained 
 manhood, McDonald devoted himself to miner's work in 
 its most laborious form. He undertook by contract to
 
 116 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 construct the galleries by tunnelling through the rock 
 (called running a level) in places where he had to work 
 up to his knees in water, and with the moisture from the 
 walls incessantly dripping upon him. He says himself 
 " in the morning when I entered, the first thing that I 
 always did was to roll myself all over right in the water, 
 and wet every part of the body, for the express purpose 
 that the water falling from the roof should not create 
 the very unpleasant sensation which water does to one 
 who has gone recently from his bed into the mine that is 
 wet." The toilsome life he led did not prevent him from 
 attending the night school which had been recently set 
 up for the benefit of the w^orkmen. Having saved a 
 little money by the time he w^as one-and-twenty, he 
 resolved on dividing his time ; during the summer he 
 continued to work with his hands, in the winter he went 
 to the University of Glasgow, where he studied Greek, 
 Latin, Rhetoric and Mathematics : the six months spent 
 thus cost him about 601. At last, after ha"ving been 
 foreman of a mine, he dropped the pickaxe and mattock 
 to become secretary of an Union. The confidence placed 
 in him by all his fellow-workmen has since called him to 
 the position he now occupies, — that of President of the 
 National Association of Miners, a vast society which 
 embraces all the pitmens' Unions in the three kingdoms. 
 Other workmen, from the same beginnings, and 
 equally energetic and persevering, have followed another
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 117 
 
 line, and ended by becoming masters. Twenty-seven or 
 twenty-eigbt years ago, among the wretched children of 
 eight or ten at work in mines, was one called George 
 Elliot. Subsequently, he took part as a miner in the 
 great strikes, by means of which the workmen obtained 
 a large reduction in the hours of labour ; he still speaks 
 of this as one of the most precious victories obtained by 
 justice and humanity. From the time he was twenty, 
 owing to his keen intelligence, he began to rise above 
 the condition of a simple miner. After passing through 
 all the subordinate steps in a miner's calling, he became 
 foreman, then manager, and is now one of the chief 
 proprietors in England, and owns mines situated in 
 several districts. In the mines of which he is owner, 
 together with those which he manages as agent, he 
 employs ten thousand men, and raises annually two 
 million tons of coal : that is to say, an eightieth part of 
 all that is produced throughout the world- Never for- 
 getful of his origin, he has always been on the best 
 terms with his workmen. He ends his evidence in the 
 following words : — " I do not think there is a finer body 
 of men in the world than the pitmen in the country, and 
 I think if you can inspire them with the feeling that you 
 are fair, and intend nothing but what is just towards 
 them, you can manage them." 
 
 In the coal-pits all payments are made by piece- 
 work. The galleries are so low that the workmen are
 
 118 THE trades' unions OF ENGLAND. 
 
 obliged to strike the vein of coal with their picks lying 
 clown on their backs ; the lumps so detached are then 
 packed upon trucks, which are simply boxes on wheels. 
 The trucks are pushed along a tramway to the end of 
 the gallery, and thence hoisted to the surface by a steam- 
 engine, where their load is weighed, and each workman 
 is credited -snth the amount he has contributed to the 
 product, and is paid so much for every ton of coal raised. 
 In some pits — at Staveley for instance — a certain 
 number of men take a galleiy under contiact, and work 
 it as partners, taking their chance of loss or gain accord- 
 ing to the quaHty of the seam. In other pits the com- 
 parative facility of the work depends on this quality ; the 
 miners therefore in some galleries are paid more per ton 
 than those in others of the same pit. In Durham 
 and Northumberland the pitmen are engaged by the 
 year at a fixed salary, the owner guaranteeing them a 
 minimum of from thirty to thirty-three shillings per 
 fortnight, whether they are at work or not. This old- 
 fashioned system, though it has at difi"erent times been 
 found fault with both by employers and by the Unions, 
 is, on the whole, advantageous to both parties : to the 
 masters, because it ensures them against a sudden rise 
 in wages, which is fatal in cases where they have under- 
 taken contracts in which the payment is long deferred ; 
 to the workmen, because it secures them from want of 
 employment and the misery caused by it.
 
 THE COAL TEADE. Ill) 
 
 Follo\\ing the development of the Union system in 
 this branch of industry, we shall point out the various 
 objects at which it aimed, and the improvements which 
 it has accomplished in the miners' existence. 
 
 Unions were established first in Scotland. Enough 
 has been said to show the miserable condition at that 
 time of the workers in the pits, but even this was a 
 great improvement on what that condition had been 
 previously. Down to 1779 it was literally a state of 
 serfdom. The miners were compelled by law to 
 remain in the pits as long as the owner chose to keep 
 them at work there, and were actually sold as part of the 
 capital invested in the works. If they accepted an 
 engagement elsewhere their master could always have 
 them fetched back and flogged as thieves for having 
 attempted to rob him of their labour. This law was 
 modified in 1779, but was not repealed till after the Acts 
 passed in 1797 and 1799. The abuses, however, of 
 which the workmen were victims, did not disappear all 
 at once : the combination laws were in full force : 
 truck-shops were everywhere established, and in order to 
 oblige their workmen to resort to them and purchase on 
 credit, the masters paid the men only at long intervals.* 
 
 * Since the abolition of truck-shops, this deferred payment has 
 given rise to another sort of abuse, of which the workmen still com- 
 plain bitterly. "When a labourer is earning 3/. per fortnight, he may, 
 though he is not paid until the last day of the fortnight, consider him- 
 self the lawful owner of 50«. at the end of the first week. But, if he
 
 120 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 The underground galleries were crowded with 
 women and children, the latter in a state of utter 
 ignorance : the men were kept at work sometimes more 
 than sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and nothing 
 was done towards either the healthiness or the safety of 
 the mines. Accordingly the societies, established before 
 the relieving Acts above mentioned, gi-ew in strength, 
 and ended by defying the law. The Lanarkshire Miners' 
 Union had been openly tolerated since 1817 ; and this 
 example had its influence on the act of justice which was 
 carried out by the abolition of the penalties against 
 combination in 1824. As soon as this was accomplished, 
 the societies set themselves to attack the customs, which, 
 as old-fashioned relics of serfdom, they looked upon as 
 fatal to the position of the worlanan, and with this view 
 they endeavoured to interest public opinion in their 
 favour. It would be an exaggeration to attribute all 
 that has been done in England towards rooting out 
 these abuses and improving the miners' condition to the 
 sole influence of these societies, but it is certain that by 
 their persevering defence of their legitimate interests 
 both before the public and before parliamentary com- 
 
 then wants to be paid, say, ll. out of this sum of 30*., which clearly 
 belongs to him, it is the practice, in some works, to make him sign a 
 receipt for a guinea. The extra shilling represents interest on the 
 advance of the 1/., which he, nevertheless, had already lawfully earned. 
 This amounts to m>ik'ng him pay five per cent, per week, which is 
 equivalent to 260/. per cent, per annum. — Author's Note,
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 121 
 
 missions they have hastened the progress of legislation, 
 and are now at last beginning to feel the beneficial effect 
 of their efforts. They have had to conquer the force of 
 tradition, the aversion — gen'erally well founded — of 
 the English people to any legal interference, and lastly, 
 the opposition of a great number of masters. While 
 they were accomplishing this work, sometimes by means 
 of petitioning Parliament, sometimes by striking, they 
 were also engaged in other, often long and furious, con- 
 tests, either to obtain an increase, or to resist a reduction 
 of wages, or in defence of their very existence. But they 
 cannot be accused of having either introduced or spread 
 a habit of striking among the workmen, for the most 
 violent and obstinate strikes have broken out in places 
 where Unions have never existed ; on the other hand, 
 they have had a large share in promoting eveiy one of 
 the social improvements which it is the pride of our 
 time to have secured to the class of miners in England. 
 
 Their first efforts were crowned with success. They 
 obtained a parliamentary inquiiy into the truck-shop 
 system, the result of which was that Lord Ashley (now 
 Lord Shaftesbury) introduced a measure in the House 
 of Commons, which was carried in 1831, absolutely 
 forbidding this usurious practice. 
 
 In this same year, 1831, the English miners made 
 use, for the first time, of the right of combining : but 
 they established only a temporary league, and their
 
 122 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Unions seem not to have assumed the same shape as 
 those in Scotland. They wanted to obtain a reduction 
 of the number of hours to a day's work.* A workman 
 named Tommy Hepburn, put himself at their head ; he 
 was gifted with rare intelligence, and possessed of all 
 the qualities which make a man a leader among his 
 fellows. Thirty thousand workmen struck in Durham 
 and Northumberland ; after much suffering they ended 
 by carrying their point ; and the day's work was reduced 
 to twelve hours. This reduction was as beneficial to the 
 masters, who had opposed it, as to the workmen : the 
 latter worked with increased energy, and the yield of the 
 mines became larger. The workmen were not satisfied 
 with this success, but went on to demand a considerable 
 rise in their wages. Hepburn tried in vain to dissuade 
 them from this, they insisted, and went on strike ; but 
 the anticipations of their chief were soon realized, and 
 in a short time they were obliged to give in. 
 
 Not long after these events the Unions, being now 
 fully organized in the north of England, applied, in 
 
 * Although pa}'ment is by piece-work, still the discipline indis- 
 pensable in a mine makes it necessary that the number of working 
 hours should be fixed. In mines where labour is not continuous, the 
 men employed in the carriage of ore along the galleries, and in attend- 
 ing to the hoisting engines, must work a certain time, and if a miner 
 leaves off sooner, it is a clear loss to the owner. In those where labour 
 is carried on uninterruptedly, it is necessarj' that every workman should 
 know the hour at which he has to go and take the place of the man 
 whom he relieves. — Author's Note.
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 1*23 
 
 concert with those of Scotland, for legislative interference 
 to protect the workmen from the bad ventilation of mines 
 and to stop the emploj'ment of women and children. 
 
 The subject was referred in 1834 to a Parliamentary- 
 Committee, which issued some recommendations merely, 
 and these do not seem to have been much attended to. 
 At last, in 1842, both Houses having become alive to 
 the fatal consequences of these growing abuses, passed 
 an act absolutely forbidding underground labour to 
 women, and children under the age of twelve.* 
 
 After this, with the exception of one unimportant 
 strike in Derbyshire, work went on in the coal pits 
 without any disturbance until 1844. In this year the 
 miners in the counties of Durham and Northumberland 
 refused to go up and down the shafts by means of the 
 newly introduced iron-wire cables, believing the old- 
 fashioned ropes of hemp to be safer. They soon gave 
 up striving for this, but remained upon strike in order 
 to enforce the continuance of the system of engagements 
 by the year, in the accomplishment of which, however, 
 after standing out four months, they also failed. 
 
 This defeat put an end to the Unions in these 
 districts for a time, but after the lapse of five years they 
 sprang up again, and renewed the fight in 1849. Taught 
 
 * Up to the passing of this Act, the ■women employed in the Scotch 
 coal-pits Mcrc made to ascend from the bottom to the surface by means 
 of perpendicular slippery ladders, with a load of 200 pounds of coal 
 on their backs. — Author's Note.
 
 124 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 by experience, the workmen attacked only one mine at a 
 time ; and in order to reduce it to submission, the men 
 employed in it, instead of striking, reduced their labour, 
 and consequently the yield, so as to earn only first three 
 shillings, then two, and at last only one shilling a day. 
 Through this system, called restriction, the yield of the 
 mine fell to next to nothing, while all the general 
 working expenses remained undiminished; the other 
 miners contributed to the support of the men working 
 in the mine under restriction, whose presence, though 
 their work was merely nominal, was an obstacla^to fresh 
 hands being called in. This mode of proceeding was 
 adopted at the Marley Hill coal pit. The directors, not 
 choosing to put up with this treatment, discharged all 
 their workmen, turned them out of the houses they had 
 let to them, and ended by having Scotch miners fetched 
 to supply their place. These measures succeeded, and 
 after a fruitless resistance, the men originally employed 
 in the pit were compelled to ask leave to resume work in 
 it, and to abandon their claim for increased pay. 
 
 From this time strikes increased in frequency, even in 
 places where the Unions possessed small influence. In 
 the Leeds district, in which out of 7,000 workmen only 
 2,000 were members of Unions, a dispute, ending in a 
 strike for increased pay, broke out in 1853, between 
 Messrs. Pope and Pearson and their workmen. On this 
 occasion, although Messrs. Pope and Pearson received
 
 THE COAL TRADE, 125 
 
 the support of the neighbouring emplo3'ers, the men 
 carried their point, after standing out five months. 
 
 During the year 1855 twelve strikes occurred in 
 Durham. There were a great many also in Scotland : 
 one of these, in Lanarkshire, began in 1856, and lasted 
 thirteen months ; it ended in the success of the masters. 
 In the Leeds district, again, hostilities were renewed in 
 1858. All the workmen combined to establish an 
 Union, which took the name of the South Yorkshire 
 Miners' Association, for the assistance of their brethren 
 belonging to Mr. Briggs' extensive coal works. He, in 
 his turn, was backed by the members of his class, and 
 the allied masters proclaimed a lock-out. After two 
 months, during which the men lost about 40,000/., 
 both parties came to a compromise, as they ought to 
 have done in the beginning. The masters wanted to 
 reduce wages fifteen per cent. ; the men wanted to keep 
 them as they were : at last both parties agi'eed to a 
 reduction of seven-and-a-half per cent. 
 
 There was a rise shortly, but this did not prevent a 
 contest from breaking out on a fresh subject. The 
 efibrts of the workmen were this time directed against 
 " confiscation " — a practice of which they have never 
 ceased to complain, and which, more than any other 
 perhaps, causes irritation against the owners of mines. 
 Every time a tub of coal on coming to bank was found, 
 on weighing, to be under a certain weight, or to contain
 
 126 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 a certain proportion of earth or stone mixed with the 
 coal, it was declared forfeited, the contents were emptied 
 into the depot, hut it was not carried to the credit of 
 the pitman who sent it up, and he received no pay- 
 ment for his labour. The workmen declare that a tub 
 has been forfeited when only a single lump of coal has 
 happened to fall out on its way to the pit's mouth, and 
 that sometimes, in consequence of errors, accidental or 
 otherwise, tubs of the required weight have been con- 
 fiscated, and this to such an extent as in some collieries 
 to amount to one-twelfth part of all the coal raised. To 
 get rid of this system, which in certain cases may be 
 necessary, but is clearly liable to great abuse, the work- 
 men struck. All the masters in the district combined 
 in its defence, and gave notice of another lock-out. 
 Eighteen collieries were simultaneously closed, thereby 
 depriving of their work more than 10,000 men. But 
 notwithstanding this harsh measure, the miners suc- 
 ceeded in the end in obtaining the redress of all their 
 chief grievances. 
 
 All this while the Union system was acquiring 
 strength and development among the pitmen ; it was 
 about this time, too, that it became established in the 
 iron trade. In 1862, a large number of the hands 
 employed in working the rich seams which lie between 
 Liverpool and Manchester, and especially near the towns 
 of Wigan and St. Helens, established the South Lanca-
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 127 
 
 shire Miners' Association, in imitation of that founded 
 at Leeds four years before. The following year Leeds 
 was the scene of a meeting of delegates from almost all 
 the miners' associations in England. On this occasion, 
 Mr. McDonald represented the Scotch Unions, which 
 had been already amalgamated, and a great society was 
 formed under the name of the National Association of 
 Miners, of which he was elected president. This society 
 gave a great impulse to the diffusion of Unionist feeling. 
 A long course of mutual annoyances and wrongs in- 
 flicted and suffered on both sides had produced a feeling 
 of hostility between masters and workmen in Yorkshire, 
 which needed only an excuse to break out in active war : 
 the newly formed society furnished this excuse. 
 
 Agents of the Union were appointed, v.-ho went about 
 in the districts in which it possessed no adherents, and 
 addressed the workmen in passionate harangues, de- 
 scribing in the most glo-uing colours all the injuries, 
 real or supposed, which they had received at the hands 
 of the masters, and representing admission into the 
 Union as an infallible remedy for all their wrongs. 
 Two of these men, Messrs. Brown and Pickles, both 
 of whom gave evidence before the Commission, especially 
 distinguished themselves by their violence. It was a 
 time when the smallest trifle caused a quarrel. At one 
 time the masters would try to make the workmen riddle 
 the coal underground, — this means separating the largo
 
 128 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 from the small pieces by means of a sieve, — or would 
 order the great lumps and the small coal, which had 
 been broken in pieces, to be packed in separate tubs. 
 At other times they would confiscate tubs though all 
 but coming up to the required weight. This last 
 grievance became so serious that a law was passed 
 directing that one of the workmen in a mine, to be 
 chosen by his companions, and paid jointly by them 
 and the owners, should be appointed check-weigher. 
 Several masters evaded it by immediately discharging 
 the workman appointed to this duty, and then denying 
 him access to the mine on the ground that he had 
 ceased to belong to the establishment. One of the 
 check-weighers, Mr. Normansell, now president of the 
 South Yorkshire Union, when treated in this way, per- 
 severed in asserting his right. He allowed himself to 
 be ejected eighteen days running from the weigh-house, 
 and then appealed to justice. He carried his cause 
 from court to court : and it ended by the case being 
 brought before the Court of Queen's Bench, which 
 ordered his employers to reinstate him in his office.* 
 The masters, on their side, prepared for the struggle 
 and combined to establish among themselves a genuine 
 
 * The two last subjects of complaint on the part of the workmen 
 which we need notice, were the discharge of most of the leaders of 
 Unions, and the forced tribute levied on all minei'S for the pav of a 
 medical man, in the selection of whom they had no voice. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 12D 
 
 Union, of which one of their body, Mr. Briggs, was 
 elected President. It was at his works that hostilities 
 broke out in 1863 : the men there refused to adopt the 
 s^'stem of riddling underground. He determined to 
 conquer their resistance, and to break up the Unions, 
 whom he accused of fomenting strikes. With this view 
 he called in miners from the adjoining counties to 
 supply the place of the men who had left. The old 
 hands received the new comers with ill -concealed 
 hostility, which the praiseworthy efforts of some of 
 their leaders could not long keep in check. The 
 expulsion in a body of the former tenants of the 
 houses attached to the mine was the signal for a break- 
 out. On the night of the 24th of September, the fresh 
 workmen, who had been installed in these houses, were 
 attacked, and a serious riot followed, which was with 
 difficulty put down by the police. But this act of 
 violence was the expiring effort of the most headstrong 
 among the workmen on strike ; after this they were 
 obliged to own themselves beaten, to relinquish their 
 demands, and to consent to work in company with non- 
 Unionists. They resolved to take their revenge on the 
 first opportunity ; we shall presently see how Mr. Briggs 
 prevented this and disarmed them as if by magic. 
 Meanwhile,, partly by intimidation, partly by persuasion, 
 the Unions were gathering strength in the Durham 
 collieries, and striving to obtain redress for the miners' 
 
 9
 
 180 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 grievances, the masters all the time endeavouring to 
 stop their interference. The result naturally was that 
 disputes sprung up at every turn, sometimes on the 
 subject of forfeitures, sometimes about wages. The 
 workmen resorted to the system of restriction, which 
 the masters met by a lock-out. At the Brancepeth 
 mine forty Unionist workmen and their families were 
 turned out of some cottages in the neighbourhood of the 
 pit which they rented from the owners. The fact that 
 these houses remained uninhabited gave an appearance 
 of gratuitous spite to the proceeding in the ejes of the 
 miners, and the arrival of the strange workmen brought 
 their irritation to a head. The police, though reinforced 
 by special constables, could not prevent numerous riots 
 from breaking out, and it ended by its becoming im- 
 possible for the new comers to stay in the place. The old 
 hands were satisfied with having driven away their rivals, 
 and resumed work without insisting on the demands 
 they had made previously ; they were no longer in a posi- 
 tion to continue the struggle, for they had exhausted 
 their funds and incurred a loss of 32,000Z. in wages. 
 
 In the year 1864 the contest, which had been carried 
 on with such vigour in South Yorkshire, assumed a 
 different character. On this occasion the South York- 
 shire Association stood aloof, and not only strongly 
 urged the miners of the Oaks and Thorncliff collieries 
 to abstain from a strike, but, on their persisting in this
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 131 
 
 course, refused to support them, whereupon they seceded 
 from the Association. The masters did not take advan- 
 tage of the chance thus offered them of putting an end 
 to the struggle ; they combined afresh and closed all the 
 collieries round about. It was not until 3,000 workmen, 
 scarcely a third of whom were Unionists, were thrown 
 out of work by this measure, that the Association 
 decided upon assuming an attitude of resistance. The 
 result was a complete success ; after nineteen weeks the 
 proprietors of the Oaks colliei*y were abandoned by their 
 allies ; and the following year the Association gathered 
 the fruits of its timely resistance. The men at that 
 time had demanded an advance of ten per cent, in the 
 rate of wages, and several masters not only granted 
 this but joined the men in measures for obtaining the 
 same concession from other employers. Restriction was 
 employed against the resisting masters, whose workmen 
 reduced their labour to three shillings a day. For this 
 the men employed in the Thorncliff colliery received 
 their discharge, whereupon the friendly masters came 
 to their assistance, and by contributing to the funds of 
 the Union, enabled the workmen, after an expenditure 
 of 5,000L, to obtain a rise of wages, weekly payments, 
 and the full recognition of the Union by the small 
 number of proprietors who had up to that time refused 
 to treat with its representatives. 
 
 In other places it was less successful. An attempt
 
 132 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 was made to establish an Union in the five collieries in 
 the neighbourhood of Chesterfield. Mr. ]\Iarkham, 
 manager of the Staveley works, resolved to oppose it. 
 Seven or eight thousand workmen of the district having 
 assembled to concert measures for the formation of an 
 Union, Mr. Markham immediately discharged all who 
 had been concerned in getting up the meeting, and 
 threatened to do the same by any man who attended the 
 meetings at which the Union delegates were spokesmen. 
 Upon this the majority of the 3,000 workmen, whom 
 he employed, left the works of their own accord, and 
 in six weeks the colliery was all but empty. However, 
 he would not allow that he was beaten, and attacked 
 the Union with its own weapons. By opposing meetings 
 by meetings, addresses by addresses, he succeeded in 
 getting up an anti-Unionist party among the men ; this 
 was the more easy, especially with the less resolute 
 among them, because, as the strike extended over the 
 whole district, the men, who took part in it, received no 
 assistance, and were reduced to extreme want. An 
 opportunity for striking a decisive blow at last presented 
 itself : the new enemies of the Union received a present 
 of beef and beer ; they got up a grand feast and invited 
 their companions. This scene is described in a few 
 words by one of them.* 
 
 * Mr. Henshaw {Report 6, Q. 13,801). He acknowledges that he 
 and some others were picked out by agents of the Staveley Company,
 
 THE COAL TBADE. 133 
 
 " Three or four hundred men," he says, " that had 
 been sticking to the Union, and who were going about 
 with empty stomachs, when they saw this beef, were 
 ready to swallow it whole if they could, and they all 
 flocked in and had a share of it, and went to work the 
 next morning." 
 
 He was asked, — "And you think the dinner had 
 something to do with the breaking up of the Union ? " 
 
 " It had a good eifect, I think," was his answer, 
 given with the utmost simphcity. This was true, for the 
 Union was given up for the time, and Mr. Markham 
 resumed the works at the mine with 1,500 men. 
 
 Different measures were employed to put down a 
 strike which, in 1867, broke out in the southern part of 
 the county. The Unionist agents had, as usual, been 
 going about disseminating their doctrines. This brought 
 about a combination of the masters, who discharged all 
 the workmen belonging to the Society. This step 
 caused great indignation. The mines were emptied, 
 and the few workmen who ventured to stay were assailed 
 by their companions, who called them " blood-suckers," 
 and, armed with sticks, collected round them in threat- 
 ening bands. It was impossible to come to terms when 
 the very existence of the Unions depended upon the 
 
 and sent before the Commission as t}'pes of the anti-Unionist party 
 among the miners. The evidence they gave is a fair test of their in- 
 telligence — Author's Note.
 
 184 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 issue of the struggle. The irritation increased daily, 
 and serious disturbances occurred, in spite of the police. 
 All colliery work was suspended. The men on strike 
 succeeded in persuading the miners, who were called in 
 to supply their place, to return home, and paid their 
 travelling expenses. In order to obtain hands, the pro- 
 prietors of the Gresley Wood and Swadlincote Collieries 
 engaged special trains, which avoided the stations 
 watched by the Unionists, and stopped in lonely spots, 
 where the new comers alighted, and thence found their 
 way by stealth to the mine. This measure was suc- 
 cessful ; the old workmen returned to their labour, and 
 came out of the Union. 
 
 The Commission was sitting early in 1868. There 
 had been several strikes already that year. One in 
 January at Lord Vernon's works, on which occasion, 
 after standing out a month, the men submitted to a 
 reduction of wages. Another, also in resistance to a 
 reduction, occurred in Lancashire. This was attended 
 with disturbances more serious than any we have had 
 to describe before. There are numerous coal and iron 
 works in the district between the towns of Wigan and 
 St. Helens, which is very rich in minerals. One mine 
 alone, the Wigan Iron and Coal Company, employs 
 9,000 workmen, and produces annually 1,750,000 tons 
 of coal. The price of coal having fallen, the directors 
 of the Company determined to reduce wages 15 per
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 135 
 
 cent. This step they considered so necessary, that they 
 would have preferred closing the mines to giving it up. 
 On this occasion again, the leaders of the Union, which 
 was established in 1862, gave a proof of their sagacity 
 by advising the workmen to submit to the reduction. 
 One of them, Mr. Pickard, whom it was impossible that 
 they should look upon with suspicion, as he had always 
 been conspicuous for advocating strong measures, endea- 
 voured in vain to show them how fatal would be the 
 consequences of resistance. He was not listened to — 
 the branch societies of Wigan and St. Helens rebelled 
 against the central authority, and would not even hear 
 of coming to terms. The more sensible among the 
 men, who refused to go on strike, were annoyed in every 
 possible manner, especially after they were joined by 
 some strange workmen imported into the district. Not- 
 withstanding all the efforts made by the leaders of the 
 South Lancashire Association, the miners on strike, 
 1,500 in number, among whom Unionists and non- 
 Unionists were mixed, seized the works of the Wigan 
 Company, and remained in occupation of them several 
 days. They would have destroyed all the machinery 
 had it not been for the interference — so rarely called for 
 in England — of the military. A detachment of forty 
 soldiers and sixty policemen was one night attacked 
 with stones near the Edge Green Colliery, and had 
 much difficulty in dispersing the rioters. These dis-
 
 13G THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 turbances were going on at the time the sittings of the 
 Commission began, and both parties, each labouring 
 under the excitement produced by this lamentable 
 struggle, came and poured forth their complaints before 
 it. The directors accused the men of acts of violence, 
 and the leaders of the Unions of connivance with these 
 acts ; they also found fault with the patience — or, as 
 they called it, weakness — of the magistrates charged 
 with maintaining order. The Union leaders, on the 
 other hand, declared that they used their utmost efforts, 
 so far as even to endanger their influence, in endeavour- 
 ing to enforce moderation and to calm the passions, 
 which they reproached the directors with having pro- 
 voked and irritated by their previous conduct. At any 
 rate, this discussion clearly proves that none of the 
 offences of which the workmen were guilty on this occa- 
 sion, can be attributed to the influence of the Unions. 
 
 In spite of all these contests, the increase in miners' 
 wages during the last forty years has not been at all in 
 proportion to the increase in the price of all the neces- 
 saries of life, and, consequently, they are relatively 
 worse off now than they were formerly. It is unjust, 
 therefore, to blame the Unions for having endeavoured 
 to increase the price of labour, if, as their advocates 
 assert, these efforts have not been in vain, but have 
 really contributed to obtain for the workman a better 
 remuneration for his toil,
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 137 
 
 The pitmens' Unions are formed upon the same 
 model as those we have previously described. The 
 " National Association," founded at Leeds in 1863, 
 consists of 35,000 members : it is simply an amalgama- 
 tion of the branches established in the different districts, 
 each of which raises its own fund, is governed by its own 
 rules, and has the independent management of its own 
 affairs. The subscription to the National Association is 
 a penny a month only, and its functions are, by exercis- 
 ing a general direction over the efforts of the local 
 branches, to insure united action in striving to get laws 
 passed more favourable to the miner, to protect the rights 
 and uphold the claims of every individual member, and 
 finally, to obtain a reduction of the day's work, which, 
 the Unions believe, ought to be limited to eight hours. 
 The central society exercises only an indirect influence 
 over strikes ; the local branches decide upon them and 
 bear the expenses. Nevertheless it occupies a very 
 important place, and in proof of this, Mr. McDonald 
 told the Commission that, during the seven years which 
 he has spent as president — first of the Scotch Associa- 
 tion, then of the National Association — he has attended 
 1,600 meetings, travelled 230,000 miles, and written 
 17,000 letters. The branch Unions singly are sometimes 
 very .powerful bodies. The South Yorkshire Association, 
 which was founded in 1858, is subdivided into 48 
 branches, and consists of 7,000 members, who pay ten
 
 138 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 shillings admission money, and a weekly subscription of 
 ninepence, or one shilling, according to circumstances. 
 The Lancashire Association, established in 1862, is also 
 composed of 7,000 members, paying ninepence a week. 
 This society allows nine or ten shillings a week to work- 
 men while on strike, and in addition insures its mem- 
 bers 5^. or 61. for funeral expenses.* 
 
 The proprietors, on their side, have sought to resist 
 this new power, either by combining together, or by 
 establishing associations of workmen under their own 
 patronage and direction. We have shown the action of 
 these combinations on all the important strikes which 
 they have been formed to meet, and that their function is 
 to ensure united support against attacks, and to lay under 
 interdict, when necessary, the rival associations of the 
 men, by denying such of them as belong to these 
 access to the mines, and using their influence to prevent 
 their obtaining any employment They have gone so far 
 as to adopt the system of " black lists." A circular was 
 produced before the Commission which had been sent 
 round by the secretary of one of these associations to all 
 the masters members of it, charging them on no account 
 to employ any of the workmen named in it as Unionists. 
 The mutual benefit societies which have been estabhshed 
 by some masters among their men, with a view of coun- 
 
 * The Scotch Sliners' Unions apply their funds to trade purposes 
 (strikes) only. — Author's Note.
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 1B9 
 
 teracting the influence of the Unions, seem to be excellent 
 and well-managed institutions ; but the operatives have 
 reason to complain that these are even more liable than 
 the much-abused Unions to the charge of obtaining 
 members by coercion. It is quite true that in some 
 mines these societies are kept up not by voluntary 
 subscriptions, but by a deduction imposed on all the 
 men's wages, so that the workmen, who are either 
 discharged or leave the mine of their own accord, lose all 
 right to participate in the advantages secured to them by 
 their paid-up subscriptions : and it is in the power of 
 a director to aggravate the punishment of dismissal, 
 by the indirect infliction of what may chance to be a 
 heavy fine.* 
 
 It has been necessary, in order not to interrupt the 
 history of strikes, to lose sight for the time of the 
 unceasing efforts made by the Unions to obtain legal 
 protection against the dangers to which the men are 
 exposed in the mines. The hours of labour having 
 been reduced, the employment of women and children 
 underground having been forbidden, the miners' associa- 
 tions next had to devote all their attention to the 
 measures indispensable for securing safety in coal-pits. 
 
 * We must not omit to mention a society, though one possessed of 
 small influence, called " The Free Labour Registration Society," which 
 is not limited to the mining trades. It is a kind of registry office, in 
 which men out of employment may enter their names, and to which 
 masters in want of hands may apply. — Author's \ote.
 
 140 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 The large number of victims to accidents, in spite of 
 all tbe precautions taken to protect life, proves bow 
 necessary these precautions are. They accordingly 
 engross tbe attention of both masters and men. Their 
 efforts are, above all, directed against tbe explosion of fire- 
 damp. The admirable invention of Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, which consists in enveloping the miners' lamps 
 with a covering of network impenetrable to inflammable 
 gas, has much diminished danger, but has not entirely 
 removed it. Miners will sometimes break open the 
 sealed fastenings of their lamps in order to light them 
 up again ; or carry matches in their pockets ; or the 
 lamps have been know^n to ignite the gas either fi'om 
 being broken by a blow, or from their metallic network 
 getting heated red hot. All measures, therefore, for 
 securing safety ought to be both taken and kept up as 
 strictly as if the Davy lamp did not exist.* 
 
 Strong ventilation is needed in order to keep 
 constantly carrying off the noxious gas, but unceasing 
 watchfulness is still more needed to guard against the 
 imprudence of the workmen, and to prevent accidents, 
 when the presence of gas is revealed. The masters, 
 unwilling to submit to any control from the Unions, 
 accuse them of being an obstacle to the exercise of this 
 
 * The great improvements known to have been effected in this lamp 
 do not render it less necessaiy to take eveiy precaution. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 141 
 
 watchfulness by developing a spirit of independence 
 among the men. The miners reproach the masters 
 with neglecting many essential precautions, and espe- 
 cially ^dth frequently endangering life by relying too 
 exclusively on the safety lamp. 
 
 The Unions, as has been told, succeeded in 1834 
 in ha\ing this question referred to a Parliamentary 
 Committee. At their request it was taken up again in 
 1850, and, after an inquiry, presided over by Lord 
 Wharncliffe, an Act, which, by the by, completely 
 justified the complaints made by the associations, was 
 passed, creating official inspectors specially charged T\ith 
 the duty of controlling the sanitary state of mines. But 
 the limited number and restricted authority of these 
 inspectors rendered their efforts insufficient. The Unions 
 petitioned again ; another committee was appointed in 
 1852, and again in 1853, and a more complete measure 
 was passed in 1855. The workmen, however, were not 
 yet satisfied ; they said that the inspectors could not 
 come and examine a mine at any moment, and that their 
 visits were too rare to be of any real use. The represen- 
 tatives of the various Unions being convinced that the 
 thoughtlessness and neglect of precaution shown by the 
 miner, which are the cause of so many accidents, arose 
 from his ignorance, proposed that a system of compulsory 
 education should be established, and presented to Parlia- 
 ment a petition, with more than 50,000 signatures.
 
 142 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 offering that the expenses of carrying out this scheme 
 should he met by a contribution imposed on their own 
 wages, on the condition only that some of their body 
 should be members of the governing council. A bill, in 
 accordance with this proposal, was introduced by Sir 
 George Cornewall Lewis, a wise and liberal statesman, 
 whose loss is still felt in England. It met with strong 
 opposition, and was called an attempt at exceptional 
 legislation ; the most important clauses were thrown out 
 in the Commons, and only a few insignificant provisions 
 facilitating the education of miners were preseiwed ; the 
 Unions, therefore, continued their importunities. The 
 National Association of Miners was at this time engaged 
 in urging upon Parliament the expediency of rescinding 
 the *' Master and Servant " law,* the repeal of which was 
 called for by delegates from all the Trades' Unions. 
 It succeeded in this ; and at the same time in getting the 
 subject of the inspection of mines and the education of 
 miners again referred to a committee of the House of 
 Commons. The report of this committee was very 
 favourable to the proposals of the workmen, and the 
 session of 1869 will not pass without legislation on this 
 subject. 
 
 After what has gone before, it must be acknowledged 
 that the Unions are not answerable for the worst acts of 
 violence arising out of the demands for increase of wages, 
 * See above, p. 26.
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 143 
 
 and also that they are not entirely engi'ossed by this idea 
 alone. They have made a point of showing, from the 
 very first years of their existence, that they are well aware 
 that they have a part to play besides that of supporting 
 strikes, and duties to fulfil towards the working-classes 
 who have entrusted them with the care of their interests. 
 If, in the course of their stormy career, they have com- 
 mitted a few errors, have they not nobly redeemed 
 them by their persevering efforts to improve the miner's 
 condition ?
 
 144 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEPt VII. 
 
 THE IRON SHIP-BUILDING TRADE. 
 
 The construction of iron vessels now occupies the first 
 place in the shipbuilding trade of England. 
 
 The attention of the commissioners was, naturally, 
 directed to this trade after their inquiry into the state of 
 the factories in which the metal is manufactured, and of 
 the mines which provide the coal with which it is 
 melted. 
 
 The principal dockyards of the United Kingdom are 
 those on the banks of the Thames, the Mersey, and the 
 Clyde ; in the outskirts of London — at Millwall, and the 
 Isle of Dogs ; at Liverpool, and Birkenhead ; at Glasgow, 
 and at Greenock, Frames built of wrought-iron, and 
 sometimes of steel, and with an outer covering of sheet- 
 iron, have, to the advantage of England, which is rich in 
 iron but poor in timber, taken the place of the old- 
 fashioned wooden vessels. The Great Eastern, and 
 some of the finest ships of the English iron-clad fleet 
 have come out of the Thames Iron Shipbuilding Com-
 
 THE IRON SHIP-BUILDIXG TRADE. 145 
 
 pany's yards ; there, too, most of the second-rate navies 
 of Europe are supplied ; fineness of lines and solidity of 
 construction distinguish the vessels turned out by the 
 yards in the Isle of Dogs. The Messrs. Laird, whose 
 works are on the banks of the Mersey, are unrivalled in 
 England for their turretted ships of war. Ships built 
 especially with a view to speed come from the banks of 
 the Clyde : such are the celebrated liners of the Cunard 
 Company, and their worthy rivals of the French Trans- 
 atlantic Company ; from the Clyde, too, started the 
 famous blockade - runners, in which everything was 
 sacrificed to speed, and which, in spite of the Federal 
 cruisers, carried on so lucrative" a trade with the slave- 
 holding States during the late war in America. The 
 English Government, though more and more in the 
 habit of giving contracts to private firms, continues to 
 employ a large number of workmen in its dockyards at 
 Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham. 
 
 Work by the day is the system generally adopted in 
 this trade, except on the Thames, where piecework is 
 combined with it in almost all the yards. It is done in 
 this way — a shipwright, who is a superior workman, 
 undertakes a piece of work or job by contract, and then 
 pays the workmen, whom he employs to perform it, by 
 the day. Sometimes several workmen go partners in a 
 contract for a certain job to be done at a price agi-eed on ; 
 as long as they are working at it, an instalment out of 
 
 10
 
 146 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 the contract money at the rate of so much per day is paid 
 them at the end of every week, and when the job is 
 finished they divide the remainder. Sometimes only a 
 small number of workmen sign the contract, and they, 
 like the shipwrights, pay the men, whom they employ to 
 help them, by the day, reserving for themselves alone 
 the division of the ultimate profits of the affair, and, 
 agreeing also, if it should so turn out, to stand the loss. 
 In either case it is the practice now for the workmen to 
 rate themselves for the weekly instalments of pay, 
 allowing one man five shillings, another five-and-six- 
 pence, and a third six shillings, according to their 
 respective merits. 
 
 After the workmen, who build the ships' frames, we 
 come to those who complete them, such as carpenters, 
 joiners, painters, &c. These generally make common 
 cause with the workmen of the class first mentioned ; but 
 they possess their own special Unions, just as is the 
 case in the various branches of the building trade, or else 
 they belong to some one or other of the great associations, 
 already noticed : it will not, therefore, be necessary to 
 refer to them again. 
 
 As no considerable strikes have occurred in the 
 dockyards on the Mersey, we may confine our attention 
 to the establishments on the Thames and the Clyde. 
 The history of these two bitterly rival trades, the one in 
 the outskirts of London, the other at Greenock, is so
 
 THE IRON SHIP-BUILDING TRADE. 147 
 
 entirely distinct, that it will be better to give a separate 
 account of each. 
 
 In the London branch of the ship-building trade 
 Unions have been in existence for a very long time. 
 The " Shipbuilders' Provident Union of the Port of 
 London" was established in 1824. At this period iron 
 ships were almost unknown ; but as they became more 
 general and supplanted the old-fashioned structures, the 
 men employed on the wooden vessels gradually took up 
 the new trade. The unfair share of the profits which 
 men who took a contract gained over those whom they 
 engaged at daily wages, had long been the subject of 
 constant dispute. The Union began by opposing this 
 system, and endeavoured to enforce one by which all 
 the workmen should share equally in the profits after a 
 job was finished. In this it generally succeeded, and 
 also in establishing the rule — after a hard struggle, 
 accompanied by a strike in 1825 — that the price in no 
 contract should be fixed at a rate which would give less 
 than six shillings a day per man as long as the work 
 lasted. After these two points were carried, there was 
 scarcely any subject of quarrel left,* and the funds of the 
 
 * The only case of strike after this, is one that occurred in 1856, 
 and was confined to the yards belonging to the Messrs. Young. The 
 men wanted to introduce an alteration in the distribution of the hours 
 of labour. Messrs. Young opposed this, whereupon the men turned out, 
 and after remaining four months on strike, and spending 3,000/., obtained 
 their object. — Author's Note. _
 
 148 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Union accumulated so fast, that it was able to devote 
 the greater part of them to the relief and assistance of 
 the members. This society consists now of 1,400 
 members, and posesses a reserve fund of 12,400/, 
 
 The year 1851 was remarkable for a disastrous strike 
 in a different branch of the shipbuilding trade. The 
 joiners wanted the employers to adopt certain rules as to 
 labour ; the masters refused, and combined to resist the 
 demands of the men. This could be done more easily at 
 that time because the Unions were not then in such 
 great force as they are now, in fact they played only a 
 secondary part throughout this affair. The strike mean- 
 while spread rapidly all over the country. The w^orkmen 
 bore their sufferings, which lasted a long time and were 
 most trying, with admirable firmness and temper. Mr. 
 Samuda, a member of Parliament, and a great ship- 
 builder, who had himself joined the masters' combination 
 on this occasion, in speaking of this strike before the 
 Commission, uses the following words: "They (the 
 workmen) exercised such an amount of courage, and they 
 went through such an amount of endurance, that I do 
 not hesitate to say that it was one of the most painful 
 things a man could experience to be successful in such 
 an undertaking." After three or four months the battle 
 ended in the complete success of the masters ; and the 
 workmen were compelled to withdraw their demands, 
 having exhausted all their resources.
 
 THE lEON SHIP-BUILDING TRADE. 149 
 
 Trades' Unions are almost as old an institution on 
 the banks of the Clyde as on those of the Thames. 
 The " Shipwrights' Society," of which Greenock is the 
 head-quarters, was founded in 1828. Similar associa- 
 tions were subsequently established in the other branches 
 of the trade. They rapidly took an extraordinary develop- 
 ment ; as long ago as in 1836 they had won so high a 
 position in the town as to negotiate on equal terms with 
 the great shipbuilders of Greenock. So much so that, on 
 the 23rd of November 1836, the masters and the joiners 
 signed a regular treaty, by which the latter undertook 
 not to object to the number of workmen employed in the 
 yards, nor to require them to become members of the 
 society, provided all fresh hands had gone through a 
 regular apprenticeship. 
 
 In 1839 most of the masters formed an alliance 
 to resist the Shipwrights' Society, which was bound 
 by no treaty with them, but, on the contrary, wanted 
 to oblige them to employ none but workmen belong- 
 ing to the Union. The masters gained a tempo- 
 rary success ; but later on, in 1857, they were obliged 
 formally to recognize the Union's right of interference 
 in all their relations with their workmen. They had to 
 apply to it when they were in want of hands, and to 
 address their complaints to it if they were not supplied 
 fast enough. The society often was purposely slow in 
 furnishing men, in the hope that a scarcity of labour
 
 150 THE TKADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 might cause a rise in wages ; on such occasions the 
 masters would represent that this proceeding would have 
 no other effect than that of diminishing the work done in 
 their yards. The Unions have sometimes demanded the 
 discharge of a man for refusing to join their hody, and 
 have almost always succeeded in obtaining it. 
 
 This state of affairs lasted till 1 866. The imprudence 
 of the Unions then brought on a crisis, which was fatal 
 to them. At this period the trade was in one of those 
 moments of depression when employers, instead of having 
 anything to fear from a strike, ^dsh for one, and are only 
 too glad to make any unreasonable demand of the work- 
 men an excuse for stopping their works, which they are 
 carrying on only at a loss. That was exactly what 
 happened on this occasion : the workmen demanded 
 shorter hours of labour without any corresponding reduc- 
 tion of wages. The masters proposed, in a conference 
 held with the delegates of the different Unions, that they 
 should work three hours a week less (fifty-seven hours 
 instead of sixty), provided they would consent to an 
 equivalent reduction in the day's wages. They could not 
 come to any agreement, and some of the workmen 
 struck. Immediately all, but three, of the shipbuilding 
 firms combined and formed in a few days a most powerful 
 Union under the name of the " Clyde Shipbuilders' and 
 Engineers' Association." They closed all their shops, 
 and gave notice that they would not open them until the
 
 THE IRON SHIP-BUrLDING TRADE. 151 
 
 men's demands had been withdrawn. This lock-out kept 
 18,000 men out of work for several months, and inflicted 
 great suffering on them. At last they gave in, and have 
 never since, with the exception of a few partial strikes, 
 been able to make head against the Shipbuilders' Associ- 
 ation. This society is more strongly organised than any 
 of the employers' associations previously noticed, and its 
 rules are quite as strict as those of the workmen's unions. 
 It consists of thirty-five subscribers, each one of whom is 
 bound by promissory-notes payable at sight, and lodged 
 in a bank, to pay, whenever required, at the rate of four 
 pounds for every man he employs. This secures the 
 association a fund of 100,000Z., on which it could draw at 
 any time. One member cannot engage another's appren- 
 tices without the latter's consent. Lastly, they have 
 consented to sacrifice their independence so far even as 
 to agree that no member shall, during a strike, keep his 
 works going without the consent of a majority of two- 
 thirds of the society, and that he shall, when so ordered 
 by the same majority, discharge all, or a part, of his 
 workmen. 
 
 Sometimes the frames are made, neither by iron nor 
 wooden shipwrights, but by men brought up to the general 
 iron trade, especially the makers of steamboat boilers, 
 which, being joined by rivets, are constructed in exactly 
 the same manner as iron ships. These workmen form 
 a class apart, and possess a powerful Union, which was
 
 152 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 founded in 1834, and consists of 7,000 members : it 
 is subdivided into numerous branches, and its bead- 
 quarters are at Livei'pool. In spite of the large re- 
 sources at its disposal, the numerous strikes in which 
 it has been engaged have rarely been successful. In 
 1862 the members, being afraid of the old shipwrights' 
 competition, and, therefore, not wishing to instruct them 
 in the art of iron shipbuilding, refused to work with 
 them. They went on strike, first at the Royal Dock- 
 yard at Chatham, afterwards at Messrs. Wigram's yard 
 on the Thames ; but, after a protracted resistance, were 
 obliged to yield. Some of the men belonging to this 
 Union — called the Boilermakers' and Iron Shipbuilders' 
 Society of Great Britain and Ireland, in number about 
 2,000 — found themselves involved involuntarily in the 
 great Greenock fight of 1866, and thrown out of work 
 by the stoppage of the works in the yards on the Clyde. 
 Although their Union had always been opposed to the 
 demands which provoked the lock-out on this occasion, 
 nevertheless it sufi"ered by it ; for it could not refuse to 
 come to the assistance of its members, who were thrown 
 out of work in consequence of a quarrel in which they 
 had taken no part, and their keep cost the society 
 2,000?. It was otherwise at Liverpool : there a branch 
 committee, having decided upon a strike against the 
 wishes of the central authority, received no support 
 fi'om it.
 
 THE IRON SHIP-BUILDING TRADE. 153 
 
 According to its original rules, this society offered 
 all sorts of advantages to its members in the way of 
 benefits ; and, although it has not spent much money, 
 in proportion to its income, on strikes, the fund 
 raised by the annual subscription of 2/. 8s. for each 
 member has not proved sufficient to meet the ex- 
 penditure.* 
 
 Accordingly, out of 55,000/. raised in the course of 
 six years, 1,000L only remains as a reserve fund ; and 
 if it was bound to abide strictly by its rules, it would 
 now be on the eve of inevitable bankruptcy. But as it 
 was founded chiefly for the purpose of assisting such of 
 its members as are out of work, it has always made both 
 the amount of relief granted on any other account, and 
 the amount of the subscription imposed, subordinate to 
 carrpng out this one object. Accordingly, at the time 
 of the commercial panic, the subscription was raised 
 from three shillings and sixpence to four shillings a 
 month ; and the allowance to members out of work was 
 
 * The expenditure for the six years previous, and up to January 1, 
 38, is composed of the following items : — 
 
 £ 
 
 Expenditure for Sickness 18,145 
 
 „ Funerals 4,213 
 
 ,, Medical attendance 5,052 
 
 „ Travelling in search of employment 15,698 
 
 „ Aged members at home 1,111 
 
 „ Aged and superannuated members 1,391 
 
 — Author's Note.
 
 154 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 reduced from one shilling and eiglitpence to one shilling 
 a day. 
 
 These j&gures show in what a depressed state the 
 ship-building trade now is in England. This is a point 
 upon which both masters and workmen agree. Since the 
 termination, in 1865, of the civil war in the United 
 States, the famous blockade-runners — which, for the 
 time, made the fortune of the Greenock yards — are no 
 longer required ; while the Thames iron shipbuilding, 
 like many other branches of trade, led away by blind 
 confidence in the great house of Overend, Gurney 
 and Co., became entangled in the wild speculations of 
 that company, and when it fell, was involved in its ruin. 
 Mr. Samuda states that he was himself obliged to reduce 
 the number of his workmen from 2,000 to 200 ; and 
 that, out of all the yards which were in existence before 
 the year 1851, his own is the only one which has not 
 failed. One very remarkable fact is, that the English 
 ship-builders are beginning to admit that their diffi- 
 culties are added to by the increasing competition of 
 France, who threatens to supplant them in the foreign 
 market. 
 
 Each party accuses the other of being the cause of 
 the present state of things, and there is a good deal of 
 justice in the complaints of both. The masters reproach 
 the workmen with demanding an increase of pay, which 
 they cannot grant without ruin to themselves ; the work-
 
 MACHINERY AND ENGINEERING. 155 
 
 men justly complain of not being so well paid now as 
 they were thirty years ago. It is quite true that the rise 
 in wages has been even smaller in the dockyards than in 
 the coal-pits ; and, owing to the depreciation of money, 
 a workman cannot with his ordinary weekly pay buy the 
 same quantity of provisions and fuel that he formerly 
 could. In London he earns more than at Greenock, 
 but then everything is dearer there ; and wherever 
 wages have in appearance most risen, the rise has been 
 more than balanced by other circumstances : thus fifteen 
 years ago a riveter earned twenty-four shillings a Aveek 
 at Liverpool, he now earns twenty-eight ; but then, 
 fifteen years ago, he had to put in only about 700 rivets 
 in a week, whereas now he has to put in 1,000. There 
 must be a revival of trade before we can expect to 
 see any sensible improvement in the condition of the 
 workmen. 
 
 II. MACHINERY AND ENGINEERING. 
 
 Our account of the series of iron-working trades 
 would be incomplete if we omitted to notice the manu- 
 facture of machinery and steam-engines. We therefore 
 offer a short resume of the information on this subject 
 collected by the Commission, and scattered over the 
 ten volumes of reports which it has published. The 
 engineering trside is so important an element in the 
 prosperity of our age that it may be said to feed with
 
 156 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 its products all other industries. It may be divided 
 into four branches, viz., the construction, first, of steam- 
 ships ; second, of locomotive engines ; third, of the 
 admirable mechanical contrivances by which our fac- 
 tories are worked ; and, lastly, of the perfect and 
 wonderful tools without which none of the foregoing 
 could be produced. 
 
 Manchester alone, out of the several centres of this 
 great industry, occupied the attention of the Commis- 
 sion. There the Atlas works, which turn out eighty or 
 a hundred locomotive engines a year, have their seat ; 
 there, too, are the great railway engine-works of Beyer 
 and Peacock, and Whitworth and Company's establish- 
 ment, celebrated for the production of cast-steel cannons, 
 and still more for the precision of their instruments 
 employed in working cold iron ; and, lastly, the Bridg- 
 water works, founded by Mr. Nasmyth, one of the most 
 ingenious inventors of our time. 
 
 The men employed in these works are divided, as in 
 other trades, into artisans, — that is to say, men of expe- 
 rience in their calling, — who are put to Avhat is called 
 skilled labour only ; and labourers, who are supposed 
 to be capable of such work only as requires mere mus- 
 cular strength. The artisans, who have to serve five 
 years as apprentices, make a great point, like their 
 brethren in the building trade, of keeping up this 
 despotic custom. They think that the monopoly
 
 MACHINERY AXD ENGINEERING. 157 
 
 thereby secured to them affords a protection against an 
 undue increase of their numbers and against the fall of 
 wages. They look upon it as an acquired right and a sort 
 of property, which they refuse to share with intruders. 
 
 Some sorts of work, such as watching self-acting 
 machinery, the production of which never varies, are 
 paid by the day ; others are paid by the piece or job. 
 In this, as in the shipbuilding trade, one man vdW often 
 take a contract for some important inece of work, such 
 as setting up a locomotive engine, and will then engage 
 the assistance of others, whom he pays by the day. 
 But in such cases the Union exacts that the men so 
 engaged shall all have a share in the ultimate profits 
 of the undertaking in proportion to the wages of each. 
 The Union, however, is not, on the whole, in favour of 
 piecework, and we find the objections urged against the 
 system by the masons and joiners repeated. The work- 
 men are afraid of its exciting a spirit of rivalry among 
 themselves, which would tend to bring down the rate of 
 wages ; and they assert that work thus paid is never so 
 well done as that paid by the day. This last is a point 
 upon which they are constantly insisting in their argu- 
 ments wdth the employers. 
 
 A number of Unions existed among the engineers 
 before the year 1851 ; but they were quite independent 
 of one another, and though they often had to maintain 
 partial strikes (one of which, that occurred at Manchester
 
 158 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 in 1837, was rather serious) : these struggles always 
 preserved an essentially local character. In 1851 all 
 these societies united and hecame merged in one only, 
 which includes in its ranks almost all the workmen 
 belonging to the trade ; this is the Amalgamated 
 Society of Engineers, the most powerful probably of all 
 the Unions in England, the organization of which we 
 have already explained in our previous mention of it. 
 Its opponents even acknowledge that it has always acted 
 with forbearance and temper : the struggles in which it 
 has been engaged have never been attended with any 
 violence, however great the importance of the questions 
 involved in them might be, and however severe might 
 be the privations inflicted upon the workmen by strikes. 
 Strikes, however, have been of rare occurrence ; the 
 most serious broke out in December 1851, a few months 
 only after the formation of the society. 
 
 The system of apprenticeship was the excuse for it,* 
 but its real cause was the introduction of machinery 
 modifying the relations between production and labour. 
 Constant partial strikes had given a great stimulus to 
 the inventive genius of some of the great manufacturers. 
 Tired of the perpetual struggle with a body of arti- 
 sans, who became more exacting in their demands the 
 
 * The cause of the great strike of 1 So 1 was a resokition to resist 
 overtime and piecework. The apprenticeship question was not raised 
 distinctly. — Editor^s Note.
 
 MACHINERY AND ENGINEERING. 159 
 
 more they believed themselves, owing to their special 
 knowledge, to be indispensable, they sought to find out 
 machines which should be able to perform the same 
 tasks as these skilled workmen, and the management of 
 which could be learnt in a few days. Everyone in these 
 days is acquainted with the instruments which perforate 
 round, square, elliptical or conical holes in iron, which 
 plane it, cut curves in it, saw it, bend it, in a word, 
 turn it as if with a lathe, and copy the most varied 
 patterns with wonderful accuracy. A child can manage 
 several of them at the same time ; a handle pulled 
 backwards or forwards, a few drops of oil judiciously 
 applied, are all the human aid required to set and to 
 keep these obedient servants at work. No man has 
 contributed in a greater degree to this astonishing 
 revolution than Mr. Nasm}i,h. Beginning as a simple 
 workman, he first distinguished himself by, what he 
 calls, his Robinson Crusoe inventions ; and he still 
 shows with pride, as the foundation of his great fortune, 
 a little oven, which he constructed for cooking his 
 dinner, and by means of which he saved three shillings 
 out of his weekly wages of fifteen shillings. The per- 
 fection of his machinery set him free from the necessity 
 of employing only skilled mechanics ; he put an end, in 
 his own works, to the apprenticeship system, and placed 
 his magnificent automaton machines in the hands of 
 anyone who had mtclligence enough to direct them.
 
 160 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 In acting thus he was attacldng strong prejudices 
 and inveterate habits. But it must be owned that he 
 was right in fighting for the productive principle. In 
 fact the extreme division of labour, which is often a 
 necessary consequence of the modern industrial system, 
 would be fatal to the intellectual progress of our time, 
 were it accompanied by the old traditions, by which a 
 man, or sometimes even a family, was confined to one 
 special line of business. Machinery diminishes the 
 labour of the workman, and sets his hands free from 
 the long apprenticeship which gave them special skill in 
 a particular trade ; he can then escape from the narrow 
 bounds within which he was confined by his contracted 
 bodily powers, and a wider field is thrown open to him, 
 in which to exercise his faculties. The example of the 
 United States proves that the development of industry 
 in a people is promoted, not hindered, by this versatility. 
 Instead of mere living machines it creates men, and 
 prepares these men to become citizens. By removing 
 useless and obsolete prejudices, it opens a more extended 
 career to individual enterprise and energy. The life of 
 the illustrious Abraham Lincoln is a striking proof of 
 this. The wood-cutter of Illinois did not reach the 
 presidential chair, which he so nobly filled, until after 
 he had tried many trades and practised some of the 
 most opposite professions. If his ambition had been 
 confined to attaining eminence in a single line he would
 
 MACHINERY AND ENGINEEEIN'G. lOl 
 
 not have dropi^ed the axe to become successively a 
 boatman, a lawyer, an officer of volunteers, a postmaster, 
 a legislator, and finally the chief magistrate of a free 
 people ; neither would he, when arrived at mature age, 
 and in the midst of the incessant occupation in which 
 his life was passed, have supplied by severe study the 
 defects of his childhood's education ; and history would 
 have had one name less to add to the short list of good 
 and great citizens. 
 
 But these machines, which take the hardest portion 
 of a workman's labour off his hands, may at times cause 
 him an injury to which he is keenly alive. The work 
 of his arms is at his own disposal, that of the machines 
 is not ; if, then, the former is to a certain extent sup- 
 planted by the latter, it is often a pure loss to the 
 workman. As long as this continues to be the case, 
 and until he is allowed a fair share of the profits derived 
 from the increased production consequent on machinery, 
 he will naturally be inclined to oppose the development 
 of its power and of its use, and will believe that by so 
 doing he is defending his interests and his means of earn- 
 ing a living. It has been shown that the improvements 
 in hammers and in rolling-mills have been a great benefit 
 to the artisans of the iron trade, because they were paid 
 by piecework, and the rate of their wages relatively to 
 the value of the iron manufactured has not changed. 
 But this has not been the case in the engineering trade ; 
 
 11
 
 162 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 in this, on the adoption of the self-acting tools, the 
 manufacturers gave up the system of payment by piece- 
 work, which had till then prevailed in all work requiring 
 manual dexterity; the workmen, therefore, who had 
 been so ill advised as to oppose it before, could not then 
 claim to have it restored. The men entrusted with the 
 management of the machines, each one of which per- 
 formed the work of five or six artisans, were paid by the 
 day ; and Mr. Nasmyth naturally greatly reduced the 
 number of the men whom he employed. Before long 
 still further improvements enabled him to leave to one 
 man the direction of two, three, four, or even five or 
 six self-acting tools ; he then took the opportunity of 
 making a still further reduction in his worldng-stafi', 
 and set as many machines as possible going under the 
 control of one man, allowing him only a shilling a week 
 extra for every additional machine. " I do not mean 
 to say," he says himself, "that the shilling was a fair 
 measure of the benefit that I got, but it was satisfactory 
 to him and to me, and he got the shilling a week for 
 each additional machine he superintended without any 
 undue exhaustion." .... " When you put him upon 
 six machines his profits to you were 61. a week ? " — 
 "Yes." "And he received twenty shillings?" — "I 
 was very niggardly in giving him only twenty-one 
 shillings a week, but it is quite possible to spoil a man 
 like that by giving him too much at once How-
 
 MACHINERY AND ENGINEERING. 168 
 
 ever, he was satisfied ; I was the employer, and he was 
 the employed, and we were dealing together to our 
 perfect mutual satisfaction." But by this arrangement 
 the share in the profits hitherto allotted to labour was 
 considerably diminished, and it might be foreseen that 
 the workmen would stoutly resist a system which 
 deprived them of work without offering them any com- 
 pensation. 
 
 In the year 1851 several manufacturers in the 
 Manchester district were follo"5vang the example set 
 by Mr. Nasmyth. Nevertheless the experienced artisans 
 retained in their hands several descriptions of work for 
 which their skill was indispensable. The prosperous 
 state of trade at this time enabled them to be exacting, 
 and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers afforded 
 them an increase of power which they lost no time 
 in turning to account. They began with the firm of 
 the Messrs. Piatt of Oldham, from whom they asked 
 the following concessions, viz., entire discontinuance 
 of piecework in all branches of the trade ; double wages 
 for working overtime ; and that the management of the 
 new machines should be kept exclusively in the hands 
 of artisans and articled apprentices. Their firm, which 
 owns one of the largest factories in England, refused 
 to accede, and demanded the support of the other 
 employers. These immediately locked out all their 
 mechanics, and gave notice that they would not resume
 
 164 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 work until the Messrs. Piatt's men had withdrawn their 
 demands ; moreover,' they made it a condition that the 
 men should come out of the Union. Three thousand 
 mechanics were thus thrown out of work, and the 
 stoppage of their employment reduced double or treble 
 that number of labourers to idleness. The former were 
 supported out of the funds of the society, nine thousand 
 members of which were still at work in various parts 
 of the country ; the latter were frequently relieved by 
 charitable donations drawn from the same source. But 
 at the end of three months, and after spending 40,000L, 
 they were obliged to peld. A good many of the 
 mechanics preferred emigrating to giving up their Union, 
 and went to Sydney in Australia, where- they set up a 
 branch society. The rest, about two thousand in 
 number, submitted and came out of the Union. But 
 it soon recovered itself; its financial prosperity was 
 restored by extraordinary contributions, and the number 
 of members increased rapidly. On the masters with- 
 drawing their prohibition, the workmen flocked in 
 crowds to join its ranks, and a few years after its 
 defeat the Amalgamated Society was stronger than ever. 
 Since these events, which have taught it to be more 
 cautious, it has been engaged in only three strikes, 
 which occurred in 1855, in 1866, and in 1868. 
 
 The first of these (1855) was directed against the 
 Atlas Works, for employing, as the Union thought, too
 
 MACHINERY AND ENGINEEEING. 1 G5 
 
 many boys. It was of short duration, and bad no very 
 important objects in view, and was remarkable only for 
 the publication of black lists on both sides. The owners 
 of the works set the example by sending round a list 
 containing the names of all the men on strike to the 
 other employers, who were requested not to give these 
 men work. The workmen retaliated by publishing the 
 names of all those who had refused to join them in the 
 dispute, with a notice that all members of the Society 
 were forbidden to work with the men so refusing. 
 
 In March, 1866, the smiths employed in Messrs. 
 Beyer and Peacock's foundry struck work, in order to 
 obtain the discharge of a new foreman, Mr. S. Hall, 
 towards whom, rightly or wrongly, they entertained 
 strong objections. A portion only of these men be- 
 longed to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers ; but 
 Unionists and non-Unionists acted in concert, without 
 any interference on the part of the society in the matter. 
 The owners of the factory procured other workmen, 
 whom, on account of the hostility of the people around, 
 they were obliged to lodge on their own premises, and 
 the works, which had been suspended, were set going 
 again. The old workmen considering that, under these 
 circumstances, it was useless to prolong the strike, asked 
 to come to terms. After it had been settled that those 
 among them, whose places had not been filled up, should 
 be taken back, on the condition of withdrawing their
 
 166 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 objection to Hall, it turned out tliat, by this arrange- 
 ment, there were only nine Unionist men among the old 
 hands reinstated. The secretary of the Amalgamated 
 Society, who arrived while these negotiations were in 
 treat}', succeeded then in persuading the workmen to 
 revoke their decision, and to insist upon all the old 
 hands being received back. The owners met this by 
 a lock-out, which, however, they kept up for ten days 
 only. At the end of that time they decided upon giving 
 in, and took back all the men in a body, at the same 
 time discharging both the new-comers and the foreman 
 who had been the origin of the quarrel. 
 
 In 1868, the mechanics at Blackburn, in Lanca- 
 shire, struck against a reduction of wages, and the 
 struggle was still going on while the Commission was 
 sitting. We need not go into the history of the partial 
 strikes in which some local branches have been engaged 
 between 1861 and 1868. It would add nothing to the 
 information which the events already detailed have given 
 us concerning the intelligent and resolute body of men 
 composing the class of engineers, either as regards their 
 present condition, their opinions, or their future expecta- 
 tions.
 
 ( 167 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 
 
 The field of inquiry open to the Commissiou was so 
 large that it was obliged to put a limit to its researches, 
 and, on coming to the point which we have now reached, 
 to confine them to some few trades which demanded 
 its attention rather on account of the powerful organiza- 
 tions of the associations established by the workmen 
 belonging to them, than on account of the importance 
 of the strikes, in which they have been engaged. Indeed, 
 as has been already shown, the importance of strikes is 
 by no means in proportion to the strength of the Unions 
 whence they emanated ; and, accordingly, the Commis- 
 sion, bearing in mind that its duty was not to give a 
 history of these contests, but to investigate the working 
 of trade associations, has wisely passed over several of 
 the strikes which in their time have attracted the largest 
 share of public attention, by making the public suffer 
 from their effects.
 
 168 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Such an one was that of the cabmen in London 
 some ten years ago, which has lately been repeated in 
 Paris, and that of the engine-drivers on the Brighton 
 Kailway in 1865. These drivers wanted to force the 
 company to give up a scale of graduated salaries, which 
 enabled it to give, at will, a sort of premium for good 
 conduct to a certain number of them. They chose for 
 their strike the day of the Epsom races ; a time when 
 thousands of passengers are crowding the stations, and 
 fighting eagerly for the smallest corner. The traffic 
 managers, though duly warned by the drivers of their 
 intention, did not believe that it would be carried out ; 
 but, though taken unawares, they did not give in. 
 They placed all the men they could find, who had the 
 slightest knowledge of driving, on the engines, got up 
 beside them to direct them, and managed so well that 
 the momentary embarrassment was lost in the midst of 
 the disorder, which is one of the traditional attributes, 
 and for many people the chief charm, of that uproarious 
 day. The graduated scale was retained.* 
 
 The Commission concluded its labours by devoting 
 several sittings to the London tailors, the Birmingham 
 glass-makers, and the London printers. To the infor- 
 
 * A similar strike in America, caused the suspension for eiglit 
 whole days of the entire traffic on the ErieEailroad, one of the principal 
 lines in the New World. It may be imagined what an amount of 
 annoyance this suspension must have occasioned to the inhabitants of 
 the district dependent on the railway. — Author's Note.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 169 
 
 raation contaiued in its reports we shall add a few words 
 on the important class of cotton-spinners. 
 
 I. THE tailors' trade. 
 
 Up to the year 1834 the journeymen tailors of 
 London were paid by the day. There existed among 
 them an institution called "houses of call," a relic of 
 the ancient guilds. The workmen were divided into 
 seventeen or eighteen small clubs, of from 100 to 
 800 members each, which met in some public-house. 
 Those who were out of work had to repair there every 
 evening, and answer to a roll-call. When a master 
 tailor wanted to engage any hands, he applied at the 
 public-house, and was supplied with the men whose 
 names stood first on the list. 
 
 Genuine Unions were established in 1832. In 
 1834 the societies asked for an advance of one shilling 
 in wages, and a reduction of two hours in the day's 
 work ; this would have given them seven shillings for 
 ten hours' work, instead of six shillings for twelve 
 hours. But after a strike which lasted several weeks, 
 they were beaten, and forced to break up, bringing 
 down with them in their fall the institution of " houses 
 of call." Soon after this, however, the masters came 
 to an understanding with the men for the adoption of a 
 different system of wages. It was agreed that thence- 
 forth payment should be by piecework, according to a
 
 170 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 tariff called. the log-book, which was established on the 
 old scale of six shillings for the day of twelve hours. 
 
 In 1858 the tailors made a fresh attempt to organise 
 themselves, and founded two societies. That called the 
 "Amalgamated Society of Operative Tailors " was formed, 
 as its name implies, by the union of several previously 
 existing associations. The " London Operative Tailors' 
 Protective Association " was established on the 10th of 
 November, 1865 : it developed rapidly. Two years 
 after, it consisted of more than 7000 members, and was 
 divided into seventeen branches. Although organised 
 mainly with a view to strikes, it allowed its members 
 relief in sickness, and a sum for funeral expenses. It 
 also pronounced loudly in favour of piecework. Most 
 Unions are in the habit of concentrating all their 
 influence on their own particular trade ; but this society 
 soon showed that it w^as actuated by a very different 
 spirit. The London Operative Tailors' Protective Asso- 
 ciation, not satisfied with forming an alliance with the 
 other societies of tailors in England, has joined the 
 United Kingdom Alliance of Organised Trades, which 
 is a strictly defensive confederation, intended to resist 
 cases of lock-out ; none of the gi-eat English Unions 
 belong to it : it (the Tailors' Society) is also a branch 
 of the Workmen's International League, and endeavours 
 to combine its efforts with those of the tailors in Paris, 
 Berlin, and America.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 171 
 
 The result of these alliances has been hitherto confined 
 to some trifling assistance sent, it seems, from London 
 to Paris, in 1867. It is wholly out of their power at 
 present to render any efi"ectual services to the interests 
 which they seek to protect. Their object is to have an 
 understanding with workmen out of England, so that 
 when there is a dispute between employers and employed, 
 the former may not be able to fight the latter by having 
 work done abroad, and thus use the labour of diiferent 
 countries against each other as opposing forces. But 
 these alliances can ofier no serious obstacle to the 
 masters, as long as they can find, without going out of 
 England, plenty of workmen, unconnected with Unions, 
 ready to answer to their call, who will spare them the 
 necessity of applying either to France or Germany for 
 the execution of their orders. 
 
 In 1866, both the operative tailors' Unions demanded 
 and obtained a rise in the rate of wages. Three masters 
 only refused it, and their shops were immediately put 
 under strike : these three were members of an Union of 
 master-tailors recently formed, which, from a feeling of 
 <?spni de corps, thought it its duty to support them. The 
 masters, who had come to an understanding with their 
 people, did not hesitate to lock the men out in order to 
 assist their colleagues to maintain pretensions which 
 they had themselves just allowed to be unreasonable. 
 But at the end of ten days a meeting was held in
 
 172 THE trades' I'NIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 St. James' Hall, at which the tariff or log was completely 
 remodelled, and wages were raised fifteen per cent. 
 
 This good understanding unfortunately did not last 
 long. In the month of January 1867, a fresh dispute 
 arose, again with reference to the log ; the men accused 
 the masters of constantly and little by little deviating 
 from it, and demanded that it should be md,de uniform 
 throughout London ; the masters, on the other hand, 
 asserted that this demand was only a pretence for 
 getting a fresh increase of wages. The tAvo parties met 
 several times in conference, but without any result ; and 
 on the 22nd of April, 1867, the men, assembled in the 
 Alhambra, declared a strike against eighty-eight firms, 
 and three thousand of them left their shops. Some 
 emigrated. Most of them were thrown on the streets, and 
 having nothing else to do organised a system of pickets, 
 who watched the masters' shops in order to prevent them 
 from obtaining recruits to supply their places. The 
 masters thus attacked resolved to avail themselves of the 
 most stringent powers with which the laws quoted in a 
 previous chapter provided them. They were quite right 
 to prosecute, and to get sentence passed in the police 
 court on men proved to have used threats and violence to 
 prevent their companions from going to work ; but, not 
 satisfied with this, they attacked the system of picketing 
 even when practised in an inoffensive manner; and, 
 merely for being concerned in organizing the system.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 173 
 
 they committed Mr. Druitt, the president of tlie London 
 Operative Tailors Association, together with some mem- 
 bers of the committee, for trial before the Central 
 Criminal Court on a charge of conspiracy. On the 
 defendants promising that the pickets should be removed, 
 the case was adjourned : but the Union refused to ratify 
 the engagement which they had made, and elected other 
 leaders in their place. These, too, were summoned before 
 the court, and the jury following the directions of the 
 judge, adopted the masters' interpretation of the law. 
 The legal point therefore was settled : the whole system 
 of picketing, which till then had been practised without 
 opposition, was condemned by law : this satisfied the 
 masters, and at their request, no sentence was passed 
 upon the prisoners. The Union was beaten, its funds 
 were exhausted, thousands of its members forsook it, and 
 the strike came to an end. The leaders of the Union, 
 nevertheless, had neglected no means of defence ; they 
 even endeavoured to turn their enemies' weapons against 
 themselves. They discovered that Messrs. Mitchell and 
 Harris had addressed a circular to the other members of the 
 Master Tailors' Association gi^"ing them notice not to em- 
 ploy certain Unionist workmen therein named. Upon this 
 Mr. Druitt, acting under the advice of Sir John Coleridge, 
 one of the most eminent counsel at the bar, summoned 
 the president and secretary of the Masters' Association 
 on the charge of conspiring to deprive the men, so
 
 174 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 pointed out, of the means of earning their Hving. On 
 being refused the summons, they became convinced, 
 rightly or wrongly, that the law had one measure for the 
 rich man and another for the poor man ; that the spirit 
 of the old statutes, which established their inferiority in 
 former times, still survived ; and that what was forbidden 
 to them was permitted to the masters ; and this 
 grievance was added to those for which they demanded 
 redress from the Commission, or rather, through its 
 intervention, from Parliament and public opinion. 
 
 II. THE GLASS-MAKERS. 
 
 The trade of glass-making, which is spread all over 
 England, has its head-quarters at Birmingham, where 
 there are no less than twenty-two factories. It is well 
 known that especially skilful and experienced workmen 
 are required in this business. They work in the shops 
 in gi'oups of four, technically called " chairs," in which 
 each worker belongs to a particular class, successively 
 passing up from one to another class, according to the 
 degree of his skill. They have to work hard. From 
 Monday to Friday in every week the labour never 
 ceases day or night : two relays of men take turns at 
 the furnace for six hours at a time, each set resting 
 only while the other takes its place. Piecework pay- 
 ment is universally adopted in this trade. In some 
 towns a very old custom, dating from long before the
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 175 
 
 establisliment of workmen's associations, limits the 
 amount of work which may be performed in a day ; 
 the Unions, however, do not approve of this rule, and 
 would rather it were done away with wherever it exists. 
 
 Owing to the small number of men employed in 
 this trade (barely 2,000 in the whole of England), and 
 to the long apprenticeship through which they have to 
 pass, the glassmakers are a singularly united and 
 jealous body. The smallest fluctuations in the market 
 affect them immediately. If one or two firms reduce 
 their staff, a certain number of men are thrown out of 
 work without any possibility of finding it elsewhere. 
 For some years past 130, on an average, have been 
 constantly unemployed ; for this reason they have always 
 made a stand against the admission of too large a number 
 of apprentices into the trade. 
 
 One of the principal objects of the " National Flint- 
 Glassmakers' Friendly Society of the United Kingdom," 
 founded in 1849, was to regulate the admission of 
 apprentices, and to limit it to a fixed number, — an 
 object for which the workmen had long been striving. 
 Success, it might be supposed, would have been all the 
 easier to this society, in that nearly all the glassmakers 
 belonged to it, and that, consequently, it had no com- 
 petition on the part of non-Unionists to contend against. 
 It consists at present of more than 1,700 members, who 
 pay, some a shilling, others one shilling and threepence
 
 176 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 a week, according to tlie class to which they belong. 
 Although at first established as a purely " Trade 
 Society " it soon took to employing a portion of its 
 funds in the relief of sick members. But, though the 
 subscription was higher than that in most other Unions, 
 it was forced in a few years to reduce the rate of sick 
 allowance ; * it is now, thanks to this economy, in pos- 
 session of a reserve fund of 9,000/. The head-oflSce is 
 at Birmingham ; but there is a sub-committee to each 
 district, and a special agent of the society attached to 
 every factory. 
 
 In 1858 the society made a strong effort to induce 
 the masters to consent that the number of apprentices, 
 whose increase alarmed them, should be limited to an 
 uniform rate in all the glass-works. It began by apply- 
 ing to two firms, who were asked to allow only one 
 apprentice to three chairs, or twelve men. A protracted 
 strike followed the refusal of this demand, and at the 
 end of three months all the glass manufacturers of 
 Birmingham made common cause and locked out their 
 
 * This, in the beginning, had been fixed at twelve shillings a M-cek 
 for the first thirteen weeks ; ten shillings, for the next thirteen ; eight, 
 for the following twenty-six weeks ; and six shillings for the twenty- 
 six weeks after that. Members subscribing a shilling a week received 
 only two-thirds of these respective sums. These paj'ments have been 
 reduced to nine shillings, seven and sixpence, six shillings, and four 
 shillings respectively. Lastly, two shillings a week is allowed to men 
 who have not been at work for a year and a half through sickness, and 
 are therefore looked upon as permanently disabled. — Author's Note.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 177 
 
 workmen. The struggle lasted three months longer, 
 and ended in a compromise. The men gave in as to 
 the number of apprentices ; but at the same time 
 obtained a far more important concession of principle 
 from the masters, who agreed that the number then 
 fixed, at the rate of one apprentice to every two chairs or 
 eight men, should never thenceforward be exceeded. 
 This agreement does not seem to have cramped the trade, 
 since the supply of workmen continues to be greater than 
 the demand for their labour : evidence was produced 
 before the Commission proving even that it was not 
 insisted upon by the Union, except to provide for cases 
 in which experienced artisans were not compensated 
 for the loss of time and the trouble caused them by the 
 unskilfulness of the new hands. Having no competition 
 on the part of non-Unionist workmen to contend against, 
 the Union has become the natural medium between 
 masters and men, and, when they have a vacancy, the 
 employers apply to the Union to fill it. Thus, in spite 
 of some trifling disputes, no serious contest has arisen 
 to disturb the relations established between them, nor to 
 shake the position gained by the association. Its influ- 
 ence has eff"ected a considerable rise in the workmen's 
 wages. The masters would fain attribute to this rise 
 all the commercial difficulties under which they are 
 now labouring. But the evidence collected by the 
 Commission on this subject is so contradictory that 
 
 12
 
 178 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 it is impossible to say how far this opinion may be 
 correct. 
 
 III. THE PRINTERS. 
 
 Owing to the education and intelHgence which are 
 necessary in their trade, and to the knowledge which 
 they acquire in following it, the journeyman printers 
 have everywhere been found in the van of the army of 
 workmen fighting to break the fetters with which their 
 class has been bound for ages. It is well known that 
 France owes the expunging of the offence of combination 
 from her criminal code to the firmness and moderation 
 with which the printers of Paris conducted a strike, 
 which at that time was illegal. 
 
 The London printers had for a long time previously 
 entered on this course. They have always made great 
 use of the right of association. From the very first 
 masters and men have settled their disputes through 
 the intervention of delegates appointed by either side. 
 In 1810 these delegates settled a complete scale for the 
 wages of compositors, who were thenceforward paid by 
 piecework. This scale has continued in force up to the 
 present time, with the exception of a slight modification 
 introduced in 1866, in favour of a trifling advance, being 
 the first that has been granted to the compositors for 
 fifty-six years, in compensation for the increased price 
 of living. Taking this, however, into consideration, they
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 179 
 
 are still entitled to complain that for half a century 
 their pecuniary position, far from improving, has rather 
 grown worse. All but three or four of the London 
 printing houses accept this scale as regulating all con- 
 tracts between themselves and their workpeople ; both 
 masters and men hold it in as much respect as an Act of 
 Parliament, and all their disputes turn only upon the 
 interpretation to be given to it. 
 
 Yet its authority was not always thus uncontested. 
 Some of the master-printers having attempted in 1816 to 
 make some alteration in it, the workmen united to protest 
 against the innovation. A certain number of their body 
 was constituted a committee, whose duty it was to see 
 that the scale was acted up to, and this, later on, 
 developed into an Union.* Ten years afterwards their 
 example was followed by others, and the two committees 
 or societies were amalgamated in 1834. The newspaper- 
 compositors had established an association, having the 
 same object, in 1820. In the year 1844, all the Unions 
 existing among the journeymen printers combined to 
 form one body under the name of the Printers' National 
 Association : but this confederation was unable to hold 
 together, and three years afterwards, when it was dis- 
 solved, the London book-compositors, and those of the 
 
 * Not being constituted with any view to promote or assist strikes, 
 this society was no infringement of the combination laws ; simple 
 associations have always been permitted to exist. — Author's Note.
 
 180 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 newspapers, established two separate societies. Lastly, 
 in 1853, these two again amalgamated and gave birth 
 to the existing Union, which consists now of 3,300 
 members, paying subscriptions, which vary, according to 
 the amount of theh wages, from twopence to sixpence 
 a week. Besides this, those who wished to secure 
 assistance in siclmess, subscribed, until 1863, to a special 
 fund set aside for that purpose ; but in this year, the 
 subscriptions to it having been found to be insufficient, 
 the provident fund was extinguished as a separate one, 
 and merged in the general fund of the society, which, 
 from that time forth, has maintained a certain number of 
 beds in the London hospitals, and also pays for the 
 medical attendance of all its members. In addition to 
 this, with a laudable solicitude for their intellectual 
 requirements, the Union has established a considerable 
 library for the use of its members.* The society is 
 governed by a council composed of twelve book-compo- 
 
 * All these expenses, however, it looks upon as subordinate to the 
 main object of the society : this is to support members out of work, 
 either in consequence of want of employment, or of a strike, or a lock- 
 out, and to provide for all the expenses of their disputes with the 
 masters. The relative importance of the various heads of expen- 
 diture may be seen in the following cash account, which includes the 
 ten years from 1858 to 1868 : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Eeceipts 25,105 
 
 Expenditure 23,543 12 A- 
 
 Balance 1,561 7 8 
 
 [Items
 
 VARIOrS TRADES, 181 
 
 sitors and two newspaper-compositors, whose decisions, 
 however, may always be reversed by a general meeting. 
 The secretary keeps a register, which all the members 
 out of work have to sign ; tliose only, whose names are 
 found in it, have a right to receive the allowance of ten 
 shillings a week. 
 
 The disputes of the compositors with their employers 
 have been the occasion of many partial strikes, and have 
 caused several printing establishments to be shut up for 
 a time, but not one of them has ever involved the 
 whole trade in Loudon. The workmen have always 
 shown great forbearance in these contests, and have 
 never laid themselves open to the charge of trying to 
 intimidate those who did not belong to the Union. It 
 %vas not till 1854 that the society was called upon to 
 renew the effort first made in 1816, and interfered to see 
 that the scale of prices was properly carried out ; the care 
 of this had till then been left to a committee composed 
 
 Items op Expendituke. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Assistance to members out of work 9,836 10 
 
 Legal expenses 2,756 1 
 
 Ti'avelling allowance 695 3 10 
 
 Committee expenses 1,432 3 7 
 
 Medical attendance 569 2 
 
 Library 891 8 
 
 Assistance to other trades 1,185 
 
 Salaries of officers 2,471 7 
 
 Miscellaneous expenses 3,706 16 11 
 
 Total 23,543 12 4 
 
 — Author's Note.
 
 182 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 exclusively of masters. At its request both sides agreed 
 to nominate a commission consisting of three masters 
 and three workmen, to be called the Court of Arbitration, 
 who were to settle all difficulties to which the proper 
 interpretation of the scale might give rise. Unhappily, 
 this institution did not last long, it broke down before 
 the first important question submitted to its judgment. 
 The question was this : it was stipulated in the scale that 
 the compositors should be paid only once for the pages of 
 permanent advertisements which appear regularly in the 
 newspapers, as long as these pages remain entirely 
 unaltered ; but inasmuch as, in most papers, some fresh 
 matter has to be inserted, on almost every issue, in the 
 pages already prepared for publication, some of the 
 master-printers wanted, in calculating the wages to be 
 paid, to deduct from the pages thus re-arranged, all 
 that had been previously set up. The workmen, on the 
 other hand, maintained that the moment a page was re- 
 touched, the compositors ought to be paid again for the 
 whole of it. The Court of Arbitration, which was called 
 upon to try the question, was divided in opinion, and 
 the president decided against the workmen. They 
 submitted provisionally to his finding, but refused to 
 accept his decision as settling the law on the subject, on 
 the plea that he was himself an interested party in the 
 matter : and, on a similar case arising, they repudiated 
 the precedent of the Court of Arbitration, and carried
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 183 
 
 the case before a court of law. The Court of Exchequer 
 decreed twice in their favour, once under a single judge, 
 and again under the full court. The masters appealed 
 to the Court of Error, a tribunal of appeal, in which all 
 the fifteen judges take part. Eleven of them were 
 present on this occasion, and gave judgment once more 
 in favour of the workmen. The master-printers avoided 
 the consequences of this decision by handing over the 
 printing of the advertisements to men paid by the day ; 
 and from that time no one has resorted to a Court of 
 Arbitration. 
 
 At last, in 1866, the compositors obtained an 
 increase of wages after long and troublesome negotia- 
 tions with the Master Printers' Association, which was 
 founded in 1855, a short time after the establishment 
 of the Court of Arbitration, and with the special object 
 of defending the interests of the masters in that Court. 
 The expenses of living in London rendered this increase 
 absolutely necessary ; but the master printers were 
 alarmed lest it should cause the London trade to be 
 overmatched in the competition with the provincial 
 towns, and granted it only after strong remonstrance. 
 
 There are Unions similar to that of the compositors 
 in the other branches of the trade. Wc need notice 
 that of the pressmen only, whose labour is also paid 
 by the piece, according to a scale agreed upon with the 
 employers. This Society, which was founded in 1839,
 
 184 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 provides neither a sick nor a superannuation allowance, 
 but insures its members, when they die, 201. for funeral 
 expenses. Its special object is to defend their interests 
 in all disputes with the emploj^ers, and to support them 
 when they are out of work. The members have to pay 
 a subscription of one shilling a week, which has been 
 reduced to sixpence since they have been above 500 in 
 number. It has never been concerned in any serious 
 strikes, but has frequently been engaged in local dis- 
 putes with the masters with the view of diminishing 
 the number of apprentices. 
 
 IV. THE COTTON-SPINNERS. 
 
 Cotton-spinuing was not one of the trades into which 
 the Commission was directed to inquire.* The trials 
 
 * It has confined itself to collecting on this subject, as well as on 
 that of many other trades, written documents, which will no doubt be 
 annexed to its report, or to speak more correctly, its reports ; for, as 
 we have already said, the Commissioners, as might have been expected, 
 are di\aded in opinion as to the conclusions to be draT\-n from their pro- 
 tracted inquiry, and it is understood that the minority will present a 
 separate report containing their views, which are believed to be more 
 favourable to the Unions than those of the majority. Up to the present 
 moment (February 1869), these interesting reports -have not yet been 
 printed. The evidence that has been collected, though no doubt verj- 
 remarkable, will merely add a few strokes to a picture, the general 
 effect of which it cannot alter. We have not, therefore, thought it 
 necessary to wait for its publication, the date of which is uncertain, 
 before offering to those who take an interest in the debates about to 
 take place in Parliament on the subject of Trades' Unions, an essay, 
 which may, we hope, be of assistance in following and understanding 
 them. — Author's Note.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 185 
 
 with which the hard-working population engaged in 
 this trade has of late been visited, are in no way con- 
 nected wdth strikes. The unheard-of hardships w^hich 
 overwhelmed them during the civil war in America are 
 the talk of the world. It is well known with what 
 patience they endured their sufferings, with what courage 
 they persevered in their sympathy with the great cause 
 of abolition, although the war undertaken in support of 
 it was the source of all their misfortunes ; and it is also 
 known how much was done for their relief by a gi*eat 
 national effort. The cotton trade in France, after 
 passing through a crisis equally terrible, is now engaged 
 in a painful struggle with difficulties from which 
 England was spared ; this state of things must awaken 
 a lively interest in all those who have our national 
 greatness at heart, and a glance at the present situation 
 of the English cotton-spinners may teach them much. 
 The generous effort made in their favour has left behind 
 a wholesome imi^ression ; but if it had not been essen- 
 tially a passing effort, it would have degenerated into 
 a fatal school of corruption, both for those who received 
 and for those who gave relief ; the former would soon 
 have come to look upon a life of idleness as a right, 
 the latter would have held themselves entitled to servile 
 gratitude. In ftict, noble as charity is, the relations 
 betw^een man and man in a ci\'ilised country can be 
 founded only on mutual esteem and identity of interests,
 
 186 THE TRADES* UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and not on the giving and receiving of alms. These 
 feelings, we hope, will become more and more general 
 in the intercourse of mill-owners and masters with their 
 workmen. We will now show, in a few words, the 
 great progress already made in this direction.* 
 
 Every one who has visited the manufacturing towns, 
 must have noticed the immense buildings in which 
 thousands of men, and also of women and children, the 
 slaves, and, at the same time, the masters of some of the 
 most ingenious machines ever invented by the mind of 
 man, transform the shapeless bales sent from America and 
 India, into fabrics at once solid, soft, and light. Much, 
 unfortunately, might be said upon the subject of this 
 excessive employment of women and children, a system 
 fatal to education, to morality, and to family feeling : 
 but with this we are not now concerned. The work 
 in these factories may be divided into three principal 
 branches. That of the carding machines, which dis- 
 entangle the cotton ; that of the spinning jennies, 
 furnished with hundreds of bobbins to twine the thread ; 
 and that of the looms that weave it. The two last 
 operations absorb the greater number of the hands 
 employed in the manufacture. The weaving is now 
 
 • We believe that we have drawn the few facts here put together 
 from the most reliable sources. AYe shall quote as an authoi'ity, among 
 others, a simple hardworking old man, Mr. Maudsley, Secretary of the 
 Northern Counties Operative Cotton-Spinners' Association. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 187 
 
 almost exclusively in the hands of the women and 
 children ; while the management of the spinning jennies 
 is mostly entrusted to men. Unions, consequently, are 
 found only in this last branch of labour ; the female 
 weavers have set up none among themselves, but the 
 names of a few women appear in the Hsts of the Cotton- 
 Spinners' Societies. 
 
 All pa}Tnents in this trade are now made by piece- 
 work, and since the adoption of that method neither 
 masters nor workpeople have ever had any doubt of its 
 advantages. The system of apprenticeship is unknown. 
 
 The cotton-spinners began to form secret societies 
 in 1824, but the repeal of the combination laws soon 
 enabled them to act openly. It was about this time 
 that, thanks to Arkwi-ight's greatly improved machinery, 
 the trade began to advance with rapid strides in the 
 new course, which has led it to such abundant prosperity. 
 The public, who paid less for cotton goods, and the 
 manufacturer who produced them Avith less trouble, 
 were alike enriched by this change. The working cotton- 
 spinners alone did not profit by it, their wages remained 
 stationary, and their position grew worse rather than 
 better. Crowded together in badly- ventilated worki-ooms, 
 subjected, even the women and children, to working 
 hours whose length depended solely on the masters' will,* 
 
 * Some of the factories were kept going niglit and day. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 188 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 they bad, in addition, to submit to strict arbitrary 
 rules, to frequent fines ; and, lastly, to the iniquitous 
 truck-shop system. As might be expected, they availed 
 themselves of the right of combining, in order to 
 strengthen their Unions and to improve their position. 
 Accordingly, the trade in Lancashire was constantly 
 disturbed by strikes and lock-out. Gradually, however, 
 abuses disappeared, they were either abandoned by the 
 masters on a clearer discernment of their duties and of 
 their real interests, or they were condemned by the 
 Legislature. Wages were raised, and paid no more 
 by the day but by piecework ; the law interfered to 
 abolish truck-shops, and also prohibited the employment 
 of children unless they attended school ; and, lastly, 
 Parliament, by the Factories Act, limited the day's work 
 to ten hours. Gradually, as these improvements were 
 carried out, the spirit of hostility, by which the work- 
 men had been so long animated against the heads of 
 manufacturing establishments, vanished, and gave place 
 to the confidence and mutual respect which became 
 apparent in the great crisis of 186"2. 
 
 The Unions, nevertheless, continued to take measures 
 to increase their strength, and in 1853 the various socie- 
 ties then existing in the four counties of Lancashire, 
 Cheshire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire formed an alliance, 
 and established the Equitable Association of Cotton- 
 Spinners.
 
 VAKIOUS TRADES. 189 
 
 When all the spinning factories were paralysed hy 
 the scarcity of cotton during the war in America, the 
 different associations formed among the workmen, hoth 
 Trades' Unions and mutual benefit societies, disap- 
 peared, and their funds were rapidly swallowed up in 
 the universal misery prevailing. But they came to life 
 again as soon as the crisis was over, and sprung up 
 with such vigour that the Spinners' Association, which 
 consisted of 4,000 members in 1857, now numbers 
 8,000, that is, more than two-thirds of all the workmen 
 belonging to the trade in the districts where the Union 
 is established. The association was thoroughly re- 
 modelled in 1868. It is now managed by a council of 
 delegates (each one of whom represents 200 members), 
 and by an executive committee. Acting strictly as a 
 confederation only, it allows the utmost independence 
 to the thirty-six branches which compose it. Each one 
 of these possesses its own fund, [and has the choice 
 of devoting it either exclusively to trade expenses, or 
 of employing a portion of it in providing sick and 
 superannuation allowance. The subscription to the 
 central association is only a farthing a week. It grants 
 no relief to members beyond a bonus, varying from SOI. 
 to 501., to such of them as meet with accidents in the 
 factory. But it has authority to decide upon the rate 
 at which assistance shall be given in cases of strike or 
 lock-out, and this has accordingly been fixed at ten
 
 190 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 shillings a week for the upper workmen, and at four 
 shillings, two shillings, and one shilling for the helpers. 
 Two very important powers are reserved to it, one, that 
 of imposing on the whole confederation a rate in aid of 
 any hranch unable to meet its engagements ; the other, 
 that of refusing to sanction any strike which it holds to 
 be not sufficiently justified. Thanks to this power, it 
 has often succeeded in settling matters of dispute between 
 masters and workmen by negotiation, and in so stopping 
 a threatened strike. The strikes that it has not been 
 able to prevent are few, and may be shortly reckoned. 
 There was one at Preston and at AVigan in 1853, 
 followed by a lock-out ; another the same year, and 
 again in 1867, at Stockport ;* lastly, one which occurred 
 in November 1868, and was directed against a cotton 
 manufacturer of Cheshire, for refusing to recognise the 
 Union. All these strikes were unattended by any 
 violence ; and most fortunately no really hostile feeling 
 has ever interposed to counteract the memories of 1862. 
 On the contrary, the masters and workmen of almost 
 all the manufacturing towns have been in the habit of 
 late years of meeting in conferences, at which they have 
 jointly settled the rates of wages. Accepted by both 
 sides as law, these rates are raised or lowered according 
 as the state of the market allows the augmentation or 
 
 * This strike, which was more serious than any of the others, ended 
 iu the success of the men, but it cost them 4,000/. — Author's Note.
 
 VAKIOUS TRADES. 191 
 
 compels the diminution of the price of labour. The 
 princiijal objects which the association has in view are 
 to obtain the adoption of these rates, wherever they are 
 not already in use, to see that all their conditions are 
 carried oat, and to observe the price-current of raw and 
 manufactured material, in order to seize the moment 
 for asking an increase of wages, and to avoid resisting 
 a necessary reduction. It undertakes, also, to see that 
 the law limiting the day's work in factories to ten 
 hours is duly observed, and also to get that limit re- 
 duced, if possible, to eight hours, a reduction to which 
 the workmen of almost all trades attach great import- 
 ance, as a security for their independence and intel- 
 lectual advancement. 
 
 By endeavouring to regulate their proceedings accord- 
 ing to the state of trade for the time being. Trade 
 Unions refute one of the accusations which have been 
 most constantly brought against them. By means of a 
 very complete register, in which all the fluctuations of the 
 market are noted, the secretary has it in his power 
 always to check any allegations of the masters and any 
 demands of the workmen. The Unions, as caste 
 prejudices are shaken ofi", and strikes are less frequently 
 resorted to, see that they have a nobler part to play, and 
 the influence of this happy change becomes apparent in 
 the tone which they adopt in their intercourse with 
 employers. Accordingly in a letter addressed, at the
 
 192 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 time of the strike in 1867, to the cotton-spinners of 
 Stockport, who wanted to lower wages, the Union bases 
 its arguments on the ground of the welfare of the 
 community in general. " War and financial panics," 
 they said, " have paralysed our export trade. This is 
 a time not for increasing production, and seeking in 
 vain, by lowering wages, to open out a market already 
 glutted ; but on the contrary one for reducing production. 
 You had much better put the shops on half-time." We 
 need not inquire whether this was the best advice that 
 could be given under the circumstances ; but this letter, 
 in our opinion, certainly shows the new spirit which 
 moves the workmen in some trades, and the nature of 
 the influence exercised by their great associations, when 
 these are well directed. 
 
 There is an immense difference between the sensible 
 and thoughtful language of the Stockport Unionists and 
 the absurd laws by which some societies have asserted 
 their pretensions to rule trade according to their fancy, 
 or the prohibitions intended to isolate one district from 
 another. It is clear that Unions differ so much from 
 one another, that it is not fair to include the whole body 
 in charges to which only some of them are liable. We 
 will conclude by a remark, which holds out encourage- 
 ment for the future : in proportion as these societies 
 spread and increase in strength, they become temperate 
 and forbearing in their conduct. They are often
 
 VARIOUS TRADES. 103 
 
 animated by an intolerant spirit, when they are few auJ 
 isolated, but as they gain power, they awaken to the 
 responsibility of their position ; the electoral system, by 
 which they are governed, is almost always sure to bring 
 out deserving men as their leaders, and the majority of 
 the working classes has the good sense to listen to and 
 to follow these, although they do not allow themselves 
 to be used as instruments for flattering prejudices and 
 gratifying passions. 
 
 13
 
 194 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 
 
 We have shown how Unions came to be estabHshed, 
 and the form they took ; we have also shown their 
 character and development, and the use which they 
 have made of their power. We have put before the 
 reader, as faithfully as we could, all that can help him 
 to form a judgment on them. We will now sum up 
 in a few words the chief heads of accusation brought 
 against them, and the most conclusive arguments which 
 they made use of in reply. 
 
 An impartial examination has dispersed the cruel 
 and unjust suspicions which the Shefl&eld outrages fixed 
 upon the whole body of Unions. There were men 
 wicked enough to perpetrate these abominable deeds, 
 and then to pretend that they were thereby serving the 
 associations of which they were members ; but the 
 crimes of these men ought not to be laid to the charge 
 of Unions in general. They are no more responsible 
 for them than the chiefs of the League formerly were
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 195 
 
 for the murder of Henry IV., or the Confederate generals 
 for the assassination of President Lincoln. 
 
 They have been reproached with numerous acts of 
 violence ; they have been accused of organising a system 
 of intimidation against all who opposed them, and in 
 a certain number of cases this has been proved before 
 the Commission to have been true. This number, 
 however, will appear trifling, if we take into considera- 
 tion the enormous population from which examples 
 might be selected, and the examples themselves show 
 that workmen's associations require to be more enlight- 
 ened and sometimes better managed, but certainly not 
 that they deserve sweeping condemnation. Besides, if 
 they are to be condemned, sentence will have to be 
 passed upon the whole working-class in general, and 
 not upon Unions in particular ; for, along with the 
 guilty acts attributed to their influence, at least as 
 many more may be cited with which they have had 
 nothing to do. 
 
 The censures which have been passed upon them 
 from an economical point of view seem, at first sight, 
 to be better justified, but on a closer examination they 
 lose a great part of their force. 
 
 No doubt the spirit of monopoly and exclusiveness 
 has to a certain extent been revived among them, but 
 this has been kept up chiefly by the ruinous struggles 
 against employers in which they have been engaged.
 
 196 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 They have been accused as a body of wanting to 
 restore the ancient guilds by limiting the number of 
 recruits admitted in each trade, and by subjecting them 
 to a long apprenticeship. But they found this system 
 sanctioned by the usage of centuries ; and in maintaining 
 it they have merely yielded to the natural instinct of 
 man, who does not like to see his younger rivals freed 
 from the control to which he had himself to submit in 
 his time ; but they have never attempted to introduce 
 it where it did not exist before. 
 
 Some Unions have wished to fix a limit to the 
 amount of work that each man is to be allowed to 
 perform, and, by establishing uniformity of wages, to 
 bring all down to one dead level of mediocrity. But 
 these are fevv- in number, and the opinion of members 
 of their own class, enlightened by argument, has per- 
 suaded many of them to abandon such ideas. The 
 spirit of emulation, and the ambition to achieve results, 
 with which every man conscious of intellectual power 
 is inspired, have not been extinguished by Trades' 
 Unions. Many of the masters examined by the Com- 
 mission are themselves living proofs of this fact : for 
 a great number of those among them, who are self- 
 made men, were members of Unions while they were 
 workmen. 
 
 The charge most frequently brought against these 
 societies is founded upon the great number of strikes
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 107 
 
 in wliicli tliey have been concerned. This is the same 
 us saying that the invention of gunpowder is the cause 
 of all wars. By introducing more skilful management 
 in the conduct of these struggles they have certainly 
 increased their importance, hut they have not made 
 them much more frequent. They have occasionally, 
 in their efforts to obtain their proper position, exceeded 
 the limits of their legitimate influence ; but, this posi- 
 tion once secured, there is nothing to prevent their 
 one day becoming both a new element of productive 
 power and an earnest pledge of peace: some of their 
 leaders are already looking forward to this happy accom- 
 plishment of their desires. 
 
 With respect to piecework, we have seen that, far 
 from being condemned, it is preferred by almost every 
 one of the trades which formed the subject of the 
 Commission's inquiries. There are only two exceptions 
 — the building and the engineering trades. And it 
 must be remembered, as to the majority of the branches 
 of the building trade, that the principal contractors 
 agreed with the Unions in pronouncing in favour of 
 payment by the day ; indeed it is admitted that very 
 often this is the only possible system of wages. "How 
 can it be so bad," was the clever remark made by a 
 witness in the course of his examination, " when, from 
 the first Minister of the Crown down to the smallest 
 ])oy in the navy, all Grovernment servants are paid by
 
 198 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the day, and do not perform their duties the worse 
 for it ? " 
 
 Whatever may be the various opinions on the subject 
 of Trades' Unions, their existence is a fact : they cannot 
 be put down ; they are powerful, and their strength is 
 increasing every day. What is to be their future ? This 
 is the question which everyone is now asking himself, and 
 rightly, with mingled uneasiness and hope. This power, 
 if ill directed, may increase to a most serious extent the 
 inevitable confusion into which trade has been thrown by 
 its mere presence. But, on the other hand, may it not, as 
 we have suggested, possibly exercise a salutary influence ? 
 May not an effectual security be provided, by means of 
 these associations, against the return of the trade con- 
 tests, which resemble nothing so much as a Japanese 
 duel, in which each combatant is obliged to put himself 
 to death with his own hand ? 
 
 We believe it may, and that the Commission has 
 thrown a very encouraging light on this question. 
 
 We shall not stop to consider what ad\-ice the 
 Commission is likely to give to Parliament, nor what 
 laws are likely to be enacted. Whatever they may be, 
 these laws will, we hope, add another stone to the edifice 
 of English liberty." The Unions, at any rate, will be 
 delivered from the false position which they now occupy, 
 and a permanent measure will be substituted for 
 Mr. Eussell Gurney's temporary bill ; but it is ini-
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. lUH 
 
 possible to foresee as yet whether the party in the 
 House which is favourable to Unions, or that which 
 wishes to diminish their power, will eventually triumph. 
 Will the first obtain for them all the guarantees which 
 they desire, among others the suppression of prosecutions 
 for conspiracy, the right of registration, which would 
 establish them as corporate bodies, and the protection of 
 their funds against a dishonest treasurer ? * Or will the 
 alarms of the opposite party prevail in Parliament ? and 
 will the associations be compelled to divide their funds 
 into two separate parts : one to be employed in trade 
 (strike) pui-poses only ; the other in affording relief to 
 the sick and aged members, without any power of 
 drawing upon either in aid of the other ? The decision 
 to which Parliament msij come, is, no doubt, a question 
 of great importance, but it cannot control the future. 
 From experience alone, not from legislation, can the 
 societies learn the important part which they ought to 
 aspire to play. As the experience of one nation may be 
 of use to another, we will conclude by collecting out of 
 the evidence produced before the Eoyal Commission the 
 examples which prove that the existing Unions may 
 either tend to promote harmony between employers and 
 emploj'ed, or else, under favourable circumstances, may 
 
 * Sir Fowell Buxton introduced last year, a bill securing all these 
 guarantees to Unions : unfortunately lie has lost his scat, and will not 
 be able to defend it in the new House. — Author's Note.
 
 200 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 easily be made to give way to associations more capable 
 of arriving at this bappy result. That England has it in 
 her power, already, to point to some such examples is 
 entirely owing to the efforts of a few practical and 
 enterprising spirits ; the Commission examined three of 
 these bold innovators, who have been particularly suc- 
 cessful in the work of reconciliation. 
 
 The outline, which we are about to give, is in great 
 part extracted from the evidence of Mr. Kettle, Judge of 
 the Worcestershire County Courts ; of IMr. Mundella, a 
 manufacturer at Nottingham, and a m.ember of Parlia- 
 ment ; and of Mr. Briggs, a proprietor of coal-pits near 
 Normanton. 
 
 I. ARBITRATION. 
 
 Mr. Kettle. 
 
 In consequence of the frequent occurrence of strikes, 
 recourse has often been had to arbitration, and when it 
 has been judiciously administered, the system has been 
 productive of the happiest results. 
 
 In 1864 the contractors in the building trade and 
 the carpenters not being able to agree, called in Mr. 
 Kettle to settle their differences. Six masters and six 
 workmen met as delegates, with Mr. Kettle in the chair. 
 After a warm debate, in the course of which each side 
 was heard, they ended by agreeing so well upon all the 
 disputed points, that the chairman was not once called
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 201 
 
 upon to give his casting vote. Encouraged by so 
 
 successful an experiment, Mr. Kettle resolved to develop 
 
 this meeting of referees into a permanent institution : the 
 
 masters on the one side, on the other the carpenters, 
 
 plasterers, and after a time the bricklayers, came into his 
 
 views, and their plenipotentiaries, under his direction, 
 
 composed a set of rules regulating wages, which, it was 
 
 settled, should remain in force for a year. All the 
 
 masters who were represented at this conference were 
 
 bound to have these rules posted up in their workshops, 
 
 and to give a copy of them to every M'orkman they 
 
 engaged, explaining to him that they formed the terms 
 
 of the contract between them. It was provided by one 
 
 of the rules that all matters in dispute should be referred 
 
 to a meeting of six masters and six workmen sitting as 
 
 a court of arbitration.* This court derived all its power 
 
 and influence from the fact that it was composed, not of 
 
 mere delegates, but of real representatives : the members 
 
 of it, therefore, were competent to decide all questions 
 
 brought before them, without having to refer them to 
 
 their constituents, who, on their pai-t, were bound to 
 
 submit to its decrees. In short, both masters and 
 
 workmen having pledged themselves to abide by the 
 
 decisions arrived at under the rules, the English law 
 
 * Insijfnificant quarrels might be referred, in the first instance, to 
 two members of the court, in order to avoid calling it together too often; 
 but if either of the disputants declined to accept their decision, an 
 appeal lay to the full court. — Author^s Note.
 
 202 THE TKADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 invested these decisions with legal authority; and, in case 
 of resistance, they could be made a rule of court and 
 enforced by the county magistrates. 
 
 When once the rate of wages was by mutual consent 
 unchangeably settled for a whole year, individual masters 
 and workmen were bound only to adhere to the amount 
 agreed upon, and all contracts, by which one party 
 engaged to work and the other to find employment, 
 might always be set aside in twenty-four hours, if either 
 were dissatisfied. The price of labour being settled at 
 the commencement of the building season, the contractors 
 were able to make their estimates in perfect security, 
 whilst the workmen ran no risk of finding themselves 
 suddenly in reduced circumstances in consequence of a 
 reduction of wages. The authority of the court of 
 arbitration lasted for one year ; at the end of the year its 
 powers had to be renewed, the rules were again brought 
 under discussion, and everyone was at liberty either to 
 refuse or accept them. If, in the course of a year, a 
 master wanted at the end of any week to pay his work- 
 men less than the settled amount, they could appeal to 
 arbitration, and enforce the award by summoning their 
 master before a court of law on the charge of breaking 
 his contract. No doubt they would have no right to 
 prosecute him, if, even in the course of the year, he gave 
 notice beforehand that he declined henceforth to accept 
 the rules, and had them taken oft' the walls of the work-
 
 THE REMEDY FOE STRIKES. 203 
 
 shop ; but then he would have been considered as going 
 himself on strike, and if the other masters continued to 
 give better wages than he offered, all his workmen would 
 soon have left him. A violation of the rules by all the 
 masters at once, acting in concert, would be a breach of 
 honour of which it would be impossible to suppose them 
 capable : on the contrary they have always submitted to 
 the award. Mr. Kettle was called upon to establish an 
 arbitration court at Coventry, and to preside over it ; 
 the court there was equally divided on the subject of the 
 rate of wages, and Mr. Kettle, therefore, had to give the 
 casting vote. He gave it in favour of the workmen, 
 and the masters submitted to his decision without a 
 murmur. In thus settling a rate of wages to prevail 
 for a fixed period, whatever may be the fluctuations in 
 the price of labour elsewhere in the meantime, masters 
 and men are simply entering into a time bargain, and 
 are morally just as much bound to stand by it, as 
 any other vendors and purchasers in bargains of this 
 nature. 
 
 Some members of the Commission seemed to think 
 that practically it would be found that the workmen 
 would not hold themselves as strictly bound as the 
 masters to observe the rules. Without doubt a work- 
 man, who thinks he has a chance of getting better paid 
 in another town, can always leave that in which the 
 rate of wages seems to him insufficient. This, however,
 
 204 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 is by no means so easy a matter for him as it may at 
 first sight appear to he ; the removal of himself and his 
 family and the change in all his hahits, are considera- 
 tions which will make him hesitate for a long time. 
 But, it is then suggested, what hinders him from 
 requiring an advance in wages the moment his legal 
 engagement of twenty- four hours has expired? Why do 
 not several hundred workmen combine together to make 
 this demand ? There is no law forbidding it, and when 
 a responsibility is divided among a number of persons, 
 each indi\ddual feels himself but slightly bound by his 
 share in the moral obligations imposed by it. There 
 would be no answer to this objection, did not the Union, 
 appearing in a new part, and under a changed aspect, 
 here interpose, and assume the responsibility repudiated 
 by individuals. Although the representatives of the 
 workmen are elected by non-Unionists as well as 
 Unionists, they are always chosen from among the 
 Union leaders, and act specially under its influence : all 
 matters of business are transacted between the chairman 
 of the court of arbitration and the secretaries of the 
 association of masters, and that of the workmen. If 
 the Union becomes a party to an agreement for settling 
 the rate of wages, it is bound in honour to enforce the 
 observance of the compact, and, being able to punish 
 any of its members by fine or expulsion, it, and it 
 alone, possesses the power of obliging them to respect
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES, 205 
 
 it. Ill the development of association, Mr. Kettle's 
 system will find exactly the securities of which it most 
 stands in need. His success was so great at Wolver- 
 hampton, that he was soon called for to establish arbi- 
 tration at Coventiy and at "Worcester, and the example 
 so set was before long followed at Walsall, and in the 
 Staflbrdshire potteries. Everywhere the results have 
 been most satisfactory. 
 
 Mr. Miindella. 
 
 The arbitration courts, established in the hosiery 
 trade at Nottingham by Mr, Mundella, present a still 
 more perfect and remarkable example of their good 
 influence on the relations between masters and men. 
 They have restored peace and concord in the trade, 
 which had previously been disturbed by the bitterest 
 contests. It will be remembered that the town of 
 Nottingham acquired an unfortunate celebrity at the 
 beginning of this century by the riots and crimes of 
 which it was the constant scene. The sanguinary 
 measures adopted to suppress the Luddites did not 
 succeed in putting down the passions under which those 
 unfortunate people acted ; and from 1825 to 1860 strikes 
 were incessant, Mr. Mundella gives an exact descrip- 
 tion of the situation in the following passage, extracted 
 from his evidence : " In times of depression a manu- 
 facturer pressed down the workman as low as he
 
 206 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 possibly could ; and the less conscience lie had, of 
 course the more he pressed down the workman ; and 
 when the time for an advance came, or better trade, 
 although the natural state of things, — that is to say, 
 the natural demand for labour, — would sometimes force 
 up wages a little, yet it was always resisted as much as 
 possible. The men sent deputations from Trades' 
 Unions round to the hosiers' warehouses. At one ware- 
 house they would be told to walk downstairs. At 
 another they would be told, ' Well, we shall wait till we 
 see what our neighbours do.' After going round the 
 different firms, and being received in that way, the 
 chances are that the men would go home and strike ; 
 and it would depend upon circumstances how long they 
 could keep out. They would perhaps ask for more 
 than the trade could fairly give. It was simply starving 
 out the manufacturer or the workman, till a compromise 
 was effected." * 
 
 In 1860 affairs w^ere at the worst ; one class of work- 
 
 * Mr. Mundella, who appeared as a witness before the Commission, 
 of which Mr. Roebuck is a member, and who was examined by him, was 
 destined to meet the latter a few months later, upon the hustings at 
 ShefSeld dm'ing the late election, on which occasion he stood against 
 Mr. Koebuck. Owing to the great and deserved popularity which 
 Mr. Mundella has gained bj' his efforts to promote arbitration, the late 
 Nottingham workman beat the learned counsel, who had so long repre- 
 sented the town of Sheffield. His reputation, experience, and impar- 
 tiality, will make him a valuable addition to the House of Commons. — 
 Author's Note.
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 207 
 
 men, after asking for a large increase of wages, bad 
 been eleven weeks on strike ; tbey were supported by all 
 the Unions ; and the masters were on the point of 
 resorting to the extreme measure of a general lock-out. 
 " We knew," to quote Mr. Mundella again, " what this 
 meant ; it meant throwing the population on the streets, 
 and we should have had a dreadful sate of commotion. 
 We were sick of it, and some of us thought that better 
 means might be adopted." 
 
 Inspired by a vague remembrance of the " conseils 
 de iJriuV homines,'" Mr. Mundella thought of estabhshing 
 a board of arbitration ; and, \\dth the assistance of two 
 other masters, invited the workmen to a conference. 
 They deputed twelve of their body, chosen from among 
 the leaders of the Unions. The meeting was held, and 
 at first each side looked very suspiciously at the other, 
 like the envoys of two contending armies ; soon the 
 stiffness wore off; after discussing matters, they ended 
 by understanding each other, and in three days' time, 
 although the mutual prejudices on neither side were 
 entirely removed, the outline of the new system was 
 settled. All the masters of Nottingham were inAited to 
 meet together and elect nine delegates ; about half of 
 them attended. The workmen showed greater willing- 
 ness. Those who had joined in the conference with 
 Mr. Mundella, summoned general meetings of the 
 Unions to which they respectively belonged, at which
 
 208 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 they reported the proposed plan to them, and per- 
 suaded them to adopt it. From that time forth its 
 success was certain. The men outside these associa- 
 tions were few in number ; they followed the sugges- 
 tions coming from that quarter, and it is entirely owing 
 to the powerful influence of the Unions that the arbi- 
 tration boards were established, and enabled to act. 
 Mr. Mundella goes as far as to declare that -nithout 
 them it would have been much more difficult to intro- 
 duce arbitration boards, for that they could not have 
 derived from any other source a support equal to that 
 which the sanction of the working men's societies 
 afl"ords them. Simply by means of a good understand- 
 ing between employers and employed, the societies, so 
 lately absorbed in strife, were transformed into peace- 
 makers. When nine delegates had to be appointed to 
 represent the workmen, the machinery for their election 
 was found ready in the organization of the Unions. 
 The secretaries of the dijfferent societies in every branch 
 of the trade collected the votes of all the workmen. 
 Unionists and non-Unionists, and, by the suffrages of 
 both, the most active Union leaders were elected to 
 seats at the board. The alarm which then- election 
 might have inspired in some of the masters, who had 
 been in the habit of looking upon their new colleagues 
 as bitter enemies, was quickly dispelled. They soon 
 came to acknowledge that they could not have found
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 209 
 
 more sensible or more temperate mediators between 
 themselves and the body of their workpeople. Ignorance 
 and suspicion were still very prevalent ; but these men, 
 as the recognised leaders of their class, were frequently 
 able to soothe its excitement, and to set its true inte- 
 rests clearly before it, without forfeiting its confidence, 
 as their constant re-election proves : they never failed 
 to exert the influence which their high position in 
 the association gave them in favour of peace and 
 justice. 
 
 The board, which was composed at first of nine, 
 aftei-wards of ten masters, and of the same number of 
 workmen,* naturally chose Mr. Mundella for its chair- 
 man, who for eight years has fulfilled the duties with 
 the strictest impartiality. During this time his system 
 has won a complete triumph over the open or concealed 
 hostility with which his first efibrts were met. Forty- 
 two employers out of forty- five have recognized the 
 authority of the board, and have formed a society to 
 support it ; and the ten workmen's delegates, who are 
 now elected by the whole trade, represent more than 
 20,000 men. The board settles a scale of wages, whicli 
 
 * A committee, composed of four members, was appointed to arrange 
 the business to be brought before the board, to settle questions of minor 
 importance, and to decide when it should be necessary to summon 
 extraordinary meetings. Two paid secretaries attend, and take minutes 
 of the proceedings at the sittings of the board, one on behalf of the 
 Masters' Association, the other on behalf of the Unions. — Author's Note. 
 
 14
 
 210 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 are all paid by piecework : this scale remains in force 
 as long as the state of the market allows it, and if any 
 change in prices makes a modification of it necessary, 
 the party requiring this must give the hoard a month's 
 previous notice of the claim. These changes are now 
 always settled in an amicable way ; for when masters 
 and men find themselves sitting, without distinction, 
 round the same table, discussing their respective inte- 
 rests in a trade by which both earn their living, they 
 soon learn that these interests are identical. More 
 than once the workmen have withdrawn a demand for 
 an increase of pay, to which they believed themselves 
 really entitled, on the masters proving to them by 
 figures that foreign competition made it impossible to 
 grant it without losing a market for their produce. And 
 in order further to convince them, the employers have 
 frequently sent some of the working-men, who were 
 their colleagues at the board, to visit France and Ger- 
 many. The masters, on their side, in their discussions 
 with the men, have been led to a juster appreciation 
 of the conditions of labour ; and on the representations 
 of the latter, have decided upon never requiring them, 
 even when trade is most brisk, to work more than ten 
 hours a day. The harmony established between them is 
 so complete, that for four years not a single resolution 
 of the board has required to be put to the vote. 
 
 The system has the advantage of afibrding equal
 
 THE EEMEDY FOR STRIKES. 211 
 
 protection to both parties. Every master knows tliat 
 now no rival house can undersell him by an undue 
 reduction of wages, and can, therefore, commit himself 
 without apprehension to more constant and regular pro- 
 duction. The workmen, instead of addressing all 
 demands relative to wages directly to the employers, with 
 the chance of having to support them by a ruinous strike, 
 appeal to the board, and are sure of obtaining a just 
 settlement. 
 
 Although its awards cannot, like those under the 
 arbitration system established by Mr. Kettle, be made a 
 rule of court, nevertheless they have all the force of law. 
 Any workmen resisting them, as has once or twice 
 happened, would be disowned by the Union, and refused 
 all assistance, and would, therefore, not be able to hold 
 out long. Those masters who have not openly recognised 
 the authority of the board are, nevertheless, obliged 
 practically to submit to its decisions. For if one of 
 these offered his workmen wages below the rate adopted 
 by the other manufacturers, the latter, instead of, as 
 formerly, coming to his assistance and believing them- 
 selves bound to do the same, take side with the workmen, 
 and reduce him to helplessness by finding employment 
 for the men who have left him on account of the unrea- 
 sonable reduction. So that, in fact, masters and men, 
 united by a common interest, form one association, which 
 is enlightened by the discussions and governed by the
 
 212 THE TEADES' UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 decisions of the board. To it are owing the most 
 important improvements which have been effected in the 
 condition of the working-classes. To it they are princi- 
 pally indebted for the strict observance, instead of, as 
 before, the open evasion of the law for the suppression 
 of truck-shops, with all their train of abuses. They owe 
 to it, also, the uprooting of many prejudices, such as 
 hostility against machinery, which caused the Luddites 
 to take up arms, and the fatal consequences of which 
 recoiled principally upon their own heads. The work- 
 men's Unions which formerly in this business were 
 purely "trade societies," and raised no benefit fund, have 
 now hardly any expenses whatever to meet. At the same 
 time that they preserve their power and their organiza- 
 tion, they no longer, thanks to the cessation of strikes, 
 have to make heavy calls on the purses of their members : 
 the trifling subscription of a shilling a year suffices for 
 all their needs. The fruitless struggles between capital 
 and labour, which always ended by the public paying the 
 cost, have thus disappeared from one of their most 
 active centres ; whilst the happy change has given no 
 blow to healthy competition, which alone is really profit- 
 able to the consumer. 
 
 Such an example was sure to be imitated. In June, 
 1868, at the request of the worlonen, a board of arbitra- 
 tion was established in the lace manufacture at Notting- 
 ham. The very day after that on which the Commission
 
 THE EEMEDY FOR STRIKES. 213 
 
 had been considering this subject, Lord Elcho, one of its 
 members, had a meeting at his house between two, till 
 then, bitter opponents : Mr. Lancaster, representing a 
 number of colliery proprietors in South Lancashire, and 
 Mr. Pickard, a leading man among the miners' Unions in 
 that district. The three, assisted by Mr. Mundella's 
 experience, arranged between them the outline of a board 
 similar to the one at Nottingham. The men in the 
 mining districts of Staffordshire, Middlesborough, and 
 Cleveland, and even the workmen belonging to the 
 building trade at Bradford, hitherto so unmanageable, 
 have requested Mr. Mundella to come and provide them 
 with the system which, under his auspices, has succeeded 
 so well. And, what is still more remarkable, he has 
 received a similar invitation from the Sheffield file- 
 makers, in whose trade, as we know, the most violent 
 means have been employed by the Unions to enforce their 
 dominion. 
 
 11. Co-OPERATION. 
 
 We have said enough to show that arbitration boards 
 have succeeded in allaying much hostile feeling ; but 
 their power did not extend to destroy it completely, nor 
 to banish to the domain of the past the fatal struggles 
 to which angry passions give birth. Much more is 
 needed to eradicate the evil, and to unite for ever the 
 interests of two classes which have been so long divided.
 
 214 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Co-operative societies seem destined to take an im- 
 portant part in bringing about this salutary revolution. 
 Many other institutions, by encouraging thrift, have 
 greatly improved the working-man's condition ; but co- 
 operative societies, — that is, co-operative societies for 
 jnoduction, — have the effect of transforming him directly 
 into a capitalist, by securing to him a share in the 
 profits of the undertaking in which he has invested the 
 capital of his labour. The failure of some of these 
 attempts has brought the whole system into, we think, 
 undeserved discredit. It will be interesting, therefore, 
 to make known the success which, owing to judicious 
 management, they have obtained in quarters where the 
 greatest obstacles might have been anticipated. We 
 choose two examples, provided, one by the researches of 
 the Royal Commission, the other by a report on the 
 population in the agricultural districts, presented last 
 j-ear to Parliament. The first shows the co-operative 
 system as applied to one of the trades requiring the 
 largest amount of capital, viz., the working of a colliery ; 
 the other shows it as applied to agriculture. 
 
 THE COLLIERY OF BRIGGS AND COMPANY. 
 
 A floating capital, of about lOOZ. for every man 
 employed, is necessary to make a colliery pay. No 
 association, therefore, composed exclusively of working 
 miners could command sufficient capital to carry on
 
 THE KEMEDY FOR STRIKES. 215 
 
 such an undertaking. How many years would it be 
 before they could accumulate lOOL apiece ? And even 
 then, how could they give up their regular wage, which 
 alone insures them their daily bread, in return for a 
 dividend which, in so uncertain a trade, might one 
 year be large, and the year following nothing at all '? 
 These difficulties, apparently insurmountable, have been 
 overcome in the happiest manner by the system adopted 
 in Mr. Briggs' collieries. Struck by its advantages, the 
 Commission examined not only the founders of the 
 business, but likewise several workmen, who, from 
 being their bitterest enemies, have now become their 
 associates and most active assistants. 
 
 The Whitwood and Methley Junction Collieries are 
 situated in South Yorkshire, where, as we have shown, 
 war, with strikes on one side and lock-out on the 
 other, has been carried on incessantly of late years with 
 intense animosity. These pits have probably suffered 
 more from these causes than any others that could be 
 named. Mr. Toft, one of the workman-shareholders in 
 the present society, told the Commission that, in 1863, 
 at one of the meetings, at which the Union orators did 
 their best to inflame the passions of an audience already 
 exasperated against the masters, he himself exclaimed, 
 "If Mr. Briggs only had horns on, he would be the 
 very devil." Mr. Briggs himself probably had not a 
 much better opinion of these popular leaders, for he was
 
 216 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 chairman of an association of masters formed for the 
 sole pui'pose of resisting the Unions. 
 
 It was in the midst of these struggles that he 
 resolved to try a great experiment, and to see whether, 
 giving up the plan of attacking them openly, he might 
 not render the existence of these societies unnecessarj-, 
 by offering the workmen advantages greater than any 
 the Unions had ever been able to promise them. The 
 property in the colliery, valued at about 90,000Z., was 
 made over to a joint- stock company, and divided into 
 9,000 shares of lOL each.='= The original proprietors 
 retained two-thirds of the capital, in order to secure to 
 themselves the direction of the concern ; the remaining 
 3,000 shares were offered to the miners, to their own 
 customers, and to the public. The workmen thus had 
 the chance offered them of becoming proprietors ; but 
 they would not have been able to take advantage of it 
 unless they had also been furnished with the means of 
 procuring this capital of 101. , and unless a stronger 
 attraction than the small dividend thence arising had 
 been held out to them. 
 
 With this view, Mr. Briggs discarded the mystery 
 which most manufacturers like to throw over the amount 
 of their profits, and resolved to share them with his 
 workmen, in order to interest them as much as possible 
 
 * A little later the number of shares was raised by a fresh issue to 
 \0,000.— Author's Aote.
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 217 
 
 in the success of the business. The funds of the com- 
 pany were regarded as divided into two parts, of which 
 one was the imaginary capital represented by the labour 
 of the miners, the other was the sum actually invested 
 in shares. Under this arrangement, the wages, which 
 were paid on the same scale as in the neighbouring 
 collieries, represented the interest secured to the work- 
 men on the first of these two capitals ; and, as regards 
 the second, it was settled that the shareholders should 
 have ten per cent, interest on the receipts — a very fair 
 profit when it is considered that it was to cover the 
 deficit of bad years, in which the investor made nothing, 
 Avhereas the payment of the wages is never suspended. 
 It was provided that any excess, after making these two 
 deductions from the profits, should be regarded as the 
 common property of the whole society, and be divided 
 equally between the workmen and shareholders. If, for 
 instance, the net profits on the share capital amounted 
 in any year to fourteen per cent., ten per cent, would be 
 considered as interest on capital, together with two per 
 cent, additional by way of bonus, and the remaining two 
 per cent, would go to the workmen, among whom it 
 would be divided in proportion to the amount of wages 
 earned by each in the course of the year. " 
 
 * By taking the sum total of a workman's wages in the course of a 
 year as the interest on the imaginary capital represented by his labour, 
 we arrive at the amount of this capital. Suiii)Osing a workman to cam 
 50/. iu a year, and calculating interest at the rate of 10 per cent, as on 
 the share capital, his capital would be 500/. — Author's Note.
 
 218 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 In order, however, to encourage tliem to become 
 members of the society, an advantage has, up to this 
 time, been allowed in the division of extra profits to the 
 men holding shares. For instance, in 1866 these work- 
 men received ten per cent., and the others only five per 
 cent., on the annual amount of their wages. This 
 difference was re-adjusted in 1867, and it was then 
 settled that, in the division of the bonus, the part 
 allotted to the shareholding workmen should represent 
 twelve per cent., and that to the others eight per cent. 
 on their wages. 
 
 The system was put in force in July, 1865. Most 
 of the Union leaders had promised to support Mr. Briggs 
 in his experiment, but they could not overcome the 
 distrust of the workmen. The mere word Union exerted 
 such a fascination over their minds, that they could not 
 be persuaded to give it up, even for an institution in 
 every way preferable. Mr. Briggs made a rule that 
 every man who wished to participate in the bonus should 
 buy a little book, costing only a penny, in which his 
 wages should be entered every week ; so great was their 
 distrust, and so firmly were they convinced that the 
 advantage offered them was only a snare, that only one- 
 third of the workmen would go to this trifling expense. 
 It is needless to say that Tvhen, on the 1st of January, 
 1867, all those who could produce a book received five 
 per cent, more than those who could not, these preju-
 
 THE KEMEDY FOR STRIKES. 219 
 
 dices vanished never to return. Nevertheless, from the 
 incurable indifference which so many people show to 
 their own interests, a tenth part of the workmen to this 
 day neglect this simple formality. 
 
 Nothing can afford a better proof of the success 
 achieved by Mr. Briggs and his brother,* than the figures 
 submitted to the Commission. In the year 1867 they 
 realized a net profit of 20,417Z. after paying all outlays 
 and allowing for wear and tear. A portion only of this 
 sum was divided, — 8,000/. was laid by in order to 
 secure a bonus to the men in the bad years that might 
 come. Though this happened to be a period of great 
 prosperity in the coal trade, still the result is not the 
 less remarkable ; for, in Mr. Briggs' opinion, the old 
 system would not have yielded equal profits under 
 similar circumstances. And what is still more remark- 
 able, the yield of the mine, owing to the new arrange- 
 ments introduced by the society, was hardly at all 
 affected by the subsequent period of depression. A 
 different spirit moved all the workers in it ; the interests 
 of all were identified with the success of the undertaking, 
 they laboured at the accomplishment of their task no 
 longer with the indifference of the hireling, but with 
 
 * The late Mr. Henry Briggs, the former Chairman of the Coal 
 Owners' Association, the father of the two gentlemen referred to in the 
 text, was the head of the firm at the time of the conversion of the 
 husiness into an industrial partnership. He died in the spring of this 
 vear, after witnessing the complete success of his great undertaking. — 
 Editor s Note.
 
 220 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 all the eagerness of the proprietor in pursuit of fortune. 
 There have been no more strikes, and only six days, 
 during which working has been stopped, in the course 
 of three years ; when a reduction of wages has been 
 necessary, a few explanations have sufficed to make it 
 accepted without ' a murmur. On one occasion the 
 workmen in one of the pits ha\dng asked for an increase 
 of pay, the Messrs. Briggs consulted the rest of the 
 miners, who unanimously decided against it. Thence- 
 forth the workmen were trusted to keep watch over all 
 the petty details, which ensure economy and good 
 management in all large establishments, but especially 
 in a business in which wages come to seventy per cent. 
 of the whole expenditure ; and they performed their 
 duty better than the most active inspectors. " ^Mien 
 in the galleries," said one of them to us, " we see a 
 nail on the ground we pick it up, repeating the words 
 which have passed into a proverb, so much more 
 towards the bonus at the end of the year." The men, 
 who had been leaders of the Unions, are foremost in 
 condemning and attacking the few who remain wedded 
 to their old errors ; and, being all shareholders, they 
 are the most ardent defenders of the unequal division of 
 the bonus. This question was argued between them 
 and Mr. Briggs at one of the meetings of the Com- 
 mission. Mr. Briggs was in favour of establishing an 
 uniform division between all the workmen, whether
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 221 
 
 shareholders or not ; he maintained that, inasmuch as 
 each man contributes a certain amount of labour to 
 the common work, he has a right to a dividend exactly 
 in proportion to the capital represented by his labour . 
 His opponents, less influenced by any ideas of abstract 
 right than by the good effects produced by unequal 
 distribution, replied that it was above all things im- 
 portant at the present time to induce the workmen to 
 become capitalists ; and, therefore, that every encourage- 
 ment ought to be held out to them to take shares in 
 the society. The system of division of profits gave all 
 of them the means of doing so ; those who refused did 
 not do so much to keep up the business as the others, 
 and, consequently, had no right to the same advantages. 
 The advantage in favour of the shareholder was all 
 the more necessary, because the mere di-vidend on one 
 share represents only the wages of a good workman 
 for three or four days, and would never be sufficient 
 inducement for him to save penny by penny the 
 necessary 101. He would never submit to this whole- 
 some self-denial unless he could, at the same time, 
 make sure of a larger share in the profits of his labour. 
 " He has to learn," they say, " the advantages of 
 becoming a capitalist ; he does not know what they 
 are. Well ; here is a very good opportunity for giving 
 him a little of that compulsory education, about which 
 there is so much talk at the present day."
 
 222 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Experience will teach us which of the two systems is 
 best. Without deciding between them, we have quoted 
 this argument in order to show how completely, in their 
 anxiety for the success of their common enterprise, 
 both masters and men have shaken off all caste pre- 
 judices. Thanks to the spirit thus engendered, thrifty 
 habits are increasing among the workmen. At the end 
 of 1867 a thousand of them shared in the bonus, only 
 three of whom spent it in drink, and these were dis- 
 missed with the unanimous approbation of their com- 
 panions. For a society so recently established the 
 number of working shareholders is considerable, being 
 144 out of 989 adult workmen ; they hold 178 shares, 
 equivalent to 1,780L ; an important capital, considering 
 that it represents the three years' savings of men till 
 then strangers to all ideas of economy.* They have 
 every facility afforded them for acquiring the shares : 
 all those upon which they have paid an instalment of 
 31. are secured to them;t and, out of the last issue, 
 230 were reserved especially for the workpeople. The 
 prosperity of the society is so great that the shares 
 
 * The shares are distributed as follows : — Out of 785 workmen, 
 who labour underground, 83 are the holders of 94 shares, while among 
 the top or sui-face workmen, only 204 in number, 84 shares are held 
 among 61 men. One man is a holder of six shares among both the top 
 and the underground workmen. — Author's Note. 
 
 f The shares thus bought by instalments have all been fully paid 
 up : not a single instance has occurred of a workman failing in this 
 respect. — Author's Note.
 
 THE KEMEDY FOR STEIKES. 223 
 
 are already at 4/. lO.s. premium : under these cir- 
 cumstances, the reservation of shares has proved an 
 important advantage to the workmen, for they are 
 allowed to purchase them at 12/. 5s., which is 21. os. 
 below the market price. In addition to the above 
 named, nine managers, clerks, &c., hold 86 shares, 
 114 are held by non-resident agents of the Company, 
 1,878 by the public, and 1,068 by custom.ers. These 
 last, owing to their own interests being involved in the 
 prosperity of the business, have done their very best, 
 in times of slackness, to keep up the yield of the pits, 
 and consequently of the profits also. 
 
 These results, remarkable as they are, give but a 
 faint idea of the progress accomplished under the 
 influence of this system. The material profits gained 
 by the proprietors and the workmen are trifling in 
 comparison with the other benefits which it has secured 
 them ; that is to say, the harmony, peace, and mutual 
 sympathy which now reign where so lately hatred and 
 distrust embittered every heart. The Messrs. Briggs 
 have, as they expected, seen the Union virtually broken 
 up, without any overt act of hostility on their part. 
 Never have they refused to engage a man because he 
 belonged to it ; but its members, seeing clearly that 
 it was no longer wanted, have of their own accord 
 abandoned it, so that in Mr. Briggs' colliery, in which 
 in 1865 almost all the worlonen were members of the
 
 224 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Union, aLout forty only remain faithful to it, and these 
 with no other motive than the wish to live in peace with 
 their neighbours. 
 
 Nevertheless the work, so happily begun, is not yet 
 finished : it is to be hoped that gradually all the 
 workmen will become shareholders, and even take an 
 important part in the management of the business. 
 The founders are anxious that they should ; the hesita- 
 tion is rather on the part of the working shareholders, 
 who think they have not yet acquired sufficient experience 
 to justify them in undertaking so important a trust.* 
 
 THE ASSINGTON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
 
 The second example which we propose to quote is 
 that of a bona fide co-operative society applied to agri- 
 culture. It has not attracted much attention, though 
 it deserves to be well known ; for it possesses the 
 authority of thirty-eight years' experience attended with 
 constant success, in spite of the difficulties and un- 
 certainties which always accompany farming operations. 
 
 Mr. Gurdon, a landed proprietor in the neighbour- 
 hood of the village of Assington in Norfolk, started this 
 
 * Others, besides Messrs. Briggs, have adopted this system. The 
 same principle has been carried out in Greening's manufacture of articles 
 in iron at Middlesborough, and at the iron-works of Fox and Head, at 
 Salford. But, by a succession of adverse circumstances, these two 
 establishments have not yet been able to declare a dividend. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 225 
 
 society. In 1830 he let sixty acres of middling land to 
 an association of fifteen labourers, who assumed the 
 name of the Assington Co-operative Agricultural Society. 
 Each one contributed the small sum of 3/., which, with an 
 advance of 400Z. from Mr. Gurdon, made up the 
 society's capital. Only the inhabitants of the parish 
 can hold shares, and if they leave it, they must dispose 
 of their interest. There is not regular Avork on the 
 farm for more than five men and two or three boys ; 
 nevertheless, one of the rules is, that only shareholders 
 shall be employed, and that no outsiders shall be called 
 in, unless more hands are wanted than they can supply. 
 One of the labourers is entrusted with the general 
 management of the farm, and receives an allowance of 
 a shilling a week, as agent, in addition to his regular 
 wages. The financial business is conducted by a com- 
 mittee of four members, two of whom are re-elected 
 every year. Although the capital of the society did not 
 reach the figure which English farmers consider neces- 
 sary in order to do justice to the land, yet it prospered ; 
 it added 130 acres to the farm, and, in order to meet its 
 expenses, of which rent came in for 200/., it took in 
 six more shareholders. The loan from Mr. Gurdon was 
 repaid ; the society became the owner of all the farm 
 stock, comprising six horses, four cows, a hundred and 
 ten sheep, and thirty pigs ; it insured its buildings for 
 500L, and at last the three pounds shares rose in the 
 
 15
 
 226 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 market to the extraordinary price of 50L, more than 
 sixteen times their original value. 
 
 So good an example was sure to be followed, and in 
 1854 a similar society was established in the neighbour- 
 hood on rather a larger scale, and seems likely to do as 
 well.* This application by labourers of the co-operative 
 system to agriculture seems to be worthy of notice. Its 
 success, when conducted with judgment, proves how 
 effectual it is, and how fertile in results ; and its 
 example may tend to weaken the artificial distinction 
 which often in our counti-y separates the country from 
 the to^\'n workman. Although the situation of the 
 agricultural labourer is very precarious, often very 
 trying in England, it is evident that he has succeeded 
 in establishing an institution, which many people treated 
 as a visionary scheme. Agriculture is with us, far more 
 than on the other side of the Channel, the most impor- 
 tant national industry. The diversities between the 
 artizan and the labourer, arising from the difiereut 
 conditions of their lives, do not prevent their interests 
 from being identical. The artizan has better oppor- 
 tunities of instruction, greater facilities for united action, 
 both the generous emotions and the hasty impulses of 
 
 ♦ Many co-operative societies exist in America, in ti-ades requiring 
 considerable capital. Several were mentioned to the Commission ; 
 among them, one for working a colliery in Illinois, and a co-operative 
 foundry at Troy, in the State of New York, which yields a very fair 
 profit. — Author's Note.
 
 THE REMEDY FOR STRIKES. 227 
 
 his mind are quickened by a life spent in great cities : 
 be is capable therefore of furnishing to the labourer 
 both an example of noble deeds to be imitated, and a 
 warning against dangers to be avoided ; on the other 
 hand, he may learn many a useful lesson in return from 
 the race of men whose daily labour through so many 
 generations has fertilized our soil. 
 
 Each wants the qualities, that can be imparted by 
 the other, to complete them both. The national 
 character of the French people is in a great measure 
 composed of the combination of these two elements ; 
 they are at the same time laborious and ingenious, 
 equally suited to hard labour in the field, and to the 
 refined inventions of modern science. Our nation is 
 eager to take up every noble cause, yet proud, some- 
 times even exclusive in its patriotism ; in defence of its 
 "honour it quickly recovers all its energies, even after 
 the most cruel deceptions and the gi-eatest discourage- 
 ment, and it is ready to submit to any sacrifice, if, 
 instead of being blindly led and treated with suspicion, 
 it is allowed to feel itself the fi'ee champion of liberal 
 ideas ; the versatility of its genius afi'ords it peculiar 
 fitness for confidently taking up and stri-vdng to fathom 
 the grave questions to which we have drawn attention, 
 and for seeking the practical solution of some of the 
 most important problems which the future has in store 
 for us.
 
 228 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 POLITICAL LIBERTY AND THE FUTURE PROSPECTS 
 OF UNIONS. 
 
 We have left far behind us the sad scenes at ShefiBeld. 
 The reader will ere this have perceived why we did 
 not shrink from exposing them in all their horror : 
 it was the best means of proving that the most im- 
 portant Unions were in no way connected with, or 
 answerable for these crimes. It has been seen that 
 after the great industrial conflicts which these societies 
 have maintained against the masters, they have more 
 than once assisted in restoring a good understanding 
 between employers and workmen, either by becoming 
 sureties for a real treaty of peace concluded between 
 them, or by yielding their place to new associations of 
 improved form. But their task should not stop there ; 
 and their leaders, pleading for them before the Royal 
 Commission, have shown to it the new part, which they 
 discern, reserved for the societies ^hich they represent.
 
 POLITICAL LIBEETY AND PROSPECTS OF UNIONS. 229 
 
 Ou the day when the law shall permit them to hold 
 property by coqsorate title, when boards of arbitration, 
 rendering nearly all strikes useless, shall leave unem- 
 ployed the funds which their barren cost has till now 
 absorbed, they will have something better to do than to 
 dissolve themselves : they will be able themselves to 
 become the nucleus of the co-operative societies, whose 
 pacific action is destined to replace their agitated reign. 
 For indeed these great Unions, which extend all over 
 England, whose budgets every year amount to thousands 
 upon thousands of pounds, will then have at their 
 disposal the two elements which arc indispensable to the 
 success of such undertakings : a strong organization, and 
 a capital capable of insuring credit. To the absence of 
 these two elements is to be attributed the downfall of 
 most co-operative societies ; and it is to be hoped 
 that the Unions will know some day how to employ 
 their vast resources in resuming the task under far 
 more favourable circumstances than their predecessors. 
 
 But we are willing to dispense with this hypothesis : 
 we do not need it. For a fair trial has already proved 
 the value of the remedies, which we have seen so 
 successfully applied towards mitigating the feeling of 
 antagonism between masters and men, the cause of so 
 much suffering. 
 
 Among all these remedies there is one which we 
 hold to be most powerful and most indispensable, one to
 
 230 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND, 
 
 which we woukl especially call attention. It is not once 
 mentioned in any of the ten volumes of reports published 
 by the Commission, though it is familiar to ail the 
 persons who figure in them, and it is impossible to read 
 two lines of that vast collection of evidence without 
 detecting its influence. We have not quoted a single 
 fact in the course of this investigation which does not 
 bear witness to the power and the necessity of that 
 influence. We need hardly say that the specific to which 
 we are alluding, and at which the reader must have 
 already guessed, is political liberty, and the various 
 rights secured by it ; and, first, the right of writing and 
 publishing, which England enjoys, and the wide notoriety 
 which sheds upon all questions the most searching light. 
 The Commission had only to throw open its doors to call 
 forth a discussion so free and so beneficial, that more 
 than once those who entered as opponents departed 
 reconciled. The heavy stamp-duties which in France 
 confine the use of political papers to a comparatively 
 small number, and thus render them a luxury attainable 
 only by a few, can only tend to lower the intellects ; the 
 press in England is entirely free, and is, therefore, able 
 to distribute at a low price numerous publications, in 
 which nothing is omitted that can interest the country, 
 and the mass of the people are enlightened by the 
 constant and serious discussion of public affairs. 
 
 On the other hand, the right of meeting, which is
 
 POLITICAL LIBERTY AND PROSPECTS OF UNIONS. 231 
 
 exercised as naturally and as completely as the right 
 of way on the high road, allows all ideas, all aspirations, 
 to appear in broad daylight, and to be expressed without 
 disguise, while, at the same time, it submits them to the 
 critical test of public opinion. Accordingly, the Unions 
 are in the habit of meeting on all occasions ; but, taught 
 by experience, they seldom discuss abstract questions ; 
 they assemble only for the purpose of transacting their 
 own affairs. These practical discussions create opportu- 
 nities by which the men most fitted to take the lead are 
 brought into notice. The public is invited to their 
 deliberations with the view of exciting its interest, and 
 dispelling its mistrust. No one disputes this right, not 
 even when they use it in the most threatening manner ; 
 as on the day when more than 20,000 men, all members 
 of Unions, were seen marching in close ranks with flying 
 colours to take part in a great political demonstration. 
 The police interfered only for the purpose of preventing 
 the carriage traffic from disturbing the long procession.* 
 Such liberty has doubtless favoured both the forma- 
 tion and the increase of Unions ; but the most timid 
 minds can hardly regret this, as the result has been 
 the disappearance from the soil of England of the secret 
 societies, which used to flourish there as well as on the 
 
 * The destruction of the Hyde Park railings, which happened a short 
 time afterwards, was the work of the London roughs ; the Unionists 
 were in no way concerned in it. — Author's Note.
 
 232 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Continent, They have become useless, through the 
 fact of everybody being allowed to claim openly all 
 the advantages which their members could hope to gain 
 by secret plotting. Theories most contrary to social 
 order, as it is now understood, might be put forward any 
 day with impunity, if an audience willing to listen to 
 them could be assembled ; but, on the other hand, the 
 most ardent reformers reckon on legal means alone to 
 achieve the triumph of their cause. The free institu- 
 tions, by which the English are governed, enable them 
 to trust to their own perseverance and to the national 
 sense of equity for the redress of all grievances, which 
 they believe to be well founded, and they know that 
 conquests, which are the work of time, are much more 
 durable than any that might be effected by violence. 
 At the Congress of Lausanne a remarkable instance of 
 this respect for the law occurred, and one akin to the 
 present subject. The English delegates complained 
 bitterly of the state of the law, which a few months 
 previously had refused to grant protection to the funds 
 of Unions, upon which the Congress proposed to pass 
 a vote of censure upon the judges who gave the decision ; 
 but the Englishmen opposed this, saying that the law 
 was unjust, and that they would do their best to get it 
 changed, but that as long as it remained law, they must 
 respect the judges who applied it. 
 
 From what was elicited as to the state of things in
 
 POLITICAL LIBEETY AND PEOSPECTS OF UNIONS. 233 
 
 England by the inquiries of the Royal Commission, we 
 derive additional proof of the fact that the social progress 
 of the working-classes, and the pacific solution of the 
 great questions connected wth that progress, are in all 
 countries inseparably linked with political freedom. In 
 all times the powers adverse to liberty have indulged in 
 the belief that they could either smother these questions, 
 or turn to their own profit the passions which they arouse. 
 They have claimed the credit of protecting the rich 
 classes against popular excesses by silence ; and of 
 furthering the interests of the working-classes, by the 
 interposition of their authority, better than they could 
 have done so themselves : a double and fatal mistake, 
 pregnant with cruel disappointment for the people which 
 allows itself to cherish such a delusion. The absence 
 of publicity and of free discussion envenoms, does not 
 solve, the questions which it may for a time succeed in 
 keeping in the background, and in the end is sure to 
 create a gulf between the various classes comprising the 
 same nation. Such questions ought to be treated like 
 the coal-mines we have already mentioned, in which the 
 subtlest poison mingles with inexhaustible treasures : 
 if the air is excluded, the deadly gas accumulates ; but 
 if the mines are well ventilated, the greatest motive- 
 power of modern industry may be extracted from them 
 without danger. 
 
 Those who have most cause to fear the explosion of
 
 234 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 popular passions are the parties most interested in not 
 allowing them to ferment under cover of darkness. 
 That kind of half liberty is equally mischievous which 
 permits theories to be answered only by counter asser- 
 tions ; chimerical dreams only by in-elevant dissertations 
 on the subject of abstract rights ; which gives people 
 the useless right of speaking, but refuses to allow them 
 any practical influence in the conduct of their affairs ; 
 and which is an obstacle to the constant intercourse 
 whereby asperities are softened and juster ideas of 
 truth acquired. This kind of liberty is favourable only 
 to the development of extreme opinions. Debilitated 
 eyes, accustomed to this dangerous twilight, are easily 
 deceived ; a sort of deception that may be compared 
 to the effect produced by those coloured glasses through 
 which we sometimes look at a landscape. A light 
 brilliant as that of the sun, and, like it, composed of 
 innumerable different hues, is needed to arrive at a 
 right understanding of political and social questions ; 
 such a light can proceed only from the full and free 
 expression of public opinion in all its shapes. 
 
 Political liberty is not less necessary to the working 
 classes. Without its aid how are they to appreciate 
 their true interests? How are they to separate truth 
 from falsehood, the practical from the unpractical in the 
 language of those who court their favour ? How are 
 they to exercise the just influence to which they are
 
 POLITICAL LIBEKTY AND PEOSPECTS OF UNIONS. 235 
 
 entitled on public opinion ? Lastly, what security have 
 they for the enjoyment of the legitimate improvements 
 which they have obtained, and for those which they still 
 demand ? Political freedom is the parent of all other 
 liberty, and alone can give strength and life to the 
 principle of association, — a hardy plant, which loves 
 the open air, and cannot live or bear fruit under glass. 
 But for the various rights, which they have used so 
 largely. Trade Unions would have continued for ever to 
 be mere engines of war, capable of prolonging contests 
 fatal to the workmen themselves, but ill fitted for 
 securing them any permanent benefits. Though the 
 workmen are now in the peaceful enjoyment of these 
 rights, which are common to all Englishmen, yet they 
 take just as gi-eat an interest, as the other classes of 
 society in political questions. Their present and special 
 object is to get rid of the legal obstacles, which are 
 still sufiered in some degree to interfere with their right 
 of association. Yet quite recently, when the extension 
 of the franchise became the question of the day, they 
 clearly showed how deeply they valued that important 
 reform. They know besides that, though the Liberal 
 party may in most cases enter best into their feelings 
 and understand their wants, yet in all parties they are 
 sure to find statesmen, worthy of the name, always ready 
 to listen to them, and to devote themselves to the 
 defence of their interests.
 
 236 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 In France, unfortunately, these social questions have 
 always been stirred up at times of great political crises, 
 the most unfavourable moment for their solution, when 
 minds are disturbed, passions inflamed, and material 
 prosperity rudely shaken. But such questions are too 
 nearly connected with the sources of national grandeur 
 to be long deprived of the light thrown upon them by 
 political liberty, especially in a country, all whose 
 institutions are founded on universal suffrage, the 
 sovereign judge who can always reverse his own decrees. 
 In France where that judge is the recognised organ 
 of popular will, where none can dispute his authority, 
 and where all causes worthy of prevailing in the national 
 councils, and all legitimate grievances, reckon on 
 invoking his past decisions as warnings for the future, 
 these questions cannot fail to touch him most deeply, 
 and the day will come when he will make use of the 
 power conferred on him in seeking their solution. 
 Liberty and publicity, the only safe guarantees for 
 justice, are as necessary to the tribunal of Universal 
 Sufirage as to any other court ; these two only can blot 
 out the traces of those terrible misunderstandings which 
 have raised such alarm in some, so many vain illusions 
 in others, which have caused so much blood to flow, and 
 have left in the hearts of men those two fatal con- 
 sequences of civil war, cowardly weakness and intense 
 hatred. Liberty and publicity can alone prevent, if
 
 POLITICAL LIBERTY AND PROSPECTS OF UNIONS. 237 
 
 there were an}' reason to fear it, the recurrence of 
 similar disasters. 
 
 Therefore, in showing the influence of political 
 liberty on social questions in England, we believe that 
 we have brought forward an encouraging example for 
 those who are interested in the future of the same 
 questions in France. Would it be wise to neglect this 
 lesson, under the idea that, owing to the peculiarities of 
 the British Constitution, experiments conducted under 
 its protection would be unsafe in France ? We think 
 not, and that this would be exaggerating the importance 
 of the ancient and complicated machinery of which it is 
 composed. Constitutions, however artfully framed, are 
 invariably governed by one ruling power ; one, in vrhich 
 really independent and opposite influences stood exactly 
 balanced against one another, would be shattered by 
 their shock, like a machine subjected to contraiy forces. 
 It is not any particular clause, unknown elsewhere, 
 which has sustained the English Constitution in the 
 midst of all the political and social revolutions of our 
 age ; it is the power which is destined to wield 
 sovereign authority in all free countries, and that power 
 is public opinion. However much the institutions, by 
 means of which the power of opinion makes itself felt, 
 may vary in all these countries, they may always be 
 compared to translations of one and the same thought 
 in difi'erent languages.
 
 238 THE trades' unions of ENGLAND. 
 
 Why should we French, and we alone, be con- 
 demned to have no terms in our language by which to 
 express it ? We are not more excluded than others 
 from the political liberty, to which every race and 
 every country have a right. The remedy afforded 
 by political liberty against the dangers arising out of 
 social questions is equally effectual among all nations, 
 who are competent to apply it ; and no people, jealous of 
 maintaining its rank in the world, can now with im- 
 punity treat this liberty, the highest attribute of civi- 
 lized man, as a mere ornament, to be worn to-day, and 
 on the morrow cast aside with disdain.
 
 APPENDIX.-^'' 
 
 The following are the calculations of Mr. Finlaison as to the 
 solvency of the two societies whose balance-sheets were sub- 
 mitted to his examination : — 
 
 In ordinary Friendly Societies, 100,000 men, admitted at 
 the age of eighteen, would, by the time the survivors had 
 attained sixty years of age, be reduced to 52,489 by mortality 
 only. But secession from the society, combined with mortality, 
 will have reduced them to 29,297. The importance, therefore, 
 of this element in the calculations is clear. 
 
 It is estimated that the average age of members of the 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers at this moment is thirty-five. 
 On reaching sixty the members acquire a right to the super- 
 annuation allowance ; at the same time they naturally cease to 
 have any claim to sick allowance ; and, on the other hand, also 
 cease to pay subscriptions. The subscriptions, therefore, are 
 in the nature of a life annuity, terminating at the age of sixty. 
 The society consists of 32,720 subscribing members. 
 
 The society guarantees each member ten shillings a week 
 during sickness, and the reduction in this sum at the end of 
 twenty-six weeks, being balanced by that granted as compensa- 
 tion in case of accident, the sick allowance is at the rate of 
 16,360^. per week assured to all members. The average 
 
 * See page 50.
 
 240 APPENDIX. 
 
 pension in old age being taken at 20/. 16s. per annum, it follows 
 that under this head the sum of 680,576/. is assured to the 
 whole body : and 12Z, assured on the death of each member 
 will give 392,640/. to be paid sooner or later. Lastly, the 
 funds are already charged with pensions in course of payment 
 to the amount of 5,232/. 
 
 Valued according to the tables of mortality and sickness 
 used by Friendly Societies, these charges may be represented by 
 the following statement : — 
 
 Liabilities. 
 
 16,360/., M-eckly allowance in sickness until 60 355,339 
 
 680,576/., per annum, pensions for life after 60 1,985.512 
 
 .^92,640/., sums payable on death 168,167 
 
 5,232/., pensions in com'se of payment 44,697 
 
 Total liabilities 2,553,715 
 
 Assets, 
 
 £ 
 85.072/. yearly contribution, payable until 60 1,254,395 
 1,636/. weekly contrilnition, suspended during 
 sickness, reducing the tirst by 35,534 
 
 Remainder 1,218,861 
 
 Tangible assets Id hand -.... 138,113 
 
 Arrears 10,068 
 
 Total assets 1,367,042 
 
 £ 
 
 Total liabilities capitalized 2,553,715 
 
 Total assets capitalized 1,367,042 
 
 Deficit 1,186,673 
 
 But by degrees Mr. Finlaison reduces this deficit to its 
 true value ; he begins by taking into consideration the effect of 
 secessions. 
 
 Assuming, in order to make up the annual contribution of 
 2/. 12s., that these secessions are in the same proportion as in 
 Friendly Societies, and making deductions for the ordinary 
 chances of sickness, during which pajTaent of subscription
 
 APPENDIX. 241 
 
 ceases, it will be found that the annual subscription is repre- 
 sented by a capital of 33/. 18.s-. 9d., which, multiplied by 
 32,720, the number of subscribing members, gives the sum of 
 1,110,4G8/. as the capital of the society. By applying a 
 similar calculation to the reduction in expenditure consequent 
 on secessions, we arrive at a different statement of liabilities 
 and assets, viz., 
 
 LlAHILITIES. 
 
 £ 
 
 Capital representing sick allowance 322,612 
 
 „ „ superannuation allow- 
 ance 1,6.33,586 
 
 „ „ funeral expenses 151,330 
 
 „ „ pensions in course of 
 
 payment 44,688* 
 
 Total liabilities 2,152,216 
 
 Assets. 
 
 £ 
 By i)resent value of contributions payable, or 
 
 actual capital of society 1,110,468 
 
 Tangible assets and arrears .. 148,181 
 
 Total assets 1,258,649 
 
 £ 
 
 Total liabilities capitalized 2,152,216 
 
 Total assets capitalized 1,258,649 
 
 Deficit 893,567 
 
 The three first items of liability in the first statement 
 amount to 2,509,018/. The same three first items of liability 
 in the second statement amount to 2,107,528/. A difference, 
 therefore, of 401,490/. is obtained by taking the secessions into 
 consideration. 
 
 But Mr. Finlaison shows that the average number of 
 secessions in ordinary Friendly Societies, on which this calcu- 
 lation is founded, represents only two-fifths of the average of 
 secessions as shown by the statistical tables of the society. In 
 
 * It is not clear why Mr. Finlaison puts pension:^ here at 44,688/., 
 and at 44,697/. in the previous statement. — Author's Note. 
 
 16
 
 242 APPENDIX. 
 
 order, therefore, to arrive at the real reduction in liahility pro- 
 duced by secessions, the amount 401,490/. must be augmented 
 in the same proportion, that is, to 1,003,725/. ; or put alge- 
 braically, 401,490 : .»• : : 2 : 5^ ^'^^go^c^ ^ 1,003,725, and 
 
 this is the object of the last rectification. In fact the sum of 
 1,003,725/., as caused by secession, ought to be taken off the 
 first valuation of liabilities put at 2,553,715/., thus reducmg 
 liabilities to 1,549,990/. This increase in the secession valua- 
 tion reduces the capital of the society to the sum of 947,879/., 
 without affecting the tangible assets and arrears, amounting to 
 148,181/. ; the assets, therefore, are brought up to the sum of 
 1,096,060/. We then arrive at the following result: — 
 
 Reduced liabilities 1,549,990 
 
 Assets 1,096,060 
 
 Deficit reduced to 453,930 
 
 This is the deficit which an addition of sixpence to the 
 weekly subscription would be sufficient to cover ; for the 
 capital of the society would by this means be increased to half 
 as much again as what it now is, and the assets would show the 
 following figures : — 
 
 £ 
 Present capital, represented by Is. a week 
 
 subscriptions 947,879 
 
 Sixpence a week additional 473,940 
 
 Tangible assets and aiTcars 148,181 
 
 Total assets 1,570,000 
 
 Liabilities 1,-549,990 
 
 Sur])lus of assets over liabilities 20,010 
 
 In this calculation Mr. Fiulaisou supposes all the resources 
 of the society to have been spent in benefits. The outgoing 
 for donations to members out of employment will, however, make 
 a difierence in the result arrived at in the last statement. But
 
 APPENDIX. 243 
 
 even taking this expense at his valuation, we cannot be 
 contented with expressing the hope, never to be realised, that 
 Unions will renounce strikes, which are the special objects of 
 their existence ; on the contrary, we will endeavour to calculate, 
 by means of his own figures, in what manner they may in 
 future meet this important expense without danger. 
 
 Judging from their own statistics, Mr. Finlaison says that 
 these donations may be reckoned as double the amount spent 
 in sick allowance. This allowance, represented in the second 
 of the foregoing statements by a capital of 322,612/., was 
 found, on increasing by two-fifths the secession valuation, to 
 be reduced to a capital of 273,521/., so that double this 
 last sum, 547,042/.,' will express in round numbers the capital 
 representing the average of strike expenses for sixteen years, 
 during which numerous and protracted contests have occurred. 
 This figure, less the surplus of 20,010/. given above, denotes 
 the deficit which the Union will have to provide for, even after 
 having raised the subscription to eighteen-pence a week, if, as 
 there is no reason to doubt it will, it persists in allowing strike 
 expenses to figure as the most considerable of its outgoings : 
 they would amount to 527,082/. 
 
 There are various ways in which these expenses might 
 be met : — 
 
 I. By a superadded increase of sixpence three farthings to 
 the weekly subscription, which would raise it to two shillings 
 and thi-ee farthings. The deficit amounts to 527,032/., and 
 this fresh addition to the subscriptions would represent a capital 
 of 524,181/., thereby reducing the deficit to 2,851/. 
 
 II. If, as is probable, this contribution, which would 
 amount to 5/. 7s. Sd. a year, were too large for the small 
 means of a workman, a more simple, more practical, and more 
 logical method would be to leave the subscription at eighteen- 
 pence a week, and to diminish the rate of the different benefits 
 granted by the society.
 
 244 APPENDIX. 
 
 The amount spent in benefits by the society was, in the last 
 statement, represented by a capital of 1,549,990/., that spent 
 in strikes by 547,042/., total 2,097,032/. By diminishing one 
 quarter the charges for relief and allowances, a saving will be 
 obtained which will go nearly as far to establish the equilibrium 
 as the proposed superaddition to the subscription. Thus : — 
 
 Deficit 527,032 
 
 Expenses reduced one quarter . 524,258 
 
 Deficit reduced to .... 2,774 
 
 III. It would, perhaps, be still better to combine both 
 systems, so as in some measure to obtain compensation for the 
 effects produced by each. Thus : — 
 
 £ 
 
 By adding 3\d. to the subscription, making it 
 Is. 9jf/. a week, the receipts would be in- 
 creased by a sum represented hy a capital of 256,717 
 
 By reducing the benefit expenses one-eighth, 
 
 
 •^ ^'J^yV^. 
 
 Total 
 
 518,846 
 
 The result of this would be, — 
 
 
 Deficit 
 
 Gain by increase and saving 
 
 £ 
 527,032 
 
 518,846 
 
 Reducing the deficit to 
 
 8,186 
 
 And if the funeral expenses alone were reduced another 
 eighth, that is to say, brought down from 12/. to 9/., a fresh 
 saving of 12,794/. would be eflfected, and this would assure a 
 surplus of 4,G08/.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 At a time, like the present, when disputes between the pitmen 
 and colliery proprietors have been causing bloodshed almost 
 simultaneously in Wales, in the Charleroi district of Belgium, 
 and in the valley of the Loire in France, the success of 
 the experiment tried by the Messrs. Briggs is particularly 
 interesting. We have much satisfaction, therefore, in announc- 
 ing that, during the past year, their success, instead of grow- 
 ing less, has surpassed their expectations. A profit larger 
 than that of any of the preceding years was divided on the 1st 
 of January, 18G9. But, in these times of distrust and agita- 
 tion, it is the moral results of the experiment that it is most 
 important to notice. Accordingly, the annexed document, of 
 which we have just received a copy, is of a nature especially 
 to interest our readers. It shows with what perfect good faith 
 the workmen have met the equally well-meant advances of the 
 Messrs. Briggs, and that, casting aside the long-cherishcd 
 feelings of animosity as completely as their employers have 
 discarded traditional prejudices, they now afford them powerful 
 and hearty support. The openly-declared hostility of several 
 colliery proprietors to the principle of industrial partnership 
 occasioned the meeting to be held. Indeed, tilthough the eflects 
 of the system have been considerably to increase the actual profits 
 of the capitalists who have adopted it, nevertheless, it must 
 naturally appear a dangerous innovation to all those who look 
 upon any attempt at identifying the interests of masters and
 
 24 () APPENDIX. 
 
 workmen as a visionary scheme. Accordingly, the experiment 
 has been viewed with extreme suspicion by most of the estab- 
 lishments in the neighbourhood of the Messrs. Briggs, and 
 it appears that the directors of one of these collieries have 
 recently announced their intention of entering into a com- 
 petitive contest with Messrs. Briggs, in the course of which 
 they expect to see the Whitwood Company fall to pieces, and 
 with its fall to put an end to the whole system which gives 
 them ofience. It was to meet these threats that the principal 
 workmen of the Messrs. Briggs held a meeting on the 17th of 
 June, at which, on the suggestion of two of their number, 
 Mr. Black and Mr. Toft, the following resolution was carried 
 unanimously : — " That the workmen assembled at this meet- 
 ing, in view of the opposition to the industrial partnership 
 principle openly avowed by the proprietors of a neighbouring 
 colliery, desire to express their confidence in the directors and 
 managers of Henry Briggs, Son, & Co., Limited ; and resolve, 
 to use their utmost endeavours to strengthen their hands by 
 thorough co-operation, in entire confidence that no sacrifice 
 will be required from the woikmen unless absolutely necessaiy 
 to defeat that opposition." 
 
 The above was proposed by D. Black, seconded by J*Toft, 
 and carried unanimously. 
 
 Mr. Briggs draws attention to the fact that Mr. Toft, the 
 seconder of this resolution, is the same man who a few years 
 ago described his father as " the very devil." 
 
 Twickenham, 2\st June. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Loiidou : Triuted by Smith, Elder & Co., Old Bailey, K.C. 
 
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