1-lt 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS.
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 AN APPEAL TO THE WOK KING CLASSES 
 AND THEIR FRIENDS. 
 
 By ROBERT SOMERS. 
 
 "A book, not a small one, might be made up of the strange doings of Trade Unions. 
 Monopoly is hard to teach, and I fear the working men will only learn through suffering, 
 and may do mischief which cannot be afterwards repaired." — Right Hon. John Bright, 
 June 3, 1875." 
 
 (Ebinburqb : 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK. 
 
 LONDON : LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 1876.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAY. SONS, AND TAYLOR. PRINTERS, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL,
 
 Inst. Indafl. 
 L 
 
 P R E F A C E. 
 
 THE Author has taken the liberty to place on the 
 Title-Page a sentence or two from a published 
 letter of Mr. Bright, expressing with eminent 
 authority much the same idea and aim as had 
 suggested the composition of this Book ; and he 
 may here add a few words from the speech of 
 Lord Derby, on receiving the freedom of the city 
 of Edinburgh in December last, pointing as directly 
 to the main sources from which he deemed that the 
 materials of such a work, if the discussion was to be 
 preserved within recognised bounds, should be derived. 
 Lord Derby, without reference to this subject in 
 particular, said : — 
 
 " Look at the number of Royal Commissions that 
 have been appointed, and of Committees in Parlia- 
 ment that have sat in the last twenty years to report 
 upon various administrative matters. How many of 
 these Reports have been acted upon ? " 
 
 si 
 
 tatqt Txrnrj. REI*
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 Trade-Unionism has had seven or more years of 
 most eventful history — of history on the largest 
 public scale of affairs. This history is printed in 
 volumes of Hansard, in scores of Blue-Books, in 
 millions of newspapers, in innumerable decisions of 
 Civil and Criminal Courts, and, it must be feared, in 
 many details of private woe and desolation of which 
 there has been no recorder. But even of what 
 has been printed on this subject under the authority 
 of Parliament itself, how much may not be as com- 
 pletely buried for all practical purposes as the 
 Reports of Royal Commissions and Select Commit- 
 tees to which Lord Derby has referred in general, 
 and which he almost despairs, not without rea- 
 son, of Parliament being able to overtake ? 
 
 To endeavour to analyse the abundant materials, 
 and to present, within brief compass, the subject of 
 Trade-Unionism as a whole, and in the connexion 
 of its various parts, would thus appear to be a 
 desirable undertaking.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 NO. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION I 
 
 Royal Commission of Inquiry, 1 867-9. 
 
 \ II. OBJECTS OK THE UNIONS 1 3 
 
 III. METHODS OF THE UNIONS 22 
 
 IV. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 4 1 
 
 V. THE SHEFFIELD AND MANCHESTER OUTRAGES ... 58 
 
 VI. CUI BONO? 66 
 
 VII. BENEFIT FUNDS AND THEIR APPLICATION 78 
 
 VIII. EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE .... 89 
 
 IX. LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS IOS 
 
 X. STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. F. HARRISON . 120 
 
 XI. ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION 141
 
 VIII CONTENTS. 
 
 Royal Commission of Inquiry on " the Labour Laws." 
 
 N". PAGK 
 
 XII. EVIDENCE AND REPORT ON THE MASTER AND SER- 
 VANT ACT, THE CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 
 AND THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY 165 
 
 XIII. LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION ON 
 
 "THE LABOUR LAWS " l86 
 
 XIY. WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS 204 
 
 XV. CONCLUSIONS ...- 224
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The subject of this book may be best introduced by a few 
 interrogatories not difficult to answer. 
 
 Have any societies, companies, or organised bodies of 
 whatever kind, acted so conspicuous a part on the public 
 field of affairs in this country as the Trade Unions during 
 the last ten years ? 
 
 Is any one conscious of a day during the last ten years 
 on which the proceedings of the Trade Unions, often the 
 most unpleasant to themselves and to others, have not been 
 recorded in the newspapers, and attracted the attention of 
 the kingdom ? 
 
 Has any disturbing action in industrial affairs been more 
 constantly felt those ten years than the action of the Trade 
 Unions ? 
 
 Have any sectional parties in the State, during that period, 
 been so active politically, or been found so frequently in 
 the lobbies of the House of Commons, interviewing members, 
 and demanding changes of the laws as the Trade Unions? 
 
 These questions can only be answered in one way, and 
 the questions themselves have only to be stated in order to 
 prove the great importance of the subject to which they 
 refer. They show that the Trade Unionism of present times 
 
 B
 
 2 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 is a novelty in this country, and like all novelties of such 
 magnitude, it is more or less portentous, requiring much ex- 
 amination in the interest both of the Unionists themselves 
 and of the public. 
 
 The history of Trade Unions in this country may be said 
 briefly to have passed through three well-marked stages. 
 
 If we go back a century, we find a state of common law 
 adapted to the social and commercial circumstances, and 
 to the ideas of public policy, and of right and wrong at the 
 period, under which the systematic action of many of our 
 Trade Unions would have been impermissible, were it even 
 possible to conceive that such action could have occurred 
 to any of the working men of that time. But this state of 
 the law did not prevent the formation of Trade Unions to 
 support each other in brotherly membership of the same 
 trade, to require full apprenticeship, to promote the utmost 
 skill in the trade, and to urge, in harmony with employers, 
 every means by which the interests of the workmen could 
 be advanced, short of violence, or of any acts that could 
 render the procedure of the Unions a political or legal 
 question. Many of the Unions of that ancient standing 
 remain in full vigour to the present day. They are seldom 
 heard of in the noisy movements of recent times ; but, 
 adhering to their traditions, they have never lost their in- 
 tegrity, and have never fallen below other bodies of skilled 
 workmen in rates of wages, in full demand for their labour, 
 or in any advantage which a skilled workman most prizes. 
 It is to these older Unions we owe the doctrine, long 
 familiar, but now more than half exploded, that a Trade 
 Union is a non-political body, and that as an association it 
 has nothing to do on the high but perilous stage of politics 
 or revolution. 
 
 Advancing along the course of history, we come to the 
 second stage of Trade Unions, or rather of the manifesta- 
 tion of a new form of Unionism, which may be called 
 Tumultuous Unionism, when erratic leagues of working peo- 
 ple broke out, no doubt under desperate motive, but under 
 equally desperate ignorance, in the destruction of machines, 
 incendiarism, and other fell outrages. This was as unlike
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 as possible to the Unionism that had grown up under the 
 wing of the eight or ten incorporated trades which form the 
 Middle Age constituents of all our cities and boroughs. 
 New manufactures had arisen ; the introduction of machine 
 power was more or less modifying all trades ; masses of 
 working people had gathered round new centres of employ- 
 ment far beyond the bounds of ancient cities and boroughs ; 
 and great international wars, diverting in their absorbing 
 passions both Parliament and people from the study of social 
 and industrial questions, had brought their usual severe re- 
 action on all the springs of labour and subsistence. These 
 circumstances account for the uprise of Tumultuous Union- 
 ism, but this revolt of Labour was an extremely formidable 
 affair in its time, and Acts were passed into the Statute 
 Book, striking at the existence of such combinations, and 
 placing all societies of workmen in their outward procedure 
 under severe restrictions. 
 
 The third stage in the history of Trade Unions began at 
 least fifty years ago, when the Legislature repealed all the 
 anti-combination Statutes, retaining only some statutory 
 provisions against acts of a definitely criminal character ; 
 and this stage extends to our own times, in which the Legis- 
 lature, so far from calling in question the right of combina- 
 tion, has been labouring to give, and has successfully given 
 this right the utmost legal sanction and protection consistent 
 with that equal right of all under the law which must pre- 
 vail in this country. It might be supposed that the legal 
 history of Trade Unionism would here end, and that the 
 proper and honourable traditions of the Unions would re- 
 vive and acquire irresistible force. But this, so far, has not 
 been the experience. The Trade Unions that have had the 
 most ample notoriety of late years are found to be as dis- 
 satisfied under every successive effort of the Legislature as 
 they were before, and, throwing away the idea that Trade 
 Unions are non-political bodies, boldly proclaim that they 
 must have more power over the law, and that the votes of 
 every M.P., to whom they have given support, or who ex- 
 pects their support, must be cast in favour of some imagi- 
 nary supremacy of Trade-Union labour, and the exemption 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 of Trade-Union procedure from the ordinary equity of the 
 realm. 
 
 With this state of affairs, so far as the past is concerned, 
 it would be vain to found any reactionary dispute. It is 
 the result in substance of the growth of public liberty ; of 
 a large extension of the franchise without more than the 
 ordinary guarantee that the newly-enfranchised, or the new 
 candidates, would know at once the proper use and respon- 
 sibility of the franchise ; of a liberal sentiment common to 
 all parties in favour of any measure that may really improve 
 the condition of labour ; and, last though not least, of a 
 demagoguery in the Unions themselves which often miscal- 
 culates both its wisdom and its power, and speaks loudly in 
 the name of its followers without any adequate authority. 
 But facts and reason may have some sway, as regards the 
 future, in checking the progress of whatever may be im- 
 politic or destructive. 
 
 There was f r some years a general public satisfaction in 
 the success of strike. That a body of Union workmen 
 had beaten their employers in a fair struggle was as popular 
 as anything that could happen ; that wages were rising, that 
 labourers in one corner of the vineyard after another were 
 becoming more comfortable, that labouring classes long so 
 unduly depressed as the colliers, for example, were raising 
 their heads, and that Parliament was busily engaged in pro- 
 viding for them at the expense of employers and of the 
 State greatly improved conditions of health, safety, and 
 justice in their avocations, were all facts in complete accord 
 with public sentiment ; and there can be no doubt that the 
 Unions under proper guidance might have laid at this stage 
 a foundation of stable improvement for the working classes. 
 But when it was seen that one successful strike only pre- 
 pared the way for other strikes in rapid succession, keeping 
 large masses of working people out of employment, and 
 in increasing poverty ; and that under the operation of 
 economic principles which neither Unions nor Parliament 
 could alter, a rise of wages, arbitrarily propagated by 
 successive strikes, brought no real relief to labour, but 
 only placed the whole working population under greater
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 straits of living, besides obstructing and diminishing legiti- 
 mate trade, there naturally came a change of opinion, and 
 people began to perceive that an interminable struggle be- 
 tween capital and labour, such as the more demagogic 
 Unions would precipitate in large masses and in endless 
 detail, is about the worst calamity that could befall the in- 
 dustry and the industrial classes of any country. 
 
 The last, however, to share the public conviction are 
 probably the more active Unions themselves. They are 
 propelled some length in a course of combat against un- 
 equal forces, and it is the courage of our race, when hostilely 
 engaged, to brave every extremity. How many sad proofs 
 do Unionists give of their determination to sacrifice their 
 present and future interests to the barest chance of gaining 
 some trivial advantage over their employers ! Yet this ques- 
 tion, in all its gravity, is surely not beyond the reach of 
 ordinary reflection and inquiry. The Unions, and the 
 working men who are the life of the Unions, may examine 
 for themselves, in the light of their own experience, how far 
 their policy has been prudent or imprudent, capable or in- 
 capable of success, and what changes of their policy may 
 be necessary to place themselves in tolerable harmony with 
 the radical circumstances of law, civil and natural, in which 
 they have to operate. As for the politicians outside, who 
 look upon the Unions simply as an existing force to be con- 
 ciliated by smooth compliances, and used to the best advan- 
 tage for their own ends, it is equally within their power to 
 lay aside so superficial a view, and, rising to the compre- 
 hension that Trade Unionism is in reality a great web of 
 policy of the nature of an impcrium in impcrio, in which the 
 most intricate mechanism is not uncunningly contrived to- 
 wards specific ends, and is put into action by what is often 
 a most formidable force, to see and judge clearly how far 
 this great web of policy is calculated to answer its own pur- 
 poses, or consists with the interests of the working classes, 
 and how far, in fine, it can be treated without the most 
 desperate folly as an undetermined and merely playful ele- 
 ment in party politics. 
 
 The materials of judgment on this subject are now so
 
 6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 ample that there can scarce be any apology for evading the 
 main points of consideration. Within the last seven years 
 there have been two Commissions of Inquiry under the 
 Royal Seal, at the instigation mainly of the Trade Unions 
 themselves, by which have been elicited not only such 
 volumes of evidence, but such careful analysis of the evi- 
 dence and such full deliberation on the part of the Com- 
 missions, as have only very seldom been displayed on other 
 subjects. There is thus no want of means of information 
 on this Trade-Union problem. The only lapsus to be feared 
 is that the vast body of materials available may not be 
 sufficiently examined, and that the Unions, and the masses 
 of working men passing and repassing under their influence, 
 will pursue their accustomed way, heedless of the light 
 which so much inquiry and experience have thrown upon 
 it. Nor is it quite certain that many present and future 
 M.P.'s will not be tempted to take the same light and easy 
 course. 
 
 The labours of the Royal Commission, appointed in 1867 
 " to inquire into the organisation and rules of Trade Unions 
 " and other Associations, whether of workmen or employers, 
 " and into the effect produced by such Unions and Associa- 
 " tions on the workmen and employers respectively, on the 
 " relations between workmen and employers, and on the 
 " trade and industry of the country," extended till 1869, 
 and were recorded in eleven blue-books and two or three 
 supplementary documents. 1 The political sentiment of the 
 time was specially favourable to the Trade Unions, and to 
 their most adventurous projects, whether of combination or 
 law-making. Trade and finance had passed through a severe 
 crisis in 1866, and industry was slowly recovering from a 
 state of depression in which Trade Unions have little 
 opportunity of being aggressive, and when the common 
 regret, indeed, is that there is not more demand for labour, 
 with more liberal wages. The "working man," moreover, 
 
 1 The members of the Commission were Sir William Erie, the Earl 
 of Lichfield, Lord Elcho, Sir Edmund Walker Head, Sir Daniel Gooch, 
 Mr. Herman Merivale, Mr. James Booth, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Thomas 
 Hughes, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and Mr. William Mathews.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 in view of a large extension of the franchise, had become 
 the cynosure more or less of both the great parties in the 
 State. The Unions were strong in numbers ; arid to estab- 
 lish pleasant relations with their leaders, and hold a certain 
 dalliance with all their schemes, however crude or adverse to 
 the interests of labour, seemed to many politicians the 
 readiest means of securing great numbers of votes in all 
 the town constituencies of the kingdom. This speculation, 
 indeed, did not prove ultimately profitable ; for it happened 
 that nearly all the Trade Union leaders were candidates for 
 seats in Parliament in their own proper persons, and at the 
 last General Election the Union candidates and their Par- 
 liamentary patrons came into awkward collision, and in not 
 a few instances destroyed each other's chances of being any- 
 where but at the bottom of the poll. But it is necessary to 
 refer to the advantageous conditions under which the Trade 
 Unions passed through the great inquest of 1867-9, chiefly 
 because there is a habit of the Unions, after moving elaborate 
 inquiries of this kind, to give little heed to the conclusions 
 to which the inquirers come, and to pass on, demanding 
 more # inquiries, in an obscure and headlong purpose, which is 
 most disheartening to many who. without selfish interest or 
 political ambition, have long studied and advanced the con- 
 dition of the working classes, and who desire to see the 
 various questions brought to a regular and just solution. 
 
 The only cause of anything in the nature of prejudice in 
 the public mind anterior to the Inquiry of 1867-9 arose 
 from the ranks of the Unionists themselves. A series of 
 most infamous Trade Union outrages at Sheffield had, a 
 year or two before, greatly shocked the whole kingdom, and 
 disconcerted even the most sanguine of the Trade Union 
 politicians ; and the Royal Commission had not well en- 
 tered on its labours till it was found necessary to give power 
 by a special Act of Parliament to examine witnesses on oath 
 in regard to a long train of less notorious but equally invete- 
 rate outrages on trade and labour at Manchester, casting a 
 most lurid reflection on the ultimate issues of Trade-Union 
 policy. These events had a certain reactive effect, but as 
 they had been at once universally condemned by the Trade
 
 8 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Union " authorities " as utterly opposed to " the rules," they 
 were soon treated as the merest local and transient excep- 
 tions to the uniformly peaceable and wholesome action of 
 the Unions ; and the Inquiry pursued the even tenour of 
 its way with little or no loss of its original Unionistic im- 
 pulse. The political Unions were in full activity and in 
 high working order. The employers were unorganized ; 
 non-union workmen were totally unrepresented ; and these 
 classes made little or no rebutting effort. The Commission 
 was left with scarce any evidence as to the effect of Trade 
 Union action on the industry and commerce of the country — 
 a branch of the investigation that has grown to great dimen- 
 sions during the intervening years — while, on the other hand, 
 the Commission was abundantly supplied with all manner of 
 evidence that could place the Unions in the most favourable 
 light. It is improbable that the Trade Unions can ever 
 have a more choice opportunity of stating their own case ; 
 and it is equally improbable that they can ever have a Com- 
 mission of Inquiry more disposed to give the most generous 
 interpretation to whatever they have to advance, whether in 
 self-defence or in self-assertion. The Earl of Lichfield and 
 Lord Elcho had distinguished themselves by a decided 
 sympathy not only with the working classes, but with Trade 
 Unionists as appearing to them the most active embodiment 
 of the working-class interest. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harri- 
 son were avowed advocates of Trade Unionism in its fullest 
 and most doubtful aims. In Sir William Erie, Chairman of 
 the Commission, there was a venerable impersonation of 
 reason, of profound knowledge of public law and polity, and 
 of that unquestioned benevolence of character which, when 
 combined with reason and knowledge, is the sum of excel- 
 lence. Other members of the Commission might be named 
 without a shade of disparagement in the view even of a 
 Trade Unionist. Working men, in short, may freely purge 
 their minds of all suspicion that the questions affecting their 
 interests do not receive in these high Inquiries a thorough 
 and impartial examination, and may revert to the conclu- 
 sions of successive Commissions, and to the ample records 
 in which these proceedings have been embodied as to a
 
 INTRODUCTION. Q 
 
 fount of wise understanding and suggestion as regards the 
 rights, the obligations, and the conditions of all true and 
 possible prosperity, of labour. 
 
 The Inquiry of 1867-9, anc ^ tne attending legislation of 
 1870, in which various important recommendations of the 
 Commissioners were quietly ignored and set aside by Par- 
 liament in favour of provisions more indulgent and pleasing 
 to the Unionists, had not been more than a few months 
 completed, when, upon cases emerging in the Courts — par- 
 ticularly the case of London gasmen, who were found not 
 entitled to commit a breach of contract in large bodies 
 without rendering themselves liable not only to ordinary 
 fine or damage, but to criminal consequences as conspirators 
 in an unlawful purpose — the Unions at once began an agi- 
 tation for a new Inquiry into what seemed to them gross 
 inequalities of the civil and criminal law. This gave occa- 
 sion for the appointment of the Royal Commission on the 
 Master and Servant Act, the Criminal Law Amendment 
 Act, and the common law of Conspiracy. This Inquiry 
 simply brought up anew the critical questions that had been 
 investigated to the core by the Royal Commission of 1867 ; 
 and there was little or nothing to be expected from it but 
 some amendments of statutory detail, in which the plank of 
 reform was so narrow that, in giving an inch of right in one 
 direction, there might be danger of giving an ell of wrong in 
 another to the working man. This second Royal Commis- 
 sion has just completed its labours, and has been followed by 
 legislation in which, as in the former case, the conclusions 
 of the Commissioners have been again set aside in favour of 
 something or other deemed more satisfactory for the moment 
 to the Unionists. 
 
 It would be idle here to anticipate what shall afterwards 
 have to be more closely examined. But no doubt can re- 
 main that in these two Inquiries there is a full exhibition of 
 the Trade-Union Question in its various phases, of the state 
 of law to which the agitating Unions aspire, and of the 
 principles of equal right and liberty, and of public good, by 
 which such aspirations on the part of clubs and societies of 
 workmen are bounded. It would seem desirable, therefore,
 
 IO THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 that the great body of evidence, and of legal and practical 
 reason, thus collected and recorded in an authentic form, 
 should be popularly understood, and should be so duly 
 reflected upon that its wholesome uses may be realised in 
 public opinion and in the future course of affairs. The 
 chief question is how far the Trade Unions have of late 
 years been pursuing a right or wrong course ; and the chief 
 duty is to distinguish the right course from the wrong. It 
 will be observed that the bent of the new type of Unionism 
 is to look upon the redress of labour as a matter chiefly of 
 politics and legislation to be overtaken by a system of Trade- 
 Union agitation on the largest scale. But experience runs 
 much counter to this current of Unionism, and fully estab- 
 lishes, indeed, the fact that the redress of labour depends on 
 conditions and laws over which politics and legislation have 
 little control. The Union wrecks of the last two years/and 
 the vast amount of funds squandered in hopeless strivings 
 against an ebb of commerce, over which Queen, Lords, and 
 Commons have no more power than Canute had over the 
 flowing tide, are sufficient proof that there is much more 
 implied in the redress and good of labour than our cotem- 
 porary Trade-Union philosophy has apprehended, and that 
 Trade-Union leaders going in and out of Parliament, 
 fomenting and upholding these desperate struggles as if 
 the relations of capital and labour could be solved by any 
 action of theirs or of Parliament, are about the most ghastly 
 spectres that could flit across the path of the working 
 classes. If the following pages, proceeding in the light of 
 the two Royal Commissions of Inquiry referred to, and of 
 such other in'disputable data as there may be occasion to 
 adduce, should help to make this more clear, they will have 
 served a good, and even a great, purpose. 
 
 It is difficult to avoid speaking in a general way of " the 
 Trade Unions " as if these bodies were all amenable to the 
 same remarks ; whereas the fact is that there are many 
 Trade Unions in the kingdom — and these some of the oldest 
 and most successful Unions — to which much that has to 
 be said is scarcely in any degree applicable. This is a con- 
 sideration which the reader will be able to carry along with
 
 INTR0D1 CTION. n 
 
 him. The distinction between a right and wrong course of 
 Unionism is to be observed throughout. 
 
 To any one, indeed, who can carry back his recollections 
 and his sympathies with the working classes thirty or forty 
 years, there is a fragrance pleasant to recall in the ben 
 volence and esprit de corps of the trades. There was the 
 friendly aid to a brother member of the trade in sickness or 
 distress ; the care to maintain the skill and efficiency of the 
 craft ; the welcome and support given to fellow-workmen 
 out on travel for work. Now-a-days one is not apt to asso- 
 ciate much dignity with "the tramp ;" and no doubt in the 
 olden days, as now, there were some who tramped too much 
 and too long. But in past times a young man bred in a 
 country town or village was seldom deemed master of his 
 trade till he had visited some of its chief seats and had 
 worked in some of the most renowned shops. However 
 poor he might be, he could set out on this tour of improve- 
 ment, under difficulties of travel not conceivable by the 
 present generation, yet confident that his trade would sus- 
 tain him, and that his fellow-craftsmen would everywhere 
 secure him a spell of work if they could. Many a British 
 workman, when there were neither steamboats nor railways, 
 wayfared to most of the capitals of Europe, and brought 
 back an insight and practice in his handicraft that was not 
 only an armour to himself, but improved his fellow-workmen, 
 and enriched the industrial art of the country. There was a 
 " freemasonry " in the trades that enabled working men with 
 scarce a coin in their pockets to accomplish such feats ; and 
 though it may not be recovered in its old forms, yet the 
 spirit of it is undying, and may be as useful to British in- 
 dustry now as ever, if our workmen should only choose to 
 give it a sound and wholesome development. But those 
 were times when the trades looked forth with a free, bold, 
 and generous glance over the whole sphere of commerce ; 
 when they had not yet learned to regard every employer as 
 an enemy, and had not ceased to esteem every workman, 
 from whatever quarter he might come, as a brother ; when 
 the action of the Unions was centrifugal and self-preserving, 
 without being exclusive or inhuman, and had not assumed
 
 12 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the violent centripetal force of recent times, rending and 
 stripping up the largest centres of employment at home, and 
 smiting down every workman seeking employment from the 
 next town or the next street as a " black-neb," a " knob- 
 stick," or any other term of reproach which it is so easy 
 for one workman to cast on another. 
 
 Trade Unionism has undergone of late years a great 
 transformation in the features of it most familiar to the 
 public ; and on the nature and tendencies of this transfor- 
 mation there seems strong ground of appeal to the collective 
 Unions, to the members and leaders of the Unions, to the 
 working classes in general, and to the whole body of public 
 opinion.
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 1867-9. 
 
 II. 
 
 OBJECTS OF THE UNIONS. 
 
 The Royal Commission of 1867-9 had to inform itself fully of 
 the organisation and rules of the Trade Unions. The con- 
 stitution and laws of the Societies were produced in many 
 cases when called for in the course of the Inquiry. But in 
 addition a series of questions were addressed to 332 secre- 
 taries of Trade Unions, intended to elicit the same kind of 
 information, and to this official circular answers were re- 
 turned by forty-five Societies in the list. These and other 
 documents of a valuable character have been printed, 
 and form an essential part of the evidence to which it is 
 necessary to refer. 
 
 Nevertheless a Royal Commission of Inquiry has chiefly 
 to do with personal witnesses of more or less authority, 
 who, coming forward of their own accord, represent the 
 active interest taken in the questions under consideration ; 
 and the first point of the Inquiry, as practically unfolded, 
 was to discover the objects which the Trade Unions propose 
 to themselves, and to take the definition of these objects 
 from the lips of their own chief officers, who thus appeared 
 in an active and representative form. Unless we can know 
 what the deliberately proposed objects of the Trade Unions 
 are, we can know nothing of these Societies ; and readers 
 must here exercise some patience if they should wish to be 
 informed from the only authoritative source.
 
 14 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 MISUNDERSTANDING AS TO OBJECTS. 
 
 Now, it is remarkable that the first witness called, Mr. 
 Robert Applegarth, general secretary of the Amalgamated 
 Society of Carpenters and Joiners, placed the objects of his 
 Association on a wholly benefit basis. Support of members 
 in case of sickness, accident, or superannuation ; burial of 
 members and their wives ; aid to emigration ; loss of tools 
 by fire, water, or theft ; relief to members out of work or in 
 cases of extreme distress, are the only objects which Mr. 
 Applegarth, quoting from the constitution of his Society, 
 could assign to it. Of course, there is the deceptive parti- 
 cular here of relief to "members out of work," which in a 
 bye-clause is made to signify 15s. a week out of the funds 
 to " any free or non-free member or members leaving his or 
 " their employment under circumstances satisfactory to the 
 " branch of executive council," and which may receive a 
 most elastic interpretation when strikes are in question. But 
 no one reading Mr. Applegarth's preliminary evidence could 
 imagine that the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners was 
 more than a mutual benefit society of a most praiseworthy 
 character, lire second witness, the late Mr. William Allan, 
 secretary of the greater Society of Amalgamated Engineers, 
 and who is entitled to be named with all respect, gave 
 practically the same account of the objects of that Associa- 
 tion. The contributions of 33,600 members, of which 
 there was so far an accruing surplus, were obtained for relief 
 to sick and superannuated members, funeral expenses, al- 
 lowances to widows of members, and allowances in cases of 
 accident. There was also a large disbursement to members 
 " out of employment ; " but strikes and self-inflicted idleness, 
 according to Mr. Allan's evidence, were strictly guarded in 
 the Society of Engineers. His account was, that a number 
 of men going out on strike in any town must not only have 
 the approval of the district committee, but must obtain the 
 sanction of the Executive Council before they could have 
 any access to the funds. The question of " out of employ- 
 ment," according to the rules of the Amalgamated En- 
 gineers, has to pass through several stages of deliberation
 
 OBJECTS OF THE UNIONS. I- 
 
 before it can obtain final authority, and this is a wise enough 
 provision. But Mr. Allan implied that if the strike was 
 intended to resist a reduction of wages in any locality it 
 would receive a much more easy authorisation than if its 
 object were to enforce an advance of wages ; and there are- 
 communistic features in the interior regulations of the 
 Society, — such as hostility to piece-work ; heavy fines im- 
 posed on any member doing piece-work who fails to share 
 his earnings with others working on the job ; and a strong 
 action of the Society to secure the employment of its mem- 
 bers in preference to, and in exclusion of anybody else, — 
 which have a curiously monastic aspect. Yet no one could 
 infer from Mr. Allan's preliminary evidence that the Amal- 
 gamated Engineers are more than a mutual benefit society, 
 or extensive cloister of people bent on providing for their 
 wants by leaning on each other in a legitimate way, in so far 
 as it may be voluntary, and satisfactory to themselves. It is 
 equally characteristic, however, of the evidence of Mr. Allan 
 and Mr. Applegarth that when further questioned as to the 
 financial sufficiency of the funds of their Societies for the pur- 
 poses in view, they at once lowered the " benefit objects " so 
 prominent in the constitutions of their Societies, and declared 
 them to be altogether subordinate to the " trade objects " of 
 which the constitutions say little or nothing at all. The 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers, according to Mr. Allan, 
 could not afford its advantages to the members if the trade 
 and benefit funds had to be kept separate. "The union in 
 " one society of trade and benefit purposes," he said, " is 
 "beneficial. The latter soften men's minds, and render 
 " them more careful with respect to the former." Mr. Allan 
 was a man of some thinking power, and in these words un- 
 doubtedly touched a philosophical conclusion, viz., that any 
 large body of men of ordinary intelligence, who have accu- 
 mulated by laborious saving considerable funds for benefit 
 purposes, will in proportion as they appreciate these purposes 
 be softened or tempered in mind as to any loose squander 
 of such funds on other purposes, and on what may prove 
 the '-cast of a die." That Mr. Allan's wisdom has found 
 some practical response in the action of the Amalgamated
 
 1 6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Society of Engineers there may also be no reason to dispute. 
 But it failed to reach the financial obliquity of raising funds 
 for one class of purposes, and leaving them open to be 
 expended on impulse for a wholly different class of purposes. 
 Mr. Applegarth also said, though in contradiction of what 
 he had before described from the written constitution of the 
 Society of Carpenters and Joiners to be its sole objects, 
 that theSociety, strictly speaking, should not be regarded as 
 a benefit society at all. " It is ' pure and simple ' a trade 
 "society, although members support it the better on account 
 " of its benefits unconnected with trade purposes." There 
 is thus considerable confusion, even in these highest types 
 of Trade-Union organisation, as to what the constitutional 
 objects of these bodies are. A certain class of beneficial 
 purposes, known and measurable, are put in the fore-front of 
 the rules, and yet found on cross-examination to be sub- 
 ordinate in practice to other purposes that are left vague 
 and undefined ; so that to arrive at the objects proposed to 
 themselves by Trade Unions, as the Royal Commission ex- 
 perienced, becomes at the outset a task of unusual difficulty. 
 The next witness, Mr. Richard Harnott, secretary of the 
 Friendly Society of Operative Masons, carries us a little 
 farther into the subject. Mr. Harnott, though secretary of 
 a Union of 278 branches, which puts "Friendly" into its 
 title, and in which one would expect to find the benefit 
 purposes in great practical predominance, gives at once a 
 frank statement of the real objects of his society. The 
 members pay /\d. or yld. per week to the common fund of 
 1 the Union. Those who pay *j\d. are entitled to \os. per 
 week when they are sick in addition to the trade advan- 
 tages ; those who pay $d. are entitled to the trade ad- 
 vantages only. The separation of trade and benefit objects, 
 and of trade and benefit funds, which appears from the 
 evidence of Mr. Allan and Mr. Applegarth, to be so difficult 
 or impossible, or so injurious to the Unions, had not pre- 
 sented itself in the same light to the Friendly Society of 
 Operative Masons. When asked what the objects of his 
 society were, Mr. Harnott answered, — " To protect the 
 " members from all encroachments by employers, as well as
 
 OBJECTS OF THE UNIONS. I 7 
 
 " to maintain the rate of wages generally ; that was the origin 
 "of it, and is still the object of it." There can be little 
 doubt that in this answer there is an honest, and at the same 
 time temperate statement of the principal object of many 
 of the Trade Unions. Mr. Edwin Coulson, secretary of 
 the London Operative Bricklayers' Society, gives the same 
 reply: — "The objects refer to trade purposes, with burial 
 and travelling relief to members." Mr. George Houseley, 
 general secretary of the Sheffield Bricklayers' Society, also 
 in its title "Friendly," gives the priority to "trade pur- 
 poses," and adds, "partly for accidents and deaths." 
 When asked whether it was originally established for the 
 friendly purposes, he answered, " I am unable to say." But 
 out of a yearly income of 5,964/. there were paid for deaths 
 alone 1,362/., and yet the society's reserve fund was only 
 3,649/. Mr. Houseley would not allow that all the moii< v 
 thus unaccounted for went for " trade purposes " — one dele- 
 gale meeting cost i,oS8/., — but the "friendly" finance even 
 with this explanation being unexplainable, on the question 
 being put, " Is one purpose of the Society to raise wages 
 and lessen the hours of labour?" he at once replied, 
 " That is it." Mr. William Macdonald, honorary secretary 
 of the Manchester Operative House-Painters' Alliance, em- 
 bracing forty-four towns, gave as the objects of his Union, 
 " the general objects of a Trade Society, combined with an 
 accident and burial society," with little financial reserve for 
 the latter purposes, but with considerable experience in 
 "strikes" and " negotiations with employers" conducted on 
 an exceptionally small weekly subscription of 3*/. during 
 nine months and id. during three months of the year. 
 Mr. Robert Last, general secretary of the Operative House 
 Carpenters' and Joiners' Society, with 150 branches and 
 10.000 members, a yearly income of 15,000/., and a reserve 
 fund of seldom more and sometimes less than 500/ in hand, 
 had no hesitation in saying that while his Society existed 
 both for trade and benefit purposes, its prime object was 
 "to enable the members to resist the encroachments of un- 
 principled employers." Of such encroachments he gave 
 as example a "discharge note" in the Midland counties, 
 
 C
 
 iS THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 which, as may be gathered from the evidence, was a cer- 
 tificate that a workman required to take with him from one 
 employer to another, and may have had some disagreeable 
 incidents. The large annual income and the small reserve 
 fund of this Society would seem to indicate an almost 
 frantic warfare for " trade purposes,"' in which employers as 
 well as workmen may have become much excited. The 
 examination of Mr. Last, ended in a controversy between 
 him and Mr. Applegarth, the more national representative 
 of Carpenters and Joiners, as to the value of foreign 
 " doors " imported into the Midland counties, of which 
 Mr. Applegarth averred that they were good work, and of 
 which Mr. Last, proceeding on what he had inferred from a 
 previous conversation with Mr. Applegarth, maintained the 
 contrary. Though this dispute was settled amicably be- 
 tween the two in a somewhat Pickwickian sense, yet it was 
 not without a certain grave significance ; because if such 
 articles as doors, whether of good or bad quality, should be 
 imported from abroad under the pressure of trade disputes, 
 nothing could prove more certainly that there is a loose 
 screw in the Trade-Union procedure. 
 
 The Royal Commission had not only great difficulty in 
 ascertaining the precise objects of Trade Unions in this 
 inextricable blending of "trade" and "benefit" purposes, 
 but when the "trade" element appeared cltarly from the 
 evidence to be the predominant object of Trade Unions, 
 the difficulty of the Commission became scarcely less to 
 discover what this predominant trade object really implied. 
 
 Mr. Charles Williams, general secretary of the Plasterers' 
 Society, centre in Liverpool, 128 branches, and 8,000 mem- 
 bers, on being asked what the objects of his society were, 
 replied — " Protection of trade, burying of our dead, and 
 relief in case of accident." As there was nothing in this 
 case to show for burial or relief fund, Mr. Thomas Hughes, 
 Member of Commission, appears to have given up further 
 query, and Mr. Roebuck assumed the examination, which, 
 in the concis^st form, was as follows : — 
 
 "What do you mean by "protection of trade?" — Protecting it in the 
 same way as I would protect property.
 
 OBJECTS OF THE UNIONS. IQ 
 
 That explains nothing what do you mean ? -Making the best uf my 
 property I can by all legal means. 
 
 That is protection of property, but what is "protection of trade?"— 
 Simply seeing that there arc no undue encroachments upon it. 
 
 What do you mean by "undue encroachments upon trade ?" — A man 
 taking away from me something he has no fight to. 
 
 But I want t<> know, without illustration, what your property here 
 is? — I have learned a trade, that trade is my capital, and 1 have a 
 right to protect it. 
 
 Is there any capital in labour? — Is there not ? It is my capital. 
 
 Out of this cul-dc-sac there was obviously no escape by 
 further question or answer, the line of catechism having 
 passed by successive leaps, without practical sequence of 
 any kind, from " protection of trade " to " protection of pro- 
 perty," and from that to " protection of capital," in which 
 ultimate position Mr. Williams settled down confidently in 
 the conviction that he and others having learned a trade, 
 were entitled to look upon the trade as their "property" or 
 their " capital," without respect to others engaged in the 
 trade, to the successions of capital and skill invested in the 
 trade, and, in short, to all in the trade who had gone before 
 or might be coming after them. Mr. Frederic Harrison, 
 another Member of Commission, in this dilemma put the 
 question — " Do you mean by ' protecting trade ' maintaining 
 " the old advantages, and endeavouring to acquire new 
 " advantages for the operative plasterers?" To which Mr. 
 Williams readily replied, "Yes, as near as that is possible." 
 
 MR. A. MACDONALD AS TO OBJECTS. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Macdonald, President of the National 
 Miners' Association, and now M.P. for Stafford, admitted 
 that the Colliers' Unions in Scotland were established, as a 
 rule, for trade purposes only. The objects of his National 
 Association were — " First, legislation for the better manage- 
 " merit of mines ; second, compensation from employers for 
 " accidents ; third, assistance to all members and districts 
 '• when unjustly dealt with by employers; fifth, to make the 
 " hours of labour not more than eight in the twenty-four for 
 " all miners in the United Kingdom; sixth, relief allowance 
 " to aged and infirm members, and members permanently 
 
 C 2
 
 20 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 " injured in the mines." Mr. Normansell gave a similar 
 account of the objects of the South Yorkshire Miners' Asso- 
 ciation, "better legislation" and "assisting miners in deal- 
 "ing with their employers, by securing them allowances when 
 " out of work," being at the head of the list. Mr. Macdonald 
 testified that in the Scotch Colliers' Unions the place of the 
 benefit funds in other trade associations had been supplied by 
 workmen having private benefit societies of their own. Mr. 
 William Garner, Secretary of the West Bromwich Millmen's 
 Association, stated the same fact in regard to that body. 
 The proposal to establish "sick-benefit" was quashed, because 
 of the members being connected with other benefit societies. 1 
 To elicit distinctly the objects of the Unions as assumedly 
 reasonable bodies of men, is a matter of the first importance 
 in all that regards the Trade-Union question. The curious 
 and involved mixture of benefit and trade purposes, and the 
 perversion of funds subscribed for definite benefit to indefi- 
 nite trade purposes, form the main source of all the diffi- 
 culty of the Unions, not only among themselves, but as regards 
 the law. Because when the Judges, in any case affecting more 
 especially the finance of the Unions, find that the funds of the 
 association have, of system and with apparent consent, been 
 squandered on purposes not defined in its rules, there is 
 no basis of law or reason on which they can give judgment. 
 The matter wears on its face a form of outlawry, and the 
 parties present themselves in the courts as a congregation of 
 fools and knaves between whom it is impossible to adjudi- 
 cate. How deeply this disorder penetrates the Trade Unions 
 may be seen in the case of the Amalgamated Engineers and 
 the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, which do on a 
 considerable scale carry out their benefit obligations and 
 have very large financial interests at stake to that end, and 
 yet when brought to question through their chief officers de- 
 clare that benefit objects have but a secondary, and that 
 trade objects have the first place in their scheme of action. 
 This equivocation runs in various gradations through all the 
 
 1 Farther on, reference shall have to be made to "question and 
 answer" in the Minutes of Evidence, but for the foregoing see Eleventh 
 and Unal Report of the Royal Commissioners, voL ii.
 
 OBJECTS OF THE UNIONS. 2 1 
 
 Unions till it comes to Mr. Macdonald and the colliers, and 
 there it is honestly confessed that trade objects are the sole 
 objects of the combination. 
 
 FINDING OF THE COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 The Royal Commission in its Report, defines the objects 
 of Trade Unions to be " in general of a twofold character : — 
 " First, those of an ordinary friendly or benefit society; 
 " secondly, those of a trade society proper — viz., to watch 
 " over and promote the interests of the working classes in 
 " the several trades, and especially to protect them against 
 " the undue advantage which the command of a large capital 
 " is supposed by them to give to the employers of labour." 
 But of these twofold objects the Commissioners observe 
 that " the last referred to are, in the great majority of exist- 
 " ing Unions, the main objects of the members in asso- 
 " ciating together ; " and that it has simply been " found 
 " desirable by the promoters of Trade Unions to combine 
 " with these objects the functions of a friendly or benefit 
 " society. Additional members and additional funds are 
 " thus obtained ;" and a stronger hold is acquired over the 
 obedience of the members "to the orders of the Union 
 issued in what it deems the interests of trade" — dis- 
 obedience involving expulsion, and forfeiture of all the 
 benefits to which a member would be entitled, " it may be, 
 " from a long course of subscription, continued with the 
 " very object of securing to himself those benefits.'' This 
 is as strictly accurate a definition of the " Objects of Trade 
 Unions" as can be attained from the evidence of the 
 leaders and chief officers of these bodies themselves ; and 
 there can be little error in the conclusion that to resist 
 reductions of wages, to enforce advances of wages, and to 
 shorten the hours of labour, are the main objects of all 
 the more active and enterprising Trade Societies. Round 
 this stem there is a garnishing of mutual benefit insurance, 
 more or less developed, and more or less cultivated or 
 neglected in the various Unions, but on the whole purely 
 auxiliary and subsidiary to the main designs.
 
 III. 
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 
 
 PIaving cleared up sufficiently the "Objects of Trade Unions," 
 the next step is to inquire into the " Methods" by which the 
 Unions propose to attain, and do endeavour to attain, the 
 purposes for which they are constituted. The objects are 
 twofold — viz., trade objects and mutual benefit objects. 
 But though the latter in many cases are either the only 
 objects set forth, or are given the highest prominence in the 
 constitution of the societies, yet by general admission the 
 trade objects are the principal objects, and substantially the 
 only objects, which the more active Unions care to pursue. 
 In this respect, they require the first attention. The trade 
 objects, as defined from the evidence, are " to resist re- 
 " ductions of wages, to enforce advances of wages, and to 
 " shorten the hours of labour." 1 Besides these, there are 
 many minor objects of trade regulation promoted and en- 
 forced by the rules of the Unions, but generally they are 
 intended to operate towards the three results above-named, 
 and are in themselves mostly of the nature of " methods," 
 or means to an end, and will come up in ample specimen, 
 and in their proper relation, in the course of the subject. 
 
 INVOLUTION OF METHODS. 
 
 What, then, are the methods by which the Trade Unions 
 endeavour " to resist reductions of wages, to enforce advances 
 " of wages, and to shorten the hours of labour," with other 
 objects of the same general and ultimate tenour? The 
 
 1 See Report of the Royal Commissioners, par. 28. The Commis- 
 sioners report that "a further object is to bring about a more equal 
 division of work among members of the trade." Hut this passes into 
 detail, which, however questionable, need not be pressed into the 
 general "trade objects " of the Unions.
 
 METHODS OF l HE UNIONS. 2 3 
 
 Royal Commissioners in their Report define the action of 
 the Unions as of two kinds, viz., direct and indirect— the 
 direct being the strike or the combined demand with strike at 
 the back of it, and the indirect being gradual but systematic 
 attempts (i) to limit the number of workmen employed in 
 any branch of industry, so as " to create a monopoly of 
 labour," and (2) to repress competition among the privileged 
 workmen themselves. The distinctions thus made by the 
 Commissioners are both exact and comprehensive enough 
 to be generally followed in an analysis of the subject. The 
 truth is that there is a p isitive method, recognised and 
 practised by the Unions, of taking a stand for an object, 
 whether it be to resist reduction, or enforce advance of 
 wages, or to shorten the hours of labour, or to accompli ;h 
 one, two, or all three of these objects ; and, if the stand 
 under threat of a strike be not at once successful, of going 
 at once into strike or cessation from labour, whether the 
 sphere may be large or small, local or general, in which the 
 stand has been taken. And there is also a negative method 
 of the Unions, more important even than the positive, because 
 it is more constant, minute, and elaborate, and is preparatory 
 of the positive method, viz., "limiting the number of workmen 
 " in any branch of industry," and " repressing the competi- 
 " tion of the limited number of workmen among them- 
 " selves," as the Royal Commissioners report to her Majesty, 
 yet branching out into such a great variety of minor regula- 
 tions to these ends as the Commissioners could hardly be 
 expected to follow in detail. but, in point of fact, this 
 negative — or restricting, prohibiting, and regulating — method 
 of the Unions cannot be separated by any hard-and-fast line 
 from the positive method of combined demand and strike, 
 because at any point of the long chain of regulations the 
 positive method may be, and in practice is, systematically 
 applied. The discrimination of "direct" and "indirect" 
 methods of the Unions by the Royal Commissioners can only 
 be recognised, therefore, as a didactic distinction. In practice 
 they are completely fused into one. The " direct " is ever 
 ready to come to the assistance of the " indirect " on the 
 smallest scale ; and the "indirect" is always attempting to
 
 24 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 prepare a sphere for the action of the " direct " on a larger 
 scale. Union workmen throw down their tools, and go 
 into strike, because of some breach of Union regulations in 
 a shop or work, which must appear to them and to their 
 councils to be important as some infinitesimal part of a 
 general policy, but which, to all but themselves, appear 
 utterly silly, or, as sometimes happens, utterly noxious. 
 
 DIRECT METHODS SHORT OF STRIKING. 
 
 With this preliminary understanding of what is really im- 
 ported by such terms as "direct and indirect," or other 
 terms, by which the methods of the Trades Unions may be 
 distinguished, it is necessary to advert to a potent form of 
 the " direct " process of the Unions seldom noticed, because 
 it applies for the most part to individual workmen, whether 
 Unionists or non-Unionists, and is generally successful with- 
 out resort to anything so formidable as a combined demand 
 or strike. When a combined demand is made, or a strike 
 is either threatened or takes place, the world hears of it ; 
 but there is a constant direct action of the Unions, with 
 strike in the immediate background, by which individual 
 workmen are injured' or ruined, and employers are over- 
 borne in their sense of right, and in their good feeling 
 towards the victims, of which the world never hears, though 
 such cases may be of weekly occurrence in every workshop 
 or place of employment under Union regulations in the 
 Kingdom. Whatever occurs in this way is the result of 
 Trade-Union bureaucracy, and proceeds silently and un- 
 observed, however cruel and unjust it may be, like the pro- 
 cedure of other bureaucracies. 
 
 On this point take, first, the evidence of the late Mr. 
 Allan, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 
 which must be admitted to be one of the most intelligent 
 and well-disciplined Unions, and in its action may be believed 
 to present the Trade-Union policy in its most reasonable form. 
 To question 787, Mr. Allan replied : " We have no rule 
 " which fixes the rate of weekly wages between the masters
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 25 
 
 •' and the men, but if a member believed that he was not 
 " getting a proper rate of wages, the society would encour- 
 " age him in objecting, that is to say, would pay him his 
 "benefit while out of employment." In other words, the 
 man would be told to strike, and to draw his strike allow- 
 ance in the meanwhile. But as this could not go on for 
 ever in individual cases, on the question being put, sup- 
 posing the man to be willing to work somewhat under the 
 Union scale of wages, rather than live on " strike pay," 
 what then ? Mr. Allan replied, " He would stand a good 
 chance of being excluded." In short, of being dismem- 
 bered, disuniomsed, and bereft, without reason or equity, of 
 all part or lot in his contributions to the friendly funds of the 
 Amalgamated Engineers, in a prior examination, Mr. Allan 
 had said, with respect to the relation of his Union to non- 
 society men and ejected members, that "there are such 
 " things, for example, as not interfering with a man, but at 
 " the same time refusing to speak to him, or hold intercourse 
 " with him. If the party had committed himself in some 
 " way in connection with the trade we should put him into 
 " ' Coventry.' " * The result of which plainly is, that no 
 non-society or excluded society engineer can hope to live or 
 work with any comfort among the truly amalgamated 
 confreres; and that if, as Mr. Allan bore testimony, "from 
 two-thirds to three-fourths are members of the Union," all 
 but the whole trade must be closed against the unhappily ex- 
 cluded third or fourth of its members. This can only be 
 deemed a mild type of the silent and comparatively occult 
 operation of the " direct method " of Unionism, because it 
 is well known to every reader of the newspapers that the 
 presence of a single " black-neb" or "scab " in any place of 
 work is frequently the cause of a cessation of work. Mr. 
 George Smith, of Smith & Taylor, contractors for the new 
 India and Foreign Offices, indicated, from the employers' 
 point of view, the effect upon workmen of this elaborate 
 effort of the Unions to maintain what Mr. Allan (alk-d "a 
 " proper rate of wages" to all in the employment. He says, 2 
 '" One consequence is that when a reduction takes place the 
 1 Q. 628. - 2832-51.
 
 2 6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 " books are gone through, and all men who are incapable of 
 " earning as much as others are picked out and discharged. 
 " The uniform rate thus throws out a vast number of men 
 " who might otherwise be receiving fair wages, and who are, 
 " as it were, a sort of outcasts, who go from shop to shop, 
 '*' and ultimately pass to the workhouse." If a workman in 
 the Union thinks he should have 2s. or 3s. a week more, and 
 the council approves, he may make the claim, and have 15s. 
 out of the funds, much less probably than one-half his actual 
 wages, till he succeeds in the other object. If he should tire of 
 this purgatory, and be disposed to resume work at his old rate 
 of wages, it will be at his peril as a member of the Union, and 
 he will be in danger of being "excluded." This is a form of 
 the case when wages are rather on the rise, and the Union is 
 straining its diplomacy to pull up all its members to a higher 
 and more general uniformity of wages. But, on the other 
 hand, when employment is on the decline, and reductions 
 have to be made, the effect pointed out by Mr. George 
 Smith occurs, and all the less efficient workmen find them- 
 selves at once discharged by their employers, and disbanded 
 by their Unions, outcasts from their trade on both sides, 
 waifs wandering about between shops and the workhouse in 
 the most pitiful helplessness. It is to be conceived, there- 
 fore, that under the fair exterior, even of the Amalgamated 
 Engineers, the bureaucratic operation of that body may be 
 trampling down many members and non-members into 
 pauperism, whose sad fate is never heard of. 
 
 But, proceeding farther into the Union evidence, much 
 more pronounced views are expressed on this point than are 
 to be found in the evidence of the late Mr. Allan. Mr. 
 George Howell, of the bricklayers, for example, on being 
 questioned 1 whether his Union would refuse to work with a 
 non-Union man who was receiving less than the Union rate 
 of wages, replied, " Yes, they would," which means, of course, 
 a throwing down of tools, and a strike. On being reinterro- 
 gated by Mr. Mathews to the same purpose, Mr. Howell 
 adhered firmly to his " Yes." Mr. W. Macdonald, of the 
 Manchester House-Painters' Alliance — a trade in which there 
 
 1 Q. 1744.
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 27 
 
 is scope for much variety of talent, and the competent mem- 
 bers of which appear to have objection to labourers and 
 hobbledehoys being brought in to do even slapdash work- 
 on being asked 1 whether a superior painter, willing to work 
 at lower wages than the society was driving at, would be 
 equally objectionable, replied, " Yes," the same. " We in- 
 terfere with him because he interferes with us. We have as 
 much right to refuse work as he has to work." • The same idea 
 has still cruder forms ; and coming down, for example, to 
 the Colliers' Unions, where the question of wages pursues a 
 mysterious way of its own, and the rate of pay at which it 
 may be the desire or interest of men to work has little or no 
 place, any one "black-nebbing'' is suppressed simply by 
 physical force. But taking the more consolidated Trade 
 Unions, in which constancy of purpose and self-control 
 may be believed most to prevail, and of which the Society of 
 Amalgamated Engineers has been our starting-point, there 
 can manifestly be no correct apprehension of what the 
 Royal Commissioners call the " direct method " of the 
 Unions, without taking into account the daily and habitual 
 exercise of the power of the Unions in the case of indi- 
 vidual workmen, dismembering society men and excluding 
 non-society men to the end of extruding both from the field 
 of labour, which is all the more effective because it is noiseless, 
 and noiseless because it is seldom or never resisted. The 
 battle here is one against a thousand, and the one, of course, 
 falls without a struggle or a cry. The pretexts on which this 
 power is exercised are usually small ; they are often not im- 
 portant enough in any workshop to stir the most combative of 
 employers to resistance ; and the smaller they are the more 
 certain it is that the deputation from the Union, or the 
 simple notice from its Executive Council will succeed. This 
 action of the Unions operates with the steadiness of a 
 machine not only over the general domain of the trades, but 
 in every separate shop or employment of each trade ; and 
 the direct action of the Unions, and its bearing on the 
 interests of the working classes, cannot be understood with- 
 out taking this form of it fully into view. 
 
 1 Q. 2^3-
 
 28 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Mi". Edward Hughes, a deputy from the Master Builders' 
 Association of Liverpool, and a witness before the Royal 
 Commission on the Labour Laws, setting aside the causes of 
 general strikes in the country, gave the following enumera- 
 tion of the grounds of local and sectional strikes in his own 
 trade, which obtain little or no publicity, and may not issue 
 even in strike, but which express demands constantly urged 
 by the Trade-Union bureaucracy with strike as their compell- 
 ing force : — 
 
 (i.) Advance in one degree or other of wages. 
 
 (2.) Reduction of hours. 
 
 (3.) Objection to foremen. 
 
 (4.) Objection to non-Union men. 
 
 (5-) Objection to Union men in arrears to the Union. 
 
 (6.) Objection to work with men receiving extra wages for efficiency, 
 termed " blood-money. " 
 
 (7.) Objection to machine work. 
 
 (8.) Objection to work imported from other districts of the country, 
 such as quarry-worked stone. 
 
 (9.) Objection to machine-made bricks, and bricks made by non- 
 Unionists. 
 
 (10.) Objection to a Clerk of Works taking a plumb-line in his hand 
 to try if a wall be plumb, the Unionists com ending that they have the 
 right to use the plumb-line, and that the Clerk of Works has the right 
 only to look on. 
 
 (II.) Objection to the number of apprentices, and to apprentices not 
 being sons of men in the trade. 
 
 (12.) Objection to having two ladders, one for labourers to ascend, 
 and the other to descend. 
 
 (13.) Objections to piece-work. 
 
 (14.) Refusing to allow tile or brick floors to be laid by any but 
 brick-setters. 
 
 (15.) Objections by labourers to the employer appointing his own 
 foreman. Et cetera. 
 
 One may stop here almost as much aghast as Macbeth, 
 when seeing Banquo's progeny : — 
 
 " Another yet ! A sixteenth ! I'll see no more ! " 
 
 But, looking in the most serious frame at this finicalness 
 of Trade-Union rule, and its intensely explosive power of 
 producing disagreements, strikes, and miseries in petty but
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 20 
 
 infinite detail, is there anything in the whole realm of litera- 
 ture or tradition to be likened to it, unless perchance it may 
 be such undivine interpretations of the Sabbath law as 
 were indulged by the Jewish doctors two thousand years ago? 
 The Rabbis of that time said that the grass must not be 
 walked upon lest it might be bruised, which would be a sort 
 of " thrashing," and that a flea must not be caught while it 
 hops about, since that would obviously be a kind of "hunt- 
 ing ; " and seeing that both thrashing and hunting were 
 contrary to the Sabbath rest, all acts falling under these cate- 
 gories must be contrary to the Divine rule ! 
 
 The more commonly known " direct method " of the 
 Unions — or as the Royal Commissioners say, " what is 
 termed ' strike,' or a simultaneous cessation from work on 
 the part of the workmen " — is familiar enough in its public 
 outlines, and the only necessary observation at this place 
 seems to be that the power of strike, which breaks out in 
 large events of which all can judge, is also a latent power 
 exercised with constant practical effect, and with little public 
 manifestation, in the bureaucracy of the Unions. Strikes, 
 lock-outs, and trade outrages therewith connected, are im- 
 portant enough for a separate chapter. 
 
 INDIRECT METHODS. 
 
 The " indirect methods " of the Unions, the general 
 spirit of which, as expressed by the Royal Commissioners, 
 is " to limit the number of workmen to be employed in any 
 " branch of industry, and to repress competition among the 
 " workmen themselves," branch out into a great variety of 
 minute rules and regulations that may not be exhaustively 
 enumerated, but the effect of all of them is certainly enough, 
 as the Royal Commissioners have reported, " to create " 
 what is termed "a monopoly of labour, with its attendant 
 power to command a higher rate of wages," as well as 
 shorter hours, and other main objects of the Unions. The 
 Union leaders, on the other hand, in their evidence, associate 
 these minute regulations with great moral and social ends, 
 such as the development of a fair amount of work as a
 
 30 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 standard to which both the weaker and stronger workmen 
 should conform and earn the same wages ; the independence 
 of workmen as a body ; the improved health, comfort, and 
 moral habits accruing from this independence. Though it is 
 difficult to discern what connexion there may be between 
 these results and the regulations in question, yet in regard to 
 some of the regulations at least, if not all, one can see that 
 they deal with matters in which working men as a body, and 
 individually, are entitled to concern themselves and to have 
 a voice, but scarcely in the form of absolute rules of labour, 
 or as one section bearing down by force another section of 
 the working body. 
 
 Some of these labour-limiting and anti-competing regula- 
 tions are common to nearly all the Unions. Others are born 
 of particular trades, and reproduce the general purpose in 
 amusing varieties, such as the "anti-chasing rule" among 
 the masons, and the " anti-laying-b ricks- with-two-hands " 
 among the bricklayers. It is absolutely necessary to abridge 
 and generalise remarks on this jungle of Trade-Union regu- 
 lations, and let us begin by dismissing what is the most 
 common regulation of ail, and one sufficiently ascertained, 
 viz., excluding non-Unionists and dismembered Unionists 
 from employment in their trades, so far as they can be 
 excluded, in order to come to such peculiar features of the 
 Trade-Union code as the following : — 
 
 I. LIMITING THE NUMBER OF APPRENTICES. 
 
 The Unions have taken up strong ground on this point, 
 and yet ground that is never quite definite or intelligible. 
 Mr. Allan, of the Amalgamated Engineers, said before the 
 Royal Commission, that " his society set its face against the 
 " employment of apprentices beyond a certain proportion, 
 " to prevent an overplus of labour and to keep wages up." ] 
 But on being asked what the limit was, he said " the nura- 
 " ber of apprentices was not fixed by any rule, was regulated 
 " by trade custom, and depended on the class of work." 2 
 On being further interrogated, Mr. Allan let out a secret 
 
 1 (?• 879-84, 925.9. 2 905-8.
 
 MKTHODS OF THE UNIONS. 3 I 
 
 importing more the spirit of a close corporation than the 
 spirit of a wholesome philanthropic interest in the cause of 
 labour. lie said, " Workmen seek to control the appren- 
 " tice system, because in many establishments they 6nd it 
 
 " difficult to introduce their own sons to the trade as tl 
 " would wish." ' This line of hereditary succession is mo- 
 delled so closely on that of the Peerage, that it is liable, 
 when carried down into all the trades of the country, to 
 infinite complications, and, if it should ever obtain legal 
 force, to suits in Chancery of which there would be neither 
 limit nor solution. Mr. Allan, on being asked whether his 
 society would go so far as certain workmen of Sheffield in 
 not allowing a nephew as an apprentice because his father 
 had not been in the trade, gave a frank negative, and, as his 
 own opinion, thought "such conduct very absurd."- Ap- 
 prentices failing in the direct line from father to son, Mr. 
 Allan was of opinion that collateral heirs ought to be ad- 
 mitted, as in the case of the Crown or the Peerage. Other 
 Union leaders waive any principle of limitation of appren- 
 tices, while admitting that it is a constant method of Trade- 
 Union action. Mr. Richard Harnott, for example, of the 
 Operative Masons, said, that " what is a reasonable number 
 " is left entirely to the discretion of the workmen in each 
 " shop, who complain to the lodge, and the lodge then com- 
 " municates with the employer." 3 Mr. Macdonald, of the 
 Manchester House-Painters' Alliance, said, "an old agree- 
 " ment between employers and workmen was to have one 
 " apprentice to five journeymen, but in fact the number 
 "is now rather below than above the mark."* Mr. John 
 Macdonald, a master brick-builder of Glasgow, said that the 
 action of the workmen's Union with respect to apprentices 
 was a great grievance. "In June, 1865, the workmen re- 
 " solved that no master should employ more than five ap- 
 " prentices, whatever the number of workmen he might 
 '• employ. After remonstrance the limit was extended to 
 " seven, to which the masters have unwillingly submitted." 5 
 Yet Mr. Houseley, general secretary of Operative Brick- 
 
 1 Q. 926. - 928-34. 3 1087. 
 
 4 23 13-2316. 5 346S, 3493-8.
 
 32 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 layers, could say that " the society does not limit the number 
 of apprentices; a few lodges do, but it is not the rule." 1 
 A singular chaos thus exists on a matter of the greatest pos- 
 sible interest between the head and tail, the central under- 
 standing and local self-will and action of the Unions. Mr. 
 Proudfoot, secretary of the Trades' Council of Glasgow, 
 suggests a further idea on the question of apprentices. He 
 says, "it is the journeymen who teach the boys. A master 
 " may have as many apprentices as he likes, but if he wants 
 " them taught he ought to pay for it ; he pays a man wages 
 " for his work, not for teaching apprentices." 2 This remark 
 is valid to show some relation undiscovered by the Unions 
 between the number of journeymen and the number of ap- 
 prentices, but it is quite invalid for Mr. Proudfoot's intention 
 that if a master pays a man for his hour or day's work, he 
 should also pay him over and above for any help or teaching 
 he gives to an apprentice ; because it is quite clear that in 
 so far as a journeyman aids or teaches an apprentice he is 
 detracting so much from the other work for which his em- 
 ployer pays him. Besides, the boy helps him, if he 
 helps the boy. The difficulty is to see how, under views 
 which seem derived from the law of heritable succession on 
 the one hand and from the region of metaphysics on the 
 other, and yet are left wholly indefinite by the Unions them- 
 selves, any boy may be trained to a trade at all. Mr. 
 Macdonald, the master brick-builder of Glasgow, says, "an 
 " apprentice works among men but not under men, who 
 " may, however, direct (and ought, he thinks, to direct) a 
 " boy as to what he should do," at the same time avowing 
 the duty of the master or his foreman as regards the instruc- 
 tion of apprentices, where duty is plainly only another word 
 for interest. 3 But the harmony and co-operation of the 
 journeymen with masters and foremen would seem essential 
 to a comfortable and successful apprenticeship in any trade. 
 One naturally turns on a grave point of this kind to what 
 Mr. George Potter said. Mr. Potter, from his leading posi- 
 tion in the Unionistic body, was repeatedly called, or volun 
 tarily came before the Commission as an interpreter of 
 1 Q. 2009. £ 8049-8058. 3 3670-7.
 
 MF.THODS OF THE UNIONS. 33 
 
 the policy of Trade Unions in its most perfect and cultivated 
 form. But it was a little drawback on anything he said, that 
 Mr. Potter always appeared on these occasions in two cha- 
 racters — as President of the London Working Men's Asso- 
 ciation, and as an humble member of the London Carpenters 
 and Joiners' Society — and that to most questions put to him 
 by the Commissioners he had two voices, one or other of 
 which he selected at his own pleasure. On this question of 
 apprenticeship, Mr. Potter spoke only as the humble London 
 carpenter and joiner, and on that footing his reply was that 
 his society " had no rule limiting the number of apprentices." 
 Mr. Applegarth, a much more authentic representative of 
 the carpenters and joiners of the kingdom, gave the same 
 reply to question 247, but on being asked (248), " Is any 
 " such rule observed in practice?" his reply was, " If there 
 " is any in practice, it is not in the general rules ; but in the 
 " working rules the men put whatever they like into them, 
 " and it rests between them and their employers as to 
 " whether they are adopted.'' The utmost interference of 
 local unions of workmen with the number of apprentices 
 would thus appear to be provided for without any general 
 direction on the subject from the higher sanhedrims. Yet, 
 if this is to be matter of arbitrary regulation at all. the regu- 
 lation would require above most others to proceed on some 
 definite principle. It is clear that every trade, to avert its 
 rapid decline, must bring up apprentices in proportion to the 
 men who emigrate, die, or fall away from it ; and that if the 
 trade be a thriving and extending trade, the number of ap- 
 prentices must be increased in the same ratio, in order to 
 sustain its means of extension. It is enough, however, to 
 have thus pointed out from the evidence that to limit the 
 number of apprentices is one of the " methods " of the 
 Trade Unions, and that the effect, as the intent, of it must 
 be to keep down the supply of qualified labour to the trades. 
 The question of apprenticeship, whether as regards the 
 number of apprentices to be admitted to a trade, or the pro- 
 portion of apprentices to the number of journeymen in a par- 
 ticular shop or work, may not easily be reduced to any fixed 
 arithmetical rule beyond that practically determined by two 
 
 1)
 
 34 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 facts : (i), that employers who over-supply their works with 
 apprentices under any circumstances cannot find their in- 
 terest in that course of procedure ; and (2), that in a trade 
 where wages are rising, and the demand for more labour is 
 steadily increasing, the number of boys seeking to enter 
 such a trade will reasonably be increased, and that it is not 
 the interest of the journeymen in the trade, or of working- 
 class parents, whether of one trade or another, to place any 
 arbitrary arrest on this natural movement. The question, 
 moreover, especially as regards the demand of Union work- 
 men to be paid extra for teaching or allowing apprentices, 
 differs materially in one trade as compared with another, and 
 depends much on the conditions under which work is prac- 
 tically conducted. Where piecework, for example, is the 
 rule, or workmen take out work from employers and are 
 their own masters in the details of its execution, the question 
 of apprenticeship passes under different conditions from 
 those which prevail when men are paid by the hour or 
 the day. Mr. Nasmyth who, like other chiefs of our great 
 engineering establishments, where talent and faculty are of 
 the greatest consequence, was a resolute advocate of piece- 
 work before the Royal Commission, put the question of 
 apprenticeship in the following light : — " When a man," he 
 said, " takes a piece of work on piece-pay, he often stipu- 
 " lates that he shall have two or three boys. The cleverest 
 " boys in the works are picked out, and the men pay these 
 " boys 2S. 6d. a week extra of themselves. It is not the 
 " boy paying the man, but the man paying the boy, and the 
 " effect of that has been to make every boy emulous of 
 " being picked out." * This is the more remarkable since 
 it relates to establishments wholly under the control of em- 
 ployers and their foremen, and does not embrace many 
 examples in the textile, hardware, and other manufactures, 
 where the employer gives out materials of work, and has no 
 direct control over apprentices or the number of apprentices. 
 The Trade Unions may be excused for not having arrived 
 at any definite conclusion on so complex a subject ; but 
 that a " limitation of apprentices " should be sent forth with 
 
 1 (?• 19,319-
 
 METHODS OF THE UNION'S. 35 
 
 the full authority of the Unions over all the trades of the 
 country, must be admitted to be objectionable, and at 
 variance in essential respects with any general improvement 
 of the condition of the working classes. 
 
 2. PIECEWORK. 
 
 To the question, " Has your society any rule against piece- 
 work ? " the Union witnesses gave almost unanimously an 
 affirmative reply. It was evidently a point on which they 
 had fully deliberated, and on which they were prepared to 
 make strong argument. Fines are imposed in some Unions 
 upon members who take piecework, and in many cases 
 piecework has been banished from the shops. Mr. George 
 Howell (Bricklayers) said, "it leads to scamping of work, 
 and ultimately tends to break down wages " ' Mr. Coulson, 
 secretary of the same society, thought " the abolition of 
 " piecework would put an end to dishonourable practices in 
 u executing work."' 2 Mr. Proudfoot said : " Scotch Unions, 
 " as a general rule, discourage piecework by asking men 
 " who take it whether they do not think that if many did 
 " so the price of labour would fall." 3 There was a general 
 testimony on the Union side as to the tendency of piece- 
 work to end in inferior workmanship, and to encourage men 
 to work long or irregular hours, and to fall into bad habits. 
 Mr. Allan (Amalgamated Engineers), after a long cross 
 examination in which he admitted the excellence of the 
 work in the Government and many private piecework estab- 
 lishments, still adhered to his opinion that " as a general 
 " rule the work done on piecework is inferior." * " The 
 " almost total abolition of piecework in certain districts 
 " has ceitainly not had the effect of making the work 
 " worse." l > But this opinion was not borne out from other 
 sources. Mr. Alfred Mault, secretary of the General Builders' 
 Association, while admitting the natural tendency of piece, 
 as of contract work, to depreciate the quality of the work, 
 observed " that this tendency may be guarded against in 
 the selection of men to whom piecework is given," and 
 condemned the interference of the Unions in this matter. 6 
 1 Q. 16S0-5. "- 1552. 3 7999- 4 6?4 . s 733 . e 31S2-9. 
 
 D 2 

 
 36 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, of the renowned Atlas Works at Manchester, 
 could say, " The plan of doing piecework in establishments 
 " like ours has given us such a reputation that we get a 
 " higher price than other firms. It is much easier to check 
 " the quality than the amount of work." Mr. Abram S. 
 Hewitt, an American ironmaster, said that "among the 
 " larger number of mechanics in the United States there is 
 " a preference for piecework ; and in almost all works in 
 " which it is possible to pay by piecework, the rule is to do 
 " so. Had never heard of any objection to piecework from 
 " the Trade Unions." 1 Our Unions are thus either in 
 advance or rear of their American brethren on this point 
 for one ; and it may immediately be a grave question whether 
 our Trade-Union democracy, in falling back on a commu- 
 nistic practice, or the American democracy, in following out 
 its instinct of individual liberty, is more or less in the path 
 of destined progress than the other. Mr. George Potter 
 put the Union argument against piecework in this elevated 
 point of view : — " Piecework should be discountenanced 
 " because it is desirable for the health and vigour of mind 
 " and body to limit the extent of labour to that to which the 
 " human frame is ordinarily adapted ; " 2 and there can be 
 little doubt, to adopt somewhat plainer language, that the 
 Unions are hostile to piecework, mainly because it does not 
 comport with their general system of inducing a limited 
 amount of work to which workmen of all capacities shall 
 conform, the strong or energetic reining back their powers 
 so as to meet the weak or the less willing at some half-way 
 term, that may generally pass as " a fair average amount of 
 work," though the former class should somewhat exceed 
 and the latter fall somewhat short of it. But when a shop 
 or band of workmen are watching each other to see how 
 little they can all do, it is not likely that they will arrive at 
 any great average performance. This, in reality, is a branch 
 of Union action that falls under the category defined by the 
 Royal Commissioners as " repressing competition among the 
 Union workmen themselves," to which end, as shall presently 
 be seen, various other forms of action are pursued. 
 ] Q. 3889-90. 2 320.
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 37 
 
 " CHASING. 
 
 This term, though now, perhaps, more or less obsolete, 
 may be conveniently used for various processes of the 
 Unions to limit the amount of work clone by a given num- 
 ber of men, after the given number of men available has 
 itself been limited by the other processes already adverted 
 to. It appears to have had its origin among the masons, 
 where employers were believed to put strong and skilful 
 men at the head of the scaffold lines as a stimulus to the 
 rest ; in much the same way, it may be supposed, as the best 
 and strongest reapers take the "head rig" in a harvest-field. 
 It was not said that the men who could not keep pace with 
 these lively stonemasons lost any wages, but it was averred 
 that the latter had some extra pay for their " chasing," and 
 that as they were merely breaking the health or the hearts of 
 the other men, they ought to be put down. This object 
 was well-nigh accomplished even in 1867. Mr. Connolly 
 (stonemason) said that "the society's rule as to ' chasing' 
 " was introduced to put a stop to the practice, which is not so 
 "much in vogue at the present time." 1 " Fines are imposed 
 " on members transgressing the rule." " 2 " A member would 
 "refuse to work with a non-society man transgressing the 
 " rule." 3 In point of fact, the same rule is common to many 
 Trade Unions. The members are counselled against doing 
 an amount of work which others may not be able to do, or 
 which may be in excess of the more or less indefinite quan- 
 tity known as " the fair average " ; and this counsel is 
 enforced by discipline and penalties. Mr. Alfred Mault 
 said "the labourers' Unions have also 'chasing' rules," and 
 quoted, as specimens, rules of the Bradford and Leeds 
 Labourers' Unions, the one cautioning members against 
 doing " double the amount of work " required by the 
 Union, and the other limiting to eight the number of bricks 
 to be carried by a labourer. 4 The same witness said there 
 were the most various estimates of a fair day's work among 
 the men themselves — " has known bricklayers varying from 
 300 to 900 bricks." 5 The general facts thus stated being 
 1 Q. 1327. - 1340-1., 3 13SO-3. 4 3120-6 5 3190.
 
 38 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 characteristic, under modified forms, of many of the trades, 
 the only difficulty is to discover a justifiable reason ot 
 such repression of any man's natural power of work, even 
 supposing him working in company with others at a 
 common wage. Mr. George Potter was silent on this sub- 
 ject, but Mr. Richard Harnott (Operative Masons) entered 
 upon it in a philosophical spirit, and his statement was : 
 "The society considers that it knows what amount of work 
 " a man ought to do. A man should not be free to over- 
 " exert himself." 1 This contains a considerable amount of 
 thought, but unfortunately does not in any way satisfy the 
 equity of the case, because the employers, on the enforced 
 terms and principles of the Unions themselves, are paying 
 an average wage, and for this wage are entitled to have all 
 that the men can severally do, what the strong man can do 
 without over-exerting himself, and what the weak man can 
 do without over-exerting himself; — and this contract made, 
 and the average wage arranged, if the Unions proceed to 
 enjoin on all their stronger men to lessen down their work 
 to what the weaker men can do, it is clear that the em- 
 ployers lose one-half their bargain, and for an average wage 
 are in danger of getting only a minimum of work. - 
 
 4. RESTRICTION OF WORKMEN TO PARTICULAR WORK. 
 
 This is another form of the " interior repression " which 
 appears from the Inquiry to have a prevailing play in the 
 rules and practice of the Unions. A stonemason may not 
 
 1 Q. 1215-1289. 
 
 2 " Chasing" among the masons has been incidentally compared in this 
 passage to the "head-rigging" in a harvest field. Trade-Unionists, 
 enamoured of the "anti-chasing" rule, may turn with an agreeable 
 divertisement of their ideas to a description by Allan Cunningham 
 (Life, by Rev. D. Hogg, p. 179) of the last day of a harvest-cutting 
 in which he was himself a leading performer. There was not only the 
 "head-rig" man, but a Highland clan in the centre of the line, who 
 had a pair of bag-pipes blowing to cheer them forward in the work ! 
 Such "Derby-days" of labour must be rare now. The scene of Cunning- 
 ham's account was in the valley of the A,E on the Scottish borders. 
 The name of the place is neither difficult to spell nor to pronounce ; but 
 the episode itself has a deep meaning.
 
 METHODS OF THE UNIONS. 39 
 
 set a brick, or a bricklayer a stone, or either do any portion 
 of the work that belongs to a plasterer, the plasterers them- 
 selves being divided into orders who must not encroach on 
 each other. The labourers attending on Union workmen 
 are for the most part in an extremely bad case, he; 
 dragged on smaller pay through all the internecine quarrels 
 of their superiors, and often left desolate through no fault 
 of their own. The labourers find a questionable relief in 
 organizing a war among themselves in imitation of their 
 superiors. All bricks must be carried in a hod, and no 
 bricks carried in a wheelbarrow, and the number of bricks 
 in a hod must not exceed a limited number. This is the 
 most forbidding aspect in these Trade Union records, be- 
 cause it shows that while the Unionists are at war with 
 employers, with non-Unionists, and with the public, they 
 are no less at war among themselves, £nd recognise in each 
 Other, the nearer they work together, only enemies. 
 
 All this form of Trade-Union action seems in the con- 
 ception of the Unionists themselves to be what may be 
 called a "market-question." That is to say, having fenced 
 off our general market against supply on all sides by such 
 rules as we can, let us now divide our general market into a 
 great number of minute subdivisional markets, fencing off 
 each by rules in the same way, the one against the other. 
 If lobsters happen to be plentiful, as they sometimes are in 
 Billingsgate, they must not be allowed to do service for 
 crabs, which happen to be scarce ; no one who comes for 
 salmon must be allowed to take turbot ; and as for herrings 
 and sprats, they must have no intercommunication whatever 
 in supplying the demand. The same policy has occasion- 
 ally exemplifications in the Stock Exchange ; but it is the 
 device of men who, with little heed of the natural laws and 
 forces in operation around them, are pursuing blindly the 
 spirit of monopoly and "cornering" to its last dregs ; and 
 a similar course applied to the broad field of trade and 
 industry, as the Trade Unions really do and may apply it, 
 can have no good consequences. Nay, but must have the 
 most dismally bad consequences to the working-class 
 interest.
 
 40 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 The general results of this review of the " methods " by 
 which the Trade Unions propose to attain their cardinal ob- 
 ject of always higher wages earned in always shorter time, are 
 these : (i) by a series of elaborate rules to limit the external 
 supply of labour to each trade, and to repress in this in- 
 terior and guarded circle all competition of labour, and 
 freedom of labour to pass from one branch of the trade or 
 trades to another; (2) by force of organisation, with col- 
 lected funds, to declare a strike for higher wages or shorter 
 hours, or both, in the supposably favourable circumstances 
 thus produced ; and (3) to keep this power of " strike " 
 well in hand for the daily and systematic enforcement, under 
 active bureaucratic agency, of "the rules" at all points over 
 the whole sphere.
 
 IY. 
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 
 
 The " strike," or resolution of a society of workmen to 
 cease from labour until their demands be conceded, embo- 
 dies in its most palpable and developed form the " direct 
 action" of the Unions; and though there is a subtle form 
 of this action, as has been seen, much more constantly 
 operative, yet it is desirable to learn from the evidence 
 before the Royal Commission how the public events called 
 " strikes " arise, by what formalities they are decreed, how 
 they are sustained and enforced, and with what results they 
 are usually attended. 
 
 HOW STRIKES ARE RESOLVED UPON. 
 
 Mr. Richard Harnott, secretary of the Friendly Operative 
 Masons, probably gave the most explicit account of the 
 process of the larger Unions in decreeing or authorising a 
 strike. " When any body of members," he said, " wish the 
 " existing arrangements with their employers to be altered, 
 " either by an advance of wages or by a reduction of the 
 " hours of labour, the matter is laid before a branch com- 
 " mittee, then before the central committee, and lastly be- 
 " fore the whole society by means of printed reports, each 
 " member having a right to vote upon the proposition. 
 " When the consent of the society has been obtained in this 
 " way, a notice is given to the employers concerned that 
 " within a given time the desired change will take place ; 
 " and at the end of the specified time, if no arrangement 
 " has been come to, the workmen concerned go out on 
 " strike." 1 In this process ample means would seem to be 
 
 1 Q- 1047-53, "2i.
 
 42 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 provided for careful deliberation, for collecting all the facts 
 bearing on the policy of so serious a step, and for passing 
 the question through various channels of judgment before 
 final decision. The ultimate appeal to the votes of all the 
 members of a Union is not so distinctly put by any of the 
 other witnesses as by Mr. Harnott. Mr. Allan, for example, 
 speaking for the Amalgamated Engineers, said : " Before a 
 ; ' strike can take place the grievance must be brought before 
 " a branch committee, or a district committee if one exist, 
 " and then before the executive council, and the consent of 
 " each body obtained." There is no mention by Mr. Allan 
 of the final appeal to universal suffrage which obtains in 
 Mr. Harnott's Friendly Society of Operative Masons. Mr. 
 Applegarth (Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners) said his 
 " council have power to withhold support from members 
 " on strike who have struck against the decision of the 
 " council." 1 Mr. Williams, general secretary of Operative 
 Plasterers, said : " The rules of the association do not 
 "allow a man or any number of men to cease work unless 
 " 'the authorities' have investigated the affair thoroughly." 2 
 Mr. Coulson, secretary of the Operative Bricklayers, not 
 only covered the whole ground of final appeal to universal 
 suffrage, indicated by Mr. Harnott, before any strike could 
 take place, but made this condition much more strict in its 
 application, though the literal accuracy in this respect of 
 Mr. Coulson's definition may be doubted. The substance 
 of his evidence was that no single member in any district 
 could strike "without the consent of the members of the 
 " whole society, before whom the executive council, after 
 " receiving an application, lay the matter through the 
 " several lodges." 3 
 
 It follows from the whole evidence, that in the larger 
 Unions there is a process of deliberation before a strike 
 can be decreed, and the unanimity with which the Trade 
 Union witnesses before the Royal Commission claimed the 
 honour of having discountenanced and prevented many 
 strikes encourages the idea that there is a growing sense of 
 responsibility among the active and managing members of 
 1 Q- 96-9- s 1S05. 3 1418-21.
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 43 
 
 the Unions as to precipitating events which inflict so much 
 
 misery on the working classes. But nearly the whole value 
 
 of this deliberative and conservative force in the Unions is 
 
 lost when one comes to consider what the same witnesses 
 
 say immediately after they have given these assurances. 
 
 'lake Mr. Harnott, for example, already adduced as having 
 
 given the most explicit account of the deliberative action of 
 
 the Unions, and who yet immediately to questions asked, 
 
 answered that " in cases where attempts are made by em- 
 
 " ployers to reduce wages or increase the hours of labour, to 
 
 " introduce piecework, or to employ non-society men, mem- 
 
 " bers are allowed to strike without obtaining permission from 
 
 " the society, provided a majority of the members of their 
 
 " branch consent.'' 1 The same laxity crops out in Mr. 
 
 Allan's evidence. "A strike," he said, "without the sanc- 
 
 " tion of the ' authorities ' would be held good by them if 
 
 " the circumstances of the case required immediate action." 2 
 
 The account of Mr. Proud fooi, secretary of the Trades' 
 
 Council of Glasgow, was that " the whole association must 
 
 " approve of the strike in some cases j in others a particular 
 
 " branch may strike with a majority of the votes of the 
 
 " members of the branch." 3 As far as can be made out 
 
 from the evidence, the process of the Unions in decreeing 
 
 strikes would seem to be this, viz., that where a decided 
 
 advance in wages or reduction of hours is proposed, the 
 
 question of " strike " in enforcement of the proposition has 
 
 to undergo more or less deliberation, and to pass through 
 
 various ordeals, as the organisation of the several Unions 
 
 may have provided ; but where any reduction of wages, or 
 
 any extension of hours, or any breach of the rules of the 
 
 Union as to piecework, employment of non-society men, 
 
 and other innumerable details embraced in the rules, is 
 
 concerned, there is a free power of strike in every branch 
 
 or shop, and that such strikes will be sanctioned, or cannot 
 
 easily avoid being sanctioned, by what are called " the 
 
 authorities" of the Union. The effect of Trade Unionism 
 
 is thus to overcharge the whole atmosphere of employment 
 
 with an electric force of strike ; and the presiding geniuses 
 
 1 Q. 1117-21. - 708-13. 3 S09S-9.
 
 44 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 who told the Royal Commission how admirably they had 
 kept this electricity under their direction and guidance, may 
 have in reality little more control over it than over the phy- 
 sical electricity of the heavens. The general condition 
 produced is well described, in its essence, by Mr. Robert 
 Last, general secretary of House Carpenters and Joiners. 
 " Minor strikes occur daily, and the strikers, one or more, 
 " against an encroachment on the part of the employer, are 
 " entitled to strike pay." 1 
 
 MR. A. MACDONALD ON THE ORIGIN OF STRIKES. 
 
 Mr. Alex. Macdonald, in giving evidence as to a colliers' 
 strike in the Wigan district, that had issued in serious out- 
 rages and calamities while he was under examination, said 
 the strike was proceeding against his advice, and the advice 
 of Mr. Pickard, the local mining agent, and that " the local 
 " leaders had no more power in the matter than the gentle- 
 " men sitting round the table." 2 The general testimony of 
 Mr. Macdonald on this question was that the evil in such 
 cases came of universal suffrage, and of the men not yield- 
 ing at once to the order of their leaders. The rule of the 
 Miners' Associations in the matter of strikes would appear 
 to be democracy tempered by leaderism, and differs some- 
 what from the republican order of other great Unions, in 
 which there is a certain hierarchy of committees and coun- 
 cils, with deliberation on the part both of the "authorities " 
 and the members. Yet no Trade Union witness more em- 
 phatically asserted the value of strikes to the working classes 
 than Mr. Alex. Macdonald. He came a second time before 
 the Commission only to state that in the whole course of 
 his life he had never known more than one instance in 
 which an advance of wages was not the result of " pressure 
 by combination," and that of all the strikes he had known, 
 nine out of ten had been successful for the workmen — the 
 few exceptions being strikes "resisting a fall of wages occa- 
 sioned by over-production." 3 This line of statement did 
 1 Q. 248-9. 2 15,644. 3 16,332.
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 45 
 
 not sustain well the test of cross-examination, nor would it 
 stand in the light of any close experience before or since. 
 The only fact is that Mr. Macdonald was fully conscious of 
 much improvement in the condition of the miners in his 
 time, and expressed himself, a little careless of any exact 
 analysis of cause and effect, with due warmth on the whole 
 subject. The important query suggested, not alone by what 
 Mr. Macdonald said, but by the general account given to 
 the Commissioners of the origin of strike decrees, is 
 whether it be rational or expedient to confide to the brain 
 of one man, or two or three favoured leaders of multitudes 
 of men who do not always foHow their advice, or even to 
 an executive council or hierarchy, a dictatorship of strikes 
 in any branch of industry? The impression conveyed by 
 the evidence on this vital point is that of an often fatal 
 resolution or impulse breaking forth among the Unionists 
 without check or regulation, or any due estimate of the pro- 
 bable consequences. 
 
 If the Trade Union " authorities " have thus by their own 
 process a too limited control over the declaration of strikes, 
 it follows that they can have little opportunity of judging 
 deliberately beforehand whether the circumstances of the 
 trade be favourable to the demands made in a great majo- 
 rity of " strikes," of guarding their funds against the heavy 
 drains which these struggles so often entail, or of securing 
 that the strike will be conducted, prolonged or ended, and 
 ruled throughout by the prudence and legality which they 
 invariably claim in the evidence for their proceedings. Vet 
 all these conditions as regards strikes are of the last import- 
 ance, both to the interests of the Unions and the interests 
 of the public. 
 
 INFORMATION OF THE UNIONS. 
 
 The Union witnesses before the Royal Commission nearly 
 all asserted the exercise of careful deliberation as regards the 
 favourable or unfavourable circumstances of trade in cases 
 of strike. Mr. Coulson, for example, said, "before an ap- 
 plication can be considered, particulars as to the precise
 
 46 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 " state of trade, &c, are obtained from the lodge." ' The 
 information on which the council deliberates would thus 
 appear to be derived from the parties who are applying for 
 sanction to strike, and for strike pay. All the larger Unions, 
 indeed, keep records of rates of wages, hours, and numbers 
 employed and unemployed, and in their correspondence 
 with the branches must be in possession of much informa- 
 tion that might be utilised to very beneficial ends. The 
 Society of Amalgamated Engineers professes to have full 
 records of this kind. " It has complete cognisance," said 
 Mr. Allan, "of the rates of wages in different parts of 
 England and Scotland ; " 2 and the witness showed that 
 this knowledge was employed in various useful ways. But 
 as regards its application to strikes Mr. Allan became some- 
 what hazy. The society does not take into account the 
 question of competition between employers ; the fact of 
 some firms being prosperous while others are in difficulty 
 does not weigh ; but if there is reason to believe that there 
 is a falling off in general demand, the society would pro- 
 bably refuse to sanction a strike. Mr. Allan, however, 
 declined to explain in detail how the information as to a 
 falling off in demand was obtained, and said " it was gene- 
 rally got from officials in the establishments." 3 Any 
 information the employers could give as to demand or 
 the general state of trade would seem to be eschewed. The 
 disregard of employers is put in the strongest form by Mr. 
 Connolly, of the Operative Stonemasons. " We do not 
 take masters into account at all in our arrangements." 4 
 Making every allowance for the care with which the Union 
 ''authorities" use such information as they possess where an 
 advance of wages or a reduction of hours is contemplated on 
 any determined scale, there is no evidence of such a diag- 
 nosis of the state of the trade, and of the general commercial 
 and monetary conditions by which it is affected, being before 
 them in any case, though in all cases accessible if they sought 
 to obtain it, as would justify the conclusions to which they 
 may come. And even were this otherwise, the sphere over 
 which strikes are allowed to occur through individual or local 
 1 Q. 1418-20. 2 946. 3 948-50. 4 1349.
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 47 
 
 impulses, dragging the Union " authorities ; ' along with them 
 nolens vo/ens, would render any safeguard thus provided of 
 so much less value against the universal strike epidemic. 
 
 PROFIT AND LOSS OF STRIKES. 
 
 The evidence from other sources than the Unions as to 
 the failure, loss of wages and funds, and manifold evils of 
 strikes, would form a volume in itself. But to enter on that 
 side of the question is beside our main purpose, which is to 
 elicit from the Unions themselves what they admit, what the 
 members of the Unions have experienced, and what the true 
 interest of the Union workmen in the case may be. 
 
 The strike pay allowed to Union members falls to the 
 merest weekly pittance, or to nothing, according to the funds 
 available. The highest strike allowance appears to be from 
 ios. to 1 5 j. a week. There is a loss to this amount to the 
 funds of the Union for every member on strike, and there is 
 the much heavier loss to the incomes of the men themselves 
 who are on strike. There is thus a double loss — a loss to 
 the funds of the Union, with a corresponding sacrifice of 
 the beneficial purposes for which the funds have been osten- 
 sibly collected ; and there is a loss of the wages of the men 
 during the period of the strike. In short, the men on strike 
 not only lose their whole wages while the strike continues, 
 but the general body also lose the weekly allowance promised 
 them by the Union, which is their own common fund to rely 
 upon in circumstances of real and unavoidable need. To 
 carry this double loss through all the strikes of the Unions 
 would obviously lead to startling results. But, for illustra- 
 tion, take two leading examples from the Minutes of Evi- 
 dence. The Society of Amalgamated Engineers in six 
 months of 1852, according to the testimony of Mr. Allan. 
 spent 40,000/., or indeed the whole of its funds, in a general 
 struggle with the employers. There were 12,000 members, 
 and taking the wages at the moderate average of 30*. a 
 week, and the whole period of idleness per man at only 
 three months, the Amalgamated Engineers lost on that oc- 
 casion to themselves alone more than a quarter of a million
 
 48 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 of money. The pretext of this waste of resources was the 
 enforcement of two rules, which the Amalgamated Engineers 
 expunged at the end of the strike, though they were in no 
 sense illegal rules, but were simply untenable and impracti- 
 cable at the time. Then there is the memorable struggle of 
 the building trades of London in 1859 for shorter hours, of 
 which Mr. George Potter was a prime mover, and according 
 to whose account to the Royal Commissioners the results 
 were an expenditure of funds, 24,000/., and 30,000 men idle 
 for twenty-six weeks, say at a sacrifice of 30^. per week- 
 total loss to the workmen themselves, i,i94,ooo/. 1 This 
 enormous waste in money alone, and the infinitely more 
 pitiful results to families if they could be collected or even 
 imagined, were endured without even gaining the few hours 
 less per week, and this too at a time when warehousemen, 
 clerks, and factory and other workers were obtaining 
 easily by a more reasonable process the Saturday half- 
 holiday. These, though prominent, are after all but feeble 
 examples of the loss of strikes ; for it is not unusual to 
 find miners' funds of more than a hundred thousand pounds 
 disappearing in a few months, and yet the men left wholly 
 disorganized, many of them unemployed, houseless, and 
 penniless, at the close of the insensate procedure. 
 
 In all cases there are two considerations by which the 
 profit and loss of strikes may be pretty accurately gauged, 
 viz., (1), that the object contended for is either a few hours 
 less work in the week for the same wages, or a halfpenny 
 an hour more of wages per day ; and (2), that even in the 
 instances in which a protracted strike ends in the full object 
 being gained, the advantage thus apparently established in 
 favour of labour is all too inadequate to indemnify the self- 
 inflicted loss of the workmen in the strike-interim during the 
 future working period of their lives. To these considerations 
 has only to be added that any advantage gained by a strike 
 has no real permanence, but may be reduced, and is often 
 reduced in a few months by an adverse turn in the state of the 
 trade, in order to prove with sufficient conclusiveness that the 
 loss of strikes must greatly exceed the profit to the workmen. 
 
 1 Q- 500-15-
 
 STRIKES AN'D LOCKOUTS. 49 
 
 Mr. Applegarth said that in his Society of Amalgamated 
 
 Carpenters and Joiners, "the number of strikes involving a 
 large number of men are about twelve in a year"' — one a 
 month ; and in his account of the fund nearly a third of 
 the whole expenditure of a year arose under one out of three 
 or four rules of strike pay, this one rule being applicable and 
 highly favourable to " officers " on strike. Mr. Allen, Chief- 
 Secretary of the Boilermakers' and Iron Shipbuilders' Society, 
 testified that during the previous four years strikes had cost 
 the Society 5,803/., though they had been all unsuccessful; 
 and that this absorption of the funds had prevented the 
 stipulated payments being made to members of the Union 
 for travelling expenses. -' 
 
 This is a financial question that ought to be chiefly 
 interesting to members of Unions themselves. A thorough 
 balance of profit and loss on strikes would be an extremely 
 valuable document. liut unless the Unionists are at the 
 pains to arrive at this result for themselves, it is not likely 
 that any one shall have the means or will to work out the 
 sum for them, though there can be no doubt of the side of 
 the account on which the balance would be found largely 
 to preponderate. 
 
 CONDUCT OF STRIKES. 
 
 As regards the conduct of strikes when they have been 
 duly declared or simply precipitated, there are three general 
 means available to secure their success, viz., (1) that all the 
 members of the Union in the strike district will loyally cease 
 from labour, which in the usual case can be safely calculated 
 upon ; (2) that other workmen will not go in and take their 
 place, which is not so reliable, and has landed the Unions 
 in a course of tactics forming the qucstio vexata of the whole 
 strike procedure ; and (3) as circumstances may determine, 
 and workmen and employers may alike feel themselves in an 
 awkward dilemma, an appeal to arbitration, which, if effec- 
 tive in any sense at the middle or the end of a struggle, 
 might have been equally effective at the beginning. Mr. 
 
 1 (?■ 54- 3 17542-97. 
 
 E
 
 
 50 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Rupert Kettle, in his evidence before the Royal Commis- 
 sion, divided dealing with strikes by arbitration into three 
 groups. First, cases of disagreement on the terms of a 
 future contract, which are difficult of solution ; second, dis- 
 agreements as to subsisting contracts, which are more easy 
 and may be readily adjusted by this process ; and, third, 
 " disagreement on matters of sentiment, which are much more 
 frequent than those not actually engaged in trade would ex- 
 pect. A foreman differs with a workman, or there is some 
 ebullition of temper on one side or the other ; and this leads 
 to a strike, before the matter calms down." 1 Mr. Edmund 
 Ashworth, Chairman of the Building Committee of Man- 
 chester Assize Courts, who had been acquainted with strikes 
 for forty years, said "he had no faith in any strike resulting 
 satisfactorily by arbitration, the men being governed ex- 
 clusively by their committee." 2 Of course, if strikes 
 frequently occur on disagreements of mere sentiment and 
 petty ebullitions of temper, it may be supposed that the com- 
 mittee or council of the Union, which has had no act or part 
 in the origin of the strike, are as helpless as anybody else 
 in bringing it to a close, and that it remains a matter of 
 sentiment, temper, and sheer physical endurance and sacri- 
 fice to the end. 
 
 PICKETING. 
 
 The chief element of success in strikes, however, to the 
 Unions, apart from the loyal adherence and endurance of 
 their own members, is to warn off and prevent other labour, 
 and to debar employers from doing anything they could 
 hope to do with all the Union forces fairly and wholly 
 withdrawn from the field of labour. The mode of Trade 
 Union action to this end varies much in character and 
 degree. There is the comical mode ; in which the Union- 
 ists surround a body of voluntary workmen coming in by 
 train, give them meat, money, and drink, and get up a jolly 
 fraternal sort of spirit, under which the incoming workmen 
 are packed off by train next morning to where they came 
 from. There is also the tragic mode ; in which a body of 
 1 Q. 6989. 2 4326.
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 5 I 
 
 colliers on strike surround the pit mouths armed with staves, 
 and arc ready to belabour any one who ventures to go down 
 to the work they have deserted. But the official rule of the 
 Unions is to place " pickets "round the works struck against, 
 whose duty is to inform all comers that the works are under 
 strike, and that it would he unbrotherly and indiscreet, if 
 not dangerous, to violate the laws of war thus established. 
 It will be observed that ''picketing" is a term of purely 
 military origin, and that there can be no doubt of the belli- 
 gerency in which it has been coined. The execution of this 
 rule lies on the borderland of a somewhat free esprit de corps 
 to which the Unionists profess a desire to confine it, and of 
 the grossest violence, which the law cannot permit, and 
 which no "Union authority" in many cases is powerful 
 enough to avert. 
 
 The subject of picketing had much attention in the In- 
 quiry of 1867 9, because it happened that while the Com- 
 mission was sitting several unfortunate tailors in London 
 who had carried their operations of this kind much beyond 
 the bounds of moral or social suasion, were convicted of 
 conspiracy and sentenced to severe penalties. Yet " pic- 
 keting " was generally approved and strongly advocated by 
 the Trade-Union witnesses. Mr. George Potter, who can 
 always be trusted to give the most plausible interpretation of 
 Trade-Union policy, said " the means we adopt, of course, 
 " is placing what we call pickets on the job where the men 
 " have struck. We do not object to that because we con- 
 " sider it a legitimate piece of business. The pickets are 
 " selected from the work where the strike is, to suggest to 
 "any man apylying for a job there the advisability "of re- 
 training." 1 It is obvious, from what Mr. Potter says, that 
 close picketing is extended to "a work," and even to "a 
 job" in a work, where there can hardly be any general 
 question of value of labour to vindicate, and where the ruin 
 of an employer may be treated with equal unconcern. There 
 is also much delicacy in Mr. Potter's alleged instruction to 
 the pickets, simply to "suggest" to any one applying for 
 work the " advisability of refraining ; " but, at the same time, 
 
 1 Q. 49i. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 one cannot conceal that under all this delicacy of expression 
 the "advisability of refraining" may imply to the applicant 
 for work every degree of fate, from whether he is to starve, 
 to be hooted out of society, to be cudgelled, to be shot, or 
 otherwise have his live endangered. Mr. Potter's evidence 
 does not in the least help one through the problem of recon- 
 ciling the Unionists' sense of freedom not to work, and the 
 freedom of other equally respectable men to w r ork in their 
 stead. Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, of the United States, told the 
 Royal Commission that " picketing would not be tolerated 
 in his country in the form in which it is practised here;" 1 
 and of recent date the armed forces of the United States 
 have been frequently employed in suppressing what appears 
 to the American Republicans to be so gross an infraction of 
 the right of the citizen and the right of labour. The diffi- 
 culty is to see how this rule of "picketing," contended for 
 by Trade Unions, can be brought in practice within such 
 bounds of moral and all manner of free suasion as to place 
 it under the protection of any principle of law that would 
 hold good in reason and in necessary social equity. The 
 Royal Commission, in its Report, conceded freely the right 
 of workmen to combine, and to resolve to work or not to 
 work, and to give or withhold their labour on whatever terms 
 they pleased, provided the combination should be voluntary, 
 and that "full liberty be left to all other workmen to under- 
 " take the work which the parties combining have refused, 
 "and that no obstruction be placed in the way of the em- 
 ployer resorting elsewhere in search of a supply of labour." 
 But the " picketing " of the Unions stands as an irreconcil- 
 able jar between these two points reached in the Inquiry of 
 1867-9, and in practice is constantly passing into overt forms 
 of coercion and outrage. 
 
 LOCKOUTS. 
 
 "Lock-outs" are attending shadows of "strikes," but 
 shadows that sometimes prove terribly baleful. They are 
 the Unionist power of the employers coming in rear of the 
 
 1 Q- 3952.
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 53 
 
 more developed Unionism of the workmen. The Unions 
 strike against individual employers in the hope of taking 
 them in detail, and drawing resources from some in I 
 interim to accomplish the overthrow of one or two selected 
 victims. The employers, in order to avert this injustice and 
 common danger, have said, "No; when a partial strike is 
 " threatened, let us decree a lock-out, so that the general 
 "interests may be more equitably adjusted." It is an alto- 
 gether unhappy state of affairs ; and this retaliatory war of 
 employers and employed is strongly to be deprecated. 
 There is no free play in it either for the good feeling that 
 ought to subsist between employers and employed, or for 
 the natural laws that will have their own way in the end, let 
 employers or employed do what they please. But it may 
 be observed that the finding of the Royal Commission was 
 that " associations of employers were frequently of a tempo- 
 "rary character, and dissolved as soon as the contest with 
 " the workmen, which had given rise to them, came to an 
 " end." 
 
 TENDENCY OF TRADE-UNION ACTION I'D VIOLENCE. 
 
 The ordinary methods by which the Trade Unions pursue 
 their trade objects cannot be dismissed without observing 
 the extremely narrow and practically undefined line between 
 many of these modes of action and what is simply lawless 
 and unjustifiable personal violence. The Unionists are 
 always hovering between the assertion of their own com- 
 bination rights and dire encroachment on the rights of 
 others ; and there is no law among themselves strong enough 
 to keep them on the safe and only tenable side of the 
 boundary. This is not a question of political economy. 
 The " dismal science " may here be set wholly aside with 
 all the gratification which this dismissal of an important 
 branch of study can give to the Unionists. The effort of 
 associated bodies of workmen, however numerous and well 
 organised, to rise superior in their own advantage to funda- 
 mental principles of trade, production, consumption, money, 
 finance, and foreign exchange, which are not of any man's
 
 54 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 making, and over which neither capitalists nor workmen have 
 the slightest control, is an effort as worthy of common pity 
 as it is a cause of common suffering ; but it does not meet us 
 at this part of the case. The question here is simply one of 
 individual and social right, and whether the Trade Unions, 
 with the most complete freedom of doing with their labour 
 and with themselves whatever they please, can be allowed to 
 hinder or directly injure any but themselves, save in so far 
 as these consequences maybe involved in their own full and 
 proper liberty of action — a large margin on which they hinder 
 and hurt others, by the way, for which there is no remedy of 
 any kind, and which the community must helplessly suffer in 
 proportion as this liberty of action on the part of the Unions 
 may be more or less prudently exercised ? Now, taking the 
 evidence of the Trade-Union witnesses themselves as to the 
 official action of the Unions, it is quite obvious that this 
 action much exceeds what can be accorded to associated 
 bodies, however extensive, with any reasonable or equitable 
 respect to the rights of others not included in their own 
 voluntary membership. It breathes coercion throughout, 
 and this breath passes naturally, and hitherto uncontrollably, 
 into acts of which the law must take cognisance, and must 
 restrain. Hence the history of Trade Unionism has been 
 marked by an ineffaceable trail of outrage, which all have 
 reason to deplore. 
 
 THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RIGHT AND VIOLENCE. 
 
 To show the exact point where the lawful ends and the 
 lawless begins, let us quote a few sentences from the Report 
 of the Royal Commissioners : — ■ 
 
 " With regard to the general question of the right of workmen to 
 combine together for determining and stipulating with their employer 
 the terms on which only they will consent to work for him, we think 
 that, provided the combination be perfectly voluntary, and that full 
 liberty be left to all other workmen to undertake the work 'which the parties 
 combining have refused, and thai no obstruction In: placed in the 7oay of 
 the employer resorting elsavhere in search of a supply of labour, there is 
 no ground of justice or of policy for withholding such a right from the 
 workmen."
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. 55 
 
 The Royal Commissioners thus allowed for the disadvan- 
 tage in which individual workmen, or small bodies of work- 
 men, might be placed in treating with their employer, and 
 held that they were entitled to all the weight which union 
 and numbers could give in their stipulations as to the terms 
 and conditions of their labour. To the extent of this right 
 of association, and its power in the labour market, they 
 could recognise no limit, and advised none, save that the 
 association should be voluntary. " But upon the same prin- 
 ciple," their Report goes on to say — 
 
 " Wo think, whilst conceding to such workmen as desire to exei 
 it an extended right to combine against their employers, especial care 
 should be taken that an equal right be secured to those workmen who 
 desire to keep aloof from the combination, to dispose of their labour 
 with perfect freedom as they severally think fit. The workmen who 
 combine are no more justified in constraining any other workman to 
 combine with them. — to bring his labour into common stock, as it were, 
 with theirs, — than an association of capitalists would he in constraining 
 an individual capitalist to bring his capital into common stock with 
 theirs ; and it is the more important that the law should protect the 
 non-Unionist workman in his right freely to dispose of his labour as 
 he thinks lit, because, standing alone, he is the less able to protect 
 himself.'' 
 
 The same principle which, in the judgment of the Royal 
 Commission, entitled workmen to combine to any extent in 
 order to get rid cf the weakness of treating individually, or 
 in an isolated way, with an employer or employers, entitled 
 any workman outside the combination to the secure protec- 
 tion of the law in disposing of his labour as he thought fit, 
 just in the sense that he was an individual, and was weak 
 and helpless against the combination as an individual work- 
 man would be against the real or imaginary power of an 
 employer. The Royal Commission sought to give to work- 
 men, in disposing of their labour, the fullest power of com- 
 bining that may exist in any other market — money, capital, 
 stocks, or goods — and probably exceeded this measure, 
 becau e however markets may be "ringed," " beset," u fore- 
 stalled," or monopolised, it is doubtful whether combination 
 in any market on the scale accorded to associated workmen 
 would be tolerated. But outside this great power of combi-
 
 56 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 nation, the Royal Commission left the small fringe of liberty, 
 viz., that the combination should not obstruct any one out 
 of its own voluntary membership, who came to buy or sell 
 in the market, to employ or be employed, and that the 
 public force shculd be exerted to protect all who thus came 
 in the exercise of a natural right. This is understood to be 
 the basis of our law as regards Trade Unions, and it is a 
 basis of law to which our Trade Unions are supposed loy- 
 ally to conform. But after the review already taken of the 
 most refined interpretation of the action of the Unions from 
 the mouths of their own leading witnesses, there can be no 
 doubt, on this evidence alone, that the Trade Unions do 
 not conform to their legal foundation in any true sense. It 
 would be scarcely too strong, indeed, to say that the Trade 
 Unions are habitually transgressing the right of non-Union- 
 ists, without a full admission and observance of which, in 
 the deliberate judgment of the Royal Commission, the 
 Unions have no right to exist at all. Putting aside the 
 coercion among the Unionists in their own circles, there 
 remains enough in the ordinary process of a "strike," some- 
 times occurring for no greater purpose than to expel a non- 
 Unionist from employment — with its " picketing," mobbing, 
 and animosity of the " strikers," fermenting to the point of 
 rage against any one crossing their design — to prove that 
 the system pursued by the Unions is a direct infraction of 
 the saving clause, without which the Royal Commission 
 could not see that the Unions had any ground in reason or 
 equity on which to stand. Mr. George Potter, in his philo- 
 sophic view of the question, professed before the Commission 
 that the action of the Unions over other than their own 
 members was confined to "moral suasion," and that all the 
 Union agents and " picketers " were carefully instructed not 
 to exceed " moral suasion." But can the picketers be ex- 
 pected to know, and may they be the sole judges, where 
 "moral suasion" ends and an intimidating and compulsory 
 action over the will of others begins? The recurring trials 
 in the courts not only prove how fallacious it would be to 
 rest the equal rights of her Majesty's subjects on any in- 
 struction of the Unions to their agents and picketers, or any
 
 STRIKES AND LOCKOl I . 57 
 
 discipline they are capable of exerting over a mass of men 
 on strike, but they are also constantly rendering more cl 
 wherein all the misunderstanding consists. Unionists, in a 
 strike, assume that they have of right a monopoly of labour 
 ill the trade or workshops to which the strike is applied, 
 and in the means adopted to enforce this untenable assump- 
 tion there is an inherent coercive quality, which is a severe 
 temptation to the individuals who place themselves through 
 over-zeal, or are placed by pay, in the front of such a battle, 
 and forms in reality a kind of hotbed unavoidably prolific 
 of all the more flagrant outrages that have brought so much 
 disgrace on the Unions, and not on the Unions only, but 
 on the intelligence and morale of the working classes of the 
 kingdom.
 
 THE SHEFFIELD AND MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 
 
 A series of outrages of the most flagrant character in the 
 town ot Sheffield, extending over a period of ten years, had 
 greatly excited public feeling at various dates prior to the 
 appointment of the Royal Commission. The outrages were 
 so abominable and so horrible that the Trade Unions has- 
 tened to disavow and repudiate them in toto as being wholly 
 outside their line of policy. But these avowals did not 
 slacken the tide of outrage in any degree. Within three 
 months after the issue of the Royal Commission it was 
 found necessary to issue a Special Commission to inquire 
 "on oath" (with extraordinary powers of securing witnesses 
 against liability for their own criminal conduct, in so far as 
 they might be found to give true evidence) into acts of 
 intimidation, outrage, or wrong by Trade Unions in Shef- 
 field ; and within three months more the Trade Union 
 outrages in the Manchester district were found to be so for- 
 midable that they could only be dealt with by a Special 
 Commission of the same kind. These special investiga- 
 tions form part and parcel of the Trade Union Inquiry 
 of 1867-9. 
 
 THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES. 
 
 In the Sheffield case the history divulged was briefly this — 
 viz., that the Unions in the exercise of their ordinary dis- 
 cipline of enforcing contributions to their funds, limiting the 
 number of apprentices, and authorising workmen for em- 
 ployment, were in the practice of carrying away the " bands" 
 or " nuts " of the grinding-wheels and other working tools 
 supplied by the employers, stealing the goods in the hands
 
 THE SHEFFIELD AND MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 59 
 
 of workmen, blowing up shops and houses with gunpowder, 
 and shooting with pistol and hall obnoxious persons in the 
 streets ; that the Sawgrinders' Union, of which one William 
 Broad head was secretary, took a leading part in organising 
 these crimes, in which other Unions participated ; that the 
 grinders were always ready to stop working in any case 
 where one or two forgers were in arrears to the Union, or 
 under its ban. and were paid by the Forgers' Union while 
 on strike, and vice versd; that the minor employers in the 
 special industries of Sheffield, men who were workmen 
 themselves and employed or gave out jobs to other work- 
 men, were required to contribute to the funds of the Unions, 
 though denied all benefit or relief from the funds given to 
 other members, or, failing such contributions, had to take 
 the consequence of the outrage discipline ; that a large body 
 of men were kept constantly on "strike pay" out of the 
 contributions thus enforced, and that from among the men 
 thus "on the scale," as it was called, were selected the 
 ruffians employed to perpetrate the annoyances, the abstrac- 
 tion of working gear and tools, thefts, and other deeds of 
 violence against life and property, all essential parts of the 
 discipline; that for every outrage a distinct hire was stipu- 
 lated, and that this hire was paid pro rata out of the funds 
 of the Unions interested in the perpetration of the outrage. 
 There is little need to dilate on these Sheffield outrages, the* 
 horrors of which can never be obliterated. The only pur- 
 pose is by simple analysis to get down to the root of an evil 
 which is far from being extirpated. The notorious Broad- 
 head, in a letter to the Trades Defence Committee of Shef- 
 field, before the Special Commission had come on the field, 
 has left a little record of what seemed to him of the nature 
 of mere floating outrage in the innocent atmosphere around 
 him, which it may be well to quote : — 
 
 "James Linley was once blown up, and twice shot at. He died 
 seven months after this last time, but whether those outrages on Linley 
 were done by Union men or others has never been ascertaine 1. llenry 
 Jackson and Joseph Helliwell were burnt by an explosion <>i powder at 
 two separate times at Tower Wheel. Mr. Joseph Wilson's bouse was 
 also blown up, and there was also the outrage at Russell works, and
 
 60 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the threatening letters to Messrs. Smith and Wheatman. There is also 
 the Hereford Street outrage, which I was nearly forgetting (if it is to be 
 
 attributed to our trade)." 
 
 To the further query of the Trades Defence Committee, 
 Broadhead replied in the same letter, " We are prepared to 
 give evidence upon what we know, but that is very tittle." 
 
 " Non mi ricordo " was thus the style of Broadhead at 
 this pleasant juncture, but it is difficult to believe that the 
 Trades Defence Committee of Sheffield required on any 
 part of the subject a refresher from so lagging a memory. 
 
 Of the process of inquiry pursued in Sheffield a few notes 
 from the examinations will be enough. George or " Putty" 
 Shaw swore : — 
 
 "I saw Mr. Broadhead at the meeting of the society. He was known 
 by the name of ' Smite 'em.' One night, in his house Clarke came to 
 me and asked if we would blow ' Old Topsey ' up. ' Old Topsey ' was 
 Helliwell. Clarke said we could have 3/. for it. I said 'Yes.' He 
 went up stairs to see 'Smite 'em,' and brought down three kegs of 
 powder. I took them to my mother's, and put them between my bed 
 and the mattress. We did not use them all. We put smithy slack into 
 part, and sold two of the kegs to a man named Simmonite, and drank 
 the proceeds at the 'Green Man' and the 'Corner Pin.' We put the 
 remainder of the powder with the smithy slack into Helliwell's trough, 
 above which he worked, and when glazing scattered sparks." 
 
 Poor Helliwell, though not killed by this exploit, was 
 subjected to many weeks of severe suffering. But Clarke 
 and Shaw got their 3/. for an imperfect job from Broadhead. 
 This man himself, when placed at bay as to the repeated 
 attempts on the life of Linley, thus replied : — 
 
 " Am I to understand from you, then, that you did hire Crooks to 
 shoot at Linley in the first instance ? — I regret to say that I did. 
 
 "And did you pay him 20/. for it? — My impression is that it was 
 15/., but I will not be certain about it. 
 
 " Did you hire Crooks and Hallam to shoot at Linley a secoiK 
 time? — Yes. 
 
 " Did you pay to Crooks and Hallam 20/. for the second shooting? — 
 My impression is that it was 15/. on both occasions, but I will not be 
 certain as to the exact amount." 
 
 With respect to the Hereford Street outrage, of whicr 
 Broadhead had only the most distant and forgetful recollec-
 
 THE SHEFFIELD AND MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 6 1 
 
 tion when writing in answer to queries of the Trades 
 Defence Committee of Sheffield, and in which outrage a 
 man, Farnehough, and his whole family, were blown up all 
 but fatally, by an explosion of gunpowder placed in the 
 cellar of their dwelling-house, the Royal Commission had 
 under examination a .Mr. Robert S. Danter, who was sent 
 down along with Mr. ( ieoige Odger under the authority of 
 no less a body than the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 
 to inquire into this great scandal on the whole Trade-Union 
 system. Odger did not appear before the Royal Commis- 
 sion, but the evidence of Danter was that he and Odger 
 reported to the Amalgamated Engineers that Broadhead 
 had no hand at all in the Hereford Street outrage. 1 Broad- 
 head himself, when brought to book, made a much more 
 honest statement ; and the Sheffield Commissioners have 
 recorded in their report, that " Samuel Crooks was hired 
 by Broadhead to commit this outrage," and that the Saw- 
 makers' Society and the Saw-Handle-makers' Society be- 
 tween them found the "blood-money." 
 
 It would be idle to declaim on a code of Unionism that 
 revolted the moral feeling of the civilized world quite as 
 much as the revelation of the murders of Burke and Hare 
 in Edinburgh, or of the secret assassination societies in 
 Ireland, or of " Thuggee " in India, in bygone ages. The 
 substantial question is how great bodies like the Trade 
 Unions, enjoying under the sanction of the law the right of 
 association in its largest form, on the condition that the 
 association shall be voluntary among the members them- 
 selves, and that the association shall not exercise any violence 
 upon any one outside its pale, could happen to be com- 
 promised by acts so immoral and so disgusting, and should 
 remain so insensible to their own interests as that to this 
 day acts of the same kind, though perhaps not so flagrant in 
 organised inveteracy, should be the constant result of Trade 
 Union procedure ? The atmosphere of opinion evolved in 
 the Sheffield examinations is perfectly freezing as regards all 
 sense of right and wrong as between workman and workman, 
 and between workmen and their employers. The policy 
 
 1 (?. 760S.
 
 62 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 leading up to "the outrages" was said by witness after wit- 
 ness to be customary, to have existed even before the Unions 
 in their modern highly developed form existed, to be com- 
 mon to all trades — "the tailors would take away the goose 
 and the sleeve-boards " just as the grinders took away " the 
 bands" and " the nuts " — and that the "outrages," though 
 not desirable, were a natural sort of thing in all the circum- 
 stances, as if the harmless gaffery of a village shopboard were 
 to be the prelude and justification of a nationally organised 
 system of Trade-Union crime. 
 
 Broadhead himself put the idea in its most perfect practi- 
 cal form. " If the law would only give the Unions some 
 power to recover contributions without having recourse to 
 such measures, there would be no more heard of them." 1 
 He had just said a little before that "rattening" might 
 occur in 150 minor questions between the Unions, and not 
 their own members only, but employers and non-Union work- 
 men. 2 It was in default of the law not coming with all its 
 force in execution of the decrees of the Unions that the 
 Unions had to execute their decrees by force in this way for 
 themselves ! Could any confession be more ludicrous if it 
 were not at the same time so horrible ? But the question in 
 its most tragic involutions always reverts to its original and 
 simple form, viz., What conceivable right can Trade-Unions, 
 or any other associations, have to exercise a coercive force, 
 either through the law or without and against the law, save 
 in so far as some coercion of Unions over their own mem- 
 bers may be legally exploited by rules voluntarily adopted 
 among themselves? What right in reason, or under any 
 civilized law, can the Trade Unions, after withdrawing their 
 labours masse from an employer, have to obstruct, interfere, 
 or meddle with any measure of the employer in the dilemma 
 in which by their free right of association they have thus 
 placed him ? Still more, what right can they have to ob- 
 struct or injure non-Union workmen who are not in their 
 membership at all ? Until the Trade Unions have the 
 common sense to perceive in their own interest that this 
 assertion of coercive power is untenable, and until, indeed, 
 1 Q. 13,241. 2 12,157-
 
 THE Sill [MILD AND MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 63 
 
 the laws of the country pin them down firmly to a strict 
 observance of this boundary line, whether they have the 
 common sense to perceive it to be in their own interest 
 or not, outrage will continue to be, as it has been, the con 
 stant and inevitable outcome of the modern Trade-Union 
 action. 
 
 THE MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 
 
 The Manchester outrages differ in little from those of 
 Sheffield. They only bring us among different branches 
 of trade, in which the same common principles of violence 
 are found to prevail. They are quite as bad as the Sheffield 
 outrages in every sense ; fully more destructive, indeed, of 
 life and property than the Sheffield outrages ; and they have 
 a special feature of their own to the effect that the 
 Union monopoly was asserted within given lineal bounds. 
 that one Union came into violent collision with another 
 Union on their respective frontiers, that fathers, sons, and 
 nephews were engaged in destroying each other's property 
 and lives, and that it was a war to the death in a great 
 measure between Unionists themselves and one class of 
 working men and another — the most miserable of all results 
 to which any working-class policy can fall. The outrages 
 in the Manchester district had chiefly arisen among the 
 building trades. Brickmakers and bricklayers were deeply 
 implicated. But the brickmakers' and bricklayers' Unions 
 burnt their books and all accounts of their expenditure as 
 soon as they heard that a Commission of Enquiry was com- 
 ing down. Brickyards were found to have been nightly 
 invaded, tens of thousands of bricks in many cases de- 
 stroyed, needles stuck into the clay to render it unworkable, 
 all the buildings and timber inflamed with torch and liberal 
 libations of naphtha, many horses hamstrung for no other 
 reason than that they had been employed in hauling timber 
 out of one fenced Union district into another, masters and 
 foremen blown up by gunpowder-flasks with fusees thrown 
 through their windows, several policemen and watchmen 
 murdered, and many employers, who were but hard-working
 
 64 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 men themselves, ruined and driven away. The Commis- 
 sioners, in their Report, say — 
 
 " That no act of intimidation or outrage was traceable to any associa- 
 tion of employers, — that all such acts were instigated and sanctioned by 
 the several Unions, — that they were all deliberately planned and exe- 
 cuted in furtherance of a system which had for its object the subjection 
 of both masters and men to the rules of the Union, — and that the 
 largest sum we have found to have been paid for an outrage was 20/." 
 
 In short, all the abomination of the Sheffield outrages in 
 another sphere. 
 
 With what feelings Trade Unionists contemplate such 
 facts as these is a question that must be left to their own 
 consciences. But there are a few points on which their 
 minds may dwell a little. To restrain such frightful out- 
 rages Parliament framed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 
 against which the Unions have protested ever since. Broad- 
 head required that the law should step in and enforce what- 
 ever decree any Union committee, assembled in any back- 
 parlour of any public-house in the kingdom, might pass, in 
 order to save him and others from the irresistible temptation 
 to which they were exposed of hiring men to commit out- 
 rage and murder. It is improbable that this monstrous 
 claim will soon be revived. Yet it has to be borne in mind, 
 as an unavoidable corollary of these Sheffield and Man- 
 chester disclosures, how easily a body of associated work- 
 men, imbued with the idea that their trade belongs to them 
 alone, in a peculiar and emphatic sense, and nursing this 
 idea till it becomes a warm and vital part of their being, 
 may fall into a course of action aggressing upon the rights 
 of others, and, under the keen feelings and all but desperate 
 passions which seem inseparable from such movements, 
 carrying them ever farther away from the only reasonable 
 and the only legal constitution of a Trade Union. The 
 Minutes of Evidence and Report of the Royal Commission 
 on the " Labour Laws," to which we shall have to refer, give 
 more light as to what the Unionists require the law to do 
 for them, and what they forbid the law to do against them. 
 But that there is an impassable limit to legislative conces- 
 sions in this direction must be universally admitted. There
 
 THE SHEFFIELD AM) MANCHESTER OUTRAGES. 65 
 
 can scarce be any Unionist in his sober senses so ill 
 informed as to imagine that this country will be content 
 to be ruled by a Trade Union itnperium in imperio, or that 
 there is not a boundary where the law must say, in the 
 clearest reason, peremptorily to all such associations — 
 " Thus far and no farther ! " The law of the community 
 — the law which regulates and protects the secular rights 
 and interests of all classes, and each person of all classes- 
 must be superior to the law of self-constituted bodies within 
 the community, if there is to be any community at all.
 
 vr. 
 
 CUI BONO? 
 
 The " objects " which Trade Unions propose to accom- 
 plish, and the " methods " by which they endeavour to 
 accomplish these objects being thus ascertained, the sub- 
 ject has arrived at a definite stage, and now passes upon 
 more critical ground. Both the " objects" and the "me- 
 thods " of the Unions have been taken from the evidence 
 of their own authorities, and but little heed has been given 
 in this expository part of the question to the testimony of 
 witnesses on the other side, many of whom were persons of 
 great experience. For the rest, reference has been made to 
 the Report of the Royal Commission itself, to which there 
 were three dissentients — practically, indeed, only two, Mr. 
 Thomas Hughes and Mr. Frederic Harrison, to whose sepa- 
 rate report consideration shall have to be given at a subse- 
 quent stage. Thus far, exception can scarce be taken to 
 anything that has gone before. The preceding chapters 
 give a full and correct outline of the aims, the policy, and 
 the administrative action of the Unions as professed by 
 themselves, with only so much argument and illustration as 
 might serve to suggest to the reader the points at which the 
 Union system may be found to impinge on justice between 
 man and man, on the public and common-weal, on social 
 order and social progress, on interests which the law in the 
 highest conception of equity is bound to preserve, or may 
 even pass into crimes which the law is bound to repress. 
 There now arise, therefore, questions of the gravest import- 
 ance, such as the effect of all this organised combination 
 and activity, as hitherto directed, on trade, on the well-being 
 of the working classes, on the interests of the Unionists
 
 CU1 BONO? 67 
 
 themselves, and the extent to which the law can sanc- 
 tion the systematic procedure of the Unions, and conform 
 by continuous concessions of legal principle to all the 
 demands of the Union leaders. Supposing the result of 
 these and such questions should be adverse to the Unions, 
 there will remain the question by what transformation they 
 may hope under law to carry out their objects more bene- 
 ficially than hitherto to themselves, and less injuriously than 
 hitherto to other people. 
 
 RESUME. 
 
 Before proceeding to this severer ground it may be useful 
 briefly to resume what has already been established, viz. : — 
 
 1. The objects of the Trade Unions are divided between 
 " benefit objects " and " trade objects." 
 
 2. The "benefit objects" are the only constitutionally 
 declared objects of nearly all the Unions, and are the real 
 and chief objects of many Unions that seldom come before 
 the public. 
 
 3. The " trade objects " are the real, though not the con- 
 stitutionally declared, objects of all the more publicly active 
 Unions, their " benefit objects" being subordinate to these, 
 and adopted chiefly for the purpose of raising funds in pro- 
 motion of the "trade objects." 
 
 4. The "trade objects" of the Unions are "to resist 
 " reductions of wages, to enforce advances of wages, and to 
 " shorten the hours of labour." 
 
 5. The " methods " by which the Unions propose to 
 accomplish the " trade objects " are — First, the power of 
 strike, or cessation from labour until the trade demand be 
 conceded, with weekly pay from the funds subscribed for 
 " benefit objects'' to the men on strike; and — Second, within 
 this general method, elaborate codes of working rules, such 
 as to limit and exclude apprentices, to authorise adult work- 
 men to be allowed to work, to repress among authorised 
 workmen any excess of labour in the working hour:-, so that 
 the strongest may not do more than die weakest, to drive 
 away non-authorised or non unionist workmen by unsocial 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 treatment, &rc, in enforcement of all which petty rules the 
 general method of strike may be brought into operation in 
 any place or at any moment. Among other "methods" 
 claimed by the Unionists is that of " picketing" the district, 
 the shop, or the job struck against, and warning off all 
 labour from the prohibited ground. 
 
 6. The "benefit objects" of the Unions are friendly in- 
 surance and mutual help in case of sickness, loss of tools 
 by fire, death, or old age and infirmity. Some of the 
 Unions only insure two o r more of these benefits to their 
 members, and the rate of payment, by which they are sup- 
 posed to be insured, is various ; but in the larger Unions, 
 such as the Amalgamated Engineers and the Amalgamated 
 Carpenters and Joiners, the " benefit objects" embrace all 
 this scale, and in these cases the contributions of the mem- 
 bers, besides some entry-money and fines, are is. per week. 
 The payments, though thus made to insure the benefits to 
 the members, are expended freely on management and 
 trade purposes. 
 
 These are the Union laws both of aim and action, ob- 
 tained from the highest Trade-Union evidence, leaving out 
 everything of a disputable or unaccredited quality. They 
 are the features of Trade Unionism as painted by its chief 
 artists, and there is no reason to doubt the design and 
 ability with which they have laboured to make the features 
 as regular and beautiful as possible. Indeed, no one can 
 follow the details of the system without being impressed by 
 the cleverness with which the Trade-Union policy has been 
 constructed towards given ends, by the great amount of 
 energy and money expended in its administration, and the 
 power as thus elaborated the Unions have, or may have for 
 a time over the trade and well-being of the country. Moles 
 or beavers could not possibly be more active, ingenious, and 
 constructive of their own way of living than the Trade 
 Unionists have been for the last twenty years. The only 
 fault of the process seems to be that it wants atmosphere, 
 eyes, comprehensive understanding, and observation of 
 general causes and effects, that may be at variance with, 
 and at any moment destructive of, the " house at home,"
 
 CUI BONO? (><) 
 
 built and rebuilt with sucli marvellous steadiness of instinrt. 
 The beavers, by no end of labour, gather together their 
 houses in the waters, but the poor creatures cannot be sup 
 posed to know anything of climatic laws, rainfalls, frost, 
 thaws, floods, and droughts in the river, and so find them- 
 selves from time to time seriously disturbed in their opera- 
 tions ; and when their houses are swept clean away, or are 
 left high and dry, they proceed to build again ; and all 
 admire the instinct, the constructive capacity, and the un- 
 wearied industry of the beavers. The same admiration 
 must be fully accorded to Trade Unionists. They ha\ e 
 been busily constructing and reconstructing, for twenty 
 years, an interior system of their own ; they have spent 
 enormous labour and huge amounts of money in their 
 architecture ; great parts of the edifice have fallen down 
 time after time into the floods, but they have proceeded 
 slowly and by still heavier sacrifices to build up again ; and 
 yet their policy throughout, and as it now stands, appears to 
 be not only in antagonism to common law, statute law, and 
 law of common equity among themselves, but, what is still 
 more remarkable, there is not a particle of evidence to the 
 present hour that this beaver-like activity has had the small- 
 est appreciable effect in accomplishing any of their prime 
 objects, either of advancing wages or shortening the hours of 
 labour. 
 
 FAILURE OF "THE OBJECTS" OF THE UNIONS. 
 
 Nothing is more difficult than to discover in the volumi- 
 nous evidence of 1867-9 or l ater facts, any advantage gained 
 to the men by the costly proceedings of their Unions. The 
 failures of strikes, with all their heavy loss of wages and 
 funds, are much more numerous than the partial successes 
 and compromises by which these disastrous events have 
 sometimes been terminated. Thus, Mr. Robinson of the 
 Atlas Works, Manchester, on being asked, 1 " Whether the 
 Unions have substantially altered the rate of wages ? " re - 
 plied, " I think not.'' This witness laid before the Com 
 mission a table of rates of wages paid to all classes of skilled 
 
 1 Q. [8,98a
 
 7 o 
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 workmen in his branch of trade from 1S51 to 1866 1 ; from 
 which it appeared that the advances during that lengthened 
 period were immaterial in all classes save one, the boiler- 
 makers — i.e. "platers," "riveters," and " holders-up "■ — to 
 whom there had been a rise of 6s. upon 24.S-. a week; and this 
 advance Mr. Robinson traced to the rapid extension of iron- 
 shipbuilding and the making of girder-bridges for railways, 
 by which these classes of workmen were enabled to obtain 
 substantial advances of wages from the easy and natural 
 action of demand, without any Union formality, procedure, 
 or expense. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that great efforts by strikes, both 
 on a large and small scale, were not made by the Society of 
 Engineers during this period. There was not only the six 
 months' struggle in 1852, in which Mr. Allen confessed that 
 the Society lost 40,000/. of its funds, and the men had finally 
 to work on the old conditions, but other strikes were con- 
 stantly cropping up the whole time, and placing the skilled 
 labour in the United Kingdom under permanent disad- 
 vantages. Mr. Robinson records the strike of iron-workers 
 in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1864, one result of which 
 
 1 Abridged Table of Average Wages at the Atlas Works to Skilled 
 
 
 Workmen. 
 
 
 
 
 1851. 
 
 1861. 
 
 1866. 
 
 fitters, Erectors, Turners 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 and Borers . 
 
 3ot8j-. 
 
 30-445-. . 
 
 30-56*. 
 
 Grinders 
 
 29 -40 
 
 30- 
 
 30- 
 
 Joiners . 
 
 26-36 
 
 27-22 
 
 28-72 
 
 Patternmakers 
 
 3050 
 
 3o'38 
 
 30-50 
 
 Painters . 
 
 23-25 
 
 2691 
 
 28-91 
 
 Coppersmiths . 
 
 
 29-75 • 
 
 3240 
 
 Planers, Slotters, anc 
 
 
 
 
 Shapers 
 
 19-87 
 
 2I-S6 
 
 21-5 
 
 Brass-moulders 
 
 Piecework. 
 
 31-50 
 
 31-42 
 
 Iron -moulders 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 34-12 
 
 Piecework 
 
 Angle Ironsmiths . 
 
 36" 
 
 35'50 . 
 
 • 38- 
 
 Platers . 
 
 29-66 
 
 33-77 
 
 36- 
 
 Riveters 
 
 2606 
 
 30- 
 
 32-I3 
 
 Holders-up 
 
 23- 
 
 26- 
 
 29- 
 
 Helpers . 
 
 19-50 
 
 18-15 • 
 
 1S12 
 
 Smiths . 
 
 30-27 
 
 31-33 
 
 32-30 
 
 Strikers . 
 
 18-45 
 
 18-96 
 
 1975
 
 ( i I BONO? 7 I 
 
 was that his own linn were driven to import boiler plates 
 from France, as other firms were driven to do from Sweden ; 
 and this importation had continued ever since, the foreign 
 plates of some sizes being much cheaper than the English 
 plates, while the quality was quite equal. A strike broke out 
 in the Chirton Foundry at Manchester (Messrs. Beyer. 
 Peacock, and Co.), employing 1,800 men, in 1866, under 
 one of the most unreasonable pretences ever heard of. It 
 was an umbrage of a small portion of the men — the black- 
 smiths — against a foreman, who was a superior judge of 
 work. The appearance of a •' head-centre " from London on 
 the scene did not improve this silly disturbance. The whole- 
 works were dragged into a protracted and inveterate strike, 
 and the labour wholly stopped till the employers were beaten, 
 the foreman sent away, and the new men who had come 
 forward were dismissed. In this case of successful strike 
 there was no advance of wages in question, and none was 
 gained ; but can it be supposed that great public works may 
 be thus suspended without lessening the demand for labour, 
 and retarding such advances of wages as might otherwise 
 arise ? 
 
 In 1S65 occurred the Brierley Hill strike, embracing the 
 whole iron trade of North and South Staffordshire. The 
 ironmasters of England had given notice, in consequence of 
 the low price of iron, of a reduction of is. a ton in puddlers' 
 and of 10 per cent, in millmens' wages. The Puddlers' Unions 
 at first gave their assent to the reduction, but the result was 
 a general strike, lasting from four to six months, and it was 
 soon discovered that the general Union body were supporting 
 the men on strike. The number of men thrown out of work 
 was more than four times the number of puddlers, who were 
 the only principals in the strike, and the loss to the district 
 was not less than a quarter of a million sterling. Each man 
 on strike was the cause of depriving four other persons of em- 
 ployment. 1 Mr. Bates, owner of one of the largest works in 
 Staffordshire, was compelled to close them finally, and 
 abandon the field. The men, or as many of them at least 
 as could be employed, returned to work at the terms as 
 
 1 Q. 10,567.
 
 72 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 originally arranged and originally agreed to. But the loss to 
 the trade was deep and permanent. " Having stopped our 
 work for six months," said Mr. W. S. Roden to the Com- 
 mission, " we lost a great deal of the trade, which of course 
 " went elsewhere, and which we have never recovered. My 
 "works at present" [Nov. 1867 — two years after the great 
 folly] " are working only three days a week, and have been 
 " working only three or four days a week for months. Had 
 " it not been for the North Staffordshire strike we should 
 " have been practically in full work up to the present time. " l 
 Is there a working man of any intelligence who may not see 
 the insanity of such a mode of advancing wages ? 
 
 The strike and lockout in South Wales last spring is too 
 recent and too deeply impressed on the public mind to re- 
 quire any remark. The total direct loss inflicted was com- 
 puted by Lord Aberdare to be 3,500,000/., whereof the chief 
 share fell on the working people ; and other estimates have 
 placed it even much higher, at four and even five millions 
 sterling. But a million or two of money less or more ap- 
 pears to be of little consequence in these lamentable esca- 
 pades. The struggle in South Wales was followed by a resump- 
 tion of work not only at 2\ per cent, more of a reduction of 
 wages than was offered by the employers, but by a greatly 
 diminished amount of available employment ; and the wick- 
 edness of bringing about by evil counsels such a hideous 
 catastrophe was only aggravated by the hypocritical levity with 
 which the misguided and injured working people were assured 
 that they had come off with a great victory because the em- 
 ployers had been forced to agree that wages in future shall 
 be regulated by some form of arbitration or conciliation. It 
 might no doubt be urged, in similar rhodomontade of miners' 
 agents, that great advances of colliers' wages were obtained 
 in 1872-3 by strikes and by pressure of Union methods. 
 But to balance that account it would be necessary to relate 
 how these advances have been followed by equal reductions 
 in 1874-5. What the Miners' Unions really did in these 
 years was to waste much golden time to themselves and to 
 the country in forcing advances of wages, which in so far as 
 
 1 Q. 10,572-630.
 
 GUI BONO? 73 
 
 they rested on any sustainable basis would have come with- 
 out any wasteful efforts ; and further to waste many more 
 golden hours to themselves and the country a second time 
 in vainly resisting inevitable reductions of all the previous 
 advances. 
 
 But while it is thus clear the Unions cannot permanently 
 advance wages, it might have been supposed that they would 
 have had some success in making wages more uniform in 
 their respective trades over all parts of the kingdom where 
 they exerted any influence. Even this moderate effect, how- 
 ever, cannot be traced to their action in any perceptible 
 degree ; and this is the more striking since the more in- 
 telligent representatives of the Unions, with what seems a 
 dim foresight of a sphere in which Trade Unions might 
 really have a useful and practicable office, dwell on the records 
 they keep of rates of wages in the various districts, and the 
 large amount of attention they give and expense they incur 
 in conveying workmen to places where their work is in 
 large demand, and, it may be presumed, at rising wages. Mr. 
 Alfred Mault, representing on the employers' side the most 
 thoroughly unionised trades probably in,, the kingdom — the 
 general building trades — gives the Royal Commission the 
 following variations of wages at their extremes in England, 
 taking only populous places and centres of active industry : — 
 
 Masons . . . . . Sd. to 3 Id. per hour. 
 
 Bricklayers Sd. to 4^/. ,, 
 
 Carpenters and Joiners . . Sd. to 4^/. ,, 
 
 Plasterers Sd. to 4^. ,, 
 
 Slaters 8^. to 4^. ,, 
 
 Bricklayers' Labourers . . $%d. to 2\d. ,, 
 
 " Wages of Plumbers, Painters, and Glaziers vary just as much as in 
 
 the other trades. " l 
 
 When one reflects on this anomaly it must be perceived 
 to be hardly within the scope or nature of Trade-Unionism, 
 as now constituted and conducted, to equalise wages, or to 
 promote a common well-being of its respective fraternities. 
 The first point, as we have it from the Unionists themselves, 
 is to maintain wages at the highest rate wherever it may be 
 
 1 Q. 3010-5.
 
 74 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 established ; and it is most improbable that the local unions 
 where this highest rate exists would permit the general 
 officers to introduce a multitude of workmen from the lower- 
 paying districts, by which means the highest rate would be 
 reduced. The second point is to try to raise the lower rates 
 of wages by keeping a large number of men on strike, and 
 feeding them out of the common " benefit funds," to which 
 the members of the Union on the lowest scale of wages pay 
 as much as those on the highest. It is thus clear that until 
 the Trade Union policy be completely remodelled, there will 
 not only be no tendency from that source to any greater uni- 
 formity of wages in any particular trade throughout the 
 kingdom, but that the members of the trade working on the 
 lowest scale of wages will always be the most severely 
 fleeced in their contributions to the funds as well as in their 
 actual wages income. 
 
 One of the most marked advances of wages among the 
 older established trades was adduced by Mr. James Wilson, 
 of the General Builders' Association, in the case of the 
 tanners of Leeds, whose wages had risen 10 to 15 per cent. 
 within two or three years, but there were no Unions among 
 the tanners of Leeds. 1 The rise of wages of domestic 
 servants and of farm labourers in the North of England and 
 Scotland, as well as many other classes of work-people 
 among whom there has not been any trace of organised com- 
 bination, greatly exceeds anything that can be shown among 
 the most closely defended Union trades. As for the shorten- 
 ing of hours of labour, this amelioration neither began 
 among the Unions nor has it had among the Unions its 
 most successful results. If nine hours has been enforced by 
 a strike in some cases, as by the building trades of London, 
 it is seen in others, as in Sheffield, that the regulation passes 
 away when found inconsistent with the profitable existence 
 of trade, and that the Unions have as little power by arbi- 
 trary process to shorten hours as to advance wages. 
 
 There is here an important question, deserving the most 
 careful examination by the Unionists themselves. They 
 know the cost of the Unions, they know to what extent the 
 
 1 (?• 4693-4-
 
 CUI BONO? 
 
 75 
 
 wages they do earn are curtailed by the Union procedure am! 
 expenditure; and it is surely the part of prudent men to in- 
 quire what return in advance of wages, or shorter hours, the 
 Unions, in the ample experience of twenty years, has made 
 to them for this cost, and for accumulating liabilities for 
 " benefit objects " which must either break down or be 
 secured by " extra levies." 
 
 THE HIGHER CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 There is one sure enough conclusion, viz., that the Unions, 
 as hitherto conducted, cannot possibly succeed in accom- 
 plishing both their " trade " and their " benefit " objects. If 
 the too inadequate payments for friendly insurance purposes 
 are to be freely appropriated as they have been to manage- 
 ment expenses and out-of-work pay in the pursuance of 
 "trade objects," the "benefit objects " can never by any 
 chance or by any " extra levies " conceivable be fulfilled, 
 and there is no financial insurance of these objects whatever 
 that will bear investigation. In so far as the payments are 
 really made for these " benefit objects," the money might as 
 well be cast into the sea. On the other hand, if the pay- 
 ments of the members are to be put into the bank at interest, 
 and reserved for the discharge of the " benefit objects " 
 separate funds must be formed by another scale of con- 
 tributions for the " trade objects," or the " trade objects " 
 must cease to command the activity and expenditure 
 hitherto so lavishly bestowed upon them with no dis- 
 cernible avail. Of course, if during the last ten or twenty 
 years of activity, expenditure, and turmoil, as appears, the 
 Unions have not advanced their " trade objects " in any 
 compensatory degree, the latter alternative could be adopted 
 with advantage to the members of the Unions ; while, at the 
 same time, the formation of separate funds, by additional 
 contributions, for " trade objects " would simply be adding to 
 the cost of what has hitherto had no profitable return. The 
 plain result is that the Trade Unions have not been attaining 
 either oi their two classes of "objects ;'' the "benefit obja I 
 have been sacrificed to the " trade objects ;" and the visible
 
 7 6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 produce of the " trade objects " has been nil. If this be so, 
 and if on an honest investigation of this subject it must be 
 found that the members of the Trade Unions have so far been 
 simply wronging and heaping up future disappointment to 
 themselves, then all that class of essentially superior consider- 
 ations, viz., the extent to which they have been injuring 
 others, restraining trade, and narrowing employment for 
 themselves and for other working people, and robbing the 
 community by incessant interruptions of labour, when labour 
 has been most in request and most necessary to the general 
 weal and equity, pass into a very clear atmosphere, and are 
 entitled to the highest weight. 
 
 The legal status of the Unions is another part of the 
 subject requiring more radical study than it has yet obtained. 
 The Unionists are not satisfied with their legal position as 
 it stands, and, on the other hand, there are grave reasons to 
 be dissatisfied with the practical lapse of common principles 
 of the law, to the end of covering or winking at all the ex- 
 ploits and tactics of the Unionists. There must be some 
 understanding, for example, of the principle laid down in the 
 Report of the Royal Commissioners that, while conceding 
 in the fullest sense the right of any combination of working 
 men to withdraw their labour, and do with their labour 
 whatever they please, this right of the combination must 
 not be held to interfere with the right of other working men 
 to supply their labour if they should so please ; and that 
 this right is all the more necessary to be protected by the 
 law, inasmuch as it is the natural right of every man, and in 
 the face of a combination must be weak, and requires all the 
 strength the law can give to it. It should be generally 
 understood what this means, and if the meaning be right, it 
 should have potency not only in the councils of the Unions, 
 but in the law itself, and in its practical and efficient admin- 
 istration. Again, it is difficult to conceive the law of this 
 country falling into such degradation as that in the case of 
 an employer of labour, himself under contract, and entering 
 into contract with his workmen, the latter should be at liberty 
 to throw down their tools at any moment under any of the 
 numerous petty disputes that arise under the " working
 
 CUI BONO? 
 
 77 
 
 rules" of the Unions, sanctioned only by themselves, with- 
 out some check upon such conduct, or some effective finan- 
 cial redress to the employer where such conduct is indulged 
 without semblance of excuse. The law of contract, the 
 obligation which an employer owes to his workman and a 
 workman owes to his employer, must be upheld, if the trade 
 of the country is not to fall into general ruin. As for the 
 claims of the Unions to have protection for their funds like 
 insurance societies, these are capable of the most simple and 
 obvious settlement. The Unions have only to adopt a scale 
 of payments fairly adequate to the "benefit objects" in- 
 sured, and to place the payments under secure reserve at 
 interest for these purposes as they arise. But there is a 
 great difficulty in the law sanctioning and protecting funds 
 paid in for certain purposes and spent for quite other pur- 
 poses — or, in other words, sanctioning and protecting what, 
 on its face, is a transparent fraud. These and other legal 
 questions involved in the procedure of the Unions, and in 
 their growing demands for higher privileges and special 
 exemptions from common legal responsibility, are worthy 
 of the most careful consideration ; nor is there any reason to 
 conclude that Parliament, in its oozy and jumbling process 
 of conceding whatever the Unionists demand, has yet arrived 
 at any solution of these questions that will solidify into law, 
 or be the source of anything but future evil. 
 
 And, in fine, it appears necessary that all these Trade- 
 Union matters should be brought to the test of impartial 
 reason, and that some account should be taken of the views 
 of the masters of economic science who have devoted their 
 lives and their genius to the elucidation of this question of 
 labour and the reward of labour; so that partial clubs and 
 associations of working men, however numerous or however 
 animated, may not be for ever butting and wasting them- 
 selves against a blind wall, but may see more clearly the 
 course wherein the interest of the whole working body is 
 most likely to be found.
 
 VII. 
 
 BENEFIT FUNDS AND THEIR APPLICATION. 
 
 The Trade Unions profess to be friendly societies for the 
 insurance of certain benefits to their members on a given 
 scale of weekly payments. They place this part of their 
 business in the forefront of their constitution and rules, and 
 often in the titles they assume, and they make it the foun- 
 dation of claims for legal protection of their funds, as if 
 they were friendly or benefit insurance societies only, and 
 levied and expended their funds wholly to that end. There 
 is no purpose of trade societies more legitimate than this, or 
 by which, faithfully fulfilled, they could hope to exercise a 
 more wholesome influence over the general value of labour, 
 or the well-being of their own members. But it was soon 
 discovered in the Inquiry of 1867-9 that while this was the 
 professed object of Trade Unions, it was in many cases 
 a profession and little more; that the "trade objects," 
 already discussed, were the prime objects of the Union, and 
 that the "benefit objects "were simply a decoy to attract 
 members and funds, and that the funds thus obtained were 
 freely and unlimitedly expended on altogether other pur- 
 poses than those for which they were nominally paid. In 
 other words, the "benefit" part of the system is what, in 
 any other case than that of the Trade Unions, would be 
 pronounced a swindle. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE ACTUARIES. 
 
 The Royal Commission put into the hands of Mr. Fin- 
 laison, actuary to the National Debt Office, the rules and 
 reports of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers ; and Mr.
 
 BENEFIT FUNDS AND THEIR APPLICATION. 79 
 
 Allan, late secretary of that Society, afforded Mr. Finlaison 
 all information he could give towards the solution which the 
 Royal Commission sought of Mr. Finlaison, viz., whether 
 the payments of the members of the Society were sufficient 
 to implement the purposes for which they were made. The 
 Amalgamated Engineers are pre-eminent among Trade 
 Unions, and there can be no doubt that Mr. Finlaison 
 had before him one of the best examples of Trade Union 
 finance that could be produced. Of the Memorandum 
 written by Mr. Finlaison, so fully exhaustive of the subject, 
 it is unnecessary to say more (though its conclusions may 
 have to be reverted to) than that it must be a wonder to any 
 one reading it now in 1876, that so numerous and intelli- 
 gent a body as the engineers should have gone on, for six 
 years, since that weighty and irrefutable document of science 
 and figures was published, without changing their whole 
 system, both of revenue and expenditure. 
 
 It is fairer, on the whole to the Unions to take the case 
 of the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, on which Mr. 
 Tucker, actuary to the Pelican Insurance Company, re- 
 ported ; because, first, it was on that case the examination 
 before the Royal Commission chiefly turned, and the Union 
 leaders brought their utmost defensive evidence ; and, 
 second, because the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners 
 have adopted precisely the same finance rules as the Engi- 
 neers, and being a younger society its funds necessarily 
 present a more favourable temporary aspect. The older a 
 benefit society is, if there is a radical falsity in its finance, it 
 is only so much nearer its inevitable doom. The chief, but 
 yet not all, the purely "benefit" reliefs which the Amalga- 
 mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners promises to its 
 members for a weekly payment of one shilling, are — 
 
 1. An allowance of I2.c per week in sickness. 
 
 2. A superannuation allowance of from &r. to $s. per week according 
 to the duration of membership. 
 
 3. A funeral benefit at death, or divided between death of wife and 
 member, of 12/. 
 
 In order to gauge the sufficiency of one shilling a week 
 for these three purposes alone, some age must be fixed at
 
 80 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 which the superannuation allowance is to begin. There is 
 no limit of age in the rules of the Carpenters and Joiners, 
 only a member must have been twelve years continuously 
 in membership before he be entitled to the minimum super- 
 annuation of 5-r. a week. Mr. Tucker, in this extraordinary 
 vagueness of the tables of a society proposing to secure life 
 benefits of any kind, assumed the liberal limit of 60 years 
 of age at which any superannuation allowance could be due, 
 and on this assumption he found that to secure these three 
 benefits, members entering at various ages would have to 
 pay up to 60 years of age the following sums : — 
 
 At 25 
 
 years 
 
 • ^3 4 
 
 
 
 per 
 
 annum 
 
 >, 3° 
 
 s ) • 
 
 . 4 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 » » 
 
 ,. 35 
 
 ? > • 
 
 . . 5 6 
 
 
 
 
 » > 
 
 ,, 40 
 
 >» • 
 
 6 10 
 
 6 
 
 
 ) » 
 
 ,, 45 
 
 > j ■ 
 
 • 7 14 
 
 6 
 
 
 » » 
 
 Any number of young men, of 25 years of age, and form- 
 ing themselves into a society, and taking only new members 
 at the same age, could not possibly secure these three 
 benefits alone by a payment of is. a week, or 2/. 12s. a 
 year. The whole compact would break down before a 
 majority of them were either dead or superannuated. But 
 if older men, up to any working age, were brought in at the 
 same rate of payment — as the rule of the Engineers', Car- 
 penters and Joiners', and other Trade Unions is — the col- 
 lapse would be all the more rapid. The data of the results 
 thus applied to the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners by 
 Mr. Tucker, require further that every penny of the money 
 paid in and not disbursed for the three benefit purposes 
 named, as they arise, shall be invested and reserved at 3/. $s. 
 per cent, per annum in compound interest; but what did 
 he discover as to the actual employment of the funds of 
 this Society? He had the accounts of 1865 before him, 
 and out of a total income of 10,487/. there had been dis- 
 solved in expenses of management and various disburse- 
 ments, 6,733/. Of these disbursements onlv 1,634/. were 
 paid for sickness, funeral benefits, and superannuations, so 
 that not more than 50 per cent, of the whole income of the
 
 BENEFIT FUNDS AND THEIR APPLICATION. 8 I 
 
 Society from the contributions of the members were paid 
 and reserved from the annual expenditure for these three 
 important benefits, though to secure them fully the whole 
 income would, in the opinion of the actuaries, be all too 
 inadequate. The accounts of 1S66 showed similar results. 
 Out of an expenditure in that year of 11,809/., 2,669/. were 
 appropriated for sick allowances and payments at death, 
 and out of a total income of 16,539/. a surplus of only 
 4,731/. was carried to the fund. Fifty-five per cent, of the 
 whole contributions of the members were consumed on 
 other purposes than those for which they were levied. 
 
 The three benefits named, moreover, though the most 
 important, are not the only benefits of a friendly character 
 professedly assured by the Amalgamated Society of Car- 
 penters and Joiners. There are promised payments in cases 
 of accident, loss of tools, benevolent grants in cases of dis- 
 tress, and towards emigration, of which Mr. Tucker reported 
 that " no provision for them whatever exists in the present 
 contribution of its members." But greatest of all, there is 
 an item of expenditure very obscurely entered in the rules 
 as " donations to members out of work from causes other 
 than sickness,'' which, when inquired into, is found to be no 
 other than the "strike allowance " distributed freely in the 
 case both of individual workmen and of masses of workmen, 
 and forming the real purpose to which the funds are held at 
 all times to be subservient. To show the fearless dissipa- 
 tion of the contributions of the Amalgamated Carpenters and 
 Joiners for sick, funeral, and superannuation benefits on 
 quite other purposes) it is only necessary to present the 
 following analysis of what became of the large income, 
 16,539/. of 1S66 : — 
 
 Trade expenses ("members on strike, &c") 30 per cent. 
 Management expenses . . . .25 ,, 
 
 Benefit paid and reserved .... 45 ,, 
 
 These facts from the accounts of a model Union dispose 
 conclusively of any claim of such societies to be considered 
 insurers of benefits turning upon sickness, death, or super 
 animation, for the money they receive. What appears is 
 
 c.
 
 82 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 simply that certain contributions are levied on false pre- 
 tences of insurance, and that the greater part of the money 
 thus raised is spent on "trade objects," and on "strikes," 
 " donations to members out of work," and other methods of 
 loss and expense by which these objects are attempted to 
 be accomplished. There is nothing to be made out of the 
 reports of the actuaries but this, and one is glad, therefore, 
 to turn from so lamentable a disclosure to what the Union 
 representatives said in defence or palliation of what is prima 
 facie a gross fraud on the working men betrayed into such 
 heavy contributions from their earnings. 
 
 APOLOGIES OF THE UNIONISTS. 
 
 Mr. Applegarth, secretary of the Amalgamated Carpenters 
 and Joiners, on being recalled, frankly admitted that he was 
 "altogether unprepared for this," 1 and begged the Royal 
 Commissioners to understand, in contradiction, as already 
 noted, of what he had stated in his first examination, that 
 his society was " pure and simple a trade society," and that 
 it principally existed for so-called trade purposes, though 
 there were "excellent benefits" in connection with it. This 
 was putting the cart and the horse at least in their proper 
 places, but it was a distinct repudiation of the insurance 
 character and obligation of the Trade Unions ; and nothing 
 more was left to Mr. Applegarth than to adduce any special 
 or general resources on which his Union and others relied 
 as a matter simply of confidence and understanding among 
 their members to keep themselves afloat. Mr. Applegarth 
 and the other Trade Union witnesses said very ably all that 
 could be said on this head. There are three main apologies 
 in their evidence for the perversion disclosed by the actuaries 
 in the expenditure of their benefit funds. 
 
 (i.) It was alleged that the funds of the Unions gain 
 much by the large number of their members who are annu- 
 ally cut off for non-payment or some other offence, and who 
 leave in the Union all they have previously contributed. 
 " We excluded last year," said Mr. Applegarth, from the 
 
 1 Q- 6539-
 
 Bl \F1 II FUNDS AND THF.IR APPLICATION. 83 
 
 Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, "1,000 and d ,] 
 
 members. Now we should have a profit from those members 
 of 2,000/., or perhaps more even than that." A full sixth of 
 th,e members would appear to be cut off every year. This 
 failure or secession of members is a source of some profit in 
 all friendly and insurance societies; and in the hands of the 
 Trade Unions, with absolute powers of " exclusion," profit 
 from this source may be greater than in other societies ; but 
 this profit cannot improve substantially, on insurance prin- 
 ciples, the/unds of the Unions, for the obvious reason that 
 the excluded members can rejoin, after a lapse of years, 
 under the same or nearly same rate of contribution as 
 when they were much younger men. Mr. Applegarth said 
 it was customary for members of his society to be excluded 
 and readmitted three or four times. But there is no gain 
 as he seemed to think, to the permanent funds of the Union 
 from this source, save in a fictitious grabbing, from year to 
 year, of money contributed by excluded members, more than 
 lost already by the fact that these excluded members have 
 ceased in t le interim to pay their weekly contributions, and 
 may rejoin the society at any future period of their lives on 
 much the same scale of contributions as at the first. The 
 only sure inference from this apology is, that a large pro- 
 portion of Trade Union members are wasting, in the hey- 
 day of their years, large sums of money without in reality 
 assuring themselves of any benefit whatever; and that the 
 Union "authorities" are under a most dangerous tempta- 
 tion, as members advance in years, to set aside their 
 counsels and their interests, and to exclude them on 
 arbitrary pretences from the society in order to relieve the 
 fund, in which they have the largest stake. 
 
 (2.) It was apologised by Mr. Applegarth that there are 
 various sources of income to Trade Unions which the 
 actuaries had not taken into account. There are some 
 entrance fees, and there are threepenny and sixpenny fines 
 on members for being six or eight weeks in arrear ; and 
 there are, no doubt, many other small fiscal exactions which 
 weigh on the wages of working members of the Union, and 
 which might go to lessen in some small degree the burden 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 of "management expenses." These in the Amalgamated 
 .Society of Carpenters and Joiners appear from above-given 
 figures to be 25 per cent, of the whole gross income. Mr. 
 Applegarth said, in respect to this dead weight of manage- 
 ment expense, that there was really a direct profit to his 
 Society from some parts of it, of which he instanced print- 
 ing and publications. For every copy of rules, for example, 
 the members paid threepence each, and for monthly reports 
 a penny each, and on all this there was a large profit to the 
 Union. This adds a new burden to the members that is 
 not in the contract, and surely Mr. Applegarth is intelligent 
 enough to see that the whole profit from these printing 
 operations goes, or ought to go, into the gross annual income 
 of his Society, and that as 55 per cent, of this gross income 
 is squandered in purposes wholly different from the sick, 
 funeral, and superannuation benefits for which die members 
 pay their ordinary one shilling a week, any overcharges for 
 entrance fees, fines, and prices for printed documents, only 
 prove how much more dearly to the members the whole 
 financial base of his Society is being consumed. 
 
 (3.) It was contended by the Trade-Union witnesses that 
 they had a resource in extraordinary levies on their mem- 
 bers, which was sufficient to cover any deficiency that 
 could arise in their funds. The general idea of the Union 
 secretaries examined was, that if they had only a few thou- 
 sand pounds in the bank, and the sum was not deemed 
 sufficient to carry them over the year, they had only to 
 announce an extra levy, and it would be paid ; and that 
 what the total liabilities of a society to its members might 
 be was a matter of little or no concern ! Mr. Applegarth 
 put this resource of extra levies in the strongest possible 
 point of view. His Union was not only ready to pay at 
 once whatever extra levies might be necessary to fulfil its 
 obligations to its own members, but was ready cheerfully to 
 pay any extra levy necessary to help other Unions in the 
 same direction. Talk of this kind, of course, is rather 
 wild, and has broken into froth a hundred -.times over in the 
 history of Trade Unions. But the actual state of the case 
 will be best seen from what Mr. Finlajson and Mr. Tucker
 
 BENEFIT FUNDS ANH THEIR APPLICATION. 85 
 
 found the deficiency of the funds of the Amalgamated En- 
 gineers ami the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners to be 
 in 1867, and which the intervening years, on the system 
 pursued, can only have increased. 
 
 DEFICIT OF FUNDS IN 1 866. 
 
 Mr. Finlaison, valuing the three great benefit insurances 
 of the Amalgamated Engineers in the ordinary way applied 
 to Friendly Societies, found these liabilities of the Union to 
 be 2,553,715/.; and valuing in the same way the whole 
 assets of the Union — the contributions of its 33,000 mem- 
 bers until 60 years of age, the reserved money in hand 
 138,113/., and all the arrears due— he found the total value 
 of assets to be 1,367,042/., and the deficiency of the funds 
 in 1867 to be thus no less than 1,186,673/. By a further 
 analysis, in which he took into account, in the most patient 
 and skilful spirit, the effect of secession or " excluded mem- 
 bers," and other exceptional elements in the case of Trade 
 Unions insisted upon by Mr. Allan, Mr. Applegarth, and 
 others, Mr. Finlaison finally reduced the deficiency of the 
 assets of the Amalgamated Engineers on the three benefit 
 insurances alone to 453,930/., — to which had to be added on 
 the principles of expenditure proceeding in the Union a 
 liability for "donations to members out of employ" of 
 547,042/ — making a total uncovered liability of 1,000,972/., 
 for which there was no provision save by extraordinary 
 levies. The amount of extraordinary levy due by the 
 Amalgamated Engineers to carry out their expenditure and 
 assure their promised "benefits" was thus, in point of fact, 
 30/. io.f. per member as far back even as 1867. Mr. Finlai- 
 son's most reduced estimate of the deficiency of the Amalga- 
 mated Carpenters and Joiners on the three benefits was 
 46,414/., and on "donations to members out of employ " a 
 future charge in present amount of 155,094/. — a total visible 
 deficiency of 201,508/., requiring an extraordinary levy of 
 
 33^- 9 s - P er member. 
 
 Mr. Tucker, by a less exhaustive process than that of Mr. 
 Finlaison, found the deficiency liability of the Carpenters
 
 86 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 and Joiners to be 85,408/., for which there was only a fund 
 in hand of 13,052/. ; but in seven past years 9,840/. had 
 been spent for other purposes than the insurance, and, with- 
 out reckoning interest, the fund in hand might have been 
 2 2. 892/. Mr. Tucker's estimate of the deficiency liability of 
 the Engineers, making large assumptions in favour of the 
 Society, as in the case of the Carpenters and Joiners, was 
 679.734/., against which there was a fund in hand of 
 138,113/. But the Society, he found, had spent in sixteen 
 years, for extraneous purposes, 334,648/. ; so that again, 
 without reckoning interest, the funds in hand might have 
 been 472,761/., which is about exactly the same sum as Mr. 
 Finlaison found that the Amalgamated Engineers by an ex- 
 traordinary and specially reserved levy could have pro- 
 ceeded in 1867 to place the " three benefits " in an assured 
 form. That extra levies of this heavy amount can be made 
 on the members of Trade Unions must be set aside as 
 wholly impracticable. There is nothing in the rules of the 
 Unions that could be construed in a court of equity as an 
 obligation to pay such levies even if the members had the 
 means ; and no extra levy can be declared within the Union 
 itself until carried by a majority of votes. The only extra 
 payment likely to be submitted to is one designed to tide 
 over some emergency of a few months or a year ; and as such 
 levies increase, as they must increase in the most powerful 
 and most business-like Unions from the pressure of their 
 " benefit " engagements, there is a point when the extra 
 levies will be so heavy that everyone, save the older men 
 clinging to the provision which they had fondly laid up 
 against infirmity and the workhouse, will find that it is 
 better to be out of the Union than in it, and when the 
 system must fall. 
 
 Examples of the breaking-up of Unions from this cause 
 are by no means rare. The large accumulated funds that 
 have been dissipated time after time by the Amalgamated 
 Miners and other fighting Unions, leaving the patient con- 
 tributors bare of any means of support in their extremity, 
 only to be harangued and urged by their leaders to begin 
 anew the self-denying task of weekly contributions, destined
 
 BENEFIT EUNDS AND THEIR APPLICATION. 87 
 
 to go the same bad road as all preceding contributions, 
 would form an enormous per contra to any advantages re- 
 alised by the men, and exhibit an appalling waste of one of 
 the most sacred of all funds — the working man's savings and 
 capital. Oil the other hand, there are humbler and quieter 
 Unions that succeed by a more regulated action, and a 
 better system of accounts, in distributing a tolerably secure 
 amount of relief among their members. In one case that 
 came prominently before the Royal Commission of 1867-9 
 — the " Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons, ' repre- 
 sented by Mr. Richard Harnott, secretary — the Union had 
 adopted the rule of separating their payments for "trade " 
 and " benefit " purposes. One portion of the members paid 
 4</. a week for trade benefits only, and another portion 
 paid 7.V. a week for sick and other friendly allowances super- 
 added to the trade benefits. This separation of funds for 
 totally distinct purposes marks a degree of good sense very 
 rare among the Unions that figure actively on the public 
 stage; and yet it was almost wholly vitiated in this case by 
 the fact that the trade and benefit funds were after all not 
 kept separate in the expenditure, but formed a common 
 fund. 1 The haphazard course of the large fighting Unions 
 has a tendency to beguile the smaller and ordinarily less 
 bellicose Unions into an unsound system of finance. But the 
 Amalgamated Engineers and the Amalgamated Carpenters 
 and Joiners stand in some measure apart. They are among 
 the largest and the most consolidated Unions in the king- 
 dom : they have not, for a few years at least, been involved 
 in the unceasing warfare of strikes and lock-outs on a heroic 
 scale which appears to be the lot of the various amalgama- 
 tions of miners ; and there is probably a growing sense of 
 financial responsibility, both among their members and their 
 officers, which preserves them from being swayed by balloon 
 experiments from their own centre of gravity. At any rate, 
 there can be no more favourable test of Trade Union finance, 
 or of the degree of wisdom with which pounds, shillings, and 
 pence are managed in Trade-Union affairs, than is afforded 
 by the accounts of these two great Societies. 
 
 1 Q. 1052- 1 135.
 
 SS THE TRADE* UNIONS. 
 
 Now, the general fact to be observed of the funds of the 
 Amalgamated Engineers and the Amalgamated Carpenters 
 and Joiners is that from 50 to 55 per cent, of the contribu- 
 tion of one shilling per week from the members was being 
 consumed every year on other purposes than those for which 
 the contributions were paid. In this annually-expended 
 moiety of the contributions of the members there was a 
 small modicum that went to the sick, funeral and superannua- 
 tion allowances for which the contributions were made. In 
 the case of the Carpenters and Joiners this modicum was 
 1,634/. in 1865, and it was 2,669/. m T ^66 ; and in the 
 natural course this demand of the members on the fund for 
 the benefit allowances for which they stipulated must on an 
 average of years constantly increase. Supposing even the 
 " trade " and " management " expenses not to increase, 
 though they are by far the most lively parts of the expenditure, 
 this annually increasing demand of the members for benefit 
 allowances must produce a pressure on the funds which they 
 will be eventually unable to sustain. Let it be kept in mind 
 that the estimate of the actuaries is that the whole con- 
 tribution of the members, though reserved from year to year 
 at interest, and drawn upon only for the benefit stipulations, 
 with all trade objects and management expenses eliminated, 
 would be barely adequate. The apologies offered do not 
 meet this financial exigency in any degree. There is no doubt 
 a great esprit de corps among Trade Unionists that makes 
 them somewhat regardless of expense. They may not care 
 much for the " benefit objects " to which they subscribe, and 
 may be happy in thinking that meanwhile they are throwing 
 vigour into the great struggle with their employers. But as 
 they grow older, and fall into sickness, and have children 
 and wives to bury, and become old and infirm, they will 
 reasonably enough look for the reliefs for which they have 
 paid, and shall certainly have been grievously wronged, and 
 miserably disappointed, if they do not receive them.
 
 VIII. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 
 
 It might be safely inferred from the rules and action of 
 the Unions, as these have been given from their chief inter- 
 preters and apologists, that they could have no good effect 
 upon trade, but the contrary. 
 
 Set aside all unlawful violence, all acts of outrage, already 
 fully or half discarded by the Unionists, and there remain 
 certain permanent features of the Union policy. The sys- 
 tematic interference administered with compulsory power 
 of strike, not only over employers in the conduct of their 
 business, but over working men in the disposal of their 
 labour— the frequent interruptions and withdrawals of labour, 
 whether on a large or small scale equally arbitrary — and the 
 constant effort to limit the supply of labour in each trade 
 and each division of a trade, and to limit it most in the 
 prosperous and expanding times that revisit nearly all trades, 
 when, in order to secure the new ground, the supply of 
 labour should be most amply increased — are equally acknow- 
 ledged official Union operations, of which no one, accustomed 
 to think and reason, can doubt the bad effects in impeding 
 trade, in spreading social injustice, and in narrowing the 
 sphere of employment and wages, from the enlargement of 
 which all the prosperity of the working classes must come. 
 They reproduce, indeed, in these enlightened and civilized 
 days, a new form of the old feudal abuses and predatory 
 obstructions against which our ancestors fought so stoutly 
 under the name of "restraint of trade," and for which they 
 found a remedy in the resources of the common law. A free 
 course had to be made for trade in England from the earliest
 
 OO THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 periods of our history — free passage on our highways, free 
 and open markets for goods and staples, no monopolising, 
 no obstruction to the common freedom necessary to each 
 and all — even free light, air, and water to all and each ; and 
 no one, whatever his mastery or possession, to obstruct or 
 injure another in what was a common and natural right of 
 everybody. Much of this ancient difficulty has been re- 
 moved, and the principle of law elicited in the long struggle 
 has been too well established to be wholly lost. But now 
 appear on the scene the Trade Unions, under whose self- 
 made codes almost every section of the highly organised 
 industry and trade of this country is found to be barred 
 and hindered in its free and legitimate course to an extent 
 of which there is probably no parallel in the most bar- 
 barous times. It is thus the old fight on the same ground, 
 but under new circumstances; and no rational person can 
 doubt that in this intricate policy of the Unions, in so far 
 as it is policy in action, there is an exquisite but yet rude re- 
 vival of the old contention in this country that there must 
 be no obstruction, under whatever cloud of authority veiled, 
 to common right. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 
 
 This important question, however, may not be dismissed 
 on a general inference, however certain and apparent. The 
 Report of the Royal Commission dealt somewhat gingerly 
 with the " effects of Trade Unions on trade," not that there 
 was any want of evidence before the Commission on this 
 point, but probably in 1867-9, when stocks and values of 
 goods, and the markets for them, were all in a regular and 
 progressive form, it did not appear to be of urgent moment, 
 and the Commission may have declined to report more than 
 was enough for the occasion. The moving cause of the 
 inquiry was the terrible outbreak of Trade Union outrages 
 in Sheffield. It was necessary to call the Unions to account, 
 and to see what raison d'etre they could establish under the 
 law. The Trade Unions demanded this inquest; and so 
 the apologetic strain of the Unions bulked largely in the
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. <j I 
 
 evidence throughout, and was the main burden of the Com- 
 mission. 
 
 The Report simply concluded, therefore, on this substan- 
 tial part of the case :— (i) That in respect of industries in 
 which foreign competition does not enter, " the operations 
 " of Trade Unions may have tended to enhance, of late 
 " years, the cost of production," and that "there is nothing, 
 " a priori, to prevent the operation of Trade Unions from 
 " raising the cost of commodities until the rise is checked 
 " by the diminution of consumption." And (2) that, in re- 
 spect of industries in which foreign competition does enter, 
 '• we have been unable to arrive at any very definite solution 
 " of the problem whether or not Trade Unions have had, of 
 " late years, a mischievous operation in this direction ; . . . 
 " and taking the returns of our export trade during the last 
 " few years, we cannot state that we have traced any distinct 
 '' connection between its fluctuations in particular employ - 
 " ments, and the prevalence of Trade Unions in those em- 
 " ployments." 
 
 Of course, this is a feeble and inadequate deliverance. 
 Jiut we, who have had six years' more experience, must not 
 complain that the Royal Commissioners did not know as 
 much as may be known to us all now. Yet before proceed- 
 ing to what may be considered a demonstration of the effects 
 of Union action on trade, it may be useful to glance at some 
 of the evidence that was before the Commission on this part 
 of the question. 
 
 EVIDENCE ON THE BUILDING TRADES. 
 
 The building trades are probably as fair a sample of trade 
 exempt from foreign competition as can be chosen. Though 
 there have been some instances of importing foreign doors 
 and windows, yet the erection of houses is an essentially 
 domestic industry. Let all reference to the disgraceful pro- 
 ceedings of the bricklayers' and brickmakers' Unions at 
 Manchester, involving district monopolies, exclusion of 
 machine-made bricks, and war to the knife in night burnings
 
 92 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 and assassinations, more like the state of life among Red 
 Indians than civilized beings, be here wholly excluded from 
 view, and let attention be confined to the effect of the 
 most ordinary and approved rules of the Trade Societies. 
 
 Mr. G. F. Trollope, of Messrs. George Trollope and Sons, 
 builders, said : — 
 
 " With regard to the amount of work men will do within a given 
 time, things have been getting worse and worse. The men have a theory 
 that, if there is work for three men to be done, they are doing their 
 cause a service if they can somehow scheme it that four men shall be 
 employed, and hold that it does not concern the employer, who has 
 only to put a profit on what he pays to his men, whether the work is 
 done quickly or not. This is a most unrighteous state of things." l 
 
 It will be observed that there is no question here of rais- 
 ing the rate of wages. The permanent tendency of the 
 state of things described by Mr. Trollope, indeed, must be 
 to lower wages, man by man, mediately and immediately, 
 in the building trade. The smaller amount of work done for 
 the larger amount of wages being the ruling consideration, 
 and the employers being expected by the Unionists to put 
 their profit on to whatever sum the wages amount to, the 
 whole burden of this Union policy must fall on the commu- 
 nity, on the owners and occupiers of houses, and, in other 
 words, on the working classes chiefly, who of all classes most 
 need a supply of better and cheaper houses. 
 
 Evidence of this kind before the Royal Commissioners 
 was so abundant that they entered this sentence in their 
 Report : — 
 
 " We are disposed to think that the operation of Trade Unions may 
 have tended to enhance in these trades of late years the cost of produc- 
 tion, and that houses and other buildings might have been somewhat 
 better and cheaper at the present time had not Trade Unions interfered 
 so extensively and so vexaliously with the proceedings of the employers. 
 It does not necessarily follow that they have raised wages in those trades, 
 and improved thereby the condition of the workman ; the contrary, in 
 the long run, is more piobab'e. " 
 
 This being the result of Trade Union action in the build- 
 ing trades, it is only necessary to imagine the same action in 
 
 i Q. 2920-3.
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 93 
 
 other domestic industries in order to perceive that the 
 general effect of thus making necessaries of life costlier than 
 they otherwise would be, in pursuit of a wholly elusory ad- 
 vantage to the clubbists, falls from circle to circle in cumulo 
 on the working classes, both as consumers and producers, 
 and that the final result is a diminution of the volume of 
 practicable trade, and a corresponding diminution of the 
 amount of employment and wages, with all the straits which 
 these results carry to the working man. 
 
 With respect to industries in which foreign competition 
 enters closely, and in which there is every reason to think 
 that it will be more operative in future than it has been in 
 past times, the evidence before the Royal Commission was 
 not so full as it may have since become, but the following 
 testimonies in 1867-9 are worthy of note. 
 
 Mr. Samuda, shipbuilder on the Thames, for example, 
 said : — 
 
 "My greatest customers used to be, five years ago, France, Russia, 
 Prussia, Egypt, and Turkey. I have had as much as 700,00x3/. worth 
 of orders from those different Governments in my yard at one time ; but 
 at the present moment France is competing with me, and taking away 
 my Prussian orders ; she is also taking away from me my Egyptian 
 orders, and at this time there is in France no less than 380,000/. of 
 work going on for two of those Governments who have been my own 
 customers for fifteen years." * 
 
 Mr. Samuda. at that time, employed only 200 workmen, 
 where he used to employ 1,200 to 2,000. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, of the Atlas Works, Manchester, putting 
 in a table of the delivery of locomotive engines by his firm 
 and their destinations from 1834 to 1866, said : — ■ 
 
 " It will be plainly seen that where at one time we had the control of 
 certain markets, we have lost it ; and that Prussia and Wiirtemberg, 
 
 and France and Austria, to which we formerly sent locomotive engines, 
 liave now become manufacturers themselves for their own countries, 
 and very important competitors with us for neutral markets, such ;b 
 Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and so forth. The proportion of engi 
 supplied loi abroad since the years 1855-6 has been constantly diminish- 
 ing as compared with the number supplied for England. I believe 
 
 1 (?• 16,757.
 
 94 
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Mr. Schneider, of Creuzot, is able to make his engines quite as satis- 
 factorily as English firms ; and I know to my cost that last year when 
 negotiating a contract for forty engines for Russia, when I thought I had 
 the thing in my own hand, Mr. Schneider walks in and takes it off. _ It 
 has just arrived at this point : supposing that we can make an engine 
 for 2,000/., and the foreigners can make it for 1,980/., in all probability 
 they would get the order. Now, everything that contributes to the fact 
 that ours costs us 20/. per engine more, of course gives them a facility in 
 
 competition At Creuzot the average wages of all the men in 
 
 their engine factory only comes to 2s. lid. per day of eleven hours; 
 whereas, in our works it reaches 3*. lO%d. for the same number of hours 
 — with us they work ten hours, but I have calculated it for eleven hours 
 to make it proportionate — and including the piecework balances we pay, 
 it actually reaches 4s. 5|./. as compared with their 2s. lid." l 
 
 Mr. Beyer, of Beyer, Peacock, and Co., Gorton Foundry, 
 Manchester, said : — 
 
 " In some branches of manufacture the Germans have outstripped 
 us. In iron and steel it is very clear they are in advance of us ; and I 
 will give you one instance. At one of the largest establishments on the 
 Continent, that of Borsig, at Berlin, they could not make a crooked, 
 that is, a crank axle, and they began to make their locomotive engines 
 with a straight axle. That was probably in 1837 or 1838. Now things 
 have quite changed. When we want a really good axle we are obliged 
 to send to Germany, they make it of such a superior material." 2 
 
 To which Mr. Robinson added: "We have paid the 
 highest price for German axles." 
 
 Mr. Roden, managing partner of Earl Granville's coal 
 and iron works in North Staffordshire, detailing the circum- 
 stances of a strike in 1865, which lasted twenty weeks, 
 threw out of employment four times the number of men 
 responsibly concerned in it, and caused a direct loss to the 
 North Stafford district of a quarter of a million of money, 
 said : — 
 
 "The operations of the Unions in North Staffordshire closed Mr. 
 Bates's large works finally. It became a question with us whether we 
 should give way to the men and be ruined, or not. If we did not get 
 our work done at the same price as other people [South Staffordshire ' 
 and North of England districts] we should be ruined, and we deter- 
 mined to close our works for ever rather than proceed on the terms 
 
 Q. 19-019-39. 2 i8,935- 8 -
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 95 
 
 demanded. It was entirely in consequence of the strike in North Stafford- 
 shire thai Belgium had such .1 lend of us. The Belgians went in im- 
 mediately, and took orders for enormous quantities in Russia, France, 
 and Germany, far more than they could execute, and we have not yet 
 succeeded in getting that hack. Indeed, mv works have been working 
 only three days or four days a week for months. T have no hesitation in 
 saying that, had it not been for the North Staffordshire strike, we should 
 have been practically in full work up to the present time." 1 
 
 Mr. Mundella said : — 
 
 " I have known strikes to drive away trade, and T have known strikes 
 to introduce trade in other localities abroad. In regard to our competi- 
 tion with France and Germany, I can recollect that only twelve years 
 ago there was scarcely a steam-power hosiery machine in France ; now 
 they are making as good as we are." - 
 
 Dr. George Lloyd, of Lloyd and Co., glass trade, in 
 which there has been an active and over-meddling Unionism, 
 said : — 
 
 " Foreign competition is increasing almost daily. There arc manv 
 articles now introduced from the Continent in flint glass which formerly 
 were inadmissible, partly because they were of inferior quality, and 
 partly because they were inapplicable to the English market, and were 
 too expensive. Now the quality is improving, and the cost of produc- 
 tion and lab mr in England is greater than abroad." 3 
 
 These opinions, delivered to the Royal Commissioners six 
 years ago, are enough, both from the high authority of the 
 persons from whom they emanate, and the great amount of 
 our exportable commodities which they cover, to prove the 
 closeness and keenness of foreign competition with the 
 manufacturing industry of this country — the only purpose, 
 indeed, for which they are here adduced. It would be as 
 absurd to think that the great nations of the Continent are 
 to be always asleep while we are always awake, and to take 
 from us contentedly at our own juices whatever we manu- 
 facture for them, as it would be to think with the late Mr. 
 Allan, of the Amalgamated Engineers, that the fact of 
 Trade Unions being in course of rapid formation on the Con- 
 tinent, and that Union rules, strikes, and all the rest of the 
 obstructive Union policy, will soon be going on all over the 
 world as they are doing here, affords any solution whatever 
 
 1 Q. 10.5S6-610-649. 5 19,423-434. 3 18,346
 
 96 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 of this economical incident of foreign competition. To 
 apply a blister through the International Association or any 
 other medium to one part of the industrial body in order to 
 counteract the effects of a blister already applied to another, 
 partakes too much of surgical quackery to be accepted in a 
 complicated subject of this kind. Still less may it be 
 thought, on the other hand, that a remedy against foreign 
 competition is to be found in a reduction of British wages to 
 the foreign level. This is a remedy which has never been 
 in question, and it is only due to observe that the employers, 
 chief managers, and chief engineers of works above quoted, 
 as well as others who might be quoted, were most unwilling 
 
 save in cases of great strikes extending over months or 
 
 half a year on some dispute of wages as between one dis- 
 trict of the United Kingdom and another, and involving a 
 great lapse of production and impossibility of fulfilling orders 
 
 to say that the action of the Trade Unions had favoured 
 
 foreign competition against British industry; because when 
 brought to account by the Commissioners they were unable 
 to aver that the Unions had really had any effect for the last 
 twenty years in raising wages in any appreciable degree, 
 though by strikes and other obstructive methods they had 
 caused much trade to pass away from the hands of their 
 employers and from themselves into foreign channels. This 
 is a striking disclosure in itself, seeing that to " advance 
 wages and resist reduction of wages " is the chief and avowed 
 object for which all this Trade-Union organisation and 
 activity, waste of funds, and loss of trade and labour, are 
 expended. The purport of the evidence before the Royal 
 Commission, from other witnesses than Trade Unionists, was 
 simply to the effect that foreign competition is a permanent 
 fact which the manufacturing industry of this country has 
 to encounter in any case ; that our foreign customers in the 
 course of a few years are found first to leave us, then to 
 become our competitors ; and that it devolves on the 
 energies of British capital and commerce, and on the skill 
 and superiority of British artisanship, to recover in new forms 
 the ground thus periodically lost through the proper, regular, 
 and indeed congratulatory advance of other nations. But it
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. <j~ 
 
 is surely indiscreet, or even suicidal, for any portion of the 
 working men of this country by any Union action utterly 
 profitless to themselves, to hasten this process more than 
 enough. 
 
 In the natural course, supposing our industrial energies to 
 stagnate as the Union policy would seem to compel them to 
 do, it would follow that in proportion as foreign nations thus 
 ceased to be customers, and became competitors against us 
 in our own and neutral markets, wages would rise in foreign 
 nations and fall here to a degree in which British industry 
 might perchance raise up its head again, though doubtfully 
 and under much greater difficulty than it should have had in 
 maintaining its original superiority. But so far the question 
 of wages would appear, from the evidence of 1867-9, to have 
 had little or no place in the actual problem. The British 
 workman, in branches of trade exposed to foreign competi- 
 tion, earns much more than the foreign workman ; and the 
 condition on which this prosperity may be sustained or im- 
 proved is, that both employers and employed be energetic, 
 inventive, resourceful in their mutual spheres, and that the 
 capital and labour of the country be not sat upon in any way 
 by the Trade Unions, as if there were no such fact as foreign 
 competition in the case. 
 
 RATE OF WAGES NOT THE CHIEF QUESTION. 
 
 The extent to which the action of Trade Unions arrests 
 trade, and lessens the demand for labour and the average 
 rate of wages, cannot be estimated from considerations alone 
 of temporary advances of wages obtained by particular 
 Unions, or of whether in branches of trade under other 
 Unions there has been any advance of wages at all, to which 
 class of considerations the Royal Commission appears to 
 have confined its inquiry, or at least restricted the scope of 
 its conclusions. The Unions seldom obtain advances of 
 wages that are not impending without any action of theirs, and 
 that might not be obtained by another course than theirs ; 
 when they do force an advance, it is usually a provisional 
 advance to be followed by a reduction under given circum- 
 
 H
 
 98 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 stances ; when this necessary reduction comes, they either 
 submit to it with good grace, or in bad temper after a long 
 and costly struggle, or they succeed in their resistance, in 
 which case they find they can only be employed in diminished 
 numbers ; and the law to which capital and wages are alike 
 subject asserts its power under all these futile and incessant 
 efforts, that never rise after all above a merely temporary and 
 provisional arrangement, itself the source of new strifes and 
 misunderstandings. Nothing can be inferred from such 
 spasmodic movements as to the general value of labour, or the 
 substantial reward and prosperity of the working classes. It 
 is not only necessary to take into account the heavy loss 
 sustained by the men, first, in forcing the advance, and, 
 second, in resisting its reduction ; but also that in the inti- 
 mate relation of supply and demand by which the one through 
 prices practically measures the other, the diminished pro- 
 duction arising from the Union action gives an inflated range 
 to prices, and forces a limitation of demand by which any 
 advantage apparently gained is not only imperilled, but often 
 for a long period of time completely overthrown. The 
 evidence that the Unions, beyond acting as a mere dis- 
 turbing force, have had any direct effect in raising wages in 
 their own province was so slight that the Royal Commission 
 waived any formal decision as to the effect which the action 
 of the Unions had, or was calculated to have, in depressing 
 and diminishing the productive industry of the country — the 
 question on which the attainable wages, and every other 
 interest, of the working classes absolutely turn. 
 
 EFFECT OF DIMINISHED PRODUCTION CAUSED BY THE 
 
 UNIONS. 
 
 It is manifest, however, that, apart from nominal wages, 
 there are elements in the action of the Unions that have a 
 direct and powerful effect in narrowing the sphere of trade, 
 in raising the prices of commodities, and in producing an 
 inflation of values and a disturbance of relations between 
 one branch of trade and another, under which all classes, 
 Unionists themselves not the least, find themselves incom-
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 99 
 
 moded, until the general tension becomes so great that the 
 course of trade collapses, and falls into more or less pro- 
 tracted periods of depression and common loss. The rate 
 of production, when trade is expanded and has fair opportu- 
 nity of making a permanent advance, is of infinitely more 
 account to the workman than any question of wages that a 
 Trade Union has ever raised with employers ; and time in 
 this sense is more valuable even than money. The time 
 lost in "strikes" alone, of which for ten years there has 
 scarce been a week or even a day without many examples, 
 often on a gigantic scale, throughout the kingdom, must, 
 when summed up, be an immense subtraction from the 
 productive power of the country — its power, that is to say, 
 to produce commodities when they are in full or increasing 
 demand, and when it is supremely necessary that the produc- 
 tion should be so adequate to the demand as to keep it in 
 force, in order that there may be more workmen employed 
 and more wages for them all to receive. It is important 
 that the Unionists should be brought to see that, in making 
 labour dear by the utmost ingenuity of contrivance and 
 action to employers, the employers, in so far as this elabor- 
 ate process has any effect, can only sustain themselves by 
 making the products of the labour dearer to the consumers, 
 and that the consumers will not and cannot move one iota 
 in this direction beyond what suits themselves, though the 
 Unionists and their employers should alike be reduced to 
 distress or ruin. 
 
 We have only to fancy, therefore, what is indeed the 
 sober reality — viz., all the principal trades of the country 
 organised in this close Union formation, and all bent on 
 making labour dear in nominal wages to the employers, 
 not only by strikes for higher wages and for shorter hours 
 at the same wages as the longer hours, but also by strikes and 
 cessations from labour breaking out sporadically in the 
 various industries of the kingdom in enforcement of innumer- 
 able minor rules and matters of sentiment tending to the same 
 end, in order to perceive what must be the result. There 
 must be an enormous loss of productive power in all these 
 trades ; and, if the demand upon them be either equable 
 
 II 2
 
 IOO THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 or on the increase, what the several trades produce must 
 be always scarcer, more difficult to supply, and commanding 
 for the time a higher price, whether the Unionists have 
 obtained higher wages or any of their minor objects or not. 
 But, in either case, the results immediately appear in the 
 weekly expenditure of the Unionists themselves. House- 
 rents are higher, coal is much dearer, boots and shoes and 
 clothing are rising in value, — every kind of ware thus acted 
 upon by the Union artisans can only be bought with more 
 money ; till it is found that the current wages are not so 
 adequate as they were, and some general advance appears 
 necessary not only in the Union circles but among the 
 whole wage-earning population. It is precisely at this stage, 
 however, that the Union action becomes most excited, that 
 strikes are most frequent and on the largest scale, and that 
 production is restrained and diminished more than ever, 
 leading inevitably to still higher prices, with the consequent 
 greater difficulty and poverty among consumers. This cycle 
 might go on for ever but for a Nemesis that has been working 
 unseen in its folds from the beginning. Every successive 
 advance in the price of commodities has been steadily limiting 
 the demand for them, and preparing a catastrophe in which 
 it is found that the movement has been proceeding on a 
 hollow basis— not on the increase but on the restraint and 
 stoppage of productive labour — and that both profits and 
 wages must fall for a time under diminished trade to a lower 
 level. 
 
 The action of the Trade Unions has effects on prices and 
 on the course of trade somewhat analogous to those of suc- 
 cessive issues of convertible paper currency or frenzies of 
 speculative over-trading, the only difference being that these 
 act on demand, and the Unions on supply. But the economic 
 law violated in both cases is the same : the ultimate results 
 are the same ; and it is a rather hard trial of patience, after 
 so much has been done successfully to correct these evils in 
 financial and commercial circles, to find the old demon of 
 derangement rising in a new form of strength and blindness 
 among the working classes. 
 
 What is thus described has been so abundantly and
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. IOI 
 
 painfully illustrated since the Royal Commission closed 
 its inquiry in 1869, that some facts must here be adduced, 
 that have since transpired, and of which there can be no 
 interpretation but one. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE CASE OF THE SCOTCH PIG-IRON TRADE. 
 
 Let us take first, for example, the statistics of the Scotch pig- 
 iron trade. They are more regular and complete than any 
 accessible statistics of the whole pig-iron trade of the kingdom ; 
 but what is true of the Scotch pig-iron trade, on the points to 
 be referred to, is true also of the pig-iron trade of England. 
 The following are the production of each year, the average 
 price in each year, and the stocks at the close of each year, 
 of Scotch pig-iron, in the five years from 1869 to 1873 
 inclusive : — 
 
 
 Production. 
 
 Average Price 
 
 
 Stocks. 
 
 1861 
 
 . 1,150,000 tons. 
 
 • • 53s. 3d- 
 
 per ton.. 
 
 . 620,000 tons 
 
 1870 . 
 
 . I,2o6,00O ,, 
 
 .. 54s. 4.1. 
 
 >> 
 
 . 665,000 ,, 
 
 IS7I . 
 
 . I,l6o,000 ,, 
 
 .. 58s. I id. 
 
 • > 
 
 . 490,000 ,, 
 
 1872 . 
 
 . 1,090,000 ,, 
 
 .. 102s. od. 
 
 ?» 
 
 . 194,000 ,, 
 
 1873 •• 
 
 • 993>°°o .. 
 
 .. 117s. 3d. 
 
 j j 
 
 . . 1 20,000 , , 
 
 These figures must present a greater puzzle to the poli- 
 tical economist than he often meets with, for they are in 
 direct disharmony with the most assured principles of his 
 science. That increased demand and higher prices will 
 elicit increased production is as sure a law of trade as any 
 law can be in a sphere where the natural course is always 
 liable to be disturbed and circumvented by perverse human 
 action. Yet it appears from this five years' record of the 
 Scotch pig-iron trade that the production is greatest when 
 the demand is weakest and the price lowest, and that the 
 production is smallest when the demand is strongest and 
 the price highest. In 1869 there could be produced with 
 ease 1,150,000 tons, when the price was 53^. 3</. per ton, 
 and when demand had pressed so little on supply that there 
 was a stock at the end of the year of 620,000 tons; but in 
 1873 no more could be produced than 993,000 tons, when
 
 102 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the average price of the year was 1175-. 3d., and the increas- 
 ing demand had reduced the stock to 120,000 tons, or prac- 
 tically, in so great a market as Glasgow, no stock at all. It 
 must not be pretended that there was any decay or want of 
 productive force during the manifestation of these extra- 
 ordinary results. In the years of greatest pressure of demand 
 there were always from 20 to 30 available furnaces out of 
 blast ; there was no end of capital on the spot to build new 
 furnaces and extend the working staffs of the furnaces ; nor 
 was there any falling-off in labour, the labour and the men 
 of 1869 being all there; but the fact was that the men, 
 though rewarded by higher wages, could not be got to do 
 the same amount of work as when demand was slack, and 
 prices and wages low. The result of annually diminished 
 production of pig-iron, in face of annually increased demand 
 and higher prices and wages, is referable mainly to the 
 "Union action" of the coal and ironstone miners. The 
 furnacemen had no chance of improving their condition 
 either in numbers employed or rate of wages, because there 
 was really less work for them to do in the brisk times of 
 1872-3 than in the slack times of 1869-70. They were 
 directly injured, as well as all other classes of workmen in 
 the iron trades, by the conduct of the miners, who, after 
 having caused by their frequent strikes and unsteady labour 
 the stocks both of coal and pig-iron to be exhausted, fell 
 into the unhappy blunder of entering into a new series of 
 strikes for more wages on every rise of price when the 
 market had become a monopoly, and the price was any- 
 thing the holder chose to ask, or the " bulls " on the ex- 
 change to speculate upon. The prices of coal and iron in 
 1872 and 1873, when the stocks had gone, might be hugely 
 profitable to some few people at the expense of the con- 
 sumers, but they were indicative of the value neither of 
 coal, iron, nor labour, and to masters and men alike were 
 simply the signal of a speedy downfall of the trade. Yet in 
 1872 and 1873 mining strikes in thousands and tens of 
 thousands of men at a time were frequent over the whole 
 country, aggravating to the last hour all the mischief that 
 had already been done.
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. IO^ 
 
 The interdependence of many branches of trade, so that 
 what may seem prosperity to one is only loss and difficulty 
 to the others, is thus an important fact in the general 
 economy. It often happens that Trade Unions, in fighting, 
 as they think, only against employers, are fighting still more 
 madly against each other. 
 
 THE COAL TRADE. 
 
 The course of coal in production, rapid disappearance of 
 stocks, and prices, in those five years, was the same in all 
 respects as that of pig-iron. The question was the subject 
 of inquiry by a Select Committee of the House of Commons 
 in 1873, from whose Report our facts will be drawn, while 
 taking occasion to correct some of its lame conclusions. 
 Nothing has been more perverted to conceal the true facts 
 of the case, and not only to justify but to carry off in triumph, 
 the action of the Unions, than the report of this Select Com- 
 mittee on Coal. But let us see. 
 
 The following are the quantities of coal raised in Great 
 Britain in the five years ending 1872, and the increase of 
 each year on the year preceding : — 
 
 Raised. Increase. 
 
 1868 103,014,207 tons 1,312,765 tons. 
 
 1869 107,299,634 ,, 4,325,902 „ 
 
 I.S70 II0.2S9.722 ,, 1,862.654 ,, 
 
 1 87 1 117,186,278 ,, 5,826,290 ,, 
 
 1872 123,386,758 ,, 5.717,794. ., 
 
 Increase in five years 19,045,405 tons. 
 
 The Select Committee doubts, in its Report, whether the 
 amount of coal raised in 1872 was more than 120,000,000 
 tons. There was no account of stocks of coal, nor was the 
 Committee able to determine the extent to which the accu- 
 mulating heaps of small coal without a market till the Coal 
 Famine came, may have entered into these returns of coal 
 "raised" in the years 1871 and 1S72. The Draft Report 
 said that the small coal lost because unmarketable until the
 
 104 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Famine years " would be measured by millions of tons each 
 year," so that there is but a florid account of the labour 
 applied in the collieries in these estimates of increased pro- 
 duction, more especially in the two last of the years. But 
 in any case, if weight is to be given to the statement of the 
 Select Committee that the production of 1872 was probably 
 not more than 120,000,000 tons, the increase in the five 
 years must be reduced to 15,658,647 tons. 
 
 Compare with this the annual increased production in the 
 five years at the head of the Select Committee's table, when 
 there was no such increasing demand for coal, and when no 
 such high wages were earned : — 
 
 1859 
 i860 
 
 1861 
 1862 
 1863 
 
 6,786,665 tons. 
 7,733,262 ,, 
 5,066,614 ,, 
 
 3>447» I 47 .. 
 5,692,800 „ 
 
 Increase in five years . 28,726,488 tons. 
 
 To what cause can this disastrous lapse of productive power 
 when it was most needed, and most highly paid for, be attri- 
 buted but to the incessant strikes, suspensions of labour, 
 and general slackening of labour, by the miners' associa- 
 tions? The Select Committee say, from the evidence be- 
 fore them, that "there has been considerable disturbance 
 " in the minds of the workmen employed in and about the 
 " mines respecting the number of hours per day or per week 
 " during which they deemed it their interest to work, and 
 " that th '.-'general tendency had been to reduce the hours 
 ; ' of labour. It has also been stated that the Mines Regu- 
 " lation Act, passed last Session, has tended to the same 
 " result, and that the consequence has been that the mines 
 ' : have not produced the quantity of coal which would 
 " otherwise have been obtained from them." On a fair 
 consideration of the evidence the Select Committee might 
 have affirmed much more. But it is singular that in this 
 Report not one word is said as to the effect of the numerous 
 great strikes extending over long periods, and the innume- 
 rable bye-motions by which the mining Unions, after having
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 1 05 
 
 obtained from a kindly but unguarded Parliament a severe 
 limitation of hours per day, resolved to work only four or 
 five days in the week, when coal was most scarce and dear. 
 
 No attempt whatever was made by the Select Committee 
 on Coal to estimate the loss of production from these causes, 
 or how far the production save for these causes would have 
 been adequate to avert the Coal Famine with all its dis- 
 astrous consequences. But the Committee could emit the 
 general aphorism, since become famous in Union circles, 
 that " the real order of events had been (1) the rise in the 
 " price of iron ; (2) the rise in the price of coal ; and (3) the 
 " rise in the rate of wages ; " — which, however true to facts 
 as contemplated from a balloon two or three miles above 
 the actual world, becomes through the elimination of neces- 
 sary elements of inquiry the most transparent of fallacies. 
 An increased demand for iron brought an increased price, 
 and an increased demand and price of coal followed by 
 necessary consequence. No power of capitalist or master 
 could have averted a rise of wages in these circumstances, 
 because the coal and iron trades were being rapidly ex- 
 tended, employers were increasing the number of their 
 workmen, and the workmen were making, and might have 
 continued in larger numbers than had ever before been 
 known in this country to make, higher earnings for a 
 lengthened period. But what arrested this prosperous move- 
 ment was that the policy of the mining associations did not 
 permit this extension of the trade to take place ; the higher 
 their wages, and the larger the number employed, they pro- 
 duced less, and not more ; and supply thus checked and 
 broken down in its efforts to keep pace with demand, coal 
 and iron rose to the " famine prices," when every one but 
 the miners themselves saw that the game was up, because 
 they were prices which consumers neither would nor could 
 pay, nor the general trade of the world support. The result 
 was the sudden and great collapse under which both em- 
 ployers and employed in the coal and iron trades may 
 probably suffer severely for some years. 
 
 That there was no want of men on the books of the 
 mining Unions when the pressure of demand came, and
 
 106 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 that the only want was that the men would not put their 
 shoulders to the wheel in order to save their general interest 
 from a calamitous fall, would seem to be fully proved by the 
 following figures from the Select Committee's Report : — 
 
 1870 
 
 1871 
 
 Number of Men 
 Employed. 
 
 • 350,894 
 
 • 370,881 . 
 
 Quantity of Coal raised 
 per Man. 
 321 tons. 
 
 • 3»7 » 
 
 1872 
 
 • 413,334 
 
 • 299 „ 
 
 The Mining Inspectors, in their reports embracing 1873, 
 bring this reductive process of coal-raising to the following 
 results : — 
 
 Annual Product Daily Product over 313 
 
 per Man. Working Days. 
 
 1864 . . 327^ tons. . . . 27I cwt. 
 
 1868 . . . 317 . . . 20 „ 
 
 1873 • . 271 „ . . . I7i „ 
 
 The price of coal was more than doubled within two 
 years. The average wholesale price in London was s.8s. 6d. 
 per ton in 1870, and in the first five months of 1873 was 
 2>2s. 6d. The price to the consumer in London is five shil- 
 lings above the wholesale price when the rate is low, and 
 seven shillings when the rate is high. " In London/' say 
 the Select Committee on Coal, " the wholesale price on 
 the Coal Exchange reached 45^. for two days in February 
 last." The wages of colliers within the same period were 
 doubled and more than doubled. " The earnings of the 
 working miners," the Select Committee report, " have enor- 
 mously increased," and they add that, according to much 
 evidence, the greatly increased earnings " have been im- 
 providently spent." 
 
 It can scarce be necessary to pursue this subject farther. 
 The colliers are paid, not by the hour or a day of hours, 
 but by their output of coal ; so that in this respect they have 
 every stimulus to increase their output when wages are 
 high, and nothing remains to account for the anomalous 
 results of those years but the erroneous ideas instilled 
 into their Unions that to limit production is in all circum- 
 stances the way to advance wages ; that the less we all do
 
 EFFECTS OF THE TRADE UNIONS ON TRADE. 107 
 
 the more we shall all get for what we do ; that even when 
 the commodity we produce has passed out of stock and out 
 of all real market value, and is only kicked about between 
 "bulls" and "bears" in the exchanges on a gambling 
 basis of speculation, every rise of price, even in these cir- 
 cumstances, is a new ground for our working still less, and 
 demanding wages in proportion to the prices struck between 
 the "bulls" and the "bears!" Such are the ideas that 
 have guided the Miners' Associations, and which they have 
 done their best to translate into action. The drama has 
 been wrought out on a splendid arena, covering, indeed, 
 nearly the whole civilised world, for what really brought the 
 increased demand for iron and coal was the liberality of the 
 British capitalist in lending his money to make railways in 
 North and South America, and nearly every quarter of the 
 globe, in the hope that while cheering and helping the 
 British workman in the meanwhile he might perchance reap 
 some profit to himself in the end. The whole of this arena 
 has since been strewn with wrecks — confiding capitalists 
 and deluded workmen plunged in the same common loss 
 and grief. 
 
 This is no doubt a flagrant example of Union action, of 
 which we do not often see the like, and of which, it is to 
 be hoped, we may not soon see the like again. But it must 
 nevertheless be held true that the policy of the Unions, in 
 suspending labour, withdrawing labour, forbidding labour, 
 under the hope of advancing wages, in so far as it is active, 
 must in all cases have precisely similar results, and that the 
 whole system, as hitherto informed and organised, is de- 
 structive of trade, of the demand for and the rewards of 
 labour, and of the true interests of the working classes.
 
 IX. 
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 The position of the Unions under the law has been not the 
 least vexed question in their recent agitated career. It has 
 been found difhcult,if not impossible, to recast the general laws 
 of the kingdom — laws of civil right and wrong, laws of public 
 right and wrong, and laws of mere crime as regards both 
 public and private interests — into a mould that would satisfy 
 the jurisprudence, and cover and legalise the action of 
 hundreds of self-constituted clubs of workmen, whose notions 
 of jurisprudence are confined to the promotion of what is not 
 only a small, but an economically impracticable club interest. 
 Hard as this task may be, however, Parliament has lent itself 
 to it not unwillingly of late years ; and, forgetful of all the 
 beneficent legislation since 1832, the principles on which it 
 proceeded, and the solid but splendid opportunities it opened 
 to the working classes, has by the multiplicity of its Acts — 
 Workshop, Mining, Factory, and Trade Union Acts — helped 
 on the more violent of the Unionists, while precipitating the 
 most serious and calamitous industrial crises. 
 
 There is a widespread conviction that this legislation has 
 already much exceeded the bounds of reason, and that little 
 but evil, or evil at least in enormous disproportion to any 
 good, has come from it. Yet the trade Unions are by no 
 means satisfied with the legislative triumphs they have ac- 
 complished, but are pressing forward keenly for more, till 
 their position substantially has come to be that if the com- 
 mon law of England cannot, in view of the multitude of 
 interests which it touches and regulates, be swiftly enough 
 reformed and adapted to their purposes, it shall at least be 
 wholly suspended in so far as their acts and interests are
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. IOQ 
 
 concerned. This is an aspiration n which there can be no 
 doubt they are doomed to be eventually disappointed. 
 
 Nothing could be simpler than for the Trade Unions to 
 put their constitutions, rules, and action in conformity with 
 the law as it stands after all recent concessions in their 
 favour, and to acquire all the advantages of being lawful 
 companies or societies, the complaint of want of which on 
 their part has hitherto been either a puling or a merely 
 sinister cry. This position, if adopted, need not interfere in 
 the least with their legislative activity. While conforming 
 to the law, and thereby gaining legal advantages, they might 
 be as active reformers of the law, in the constitutional way, 
 as ever. But this is the one course the Trade Unions so far 
 have shown no disposition to take. What they want is to 
 have all the advantages of being lawful bodies, and at the 
 same time to be above and defiant of law in their own action 
 and methods of precedure. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM ERLES MEMORANDUM. 
 
 The legal position of the Unions obtained much con- 
 sideration in the Inquiry of 1867-9, anf l Sir William Erie, 
 Chairman of the Commission, with the consummate legal 
 knowledge and acumen of which he is master, drew up a 
 memorandum of the law relating to Trade Unions as it stood 
 at the period of the Inquiry. Every point where Trade 
 Unions or similar bodies could be reached at Common Law 
 by legal action or indictment was stated by this eminent 
 authority with a lucidity that left nothing to be desired ; 
 and the memorandum has the great advantage to plain, un- 
 learned people, wishing only to know the truth, of showing 
 how the Common Law arose ; how it proceeded from the 
 people themselves in the adjustment of rights and duties in 
 all the various affairs and relations of life ; how the rules 
 thus adopted in the concrete passed under the changes and 
 progress of society into the form of principles of lasting 
 value and application ; and how the principles of Common 
 Law, thus winnowed and generalised from age to age, stand 
 
 IS
 
 HO THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 co-related in practical administration, not to one section of 
 human interests, but to all. 
 
 The principles of the Common Law may be innovated 
 upon by Statute Law. But a statute to have any vitality 
 must embody a principle ; and it is because statutes so 
 seldom do embody a principle that, while created in shoals 
 by the Legislature, they pass away in almost equal numbers 
 through the slowly receding path of desuetude, or fall dead- 
 born as soon as enacted, because inapplicable to the actual 
 course of life, or in so far as attempted to be applied are 
 found to make all the conditions of life worse than they were 
 before. 
 
 BEARING OF THE COMMON LAW ON TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 The Common Law, against which the Trade Unions have 
 been in practical rebellion for some years, must be acquitted 
 of intent to oppress them in any exceptional or invidious 
 fashion. It is the law under which all men, and all societies 
 of men, live in this country. It is the product of ages of 
 experience and social changes, and of stores of judicial 
 wisdom and equity which no one age or three ages could 
 supply ; and it is a law which has come to us from times 
 when there were no such bodies as the Trade Unions in 
 existence. But the respect in which the Common Law does 
 appear to have confronted the Trade Unions somewhat 
 awkwardly is that it bears record that from the earliest times 
 in our history there was an evil which all generations of our 
 ancestors could not endure, whether in the light of the 
 liberty of the subject or of the common weal, and which 
 came to be known and judicially interpreted as " restraint of 
 trade." This evil presented itself in a great variety of forms 
 from one age to another, and in forms, indeed, in which the 
 present generation requires some historical lore in order to 
 comprehend their true meaning ; such as, for example, the 
 regulation as far back as the days of Ethelstan and William 
 the Conqueror, forbidding traffic in produce or commodities 
 beyond a certain value outside an open market " unless with 
 a witness." In these old times there was great faith in free
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. I I I 
 
 markets; great distrust of "forestalling," "engrossing," or 
 any kind of monopoly that might help the richer dealers 
 against the poorer, or injure both rich and poor in their 
 common right of a free supply of commodities ; and hence 
 a determination to maintain "a free course of trade." 
 
 One of the aptest illustrations of the general idea is pro- 
 bably the common law of highways. The highways must 
 not be obstructed against the passage of goods, or of the 
 humblest wayfarer, by the feudal baron and his retainers, 
 or by King Mob, or any other faction, at their peril. If the 
 highway was closed for repairs by due public authority, that 
 was a different matter, and the traffic had to stop, and private 
 people to go about a little, till the object conceived in the 
 general interest was accomplished. But the free passage of 
 the highways must not be obstructed by any number of 
 people on the pretext, say, of hunting rabbits. If any num- 
 ber of people do not choose to deal at a certain shop, they 
 must not gather round the door, anil prevent either the shop- 
 keeper from getting out or other customers from getting 
 in, and other people from passing to and fro. 
 
 A great many acts and forms of action thus came to be 
 recognised by Common Law as in " restraint of trade," and 
 on the ground of being both subversive of individual right 
 and inimical to the common good, requiring themselves to 
 be restrained and corrected by law. 
 
 But it would be a crude mistake to suppose that acts 
 which may have been deemed in restraint of trade in one 
 age remained stereotyped as Common Law offences in all 
 subsequent ages, or that the Common Law has not been ad- 
 ministered with reference to its essential principles in the 
 light and experience of all the circumstances of the case and 
 the time. Sir William Erie, in an action so recent as the 
 time of George III. — " R. v. Waddington " — adduces a re- 
 markable example of the elasticity of the Common Law with- 
 out any infracuon of its principle. The defendant was 
 convicted and punished for "engrossing" hops— that is, 
 buying them wholesale with intent to sell them again whole- 
 sale — and though the judgment, in all the circumstances 
 and opinions of the time, was deemed to have been right- 

 
 112 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 eously given, yet it was traversed and overthrown by sub- 
 sequent judgments on the ground that the act in question, 
 " engrossing," or buying on wholesale with intent to sell again 
 on wholesale, has an opposite tendency from that which was 
 believed to be its tendency in the reign of George III. A 
 free present of this instance may be given to the Trade 
 Unions, because it conveys to them the useful lesson that, 
 with such abundant confidence as they profess in their 
 economics, there is no need to force an overthrow of the 
 law, which, if an obstacle in their path to-day, may be a 
 safeguard to-morrow. On the other hand, there are niceties 
 of equity in the Common Law which would appear to be 
 wholly lost sight of in the present furore of Trade-Union 
 legislation and Trade-Union demands for legislation. For 
 example, Sir William Erie says that while there is nothing at 
 Common Law against a man or any number of men stop- 
 ping their labour, free of contract, an action would clearly 
 lie for " causing loss of service by enticing away servants 
 from their hiring," and that if two or more combined for this 
 purpose to injure an employer, using money for the purpose, 
 it would become a crime, as in the case of paying witnesses 
 to conceal themselves before an approaching trial, or voters 
 to be out of the way at polling time. In this there is nothing 
 but what appears rational and equitable, and in consonance 
 with what the law conveys in other spheres than employ- 
 ment of labour. 
 
 But what does " restraint of trade " under the Common 
 Law, in its application more especially to Trade Unionists, 
 on the whole and in its essence import ? Sir William Erie 
 gives this answer : — 
 
 " The unlawfulness depends on the degree of restraint resulting from 
 the circumstances. Questions of degree cannot be defined without a 
 standard of measure ; unlawful restraint of trade, therefore cannot be 
 defined, but it may be described ; and the best description I can offer 
 is this, that at common law every person has individually, and the pub- 
 lic also have collectively, a right to require that the course of trade 
 should he kept free from unreasonable obstruction. Under the general 
 principle, the law relating to freedom in disposing of either capital or 
 labour, or both, is included. Every person has a right under the law, 
 as between him and his fellow-subjects, to full freedom in disposing of
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. 113 
 
 his own labour or his own capital according to his own will. It follows 
 that every other person is subject to the correlative duly arising therefrom, 
 and is prohibited bom any obstruction to the fullest exercise of this 
 right, which can be made compatible with the exercise of similar rights 
 by others." 
 
 The principles of the Common Law are thus both reason 
 and equity in an almost perfect form. They are principles 
 entitled to be received with respect, and to be encroached 
 upon by new laws only with the greatest care and judgment, 
 more especially so long as no new or superior principle has 
 been discovered, or until it be seen how any new principle 
 can be co-related and harmonised with the principles of the 
 Common Law throughout the general sphere of relations to 
 which they apply. It would certainly be a wild absurdity 
 to suppose that a few men heading the Trade Unions are so 
 much wiser than all who have lived before them in this 
 country for a thousand years, and all who now live with 
 them, as to be prepared to say that what the Common Law 
 has founded with respect to the rights of every person in 
 the disposal of his goods, capital, or labour, and with 
 respect to the rights of the community to remove obstruc- 
 tions to a free course of trade, may be overridden or swept 
 away. 
 
 THE STATUTE LAW ON TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 It is obvious, however, that under the action of the Trade 
 Unions of modern days, involving direct and more than 
 ^«<w/-coercive interference with the liberty both of em- 
 ployers and workmen, serious difficulties were sure to occur 
 between them and the Common Law ; and so there arose 
 another class of laws, applicable to Unionists, known as 
 "the Combination Acts" — statutes passed sometimes to 
 fortify the principles of the Common Law, and sometimes 
 to modify the law so as to give greater scope of action to 
 the Unions. It is a striking proof of the ephemeral character 
 of legislation of this kind that it is only necessary now to 
 mention two statutes, one that was repealed, and another 
 that came in its place. 
 
 The Act 5 Geo. IV. c. 95 repealed all previous Trade 
 
 I
 
 114 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Combination statutes, and enacted that no combination, 
 with some specified exceptions, was to be indictable in 
 itself, and that recourse by workmen in such combinations 
 to "violence, threats, or intimidation," was to be a mis- 
 demeanour subject to not more than two months' imprison- 
 ment. This Act was a great concession to the Unions, not 
 only removing previous statutes deemed more severe than 
 there was any necessity for, and recognising as free from 
 offence permanent and consolidated Unions of working men 
 subject to the general principles of the Common Law, but 
 reducing, where workmen in such Unions resorted to 
 " violence, threats, and intimidation " in enforcement of 
 their purposes, the class of offence and the related penal- 
 ties. It was immediately found, however, that this was an 
 amount of liberty which the Unionists could not carry. 
 Acts of violence rapidly increased, and assumed more subtle 
 and varied forms. Hence the Act 6 Geo. IV. c. 129 was 
 passed the following year, repealing the previous Act, yet 
 not only confirming but actually extending in important 
 respects the right of combination recognised under the 
 repealed Act, and differing from it only in defining that 
 offences by Unionists should not only be acts of " violence, 
 threats, and intimidation," but also "molesting" and "in 
 any way obstructing " others in the exercise of their rights, 
 and that the punishment for such offences should be " not 
 more than three " instead of " two months." The extension 
 given by the 6 George IV. to the right of combination was 
 that combinations and strikes in the matter of wages or 
 hours of labour should be exempt from all liability to penal 
 consequences, whether under Common or Statute Law. Of 
 course, the Legislature of that period could not foresee the 
 innumerable peccadilloes to which, under the development 
 of Unionism, "strikes" would be applied in the work- 
 shops of the kingdom, such as a foreman acceptable enough 
 to the employer, but unacceptable to the strikers, an ap- 
 prentice more or less, a man employed on piecework, the 
 employer choosing to give one man a somewhat lower or 
 higher wage than another, &c, &c. ; and how much rnore 
 bitter and injuriously in "restraint of trade" Unionism was
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. J I 5 
 
 destined to become than in that or any previous age. But 
 nothing could more clearly prove than this Act that there 
 was no hostility in the Legislature, as far back as the re 
 of George IV., to the right of combination among any 
 number of working people as to the terms on which they 
 would dispose of their labour in the matter either of wages or 
 hours, and that the legal difficulty of the Unions then, as it 
 remains now, was that in the exercise of this full and perfect 
 right, to be asserted as often, as effectually, or ineffectual!}-, 
 and on as many pretexts as they pleased, they must not 
 directly aggress upon and violate the equally well-estab- 
 lished rights of other people. 
 
 Yet this is what neither Common Law nor Statute Law, 
 nor Parliament nor Press, nor any power of reason whatever, 
 has hitherto been able to cause the Unions to comprehend, 
 or even to approach to see the magnitude of interests it 
 involves, among which the interests of labour itself have the 
 chief place. 
 
 LAW OF CONSPIRACY. 
 
 The Law of Conspiracy is a common law, and applies to 
 offences against trade as to all other offences, from the 
 simplest private wrongs, in the suppression of which the 
 public has an interest, to acts of treason or sedition against 
 the State. It does not appear that any indictment for con- 
 spiracy could lie against Trade Unionists unless they agreed 
 and combined to carry out the coercive and violent acts 
 specifically prohibited in the statutes. But if there be a 
 coercive and violent intention, and an exchange of consent 
 to carry out this intention, there is conspiracy even though 
 the intention be not effected. Murder, for example, is a 
 crime ; but a conspiracy of two or more persons to commit 
 murder, even if the murder be not committed, is also a 
 crime. Certain acts also, when committed by a number of 
 persons with mutual agreement and determination, are 
 criminal, which if committed by an individual would be 
 .■nuch less criminal, or scarce bear in the eye of the law the 
 mark of crime at all. These features of the Law of Con- 
 spiracy have been greatlv ridiculed and much opposed by 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the Trade Unions ; but they are valuable and essential 
 parts of every system of jurisprudence ; and though Sir 
 William Harcourt, and latterly Mr. Cross, have professed to 
 see how the law may be modified, yet it may be safely 
 remarked of all attempts of this kind, that they can only 
 have one of two results : they will either produce a re- 
 laxation of the Law of Conspiracy that will be generally 
 and soundly applicable, or they will give greater liberty 
 to conspire criminally to Trade Unionists than to any other 
 class of people. 
 
 Such was the state of the law relating to Trade Unions 
 at the period of the Inquiry, and it is only necessary at this 
 stage to look at "The Trade Union Act, 187 1," following 
 on the Report of the Commissioners. 1 
 
 TRADE UNION ACT, 1 87 I. 
 
 The first clause of the Act of 187 1 annuls the ancient 
 common law doctrine of "restraint of trade" to the extent 
 that it shall have no force against any member of a Trade 
 Union liable to criminal prosecution, and, as may conse- 
 quently be inferred, that the Law of Conspiracy cannot be 
 brought to bear against Trade Unionists save in connexion 
 with overt acts of violence, threatenings, intimidations, moles- 
 tations, and obstructions, described in the 6 George IV. c. 
 129, and more precisely defined in the Criminal Law Amend- 
 ment Act. Then follow clauses which, on the same ground 
 — viz., " that the purposes of any Trade Union shall not. by 
 reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be unlawful," 
 — proceed to enact some of the most curious contradictions 
 
 1 The "Criminal Law Amendment Act," on which so much has 
 been said of late, also followed upon the Inquiry of 1867-9, an( -' wa S 
 simply a definition of the terms of the Act 6 George IV., of the vague- 
 ; of which there had been complaints on the part of some of the 
 Unions. This Act imported no new severity or restriction into the law 
 whatever. On the contrary, it contained a clear delineation of the 
 boundary lines where trade action on the part either of masters or work- 
 men passes into unlawful coercion, violence, and, in short, crime. But 
 this Act wdl come under consideration in connexion with the late Royal 
 Commission on the Labour Laws.
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. 117 
 
 thai have probably ever been seen in the statute-book. The 
 twofold effect attempted to be produced is that the Trade- 
 Unions are to be perfectly competent for all civil purposes, 
 such as purchasing or leasing land, selling, exchanging, mort- 
 gaging, and transacting with the outside public and that all 
 agreements or trusts into which they enter in this way shall 
 not be rendered void or voidable ; but that as regards all 
 agreements or bonds inter scs, between one Trade Union 
 and another, or between a Union and its own members — in 
 any agreement, for example, as to the application of its funds 
 to "provide benefits," to "furnish contributions whether to 
 employers or workmen," or to " discharge fines,'' e\:c., — in all 
 this line of obligation, in short, between the Unionists them- 
 selves, the Trade Unions shall be held at law to be " Free 
 I ances," and that any agreements or trusts they have in this 
 form shall be void at law, " though not unlawful," and shall 
 not be enforceable in any of her Majesty's courts. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Fagin of Mr. Dickens, 
 under a statute of this kind, could have carried on a very 
 nourishing business to the end of time, as he did for a 
 long while, and may be doing still, without such a statute. 
 There was little objectionable in the exterior transactions of 
 Fagin. He knew the value of money, goods, land, and 
 mortgages as well as anybody else, and his transactions and 
 investments of this kind were generally of a law-abiding and 
 valid character. It was only in the interior working of his 
 svstem, how he got his goods and money, and the wrongs he 
 inflicted on persons and on the interests of the communit) 
 in his interior process, that any great iniquity was found. 
 The task assumed by the Legislature of making the Tra 
 Unions all legal outside while all is to be void at law inside, 
 is one that cannot be easily achieved, or easily reconciled 
 with any fixed principles of polity or justice, if Trade 
 Unions are to be corporations enjoying any legal recogni- 
 tion or confirmation whatever. It would be a relief, inch 
 to think that any party to this Act of 1S71 had the remotest 
 peri eption how such legislation could be carried through, 
 or brought ultimately into any form that would stand. 
 
 The only other clauses of the Act of 187 1— a . ,i\ short Act
 
 Il8 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 — requiring notice are those providing facilities for the official 
 registration of Trade Unions, to the end of protecting the 
 funds of the Unions from embezzling or runaway officers and 
 the like, to which there has been no manner of objection on 
 public grounds, and to which the Unions have always had 
 such free access by simply conforming their rules and action 
 to the law, that any complaint on this score cannot be denied 
 mure than a little outbreak of Trade Union jeu cf esprit. But 
 it is worthy of being observed that, in providing for the 
 registration of Trade Unions, the Act of 187 1 set aside the 
 recommendations of the Royal Commission, and adopted a 
 wholly different course. The conclusion of the Commission 
 was that Trade Unions might be registered through the 
 Registrar of Friendly Societies, on his seeing that their rules 
 and by-laws were not intended to secure the following 
 purposes : — 
 
 " 1. To prevent the employment, or to limit the number, of appren- 
 tices in any trade. 
 
 " 2. To prevent the introduction, or to limit the use of, machinery in 
 any trade or manufacture. 
 
 "3. To prevent any workman from taking a sub-contract, or work- 
 ing by the piece, or working in common with men not members of the 
 Union. 
 
 "4. To authorise interference in the way of support from the funds 
 of the Union, by the council or governing body of the Union, with the 
 workmen of any other Union when out on strike, or when otherwise 
 engaged in any dispute with their employers, in any case in which such 
 Union is an unconnected Union." 
 
 The Royal Commission of 1867-9 threw into these quali- 
 fications the sum of their evidence and inquiry as to what 
 was necessary for the Trade Unions to pass into a legal 
 position. There was a clear and perfect logic in the Report 
 of the Commission, connected on one side with the law as 
 it stood and on the other with the law as it might with all 
 consistency and equity become. The conclusion of the 
 Commission was that there was no limit to the action of 
 voluntary combinations of workmen as to the disposal of 
 their labour but one, and this was that the combination 111 
 the exercise of its full right should not attempt to override 
 the equal right of other workmen, or to obstruct and injure
 
 LEGALITY OF THE TRADE UNIONS. I 19 
 
 employers more than was necessarily involved in the exhausted 
 exercise of their own full right — or, in other words, the re- 
 fusal of their labour. On this basis the law could give all 
 legal rights to Trade Unions as corporations. On the other 
 hand, the law could not without stultifying itself, lend its 
 powers to bodies in whose avowed rules and constitutions 
 this principle was contravened. The Commission also made 
 a strung recommendation in favour of such Trade Unions 
 as separated their benefit from their trade funds, and sug- 
 gested for consideration whether such Unions might not be 
 placed without other limitation under the Friendly Societies 
 Act. But the Imperial Parliament in 187 1 made these con- 
 clusions of little account, and enacted a much more facile 
 method, whereby Trade Unions might be registered, and 
 become legal bodies, with great legal rights on the exterior, 
 and no legal obligations on the interior side. It conveys 
 but a poor idea of the value of such inquiries to find that 
 they have so little effect on the course of legislation. Yet 
 how many Trade Unions have been registered, or what pro- 
 gress has been made in bringing Trade Unions into a position 
 more conformable to law, under the Act of 187 1? The 
 Registrar for England reports that, to the end of 1874, 173 
 Trade Unions had been registered under the Act of 1871, 
 of which twenty-nine had been dissolved, and that in many 
 cases, notwithstanding his repeated remonstrances, the rules 
 are still contrary to law, self-contradictory, or do not express 
 the real intention of the framers. 1 
 
 There was one good thing which the Act of 187 1 did. It 
 cut off the Trade Unions from registration under the Friendly 
 Societies and the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts ; 
 but this was a result which, after the opinion of the actuaries 
 as to the prevailing practice of levying contributions for 
 benefit purposes and spending them on totally different pur- 
 poses, could hardly in any case have been avoided. 
 
 1 See Report for 1874, in which the Registrar has some important 
 remarks on this subject.
 
 X. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. FREDERIC 
 
 HARRISON. 
 
 It was of much advantage to this Inquiry that Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison were members of the Commission. They 
 took a strong pro-Union view of the whole subject from the 
 beginning, and were always helpful in putting questions to 
 the leading Union witnesses, when in a dilemma, that had 
 the effect of eliciting a fuller explanation of Union policy and 
 resource in the interior conception than might otherwise have 
 been obtained. When Union secretaries were non-plussed, 
 for example, by the evidence of the actuaries on the alarm- 
 ing deficiency of the benefit funds, Mr. Hughes and Mr. 
 Harrison were always glad to interpose, "Yet in case of any 
 " actual deficiency, of course you would make a special 
 " levy?" and were always delighted to be told that special 
 levies to any amount would be cheerfully paid. In this 
 way they unfolded much of the rationale on which one can- 
 not but believe the affairs of societies, under the direc- 
 tion of so many active and intelligent men as the Trade 
 Unions, to be conducted, that might possibly have remained 
 hidden. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, however, had 
 after all to record their dissent from the Report of the 
 Commission, and they appended a "Detailed Statement" 
 of their own, which embodied their " conclusions from the 
 evidence," and their solution of the whole question — moral, 
 social, economical, and legal. 
 
 This "Statement" is masterly in its command of every 
 item of the evidence that could be adduced to support its 
 conclusions, but it is too deeply imbued with the art of 
 special pleading, lightly explaining away much that was 
 certain, and leaving undetermined nearly everything that
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. I 2 1 
 
 was capable of determination, to be of any logical value. 
 But, as a special pleading in favour of the Unions, it is 
 almost exhaustive, and in that sense has considerable value. 
 It is improbable that the case of the Unions can be pre- 
 sented again in any more attractive and specious form. 
 
 "GREAT EXTENT AND INCREASE OF UNIONISM." 
 
 The conclusions of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison 
 were — 
 
 (i.) "The great extent and increase of Unionism" — a 
 proposition which no one can have any motive to dispute, 
 though the evidence, by admission of the two Commis- 
 sioners themselves, has afforded only contradictory state- 
 ments on the subject. In the largest and most consoli 
 dated Unions the number of members annually cut off for 
 non-payment of contributions or other offences is so large 
 in proportion to the total membership that the ranks can 
 only be recruited by an annual rush of new members some- 
 what incredible, or by a return of old members who on pay- 
 ing past arrears and resuming the weekly contributions are 
 readmitted, but who have in most cases to take a lower place 
 in the scale of benefit, and at every readmission are losing 
 members of the Union. Many must thus join and rejoin 
 the Unions not from any freewill, or from any profit, but 
 because they find this course under Union action the only 
 modus vivendi open to them. There is no evidence or 
 knowledge to what extent the councils and action of the 
 Unions represent the opinion and purpose even of their own 
 members ; and when the Unions are assumed to be a type 
 of the will of the working classes in general, their repre- 
 sentative quality becomes imperceptible. The only thing 
 certain on this head is that in 1867-9 there was a lively 
 sense of " the great extent and increase of Unionism " ; 
 and that now in 1S75-6 this sense is as lively as ever under 
 painful occurrences in all parts of the country. 
 
 " IMPROVED CHARACTER OF UNIONISM." 
 
 (2.) " The improved character of Unionism." This con- 
 clusion was reached by a parenthesis excluding the Sheffield
 
 122 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 and Manchester outrages, which in 1867-9 were events ot 
 yesterday, and in incendiarism, machine-breaking, assassi- 
 nation, and every form of ignorant violence on life, property, 
 and trade had not before been equalled. These outrages 
 were not only the main reason why the Royal Commission 
 of Inquiry was issued, but the special investigations of 
 which they were the subject formed the most substantial 
 and inseparable part of the Inquiry. Yet Messrs. Hughes 
 and Harrison, in reaching their second conclusion, thought 
 that all this part of the evidence might be reasonably set 
 aside. It was only a passing cloud in the air, with no 
 root or sequence in the natural soil of Unionism. " Out- 
 side the area of the Sheffield and Manchester districts," 
 thty say, " there has happily been no vitriol-throwing of late 
 by Unionists ! " 
 
 "high character of the principal unions." 
 
 From " Improved Character of Unionism " the advance 
 was easy to (3) " High Character of the Principal Unions" 
 — Amalgamated Engineers, Amalgamated Carpenters, Man- 
 chester House-painters, Miners, Glassworkers, and others 
 specially named. It is so little our design to disparage 
 Unions conducting useful business in a business-like way, 
 and the two Dissentient Commissioners have betrayed so 
 j^rave a misapprehension of the procedure of these " high- 
 character " Unions, as will immediately appear, that this 
 conclusion may be passed over with every possible credit 
 it may reflect on the Unions, in order to make an observa- 
 tion more germane to the essential matter. 
 
 There was much questioning in the Inquiry as to the 
 effect of the Unions on the character of workmen, and on 
 the tone of feeling between workmen and employers, which 
 counts a good deal in the successful negotiation and ad- 
 justment of the various differences that may arise between 
 parties so closely related. The question was so important 
 that it obtained a place in the Report of the Commission. 
 On one hand it had been contended that the Unions had 
 destroyed the cordial and friendly feeling which used to be
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. I 23 
 
 common between the two classes. On the other hand, it 
 was asserted that all this cordial and friendly feeling was 
 hollow sentiment, and implied only " mistaken notions of 
 inferiority on the one side and patronage on the other." 
 The Commission could not decide authoritatively between 
 such conflicting assertions, but reported as " the apparent 
 result of the inquiries " that any habitual code of sentiment 
 implying patronage on the part of employers could not now be 
 revived, and that " a substitute had to be found for it in the 
 " feelings of equity, enlightened self-interest, and mutual 
 " forbearance, which should exist between contracting 
 " parties, who can best promote their several chances of 
 " advantage by aiding and accommodating each other." 
 To find this substitute for worn-out sentiments, and to find 
 it, indeed, on the basis of the Unions themselves, viz., that 
 the two classes meet and contract henceforth on terms of 
 equal independence of each other, a good feeling between 
 employers and employed, such as exists between a trades- 
 man and his customers, between the man who has the raw 
 material in his hand and the man who can manufacture it 
 into something useful and valuable, between the man who 
 wants a loan and the banker who can lend, in short, be- 
 tween all contracting parties, must still be deemed of the 
 last importance to the end in view. That the action of the 
 Unions so far has not tended to produce this good feeling, 
 but, on the contrary, the more active it has been has 
 engendered only bad feeling between employers and em- 
 ployed, is a proposition which no rational person, on the 
 evidence of 1S67-69, or on the evidence of the daily events 
 of Unionism, can be bold enough to dispute. 
 
 With respect to the effect of the Unions on the character 
 ot workmen there was the same conflict of evidence. On 
 one hand it was testified that the best workmen were losing 
 in skill, in self-reliance, and in desire to excel in their work, 
 and that the general body were falling into indulgence and 
 dissipation under the influence of their Unions. On the 
 other hand, it was replied that the real effect of the Unions 
 was to raise, not to depress, the character of the workman, 
 and that work was as well or better done under the Union
 
 124 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 rules than it could be without them. Mr. George Potter 
 gave his full assurance that men under the Unions became 
 soberer, more intelligent, and more respectable every way ; 
 and there was much testimony to the contrary. A question 
 of this breadth is not to be determined offhand. There 
 must be a certain amount of truth on both sides. It is 
 difficult to believe in any rapid deterioration either of the 
 skill or character of our working men, but one should like 
 to make this profession of faith without lessening in any 
 degree the obligation of the Unions to scan very keenly the 
 tendency of their procedure, because when the deterioration 
 has come, neither the power of the Unions nor any other 
 power may be able to arrest or amend it. 
 
 " INFLUENCE OF THE UNIONS ON STRIKES AND WAGES." 
 
 (4.) The conclusion of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison on 
 this head is remarkable in its complete antithesis to the 
 common belief not only of the public, but of the Unionists 
 themselves. The Dissentient Commissioners conclude from 
 the evidence that the effect of the Unions is not to increase, 
 but to diminish the number of strikes, and that the Unions 
 have had little or no influence in raising wages. Of course, 
 a statement of this kind betrays a strong bias, but never- 
 theless it conveys some truth, though it may not be safely 
 averred that either Mr. Hughes or Mr. Harrison had any 
 clear comprehension of what the truth of it was. It is true 
 that, taking the Trade Unions overhead, they have had 
 little or no influence, by strikes or other action, in raising 
 wages. It is also true that in various great trades under 
 Union organisation — the engineers, the shipwrights, the 
 ironfuunders, the compositors and printers, and others — 
 there have been not only comparatively small advances of 
 wages for a dozen years, but very rarely any great open-air 
 strikes, while at the same time all these Unions have been 
 carrying on quiet underground strikes in enforcement of 
 their rules. Still, this leaves the endless multitude of strikes 
 with which the public are familiar unaccounted for. Whence 
 and how do they arise?
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. I 25 
 
 The verdict of Messrs. Hughes and Harrison was that 
 " strikes were shown to be most frequent, and certainly the 
 " least orderly, where the Unions have acquired no real 
 " command over the workmen, or are struggling into 
 " existence." But this verdict places these disastrous 
 events, the frequency and magnitude of which cannot be 
 disputed, almost wholly outside the circle of Union action 
 and responsibility, which every one must perceive to be 
 contrary to common sense. Some Unions are more noto- 
 rious than others for organising great strikes. In a review 
 confined to four or five years, one could probably always 
 count on one's five fingers all the great Unions that have 
 been figuring most prominently in this way during that 
 period. But the niclce has a wonderful power of circling 
 round and maintaining a high fighting level. When one 
 Union falls back, either contented or exhausted, there is 
 always another to take its place in the ranks ; and, indeed, 
 there is scarce one of the model Unions referred to by Messrs. 
 Hughes and Harrison that has not had great struggles on 
 the broadest scale of strike with the employers. There is 
 also a considerable number of Unions that seldom or never 
 strike on their own part, but are always glad to be bottle- 
 holders, and to go in with money and cheers to a miners', 
 builders', or any other strike, as if it were a genuine 
 amusement, as well as with the most chivalrous unconcern 
 as to whether the direct effect of the strike may not be to 
 rob themselves, and to cripple and injure their own trades, 
 lint it would be idle to believe with Mr. Hughes and Mr. 
 Harrison, that when any of " our strongest, richest, and 
 most extended Unions " cease for a time to organise strikes 
 on the grand scale, they cease in any degree to administer 
 strikes in another form. The enforcement of their unac- 
 cepted rules in all the various shops and districts is a 
 constant source of strikes, and there is always a large num- 
 ber of their members, who have struck or have been 
 required by them to strike, on their " donation " rolls. 
 
 The error of the two learned gentlemen consists in having 
 picked up from the evidence an idea, as regards strikes, 
 generally true of a great majority of the Unions over a
 
 126 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 period of three or four years, without any insight into the 
 inner working of the Unions, and the means by which the 
 strike movement is propagated and sustained in undimi- 
 nished volume and disaster from period to period. Their 
 conclusion that the Unions have had little or no perceptible 
 influence in raising wages must be accepted as the fact, 
 though it is liable to temporary exceptions, as in the case, 
 for example, of the miners in 1872 and 1873. It is only a 
 pity that two members of the Commission, taking so pro- 
 minent a part in the Inquiry, had not the courage to infer 
 from this fact that the elaborate action and expenditure of 
 the Unions to raise wages fails in its main purpose, since it 
 is impossible to see what other inference can be made. 
 
 " PRACTICES OF THE TRADE UNIONS." 
 
 The conclusion in the "Statement" with respect to (5) 
 " The Practices of Trade Unions " carries us into matters 
 of business of great interest both to Unionists and em- 
 ployers, and a reasonable consideration of which would 
 seem more necessary than almost anything else to a better 
 understanding and more amicable relations between the two 
 parties. The " practices " to which Mr. Hughes and 
 Mr. Harrison refer are " piecework, equalisation of wages, 
 " limit of production, apprentices, resistance to machinery, 
 " and hostility to non-Unionists ; " and their conclusion is 
 that, "with respect to all the customs and rules complained 
 " of, no sensible public injury has been shown to result from 
 " them," and that they must be left in perfect neutrality and 
 indifference, on the part of the law or the public, to the 
 solution of " a standing struggle between conflicting 
 interests." Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison may possibly 
 be more enamoured of " standing struggles " than is at all 
 common either among workmen or employers. The or- 
 dinary dictate of prudence in the case of a " standing 
 struggle " is to get it to sit down under some rational and 
 equitable settlement as soon as possible. The disposal of 
 these practical matters in the " Detailed Statement " is 
 loose and unsatisfactory beyond toleration. Acknowledged
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. 12/ 
 
 injustices of the gravest character and magnitude arising 
 from the " practices of the Unions" — acknowledged, indeed, 
 in tin- same breath by the Statementers themselves— are put 
 aside with stolid nonchalance; vague inferences are made 
 on precise questions, in regard to which there can be no 
 pretence for any vagueness, that are directly contrary to the 
 evidence ; and while the general apology throughout is 
 that, whatever the grievances may be under Trade Union 
 practices, they are grievances in which there can be no 
 State or Legislative interference — a question, by the way, 
 that was not on the carpet — the " Statement " itself does 
 not end without invoking the aid both of State and Legis- 
 lature to enforce "the practices." The result is a medley 
 of unreason that has seldom been adventured. 
 
 On " piecework," for example, with respect to which 
 many employers and many workmen have certain opinions, 
 and many Unions directly contrary opinions, the simple 
 argument of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison is that " it 
 " would be impolitic for the State to step in on either side 
 " of the controversy." Who out of Trade Union circles is 
 likeiy to question this as a general proposition ? The real 
 difficulty is that many of the Unions insist on forcing their 
 prohibition of piecework on employers and workmen against 
 their will ; and that in this and similar attempts the 
 strikes, disturbances, and coercion of the will of others by 
 the Unions in shops occur, which it is desirable in some 
 reasonable way to avert. One reasonable way would seem 
 to be that if a Union man does not like piecework, he not 
 only need not take it, but may rely on the number of his 
 fellow-Unionists that a free course will always be open to 
 him to obtain his favourite daywork ; and that, on the 
 other hand, employers wanting piecework and workmen 
 desiring to have piecework should have the same liberty. 
 But this does not suit the Unions ; they must enforce their 
 rules not only on their own members, but on everybody 
 else in the trade, employers included; and it is they, and 
 they only, who have presumed to demand that their 
 " working rules " should be ratified and enforced by Act of 
 Parliament. It was the excuse of Broadhead, in the
 
 I2S THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Sheffield outrages, that under the absence of law enforcing 
 the rules of his Union, he was strongly tempted, much 
 against all his moral instincts, to hire explosionists and as- 
 sassins to supply the unfortunate omissions of the law ! It 
 is lamentable— in this craving of the Unions for force of 
 their own, and legal force in addition, to coerce others on 
 a matter like this of piecework, on which there must be 
 some room for liberty of opinion on the most strictly 
 technical grounds — to find Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, 
 after having rested their whole argument on a deprecation 
 of State interference on one side or the other, dropping 
 complacently into the conclusion (p. 50 of " Detailed State- 
 ment ") that having found " all the customs or rules " of 
 the Unions so free of any public injury, it would be 
 wise in their opinion to have them generally enforced, 
 and that this was an object in which the Legislature might 
 co-operate ! 
 
 Then, in the much vexed matter of "equalisation of 
 wages " — or what appears to be the determination of 
 many of the greatest Unions to bring wages to a uniform 
 level, irrespective of the skill or amount of work done 
 — the two Dissentient Commissioners deny that there is the 
 least trace of anything of this kind in the practice of the 
 Unions. " The Unions endeavour to establish a minimum 
 " standard of wages, but they make no attempt to fix a 
 " maximum." This question is one that could not be dis- 
 posed of by such ex cathedra announcements, and it is only 
 necessary to refer to the reply on this and cognate points of 
 the London Journeymen Curriers' Society — one of the oldest 
 Trade Unions in the country, and one that in respect of 
 wnges has not for at least a hundred years lowered its flag 
 to any other branch of handicraft — in order to show how 
 little Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison may have studied the 
 evidence of which they professed to give the whole philo- 
 sophical results. The Journeymen Curriers say, in answer 
 to the queries of the Royal Commission, " The evils most 
 " apparent in Unions are opposition to piecework, enforce- 
 " ment of maximum rates for weekwork, and the getting up 
 " of societies merely for strikes."
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARklSON. I 20 
 
 It is one of the disabilities of public men — a disability 
 that cleaves in some degree even to Royal Commission-; of 
 Inquiry — that they hear most on questions of this kind 
 from the busybodies and organised agitators of the Unions, 
 and least from the great mass of the Unions themselves. 
 Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison allow that "it not unfre- 
 " quently happens that men are excluded from employment 
 " because they cannot earn the Union standard of wages ; '' 
 but this did not strike them as any evil, because — and hi 
 follows the usual cool excuse of ignorance — " no tangible 
 " objection has reached us from the side of the men v. 
 "are supposed principally to suffer." Isolated, injured, 
 and suffering men throughout the country were expected 
 to come up to Westminster to enlighten Mr. Hughes and 
 Mr. Harrison as if they were a consolidated body, with 
 plenty of funds and active officers and leaders ! Could not 
 Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison have gone down to the 
 country, and found out the case for themselves ? Might 
 they not at the very least have read the replies to " queries " 
 sent in by many Unions who did not appear, and never 
 appear before Commissions as witnesses ? The Journey- 
 men Curriers could not have given the decisive utterances 
 above-quoted on piecework, maximum wages for weekwork, 
 and getting up strikes, unless there had been greatly m< 
 foundation for them than Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, 
 giving ear to the Trade Union demagoguery, must have 
 supposed when inditing their " Detailed Statement." 
 
 To fix "a limit on production" is admitted "to e 
 among some classes of colliers and unskilled labourers," and 
 if in any respect true of Unionism, to be " very partially 
 true." But Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison do not w< 
 the evidence on the other side, and dismiss the subject 
 without the consideration it requires in the interest of Union 
 workmen themselves. " Resistance to Machinery " they 
 believe to be a decreasing evil, and to be no more a cha- 
 racteristic of Unionists than of non-Unionists. The pra< 
 of the Unions as regards " apprentices " is not only treated 
 in the same easy spirit, but is sent away with a fallacious 
 reason annexed. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 THE GLASS MAKERS AND THE APPRENTICESHIP QUESTION. 
 
 Selecting a case of " the closest limitation on new 
 incomers " to a trade, viz., the glass-makers, Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison confidently conclude that the Union's 
 restrictions on apprentices have had no effect in reducing 
 the supply of labour below the adequate demand, because 
 in this instance of the .class-makers " the Union has a 
 number of its members constantly out of employment." 
 Applying this reason to the facts, let us ask why so many 
 of the members of Unions are always out of employment ? 
 From no cause to be discovered but that they are on strike- 
 pay. Strange as it may seem, this is specially true of the 
 greatest and most businesslike Unions, esteemed to be 
 much less prone to general strikes than the colliers and 
 other misguided and reckless bodies, and to be models of 
 good, practical, and skilful management, on a par almost, 
 as Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison would have it to be in- 
 ferred, with our banking, insurance, and other trading 
 companies. 
 
 Mr. Allan, of the Amalgamated Engineers, submitted to 
 the Royal Commission an abstract of payments for what 
 he strictly defined as " Donation, or Out-of-Work Pay " 
 from 185 1 to 1866. In one year they amounted to 46,670/.; 
 in 1858 they were 35,390/. : and in the seven years from 
 1 86 1 to 1866, the aggregate payments under this head 
 amounted to 145,520/. The expenditure of the Carpenters 
 and Joiners in 1866 for " trade purposes and expenses of 
 management " amounted to 9,138/., out of a gross income 
 of only 16,539/.' In recorded accounts for the two follow- 
 ing years, 1867 and 1868, which must have been under the 
 eye of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, when composing their 
 " Detailed Statement," the lavish disbursement of the funds 
 of these Societies on other than the " friendly benefits " 
 appears to still worse account. It would be the simplest 
 delusion, therefore, to suppose that great Unions like the 
 Engineers and Carpenters and Joiners, though retired for a 
 1 Appendix to Eleventh Report, vol. ii. pp. 195, 218.
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. IJI 
 
 time under motives of prudence or security from the or- 
 ganisation of general strikes, have in any degree departed 
 in their daily action from the strike policy, or that in the 
 pursuit of this tg?iis f aliens they may not be wasting the 
 funds and deluding the hopes of their members quite as 
 much, or nearly as much, as the more demonstrative colliers, 
 of whose movements Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison betray 
 a latent suspicion. 
 
 As for the case of the glass-makers, on which they base 
 their conclusion with respect to " Apprentices," it is the case 
 of a trade wholly under Union influence, and yet by reason 
 of its apprenticeship restrictions, unwillingness to adopt 
 mechanical improvements, and general obstruction to what 
 the employers perceive to be necessary to an extension of 
 the trade, has not been able to keep possession even of its 
 own home market against foreign ware. The imports of 
 foreign glass ware increased from 92,040/., in 1854, to 
 791,882/., in 1S67, or about 800 per cent., while our 
 exports of the same ware only increased 40 per cent, in 
 the same period. On what a cloud of misconception, there- 
 fore, may not Messrs. Hughes and Harrison stand when 
 they declare that, since in this Glass-makers' Union there 
 are always from 30 to 140 members on the unemployed list, 
 the limitation of apprentices, and, indeed, all the other 
 "practices" of the Union, have had no injurious effect 
 either on the members of the Unions themselves or on the 
 public? 
 
 It were almost idle, in the hazy atmosphere of semi- 
 philanthropy and semi-thinking which Trade Union phi- 
 losophy has gathered round the true interest of the working 
 classes, to speak of the old Radical doctrine of the right 
 of labour, the right of people to be employed, and to find 
 in the industrial sphere, without let or hindrance, a free and 
 available occupation of their faculties. Yet it may be worth 
 while to observe how Messrs. Hughes and Harrison dispose 
 of '• the practice of the Unions " towards " non-Unionists." 
 " It is clear," they say, " that it is a very general practice for 
 " Unionists to refuse work in company with non-Unionists, 
 " but this practice is far from being universal." And this 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 odious and revolting practice, though a very general 
 practice, yet, because it is not a universal practice, is a 
 practice, in the opinion of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, 
 to be lightly passed over, if not to be admired and en- 
 couraged. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow the remarks of the Dissen- 
 tient Commissioners on (6) " the general purpose and 
 origin," or on (7) " the collateral functions of the Unions." 
 The question at issue is not whether Unionism be wholly 
 bad, but what of the system is bad and what good, so that 
 there may be a reform, and the Unions be placed in a 
 relation more lawful to the community and more beneficial 
 to their own members. That Trade Unions collect useful 
 reports on the state of trade and the rate of wages, send 
 unemployed workmen to places where their labour is most 
 in demand, assist emigration, and give members aid from 
 the funds when on tramp, can be no reason, however useful 
 such operations may be, why they should do many other 
 acts which are either an aggression on the rights of others 
 or a fraud upon themselves. In so far as the " collateral 
 functions " of the Unions extend to the assurance of friendly 
 benefits, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison have displayed a 
 laxity of opinion as to the fidelity of insurance engagements 
 that rather dispenses with criticism ; and in arguing so in- 
 geniously that a separation of the trade and benefit funds 
 is impracticable and impolitic, they will hardly convince 
 any one of the truth of such peculiar views, or lessen the 
 example of those Unions which have found neither difficulty 
 nor impolicy in what is only an honest method of book- 
 keeping, and of debtor and creditor account. 
 
 " EFFECT OF UNIONS ON TRADE." 
 
 On (8) " the effect of Unions on Trade," Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison could not be expected to be particularly 
 luminous where the whole Commission were in some un- 
 certainty, and refrained from any positive conclusion on the 
 subject. But if the evidence tendered in the inquiry proved 
 too little to warrant the Commission to report that Unionism
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. 133 
 
 had been directly and grievously injurious to trade, Mr. 
 Hughes and Mr. Harrison, on the other hand, proved too 
 much for the opposite conclusion they sought to convey. 
 They would not allow that shipbuilding on the Thames had 
 been injured by Unionism, on the grounds, viz., that the 
 Unions on the Clyde had been as active and powerful as 
 ever they were on the Thames, and that wages had fallen, 
 or had not been advanced, on the Thames for many long 
 years, while they had been more than once advanced on 
 the Clyde. Supposing this state of things to be true, and 
 supposing it to continue — wages falling, or tending to fall, 
 on the Thames, while rising on the Clyde — the Thames 
 will h ive a fair chance of getting some of the trade back ; 
 and shipbuilding having been ruined once on the Thames, 
 may be ruined on the Clyde a second time. The action of 
 the Unions, which in its more excited forms becomes in- 
 tensely local, sectional, and narrow in its range of view, 
 may thus be helping other causes, and more especially the 
 irresistible tendency of capital to seek out the most 
 profitable sphere both as regards labour and materials, to 
 drive branches of industry from one part of the kingdom 
 to another, but such displacements, in so far as they are 
 hastened or forced by Union strikes and disturbances laying 
 capital under abnormal disadvantages in one place as 
 compared with another, must be injurious to trade in general 
 and to the Unionists themselves. For the rest of this 
 branch of the subject, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison 
 contented themselves with quoting from the returns of 
 exports, the increasing quantities of iron and steel, steam 
 engines, and machinery of all sorts sent abroad in the five 
 or six years preceding 1868. There had certainly, for a 
 longer period than quoted, been a remarkable and steady 
 increase of metallic exports from the United Kingdom. But 
 does this feature of our export trade lessen the effect of 
 foreign competition as regards the general manufacturing 
 industry of this country ? Does it not foreshadow an im- 
 minent period when the question may be not the displace- 
 ment ot trade from one part of the kingdom to another, 
 but out of the kingdom into foreign parts ? Could anything
 
 134 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 teach more cogently the need of the utmost prudence on 
 the part of the Unions as to how they act, and of refusing 
 to believe those who tell them that capital and trade may 
 be domineered and knocked about without limit in the 
 interest of the workmen ? There is a grim irony in the 
 congratulations of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison over the 
 increased exports of iron, steel, and machinery when one 
 considers the heavy clutch which the action of the Miners' 
 Unions laid a year or two afterwards on all this great part 
 of our trade, and the results of which, were Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison quoting the statistics of export now, 
 would disclose the reverse side of the picture in a great 
 decline. 
 
 " PRACTICES OF MASTERS' ASSOCIATIONS." 
 
 The Dissentient Commissioners, before passing to a graver 
 subject, amused themselves by drawing an exact parallel 
 between " the practices of Masters' Associations " and the 
 practices of the Unions. Everything bad and coercive in 
 the latter they found closely imitated in the former, but as 
 they condemned everything of this nature in the practices 
 of the Masters' Associations, and had denied up to this 
 point that there was anything either bad or coercive in the 
 practices of the Unions, we are at a loss to know what the 
 position of the two Commissioners in this passage may be. 
 It is more like an acrobatic performance than anything else. 
 The question, however, deserved to be treated more seriously. 
 The defensive and retaliatory measures of employers point 
 very distinctly, in connexion with their counterparts, to the 
 ruinous character of the Union idea that the conditions of 
 trade and industry are to be ruled by great combinations 
 of labour on one side, and of capital on the other, and that 
 these monster leagues are to be in a state of perpetual and 
 desperate war with each other. The country has borne with 
 this idea, thinking that it was contributing in some way to 
 a free readjustment of the relations of capital and labour ; 
 but the idea in practice has frequently led up to scenes of 
 devastation, which have caused many to reflect whether 
 such things lay within the toleration of any civilised State.
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. 135 
 
 Of the power of workmen and employers under hostile 
 Unionism to injure each other, and to involve innocent 
 masses of the community in loss and ruin, there has been 
 more than abundant proof; and if there is any utility in 
 writing on this subject, it must be to hint as strongly as 
 possible the necessity of finding some departure from a 
 course of action that has been a source of common detri- 
 ment. 
 
 "proposed amendments of the law." 
 
 On " Proposed Amendments of the Law " the two Com- 
 missioners, if on any part of the inquiry, should have" been 
 able to deliver a weighty and suggestive conclusion. Both 
 are gentlemen learned in the law, and might be excused 
 some crudeness of opinion on laws of trade and economy, 
 with which they had probably little theoretic and no prac- 
 tical familiarity, providing only they had proved themselves 
 wise in the law, and wise reformers of the law. Yet on this 
 part of the subject, on which they had a presumed special 
 and technical skill, their defect was most signal. 
 
 There were two courses, either of which Mr. Hughes and 
 Mr. Harrison, with the memorandum of Sir William bale 
 on the State of the Law before them, might have rationally 
 pursued. They might either have accepted the Memorandum 
 as a true exposition of the law as it stood at the date of the 
 Report of the Commission, and proceeded to demonstrate 
 the respects in which it was unjust to the Trade Unions, 
 and how it might be amended in their favour with advantage 
 or no great injury at least to the community ; or, they 
 might have disputed the accuracy of the Memorandum 
 on some points, contended that it gave a too lax and 
 colourable view of the equity with which it bore on the 
 action of the Unions, and proceeded in this way to establish 
 certain desirable amendments, but they took neither of 
 these courses. They preferred a third course which cannot 
 be characterised by any milder epithet than disingenuous. 
 The\' accepted " the exhaustive paper prepared for the use 
 of the Commission by the Chairman " to which they were 
 unable to add or subtract anything — " we do not presume,"
 
 136 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 they say, " to make any comment whatever on the views 
 which it expresses" — and, after this ample indorsement, they 
 proceeded to give the Memorandum an interpretation which 
 it does not bear ; and through this back door arrived at 
 their "proposed amendments of the law" on a wholly so- 
 phistical basis. 
 
 The following were the results of the law, in their most 
 general and essential form, which they professed with all 
 modesty to have learned from Sir William Erie : — 
 
 " 1. At common law every person has a right to full freedom in dis- 
 posing of his own labour, or his own capital, according to his will ; and 
 every obstruction to the exercise of that right in such a degree as to 
 cause damage to him thereby, even by means not otherwise unlawful, is a 
 wrong. 
 
 "2. A combination by many to do a wrong, in a matter where the 
 public has an interest, is the substantive offence of conspiracy, and a 
 ciime." 
 
 The words in italics are theirs, not ours, and are intended 
 to cast a stigma on the Common Law, and to import that a 
 person dealing with his labour or his capital in his own way 
 must not be obstructed by another person, even though 
 the method of obstruction may be not otherwise unlawful ! 
 This would, indeed, be an anomalous state of the law ; it 
 would imply that if a tailor sell trousers at j8j., another 
 tailor who presumes to sell trousers at 17s. is liable to him 
 in damage ; and if such be Mr. Hughes's and Mr. Harrison's 
 conception of the law, nothing more can be needed to 
 account for the zeal without knowledge with which they have 
 thrown themselves into the cause of its amendment. But, 
 seeing they have professed to sit at the feet of Sir William 
 Erie in the matter, it must be safe to hear what the master 
 himself says : — 
 
 " Every person has a right under the law, as between him and his 
 fellow-subjects, to full freedom in disposing of his own labour, or his 
 ;i capital, according to his own will. It follows that every other is 
 subject to the correlative duty arising therefrom, and is prohibited from 
 any obstruction to the fullest exercise of this right which can be made 
 compatible with the exercise of similar rights by others. Every act 
 causing an obstruction to another in the exercise of the right comprised
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. 1 37 
 
 within tins description— done not in the actor's own right, but for the 
 put [ )struction— would, if damage should he caused thereby to 
 
 the party obstructed, be a wrong to be remedied either by action or 
 indictment, as the case may be." 
 
 A tailor selling trousers at i8x. could not possibly lay an 
 action of damages against a tailor selling the same garment 
 at \- t s. under this definition of the law by Sir William 
 Erie, as he could clearly do under the definition given by 
 Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, while professing all the 
 time to "take the law from Sir William Erie's own lips. 
 The one tradesman might no doubt be injured and damaged 
 by the other, but the other would be acting within his own 
 right, and there would be nothing of the nature of obstruc- 
 tion in the case. 
 
 When a Trade Union, or any combination of working 
 men strike, and suspend their labour, they inflict much 
 damage upon others than themselves or their employers, 
 which" the law does not recognise as an injury or damage to 
 be remedied by action or indictment, because the men 
 striking and suspending their labour are acting within their 
 own right. They may give or withhold their labour as they 
 ] .lease. Unionists should look more than they do at this 
 side of the case, in which the law is practically neutral as 
 regards the enormous injury which their action often inflicts 
 on other persons than those immediately implicated, that 
 is, themselves and their employers, and on large bodies even 
 of fellow-workmen, who have had no part or say in their 
 action whatever. A strike in one department of a branch 
 of industry often throws hundreds and thousands of working 
 men into enforced idleness in a dispute in which the}' have 
 had no concern, and which has proceeded throughout 
 against their will. For all this kind of injury the common 
 law appears to have no remedy. It is silent on the whole 
 subject. Our jurists may not have seen in its full magnitude 
 the mutual responsibility and dependence of the industrial 
 relations that were to arise. But it does not follow that the 
 law will be always silent in this direction, which reaches 
 the highest idea of all — the idea of the common well-being
 
 I38 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 — and it were surely incumbent on the Unions, on seeing 
 how free the law has placed them in regard to all interme- 
 diary, secondary, and indirect damage arising from their 
 procedure, to recognise and respect the strictness with which 
 the law forbids them, after having exhausted their own full 
 right, in small numbers or great numbers, of disposing of 
 their labour as they please, to obstruct others in the exercise 
 of precisely the same right. 
 
 The little play on words in italics, by which Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison sought to convey a perverted interpreta- 
 tion of the law, and to father the perversion on Sir William 
 Erie, was weak on the part of gentlemen of their learning 
 and capacity, because it is not only known to lawyers, but 
 to all persons of ordinary intelligence, that acts " not other- 
 wise unlawful" become grossly unlawful and even criminal 
 when associated with an unlawful or criminal purpose. 
 There is nothing unlawful in taking your neighbour a drive 
 into the country, giving him plenty of bread and ale, singing 
 to him, and doing all in your power to make him happy. 
 So far from being unlawful, this is one of the most pleasing 
 duties of humanity, and one that may probably be not so 
 much practised as it ought to be. But if your object is to 
 abduct a voter from the poll, or a witness from a pending 
 trial, the act assumes a wholly different complexion. And 
 so if workmen spirit away other workmen from their labour 
 by highly festive temptations and liberal gifts of money 
 with the intention to damage the employer, or by " picket- 
 ing,'' under the pretence of moral suasion, obstruct work- 
 men in going to or coming from their labour, threatening 
 them, or, as often happens, falling upon them and beating 
 them, the law will hold an offence to have been committed 
 according to the circumstances. It is the purpose of the 
 actors, and the wrong ensuing, and not the means alone, 
 that constitute the unlawfulness. 
 
 But not content with this obvious misstatement of the 
 general principle of the law, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison 
 proceed to heap gloss after gloss upon it with the view of 
 making out a case of intolerable grievance. " The effect of 
 the two doctrines," they say, " is this " : —
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. HUGHES AND MR. HARRISON. 13$ 
 
 "Men cannot create any legal obligation not to work, or not to 
 employ, simply upon terms allowed by the majority. Any arrangement 
 for that purpose is illegal ; and any attempt to enforce such agreement 
 by what is called 'unlawful coercion,' appears to be a crime." 
 
 It would be difficult to crowd more legal obscurity into 
 the same number of lines than is here. What is meant by 
 " a legal obligation not to work or not to employ ? " Of 
 course, agreements between masters and workmen cannot 
 be in question, because the law will hold such contracts 
 binding irrespective of the opinion of minorities or majorities 
 of the parties. What Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison can 
 only be thinking of is, that when the majority of a trade 
 resolve to work only on certain conditions, or any number 
 of workmen resolve not to work till certain conditions be 
 conceded, the resolution should be binding on the minority 
 in the one case, and that it should be binding in the other 
 case on all the workmen going into a strike as long as there 
 is a majority for maintaining it. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Har- 
 rison seem to be of opinion that it is a blemish of the law that 
 men cannot by resolutions of this kind " create any legal 
 obligation." Now, what is a legal obligation? It is an 
 obligation which the law will enforce ; and what Mr. Hughes 
 and Mr. Harrison imply, therefore, is, that when the majo- 
 rity of a trade adopt certain working rules the law should 
 enforce these rules over the whole trade ; and that when a 
 body of workmen resolve not to work until certain terms 
 be conceded, the law should step in and compel any of the 
 body who may be departi \v^ from the resolution to abide by 
 it as long as there is a majority on that side. The two 
 learned Commissioners not only hover over, but absolutely 
 sink into the wild conclusion of Broadhead, that in order 
 to avert questions of " the lawful coercion " in which he 
 was so unhappily involved, the law itself should be the 
 coercer, and save the Trade Unions all trouble on that 
 point. But the law, for manifest reasons, cannot yield to 
 such tempting solicitations. In the first place the law can 
 only recognise resolutions of the kind referred to on the 
 assumption that they are voluntary resolutions, that they 
 are binding only on those who have freely agreed to them,
 
 140 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 and that they are not binding on any of the number longer 
 than they freely choose to observe them. In the second 
 place, were the law to enforce such resolutions it would be 
 involved in hopeless difficulties, and could only compel a 
 minority of workmen in a strike " not to work," or a mi- 
 nority of employers in a lock-out " not to employ," on the 
 condition of indemnifying out of the public purse the com- 
 pelled workmen and employers for a gross infraction of the 
 common right to dispose of their labour or capital according 
 to their own will. 
 
 The demand of the Trade Unions to have all their re- 
 solutions against others enforced by law, which thus found 
 ample expression in the " Detailed Statement " of Messrs. 
 Hughes and Harrison, has always stood in curious contrast 
 to their other demand that there should be no law or no 
 enforcement by law between them and their own members. 
 It must be observed in justice to the two Commissioners, 
 with whom there has been this controversy, that when they 
 came to practical " propositions respecting amendments of 
 the law" they had really nothing more to propose than 
 this :— 
 
 " Union not to be capable of being sued as a corporate body, or of 
 being dissolved, or otherwise wound up by the courts ; and not to be 
 accountable, in law or equity, to its members in respect of any rule, 
 agreement, resolution, or act of the society." 
 
 A mountain in labour brought forth this mouse !
 
 XI. 
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 
 
 The methods adopted by the Unions to determine rates of 
 wages and other relations with employers have been fraught 
 with such disastrous consequences, not only to both parties, 
 but to the public interest, that there has been for many 
 years no small solicitude to discover some more expedient 
 mode of settling such disputes as may arise on these ques- 
 tions. This solicitude appears to be felt quite as strongly 
 by many members of the Unions themselves as by any class 
 of employers ; and it is felt probably by the general public, 
 and by all disinterested and competent observers of the 
 Unionist me/ir, more strongly than by either workmen or 
 employers immediately embroiled in an exciting and con- 
 stant, but in all its ups and downs an essentially barren 
 antagonism. "The strike," reported the Royal Commis- 
 sion, " is a very rude method of settling such a question [as 
 •' the rate of wages], and it were much to be wished that 
 " some method could be devised, mutually satisfactory to 
 " workmen and employers, for settling disputes on this and 
 " other questions when they arise." The only other method, 
 thus so desirable — apart from the natural laws of trade 
 which, though they do not supply any practical specific for 
 the settlement of disputes between one class of men or one 
 party of negotiators and another, are yet entitled to infuse 
 much calm enlightenment into such disputes — is known 
 under the general terms of Arbitration and Conciliation, or, 
 as it might be described, a little more reason, mutual under- 
 standing, and good temper on the part of the disputants.
 
 142 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 DISTINCTION BETWEEN ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 
 
 But it is necessary to distinguish between Arbitration and 
 Conciliation. The medium of harmony established by Mr. 
 Mundella between employers and employed in the hosiery 
 trade of Nottingham and " the three counties " is called an 
 Arbitration Board, but in reality it wields no power of arbi- 
 tration properly so called, and is simply a Conciliatory 
 Board, or such a centre of good feeling and mutual under- 
 standing between parties, with respective interests to be 
 arranged, but having a profound conviction that they are 
 equally necessary to each other, as may be established in 
 any considerable and well-defined market. The evidence 
 of Mr. Mundella is probably one of the most interesting 
 and suggestive passages in the Inquiry of 1867-9, an d one 
 would much rather enhance than diminish in any degree its 
 importance. But Arbitration is a different process. It im- 
 plies that matters in dispute, by mutual consent of parties 
 or by virtue of previous contract, are submitted to arbiters, 
 with an umpire, whose award is final, and may have the 
 force of law, like any other result of contract in the public 
 courts, so far as it can be enforced in that way. Mr. Rupert 
 Kettle, County Court Judge of the district of Dudley, has 
 been the most eminent administrator of this method of 
 introducing greater harmony into the relations of capital 
 and labour, and averting the universally obnoxious process 
 of strikes. 
 
 MR. RUPERT KETTLE'S EVIDENCE. 
 
 Mr. Kettle, in his evidence before the Royal Commis- 
 sion, divided strikes into three groups — first, disagreements 
 upon the terms of a future contract ; second, disagreement 
 on the construction of a subsisting contract ; and third, 
 disagreement upon matters of sentiment. The second 
 class of cases seem the fittest of all for arbitration, for 
 when two parties in any walk of life differ as to some pre- 
 cise term or reading of a contract, to which both wish 
 honourably to adhere, they can seldom do better than sub- 
 mit the matter in dispute to a qualified and impartial
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 43 
 
 arbiter, and this may be specially true where several em- 
 plovers and large bodies of working men are concerned. 
 Differences of this class, according to Mr. Kettle, are 
 easily adjusted " if people come together with undisturbed 
 minds." Sentimental disagreements are not so easily ar- 
 ranged, because it is difficult to arbitrate on differences of 
 sentiment, and the circumstances of many strikes that have 
 this origin are too meagre and intangible for so grave and 
 dignified a process as arbitration. It is out of the first 
 class of disagreements that the more important strikes arise. 
 The men propose an advance of wages, or the employers 
 propose a reduction, and the difference between them is so 
 considerable that the tug of war begins. But this form of 
 disagreement, though the source of the most extensive and 
 baneful strikes, is unfortunately the least amenable to arbi- 
 tration, because the point to be determined is the future 
 rate of wages : it is not the impartial construction of an 
 existing contract, but the making of a new one, and arbiters 
 must be as much at sea as to what the future rate of wages 
 should be as the parties themselves, and at best can only 
 split the difference, or compound the dispute in some way 
 so as to produce agreement for the moment, which the 
 parties might as well have done for themselves. Beyond 
 setting the parties to work together again, the award can 
 have no effect whatever in determining the future rate of 
 wages, and both employers and employed reserve their 
 right of notice if wages, in point of fact, should tend rather 
 to fall below or rise above the rate fixed by the award. 
 Notwithstanding the disability thus attaching to arbitration 
 in regard to future rate of wage-!, Mr. Rupert Kettle ad- 
 dressed himself to the task of overcoming it, and from the 
 tenour of his evidence before the Royal Commission it may 
 be interred that he had succeeded to a degree which ap- 
 peared to him at that time satisfactory. 
 
 THE WOLVERHAMPTON EXPERIENCE. 
 
 At ^Volverhampton there had been for some years a series 
 of strikes in the building trades not only most injurious
 
 144 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 both to masetrs and men, but suspending necessary building 
 operations in the town and neighbourhood, summer after 
 summer. In these circumstances Mr. Kettle prevailed on 
 the master builders and the operative carpenters and joiners 
 of Wolverhampton to choose six delegates respectively to 
 form a board of arbitration, to which all future disputes 
 should be referred. The plasterers and bricklayers came 
 in soon afterwards, but the masons were intractable, and 
 stood out. The employers appear to have entered with 
 unanimity into the experiment from the first, and as the 
 delegates of the operatives increased the delegates of the 
 employers were increased so as to maintain an equality at 
 the board ; and Mr. Kettle was appointed chairman with a 
 casting vote. It is the practice of this board to review a 
 series of rules as to rate of wages, &c, once a year, and to 
 make it the basis of contract between employers and em- 
 ployed for the year. The employers accept the rules, and 
 allow them to be hung up in their shops, by which they are 
 held bound to observe them ; and on engaging their work- 
 men they put a copy of the rules into the hand of each, by 
 which the workman is also supposed to be bound as in 
 contract. The delegates of the workmen are elected in 
 public assemblies of Unionists and non-Unionists of the 
 respective trades. Mr. Kettle not only attaches import- 
 ance to this arrangement, but has great distrust of the 
 power of the Unions to do any good to themselves by 
 their own unregulated modes of action. He is of opinion 
 that Unions often lower rather than raise wages in their 
 respective trades, while injuring the employers and the 
 public. The board, having thus by an effective representa- 
 tive process, obtained a form of contract between the em- 
 ployers and the working population of Wolverhampton in 
 the building trades, with direct reference to its arbitration 
 in any dispute that may arise as an essential part of the 
 contract, acquires considerable power over local or sectional 
 quarrels, and its awards in such cases would no doubt have 
 much weight if they should happen to go into the local 
 courts against any individuals, whether employers or work- 
 men. Mr. Kettle's evidence proves that this board of arbi-
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 45 
 
 tration at Wolverhampton had a beneficial influence. The 
 main effect, however, appears to have been that there was 
 more quietude on the part of the Unions, less uncertainty 
 that operations during the building season would proceed 
 without strikes or disturbances, and that the native honour 
 of the working men breathed more freely in the larger 
 atmosphere that had thus been opened than it had breathed 
 for some years before in the narrow and distracting Union 
 circles. In determining the rate of future wages, or as a 
 legal instrument in settling disputes to that end, the Wolver- 
 hampton Board of Arbitration could have no real power. 
 It was soon discovered, indeed, that the petty disputes 
 arising in the local trade were much too numerous and too 
 inconsiderable severally to require the formal process of 
 arbitration, and a " conciliation rule " was added, which 
 according to Mr. Kettle "has been found in practice more 
 useful than the arbitration rule." The Board at Wolver- 
 hampton, though from Mr. Kettle's idea and legal pro- 
 cesses of working called an Arbitration Board, is in sub- 
 stance a Conciliation Board like Mr. Mundella's Board at 
 Nottingham. 
 
 The futility of thinking to settle future rates of wages by 
 arbiters became sufficiently apparent on Mr. Kettle's ex- 
 amination. For example, the Board at Wolverhampton 
 declare a rate of wages for the season, to which the em- 
 ployers' and workmen's representatives agree. But if wages 
 rise in other districts of the country during the season, the 
 workmen in Wolverhampton are not in the least bound to 
 their employers for the season, but on " a day's notice" 
 may go wherever they can earn more wages. On the other 
 hand, if wages should fall, the Wolverhampton employers can- 
 not run away from their workmen as their workmen may run 
 away from them ; they cannot bring in the cheaper labour 
 available ; the only thing they can do is to give their work- 
 men " notice," and allow outside employers to come in and 
 take what trade may be negotiable in Wolverhampton. It 
 is vain to attempt to give lop-sided contracts of this kind 
 the force of law, civil or natural. How easily they may be 
 disturbed even in their attainable moral effect is shown by 
 
 L
 
 I46 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 an incident recorded by Mr. Kettle. The masons, who 
 had stood aloof from the Board of Arbitration, waited 
 their opportunity, and when there was a certain amount of 
 stonework to be done in Wolverhampton that could not be 
 delayed without throwing many of the other building opera- 
 tives out of employment, threatened to strike, and on the 
 strength of this threat obtained larger wages than the 
 Board of Arbitration had fixed for the other building opera- 
 tives. The result of this was that bricklayers and others 
 came up, and complained to the Board that the wages had 
 not been struck high enough, and that they were sorry they 
 had not adhered, like the masons, to their old Union for- 
 mation. " I confess," said Mr. Kettle, " that this is a very 
 " great difficulty, and that I shall have more than ordinary 
 " trouble to overcome it." Another phase of the difficulty 
 is when a body of employers, as in the recent case in South 
 Wales, resolve to " lock out " and to give up business rather 
 than endeavour to carry on save under a reduced scale of 
 wages. It is, happily, seldom such an extreme case occurs, 
 and when it does occur the case is always found to be one 
 where the Unions, having under exceptional circumstances 
 forced up wages much above any maintainable level, have 
 in the reaction of trade to meet the inevitable downward 
 process. But when such a case occurs, of what avail is 
 arbitration ? When a body of employers say, emphatically, 
 " No ; we will rather stop our business, and subject our- 
 selves to loss of fixed capital and profits of trade," of 
 what use can be Mr. Kettle, or any number of equally able 
 arbitrators in such a situation ? There may be room for 
 some conciliatory efforts, but there is no ground for arbiters 
 to stand upon, unless the arbiters are to undertake the loss 
 arising from the operation of their decrees. 
 
 Mr. Kettle's opinion that the rate of wages, for some 
 time future, may be determined by arbitration, rested a 
 good deal on the particular condition of the building trades, 
 that the employers' contracts are generally undertaken and 
 concluded within a year. But building contracts are found 
 in practice to end and open at all periods of the year, and 
 it is obvious that from this, as well as other causes, wages
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 47 
 
 in the interim may either rise above or fall below the scale 
 fi\ed by arbitration for the year. The general agreement 
 or understanding formed by the Board of Arbitration, for 
 the building trades of Wolverhampton, may be very useful 
 as a landmark or as a bond of mutual confidence, and 
 under this general guide employers and workmen may enter 
 all the more readily into special contracts with respect to 
 particular works of longer or shorter duration, which con- 
 tracts would have the force of law in the Courts. But 
 working men are naturally reluctant to bind themselves to 
 an employer at fixed wages for any considerable period of 
 time in any case, and in no case save on the condition of 
 continuous employment during the whole period ; while 
 employers are as naturally reluctant to bind themselves to 
 this condition. They might engage themselves to this ex- 
 tent to a number of their men, but that they could thus 
 contract for the future with the whole body of men in their 
 employment at any particular period, is a possibility that 
 can very rarely, if ever, occur. The awards of Arbitration 
 Boards, therefore, in regard to future wages outside of 
 special contracts, whatever minor sphere of usefulness they 
 may have, cannot be put into any conceivable form of legal 
 obligation, were it even desirable that they should be, which 
 no one can say it is. This result would be too near an ap- 
 proach to the old system of fixing rates of wages by statute 
 to be favourably entertained in the interest of the working 
 classes themselves. 
 
 The question of wages has been knocked about so much 
 by Unionists, from pillar to post and from post to pillar, 
 that it is going round in a circle and has now arrived at a 
 proposal of arbitration which, if it could have any avail, 
 would differ in nothing from the long discarded system 
 under which the rate of wages and the rate of profits were 
 fixed by law, or by the public authorities of the day and the 
 place. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THF. ROYAL COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 The conclusion of the Royal Commission was - <: It does 
 " not appear that any system of compulsory arbitration is 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 " practicable, since there are no admitted principles of de- 
 " cision on which the arbitrator may proceed ; and it is 
 " scarcely possible to bind so fluctuating a body as the 
 " workmen to any decision of a permanent character." 
 Mr. Hughes and Mr. Harrison, dealing with this question in 
 a passage of their dissentient Statement, say that " the fact 
 " [conclusion] most plainly visible is the uniform approval 
 " of a system of working rules agreed to between employers 
 " and employed ; " and that " when the great advantages of 
 " a code of rules and prices are further supported by a 
 " board of arbitration, it appears to us the nearest solution 
 " of the labour and employment question which has yet 
 " shown itself." To this they add that " some facilities 
 " might be given to the machinery required for enforcing 
 " the awards of boards of arbitration regularly constituted, 
 " to which there had been a bond fide appeal." The code 
 of rules and prices thus to be made the basis of arbitration- 
 awards to be enforced by law, as Mr. Hughes and Mr. Har- 
 rison admit, requires to be first agreed to between employers 
 and employed. They must have been fully conscious that 
 in the codes of rules and prices of the Trade Unions, there 
 are many provisions, such as the hostility to piecework, the 
 sending " to Coventry " a non-Union workman, the right to 
 strike on the spot against an apprentice or a foreman, or, as 
 in the case of the stonemasons of Wolverhampton, the 
 right of prohibiting the introduction of dressed stone from 
 Yorkshire, &c, which no employer, or arbiter, or board of 
 arbitration could agree to without forfeiting all claims to 
 ordinary intelligence ; and they may have contemplated in 
 this passage of their Statement an expurgation of the codes 
 of the Unions that would satisfy the most trenchant re- 
 former. But, under all this wide assumption, it is difficult 
 to see how any legal force or facility can be given to arbi- 
 tration awards of future wages, when the workmen, on the 
 one hand, are at liberty to go anywhere else on the briefest 
 notice for higher wages ; and the employers, on the other 
 hand, though they may not go elsewhere for cheaper labour, 
 are yet at liberty on the briefest notice at least to stop and 
 discharge their men. Mr. Hughes, pursuing this will-o'-the-
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 49 
 
 wisp idea of some solution of future wages in the courts of 
 law, put the following question to Mr. Rupert Kettle, — 
 " Would not the difficulty be met if you were to add that 
 " the award of the umpire might be made a rule of one of 
 " the Superior Courts ? " To which Mr. Kettle replied, — 
 " The expense of that would be great, and it would 
 " delocalise it, which would be very disadvantageous. You 
 " would get a lawyer interposed. I have a great respect 
 " for the profession, but I do not wish to see lawyers inter- 
 " posed in these cases." The truth is, that neither law nor 
 lawyers, save under some specific and unexpired contract, 
 can compel working men to take lower wages than they 
 can obtain, nor employers to pay higher wages than they 
 can afford, over any future period ; and the arbitration pro- 
 cess of Mr. Kettle, when examined, can be in reality 
 nothing more than a conciliatory process, like that of 
 Mr. Mundella. 
 
 MR. M USD ELLAS SYSTEM. 
 
 The proceedings under the Nottingham system are of a 
 very homely character, and approach as nearly as possible 
 to the consultations that take place between buyers and 
 sellers in any large market. An equal number of represen- 
 tatives of the employers and of the workmen meet round a 
 table, and agree, after much deliberation, to "a statement 
 of prices," which is subject to review in any of its parts 
 under new circumstances, or on satisfactory reasons shown 
 at periodical meetings of the board. No appeal is made to 
 any authority but that of the opinion and facts of the em- 
 ployers and employed themselves, as gathered at these 
 meetings. The board has learned from experience to dis- 
 pense even with coming to a vote. " As chairman," s 1 
 Mr. Mundella. " I have a casting vote, and twice that 
 " casting vote has got us into trouble. And for the last four 
 " years it has been resolved that we would not vote al all. 
 " We said, ' Let us try if we can agree,' and we did a 
 The •" higgling of the market" proceeds at this board as it 
 does in less formal cases, till all can rise from their s 
 unanimous. Such is the amount of adherence to this system
 
 150 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 on the part of the employers as well as of the workmen, a 
 great bulk of whom are organised in Unions, that the 
 " statement of prices " arranged by the board finds general 
 acceptance throughout the whole trade. 
 
 There are occasionally, however, some few employers 
 outside the circle, who take their own way, against whom a 
 dispute with the operatives and a strike would be imminent. 
 In such cases two or three employers from the board wait 
 upon these eccentric firms, reason with them — " We have 
 " agreed to these terms, you can do the same, they are 
 " acceptable on the whole,. and why submit yourself to a 
 "strike, and disturb the trade?" — and, if this reasoning 
 should fail, a hint that the board employers have empty 
 frames for all the workmen that might abandon the eccentric 
 firms has generally a conclusive effect. Mr. Mundella was 
 at some pains to show that there was nothing of a coercive 
 nature in this procedure. But his apology was somewhat 
 superfluous, because when the general body of employers 
 and workmen are united, partial objectors must conform or 
 succumb in any case. If the dissenting firm be simply 
 looking to its own business, and in its condition of profit 
 and loss cannot conform to the general rate of wages, it is 
 to be pitied ; on the other hand, if it is a screwing firm, 
 bent only on squeezing as much labour out of the workmen 
 for as little wage as possible— which, as Mr. Mundella tes- 
 tified, was the character ascribed by the Trade Unions, 
 dining his day, to all employers alike, as if there were no 
 natural law, or divine law as it may be called, by which 
 such a policy, even if universal, was sure of being circum- 
 vented — this is a kind of firm to be disregarded by the 
 general body of employers and workmen, and to be left to 
 the self ruin of its own principle of procedure. Workmen 
 will withdraw of their own free accord from such employ- 
 ment ; all the better class of workmen will be able readily 
 to do so ; and the screwing firm will be left in the end with 
 the "riff-raff" of the labour market, dear and unprofitable 
 at any rate of wages. Though in many instances combina- 
 tions of large and prosperous firms with masses of workmen 
 at their back might be much abused, yet there is little in
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 151 
 
 this scheme at Nottingham, as described by Mr. Mundella, 
 that directly conflicts with what would happen under a free 
 and natural action of trade and employment ; and there can 
 be as little doubt that, in the hosiery and lace industries of 
 Nottinghamshire, 1 )erbyshire, and Leicestershire, though of 
 ancient notoriety for the wildest outbreaks of labour against 
 capital, it has had a beneficial influence in averting strikes 
 and disturbances, and in producing a much better under- 
 standing between employers and employed than formerly 
 existed. 
 
 SPECIAL CONCILIATORY CONDITIONS OF THE HOSIERY AND 
 
 LACE TRADES. 
 
 The hosiery and lace trades of the three counties, how- 
 ever, have some special characteristics, which have no doubt 
 helped materially to facilitate the operation of Mr. Mun- 
 della's system. 
 
 There is not only a uniqueness of interest in these 
 branches of industry highly favourable to a common course 
 of action among the employers, and between the employers 
 and the workmen, but all the labour in the trade is done by 
 piecework from beginning to end, and there are few or none 
 of the many smaller questions than that of wages — but 
 nevertheless extremely vexing and prolific sources of dis- 
 pute and bad feeling — that arise in trades where opposition 
 to piecework is a leading principle of the Unions. The 
 employer and the workmen have only to arrange the price 
 for making a dozen pairs of stockings — steam-loom, hand- 
 loom, silk, or cotton — or whatever the class of article may 
 be, and their business is settled. In the steam factories 
 there are regulations as to hours, ages, sexes, education, and 
 other minute matters, but these are made by Act of Parlia- 
 ment, and when the pay for a given piece of work has been 
 arranged, the work under all its various classifications 
 proceeds, with a simplicity of relation between employer 
 and workman which it would be vain to look for in trades 
 where piecework is not only not the rule, but is systema- 
 tically opposed by the Unions.
 
 152 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Then, the hosiery and lace trades make goods largely for 
 foreign markets, and are closely subject to foreign competi- 
 tion , the bearing of which the operatives perceive and feel 
 as sensibly as the employers. When the representatives of 
 the employers and the workmen meet in their Board, the 
 articles made in France or Germany are placed on the table, 
 with the prices at which they are offered and are being sold 
 in England. This is a demonstration which working men 
 can fully comprehend ; and it infuses an amount of reason 
 into the deliberations at Nottingham which may not be 
 equally attainable in branches of industry where the visible 
 data and other means of mutual understanding are not so 
 readily at hand. 
 
 CONCILIATION AND INDIVIDUALISM. 
 
 Mr. Mundella's process of conciliation, or, as it might as 
 well be called, coming to market terms on a fair deliberation 
 between employers and employed en masse, stands in con- 
 trast to much of the evidence given in the Inquiry of 1867-9, 
 the purport of which may not be better described than 
 by the term of "individualism," or the right of the em- 
 ployer, master of his own capital, skill, and business, to 
 transact with his workmen individually; and the right of the 
 workman, on the other hand, as master of his labour, his 
 skill, and his power of making all his talents and qualities 
 appreciable, to transact with the employer on the same 
 basis. Mr. Nasmyth, the eminent engineer, presented this 
 idea of the relation of capital and labour in its strongest 
 and most concentrated form ; and it is an idea so pregnant 
 in its results that it can never be without force in the in- 
 dustrial system of any country that would occupy a success- 
 ful, not to say a foremost, place in the business of the 
 world. But Mr. Nasmyth's evidence, though always bril- 
 liant, practical, energetic, and reflecting much light on the 
 springs of action and excellence in the engineering works, 
 by which the whole labour and commerce of the Kingdom 
 have hitherto been so eminently supported, may withal not 
 be accepted in its leading doctrine as an absolute or uni-
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 53 
 
 versal rule. It fails in this respect, that, however individually 
 employers may act, they have to keep a sharp eye all the 
 while on how other employers are acting ; and workmen, 
 moving on the same individual principle, have to do the 
 same. They are both governed to some extent in their own 
 sphere by fellow-competitors. It would be idle to leave out 
 of the question a general equilibrium, apart from individual 
 motive, to which both employers and workmen have to 
 conform. There is an element of necessary deliberation, 
 therefore, on both sides in any case; and in whatever 
 branches of employment such a process as that of Mr. 
 Mundella in the hosiery and lace trades can assume an or- 
 ganic form, it must surely, in comparison with anything 
 which the action of the Trade Unions has presented, be a 
 sound and rational procedure. 
 
 RECENT ARBITRATION CASES. 
 
 The attempt to determine future wages by arbitration has 
 had many examples within the last year or two under cir- 
 cumstances that must be admitted to put the process to a 
 severe trial, but of which it should be able to bear the 
 strain if it be in any degree a reasonable, or more than a 
 Quixotic, mode of settling the future rate of wages. 
 
 In such a case as that of the coal and iron trade recently 
 in South Wales, where the employers found themselves in such 
 extremity that they resolved to close their works unless a 
 reduction of wages were conceded by the workmen, an arbi- 
 tration appears to be absolutely excluded. But employers 
 in various branches of industry have, in the general How 
 and pressure of sentiment, committed themselves more or 
 less to arbitration beyond the sphere in which arbitration 
 can be of any practical utility. Employers and workmen, 
 indeed, have a common facility of entering into these mimic 
 arrangements, because the result is binding neither on the 
 one class nor on the other. An employer cannot be com- 
 pelled to continue to employ men at wages fixed by arbiters ; 
 nor can a workman be compelled to continue to give his 
 labour under any award of that kind. A fro [uent result of
 
 154 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the more public arbitrations as to future wages has been 
 that where the award of the arbiters has not come up to 
 their expectations, the Unionist workmen have not only 
 individually, as the employers individually might also do, 
 but in a body have refused to submit to the award, and have 
 demanded either some new strike or some new adjudication, 
 as if the trade of the country could be conducted under a con- 
 stant process of litigation, with its production of books and 
 documents, its wranglings, its distractions, and suspensions 
 of business, not as regards the main concern equally to 
 employers and employed, but as regards an entirely unsolv- 
 able question of future rate of wages. " In these days 
 of Union strikes and arbitrations," bitterly exclaims the 
 manager of a large iron-work in the North of England, 
 " one has hardly time to look ahead, much less to look 
 " back. My time has been so much occupied in getting up 
 " evidence and preparing cases to lay before the Arbitration 
 " Board, that I have had little or no time left to the business 
 " of iron-making." 
 
 The cases in which employers and workmen have entered 
 within the last year into arbitrations with a full determina- 
 tion to abide by the award, and in which the award, when 
 given, has been rebelled against by the workmen, are more 
 numerous than can here be dwelt upon. But take two sig- 
 nificant examples. 
 
 A Court of Arbitration formed in Manchester in 1869, 
 and embracing the Trades' Union Council of Manchester 
 and Salford, and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 
 broke down under a notice from the latter that as no cases 
 had ever come before the Court, it might as well be wound 
 up. A dispute between the Amalgamated Carpenters and 
 Joiners and their employers in the interim had been referred 
 to the umpireship of Dr. Watts, whose decision was re- 
 pudiated by the men, and another expensive and tedious 
 process was entered upon with professional arbitrators on 
 each side, leaving the final award to Mr. S. Pope, Q.C., 
 Recorder of Bolton. Mr. Pope had already been engaged 
 in a dispute in the same trades in Bolton, and had thrice 
 arbitrated, and finally wrote to the Masters' Secretary that
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. I 55 
 
 the agreement for six months' notice of any advance had 
 been disregarded by the men, and that such conduct rendered 
 arbitration useless. Dr. Watts, in the Manchester case, 
 refused concession as regards general wages and working 
 hours, but on all other points gave an award in favour of 
 the workmen. Mr. Pope, Q.C., increased the wages per 
 week by sixpence, and reduced the working time per week 
 2\ hours ; but took away other advantages to the work- 
 men awarded by Dr. AYatts ! 
 
 Again, Mr. Hughes, late M.P., appeared in May last, as 
 final arbiter with full consent of colliers and coalmasters 
 in Somersetshire, and gave an award of 1 1 per cent, reduc- 
 tion in room of the 16 per cent, which the employers had 
 offered to the men without going to arbitration. So far 
 from being satisfied with this friendly award, the colliers were 
 highly indignant at it, and demanded an appeal to Mr. Mac- 
 donald and Mr. Lloyd Jones, or, in other words, an appeal 
 from a superior to an inferior tribunal. The collier-obloquy 
 with which Mr. Hughes was reported to have been visited 
 on this occasion may be a lesson to him ; but the lesson 
 should not have come from that quarter, since no man 
 deserves more respect from the working men of the Unions, 
 as regards all the benevolent and conscientious intention 
 which is one of the superior tests of character, than Mr. 
 Hughes. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND COAL TRADE ARBITRATION. 
 
 Of recent arbitration cases probably the most instructive, 
 as regards the course of such proceedings, is the Northum- 
 berland Coal Trade Arbitration in March of last year. The 
 coalmasters and colliers of Northumberland had arranged 
 their affairs for many years on the most amicable terms. 
 The circumstances, indeed, were all favourable to a really 
 happy and effective deliberation on this occasion. The 
 arbiters on each side were men of the highest authority in 
 their respective ranks — Mr. G. B. Forster and Mr. Thomas 
 Bates on the part of the employers, and Mr. bur:, M.l*., 
 and Mr. Macdonald, M.P., on the part of the colliers— with
 
 156 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Mr. Rupert Kettle over them as umpire. Mr. Kettle was 
 " to sit with them ; " if they came to a unanimous conclu- 
 sion his office would be ended ; and if they failed to agree 
 his award became final. The facts of the case were that in 
 the prosperous and excited period of 187 1-2, successive 
 advances of wages to the amount of 50 per cent, were 
 conceded by the employers, with various other advantages, 
 without the necessity of a single strike on the part of the 
 men ; and that on the rapid descent of the trade from the 
 inflation of 1872-3, the men were, on their part, for a time 
 almost as handsomely accommodating as the employers had 
 previously been. They accepted in April 1874, a rate of 
 wages only 40 per cent, above the rate of 1871 ; and they 
 submitted in October of the same year to a further reduction 
 of 14 per cent., which left them still 26 per cent, above the 
 rate of wages in 187 1. But when the employers, in De- 
 cember, intimated a further reduction of 10 per cent., coal 
 falling heavily in demand and in price, the men began to 
 hesitate ; and when in January, the trade having become 
 still worse, it was announced that the reduction must be 20 
 per cent, in the soft coal pits and 16 per cent, in the steam- 
 ship collieries, though these heavier reductions would have 
 left them still considerably above the wages of 187 1, yet 
 they could not understand such a state of matters, and 
 demanded an arbitration. The employers in the interim, of 
 course, from December 5 till the date of the award, 
 March 13, went on paying the 26 per cent, higher wages 
 than in 187 1. 
 
 In laying their case before the arbitrators and umpire, a 
 most remarkable statement was made on the part of the 
 employers, viz., that while working, according to the showing 
 of the successive advances and reductions of wages, at 
 nominally 26 per cent, higher wages than in 187 1, the total 
 sum paid in wages for a given quantity of coal had become 
 84-81 per cent, more than in 187 1. This result was testified 
 by information obtained by two- firms of public accountants 
 from the books of all the collieries in the Northumberland 
 district ; it was subjected to the most rigid scrutiny in the 
 course of the Arbitration ; and its substantial accuracy was
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 57 
 
 finally certified in the award of the Umpire. It was made 
 dear that in this excess of 84-81 per cent, of wages in 
 proportion to the coal produced no capital charges and no 
 "dead" or "unproductive" work were included, and that 
 nothing had been taken into account but " the simple 
 amount of wages paid in bringing coal to bank." 
 
 How then, had the apparent increase of 26 per cent, in 
 wages over 187 1 swelled to an actual increase, as far as the 
 produce of coal was concerned, of 84*81 per cent.? In 
 the first place, the output of coal had decreased 7 per cent., 
 (2) the number of hewers working in the pits had increased 
 16 per cent, (3) the number of off-hand labourers and 
 other workmen had also been much increased, (4) under 
 the operation of the Mines Regulation Act the number of 
 hours the pits could be advantageously worked had been 
 materially diminished, (5) for the increased number of men 
 a corresponding number of cottages had to be provided, the 
 rental of which increased the wages charge, and (6) besides 
 the openly declared advances of wages in 1872 and 1873, 
 the executive of the Miners' Association had been busy 
 obtaining extra advances to individuals and to limited 
 bodies of men, which the umpire in his award estimated in 
 the case of the coal-hewers alone at 11-69 P er cent - from 
 these various causes an apparent increase of wages charge 
 of 26 per cent, on the same amount and quality of coal in 
 January, 1875, had become an actual increase of 84-81 per 
 cent, then as compared with April, 187 1. In fine, it was 
 shown that the money value of the coal raised would only 
 allow the employers to pay 64 per cent, more for labour 
 than in 1S71, and that as they were paying 84 per cent, 
 more, they had acted with all moderation in proposing that 
 the reduction should be only 16 per cent, in the hard coal, 
 and 20 per cent, in the soft coal pits. This was in sub- 
 stance the case of the employers. 
 
 When the agents of the men were called upon for their 
 case, it was found that they had no case prepared, but were 
 merely waiting to hear what the case of the employers was, 
 and to have time to consider what reply they could make to 
 it. The Northumberland arbitration was not quite so
 
 I5S THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 flagrant, indeed, in this respect as the Durham arbitration a 
 few weeks before, in which it appeared that the employers 
 had simply been called up as culprits to vindicate them- 
 selves for daring to propose any reduction of wages at all ! 
 
 But it may here be observed that the agents of working 
 men in such cases, if there be any ground of arbitration, 
 cannot but have, or should have data in possession to have 
 justified their clients in entering upon so elaborate a 
 process. They must know, for example, whether they have 
 opportunities of earning higher wages than the employers 
 proffer ; whether the demand for labour within their own 
 immediate sphere is increasing or decreasing ; whether the 
 general course of affairs, as reviewed from their side of the 
 case, is favourable or unfavourable to what they claim ; and 
 all this information should be so much in hand as not to 
 have to be looked for after the arbitration has begun, or in 
 what maybe stated on the other side. Indeed, if such infor- 
 mation exists, it is not on the other side one would expect 
 to find it. 
 
 The law agents of the Northumberland colliers did, how- 
 ever, after a brief delay, produce their statement; and, 
 as might be supposed, it added no new facts of any con- 
 sequence to the question, but was simply a rhetorical dis- 
 course on what were deemed erroneous assumptions on 
 the part of the employers. To have any ground of arbi- 
 tration, it was absolutely necessary to adopt some basis of 
 comparison, and 1S71 had been accepted on both sides as 
 a normal state of coal-mining affairs, in which the wages of 
 the workmen were neither too low nor the profits of the 
 employers too high. Yet the first statement in the case of 
 the agents of the Northumberland colliers was that it must 
 not be assumed that the profits of the employers in 1871 
 were fair, or that the same profits must be maintained now, 
 as they were then, by a reduction of wages — thus departing 
 at once from the accepted ground of the arbitration. The 
 second statement of the case was that it was wholly wrong 
 to assume that wages must follow the same declining rates 
 as prices in order to maintain an equable rate of profit to 
 capital, the clumsy sophistry of which plea may be seen
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION". 159 
 
 when it is remembered (i) that as long as prices were rising 
 the colliers demanded and obtained higher wages simply 
 because prices were rising, (2) that it was only when prices 
 fell that they demurred to any corresponding fall of wages, 
 and (3) that it had been demonstrated in the case of the 
 employers that profits were much lower than they had been 
 in the nominally moderate year of 187 1. 
 
 Mr. Kettle, as not unusually happens in these cases, 
 "split the difference," and awarded 10 per cent, reduction 
 in the soft coal pits, 12 1 per cent, in hard coal pits, and 
 from 10 to 15 per cent, on various underground and bank 
 workers, men and boys. 1 The award did not give satisfac- 
 tion to the workers ; the " mechanics " in the Northumber- 
 land collieries were on strike the next week ; and Mr. 
 Rupert Kettle could hardly have reached his home after 
 much severe work without hearing that by all his well- 
 meant efforts he had really settled nothing as regards the 
 Northumberland Coal Trade. 
 
 Take any supposable future course of circumstances, and 
 ascertain what the future value of this arbitration is. Sup- 
 pose matters remain for a year or two much as they were 
 in March last, that the rates of wages remain as fixed by 
 Mr. Kettle, and that there is a running loss to the em- 
 ployers, how long will they sustain that loss, and keep their 
 workpeople in employment ? Suppose there is a rising de- 
 mand and advancing p. ices for Northumberland coal, will 
 not the colliers and their agents immediately reverse the 
 doctrine they asserted so strongly in the arbitration, and 
 insist that wages should rise with prices ? Suppose the 
 reverse, that in the next year or two the demand and price 
 of coal continue to fall, is any one so simple as to imagine 
 that coal employers in Northumberland will be held bound 
 in any degree to the award of Mr. Kettle ? There are two 
 elements wholly left out in these processes of arbitration 
 which have a dominant force, viz. (1) the great public, that 
 only consumes coal or anything else on terms that suit 
 itself; and (2) an increasing working population that re- 
 quires to be employed ; that must be employed, whatever 
 
 1 Official Report of Northumberland Ccal Trade Arbitration, 1S75.
 
 160 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 Trade Unions and other interior monoplies may devise to 
 the contrary ; and in proportion as it is not employed, the 
 fabric that supports both the wages of labour and the profit 
 of capital must fall away. 
 
 ARBITERS DISCUSSING POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 The discussions of the arbiters and umpire in this North- 
 umberland Arbitration case assumed at intervals a philo- 
 sophic complexion, and from that fell into much chaffing 
 on " the principles of political economy " — a dangerous 
 ground to trespass upon by people who profess to fix the 
 future rate of wages, because the laugh is almost certain to 
 be against themselves in the end. Mr. Macdonald, for ex- 
 ample, contended that the additional cost of labour caused 
 by the Mines Regulation Act, which he admitted to be 
 " very great," ought to fall on the employers ; and in the 
 same train of thought it was maintained, in the written case 
 on his side, that as seams of coal become thinner, or as 
 the workings get deeper or farther away from the shaft, the 
 cost of labour must be constantly on the increase, and that 
 this increased cost must also fall on the employers, and 
 must not be brought into any arbitration as to what the 
 wages of miners should be. Under this version of poli- 
 tical economy and arbitration of wages, the employers, of 
 course, would very soon be wiped out altogether. Where 
 no profit is, no capital can long remain, and the time might 
 soon come, were these views to prevail, when there would 
 be hundreds of thousands of miners on the bank with a 
 supposed property in a raw material to which they could 
 not get down, and a few hundreds of real proprietors (also 
 on the bank) of a raw material which they could not 
 bring up. It is capital that bridges this chasm, but capital 
 cannot be called upon to do anything so adventurous with- 
 out a profit, and it will certainly not be impressed by Trade 
 Unions or arbitrations into any such service. Mr. Kettle, 
 with probably better knowledge of economic causes and 
 effects, kept Mr. Macdonald in countenance by remarking, 
 "It is quite natural" [anything 'quite natural' Scott ice is 
 idiotic !] " for you to say so. It is ' Uncle Public,' you
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. l6l 
 
 " know, who always pays." But when Mr. Forster modestly 
 interposed that " mines may possibly be worked at a loss," 
 Mr. Kettle himself had nothing wiser to remark than that — 
 " Still they may probably be worked, as men train horses 
 " that do not always win, and yet stud and train all the 
 " while." There was nothing in this farrago of political 
 economy to guide or enlighten an arbitration of future 
 wages. It is clear that capital will not employ labour at a 
 permanent loss, and that an increasing cost of labour in 
 any branch of production, therefore, will not fall upon em- 
 ployers, but must come out of the pocket of " Uncle 
 Public," who consumes the product. But who is " Uncle 
 Public", if not the working-classes themselves? They 
 form the great mass of consumers all the world over. 
 Nothing consequently can be more certain than that in a 
 policy of increasing the cost of labour systematically pur- 
 sued by workmen in their various trades, without respect to 
 the economic conditions which alone can render higher 
 wages possible, they may be only injuring and finally 
 starving each other. What increased cost of labour puts 
 into one pocket, increased cost of labour will take out still 
 more rapidly from the other pocket. Instead of being able 
 to consume more, the workmen will be able to consume 
 less, and as consumption falls away they will cease even to 
 be employed. 
 
 About the time the late Canon Kingsley's Alton Locke 
 appeared there was much distress among the London 
 journeymen tailors, and in a private discussion at that now 
 remote period — to which, the more remote, reference may 
 be only the more useful to young working men, who 
 pass in crowds into all the Trade-Union impolicy, since it 
 tends to show how completely these subjects had been can- 
 vassed before they were born — the following argument 
 ensued: — A., referring to the laws of supply and de- 
 mand as the only solvent of the difficulty, contended that 
 the London tailors were in distress because they were too 
 numerous for the amount of employment. B. observed 
 in reply that there were tens of thousands in London who 
 had not a decent coat to their backs, and that the employ- 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 merit of tailors was capable of much increase. A. retorted 
 that these thousands had no means of purchasing coats. 
 Upon which B. remarked that the dilemma in that case 
 came to this, viz., that the misery of trades was that many 
 were not able to consume because they could not get work, 
 and could not get work because they were not able to 
 consume ! 
 
 The law of demand for labour is very elastic, and will 
 cover the whole population ; but it is necessary to its 
 elasticity that the law of supply of labour shall be un- 
 restrained, because it is out of the labour of all the demand 
 for the labour of all comes. The first condition of indus- 
 trial prosperity is that the whole increasing population 
 should have free access to employment. The second is 
 that the cost of production, under every aid of labour, edu- 
 cation, invention, art, and science, should be diminished 
 and not increased, because this cheapness is the means of 
 life and comfort to the poorest, and introduces an ever- 
 widening circle of consumers. Given these conditions, and 
 the question of rate of wages, which in nine cases out of 
 ten is but a nominal question, arbitrates itself, and must 
 always arbitrate itself more and more in favour of the work- 
 ing man and woman. 
 
 Arbitrations of future wages, proceeding on the assump- 
 tion that all loss accruing to employers may be rolled over 
 on the shoulders of an " Uncle Public," who nowhere for 
 the time being has any practical existence, are thus found 
 to be hollow and insincere. 
 
 1 Mr. Robert Wilson, of Darlington Iron Company, in a letter pub- 
 lished in Capital and Labour of April 28, 1875, enforces with much 
 apparent reason a scheme of adjustment of wages in the finished iron 
 trade, under the existing Board of Arbitration, that would probably be 
 better than the system in practice. It may be learned from this source 
 that wages among the iron-workers are regulated by the selling prices 
 of finished iron, and that yet the cost of production is wholly left out of 
 the question. Mr. Wilson gives this illustration of the unequal opera- 
 tion of the present system. " For instance, if pig-iron and coals are 
 " so advanced in the market as to increase the cost of production 
 " of finished iron by 20^. per ton, and there is only an advance in 
 " the selling price of I or. per ton, the puddling and other wages are
 
 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 1 63 
 
 FAILURE OF CO-OPERATION IN CONNEXION WITH TRADE- 
 UNIONISM. 
 
 With " Arbitration and Conciliation " the idea of Co- 
 operation was prominently affiliated a few years ago ; but it 
 would be a travesty of the co-operative principle to connect 
 it in any form with Trade-Unionism. It belongs to a 
 higher order of ideas than has hitherto germinated in that 
 extensive circle. The Royal Commission had under its 
 consideration the liberal proposal of Messrs. Briggs & Co., 
 in their Whitwood and Methley Junction Collieries, dating 
 from July, 1865, to give their workmen a full half-share of 
 all profits above 10 per cent, necessary to the redemption 
 of their capital invested. The Royal Commission, in its 
 report, observed that the principle of Messrs, Briggs's 
 system was " to give the workman, over and above his 
 " wages, a share in the profits of the concern, without sub- 
 ejecting him to any liability for loss" and that "the period 
 
 " advanced upon the additional price of icw., whilst there may be an 
 " actual loss to the employer in the manufacture." Mr. Wilson, pro- 
 ceeding on the views of Mr. Barningham of the same firm, suggests that 
 " the actual cost of production" should be taken into account, ami that 
 the wages of labour should follow more strictly and reasonably than at 
 present the rate of profits, and not of mere selling prices, lie would 
 thus fix a minimum below which wages should not fall even when the 
 employers were suffering loss, and a minimum above which wages should 
 not rise when employers were making great profits, so that capital would 
 have some chance of recovering by gains at one period losses sustained 
 at another. There would be a large intermediate sliding scale in which 
 wages would rise and fall quarterly or six-monthly with the rate of 
 profits earned by the employers according to an elaborate return 
 from all the works of the district by accountants. There can be little 
 objection to any scheme of this kind, which aims simply at securing some 
 steadiness of operation in great works, and Mr. Wilson has probably 
 suggested what would be an improvement on the present system. But 
 he does not appear to have taken into full account that there is no r< d 
 test of "cost of production" unless there be absolute freedom both of 
 labour and capital throughout the whole sphere of the industry. It would 
 be little comfort to the iron-workers at Darlington or anywhere else to 
 have to submit to a reduction of wages merely because the colliers and 
 pig-iron workers of a neighbouring district had fenced off all competition 
 of labour, and by strikes and other tactics designed to run up the value 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 f 
 
 " during which the system had been under trial was too 
 " short to admit of coming to a satisfactory conclusion as 
 " to its permanent success." The caution of the Royal 
 Commissioners has been abundantly justified by the event, 
 for the last half-yearly report of the directors of the col- 
 lieries (December 31, 1874) announced that the system 
 had been abandoned, because the colliers had expressly 
 stated that they were members of the Miners' Union, and 
 " wished to be in future on precisely the same footing as 
 " the workmen employed in other collieries of the district." 
 In this, as in various other ways, the Trade Unions would 
 appear to operate as an obstacle to the progress of the 
 working classes in paths hitherto new, however worthy of 
 patient trial, and however promising of ultimate improve- 
 ment and elevation to the industrial orders of society. But 
 if working men will neither submit to equal freedom in their 
 relation with employers, nor to an association with em- 
 ployers in which they have a share of all the profits, and no 
 share of any of the losses, what is this but anarchy ? 
 
 of their labour beyond that of other people, had raised the price of coal 
 and pig-iron 20s. per ton. The adjustment of wages by any process of 
 arbitration, or by any arrangement of that kind in particular trades, is 
 thus one of the most complex of problems. "Cost of production," in 
 the books of the economists, has hitherto been conceived mainly from 
 the capitalist point of view, that is to say, the employer counts what his 
 raw materials, his buildings, and machines, and the wages of the labour 
 he directly employs, have cost him ; and he expects out of all these 
 elements to have a profit. The " reward of production " is an entirely 
 different thing, and has to be obtained out of the price obtained for the 
 product, and this frequently neither responds to the calculation of the 
 employers, nor the just demand nor reward of the workman, if "costs 
 of production " are only to be considered. Hence the most serious 
 difficulties, which are only increased, and rendered more injurious to 
 labour by constant efforts in particular branches of trade to stint 
 production and raise wages, because all branches of industry are closely 
 co-related, and increased cost of production thus passed on from one 
 branch to another, cumulates in an exorbitance of prices under which 
 trade breaks down, and neither capital nor labour get their reasonable 
 reward. There is no ground, at least yet discovered, so sure as that of 
 freedom of labour and capital, the one searching out its highest wage ; 
 the other, its most reasonable hope of profit. There is the other way, 
 indeed, of labour acquiring capital, and being its own employer ; and 
 that way is not closed.
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON "Till. 
 LABOUR LAWS." 
 
 XII. 
 
 EVIDENCE AND REPORT ON THE MASTER AND SER- 
 VANT ACT, THE CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT 
 ACT, AND THE LAW OE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 The legislation ensuing upon the Royal Commission of 
 1867-9, m tne session of 187 1, had brought the law relating 
 to Trade Unions to what was deemed at the period a very 
 satisfactory state, always supposing, of course, that the 
 Unionists were to be content with the fullest exercise of the 
 right of combination, now expressly protected by law, in due 
 consistency with the rights of other persons outside their 
 combinations, which the law was equally bound to protect. 
 The last shade of possibility that any criminal consequence 
 could attach to a Trade Union as being in restraint of trade, 
 even though the action of the Unions should be hurrying the 
 trade of the country visibly to loss and decay, was removed 
 by the Trade Unions Act of 187 1 : and in the Criminal Law 
 Amendment Act of the same year, the most clear and in- 
 telligible definition, and on the whole also the most equit- 
 able, probably ever entered on the Statute Book on a 
 similar subject, was given of acts of violence and acts of in- 
 terference "with a view to coerce" others in what they had 
 a full natural and legal right to do or not to do freely, which 
 no person, Trade Unionist, or other, could commit with- 
 out liability to criminal penalties. 
 
 Nor were the Trade Unions themselves slow to express 
 their high satisfaction with the settlement that had thus been
 
 I 66 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 accomplished. Their leaders were loud in praise both of 
 the Trade Unions Act and of the Criminal Law Amendment 
 Act, of which of course these chiefs took the chief credit to 
 themselves. A year, however, had scarce gone when a great 
 storm of discontent broke out among the Unionists against 
 the Master and Servant Act, 1867, the Criminal Law 
 Amendment Act, 1871, and the Common Law of Conspiracy 
 so far as it might be found applicable to any of their pro- 
 ceedings. There could be no peace in the country, it was 
 proclaimed, until these two Statutes were abolished, and 
 until the Unionists were made safe in their trade proceed- 
 ings from all law of conspiracy to which other classes of her 
 Majesty's subjects in the most various spheres of action are 
 liable. This position was enforced by Hyde Park, and 
 similar processions and demonstrations throughout the 
 kingdom, as if it were really meant to make the country a 
 little uncomfortable. It is to be observed that not a word 
 of objection was raised to the Trade Unions Act, 1871, 
 and that this denotes what must be deemed the great blot of 
 the political agitations of the Unionists, viz., that while 
 accepting gracefully and silently the fullest liberty the Legis- 
 lature can give them, they are not disposed to submit to 
 any restraint of their aggressions on the liberty of others, in 
 an observance of which their own liberty is indissolubly 
 bound up, and can only indeed be guaranteed. The two 
 things — liberty for ourselves, and respect for the liberty of 
 others — stand to each other as inseparably as the Siamese 
 twins, or as the obverse and reverse of a medal. 
 
 This new outbreak of discontent had the usual result in 
 the appointment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 
 alleged and hitherto unheard-of grievances. The impres- 
 sion produced by the Trade Union agitation against the 
 "Labour Laws" in political and official circles must have 
 been profound — more profound, indeed, than can well be 
 fathomed on any hypothesis short of general political 
 " softening of the brain." One of the first acts of the Con- 
 servative Government that came into power after the General 
 Election in the spring of 1874, was to issue this Commission, 
 under command and seal of Her Majesty, "to inquire into
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS. 1 67 
 
 " the working of the Master and Servant Act, 1867 ; and 
 " of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (34 and 35 Vic. 
 " cap. 32), and whether any, and if any, what, amendment 
 " or alteration in the provisions of those Acts, or either of 
 " them, is desirable, and also to inquire whether it is ex- 
 " pedient to limit or define the law relating to conspiracy, 
 " either generally, or as affecting the relations of masters 
 " and workmen." l It is necessary, therefore, to follow 
 this subject a little farther, so that we may have it all before 
 us, and know what has come of it up to this time. 
 
 REFUSAL OF THE UNIONS TO GIVE EVIDENCE. 
 
 The only difficulty encountered by the Commission was 
 a refusal of the Societies which had stirred up the inquiry to 
 take any part in it, or to lend any assistance in elucidating 
 the matters to be considered. An appeal was made to the 
 "London Trade - Union Congress Parliamentary Com- 
 " mittee " — a body which, from the import of its title, must 
 have had the whole case of the Unionists in hand — to produce 
 evidence, and make any complaints they were prepared to 
 advance. The result was a letter from the secretary declin- 
 ing " to assist the Commission in its labours in any way," 
 and inciosing a copy of a resolution passed by the Committee 
 to the same effect. This course was generally followed by 
 the Trade Unions throughout the country. Conduct of this 
 kind was not only unreasonable and disrespectful, but it was 
 hurtful to the Unions themselves, since it was capable of 
 only one construction, viz., that they had little confidence, 
 notwithstanding all the previous clamour, in the strength of 
 
 1 The members of this Royal Commission were Lord Chief- Justice 
 Cockbum, Lord Wiumarleigh, Edward P. Bouverie, Russell Gurney, 
 sir Montague Edward Smith, John Arthur Roebuck, Thomas Hughes, 
 
 Gabriel Goldney, and Alexander Macdonald — names, as in the Royal 
 Commission of 1S67, that must have carried full assurance to every 
 reasonable person that evidence on the matters under inquiry would be 
 fully elicited and well sifted, and that the report returned, including 
 minor dissentient statements, would express the absolute truth and 
 equity of the case as far as these could be ascertained through such 
 elaborate means.
 
 1 68 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 their own cause. This mulish spirit is the more necessary to 
 be reprehended because it is somewhat characteristic of 
 the Unions, and is often manifested in arbitrations de- 
 manded by themselves, where after all the troublesome and 
 costly apparatus has been provided, they are found to have 
 nothing to show, and have come only to hear and object. 
 The qualification of a rather useless Member of Parliament 
 was that he could, indeed, say nothing, but he could 
 " always object." This, however, is not a model to which 
 the Trade Unions, conducting what they deem a great cause 
 before the eyes of the country, should descend. 
 
 It does not follow that the inquiry was in any degree 
 impaired by the abstinent and surly attitude of the Unions. 
 The information laid before the Commissioners was full 
 enough for all purposes of reasonable decision. Mr. Shipton, 
 delegate from the London Trade Council; and Mr. Boa, 
 President of the Glasgow Repeal of Labour Laws Associa- 
 tion, defined the complaints entertained by the Unionists 
 against the laws and the administration of the laws, and not 
 only argued these complaints with point and ability, but 
 were prepared with cases in illustration of their arguments ; 
 some of the leading employers gave evidence on the other 
 side ; three of the stipendiary magistrates who have had 
 the greatest experience of the operation of the Acts were 
 examined at much length ; and the Commission called for 
 and obtained a return of the facts, depositions, and sentences 
 in cases of conviction in the principal Courts of the United 
 Kingdom. It is improbable that any more light would 
 have been elicited, though the Unions had thrown their 
 whole stores of knowledge and experience into the inquest. 
 Still this does not excuse the Unions, after two years of 
 agitation pitched in the highest key of social grievance, in 
 deserting the diet they had invited ; and the judgment of 
 the working classes may be safely trusted whether a course 
 of this kind can promote their interest, and whether it should 
 ever be repeated, whether in great national inquiries or in the 
 lesser arbitrations that take place between sections of em- 
 ployers and employed as to wages. It is preposterous to 
 think that either the parliamentary politics or the produc-
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS. 1 69 
 
 tive industry of the country may be incessantly disturbed 
 by an inner club of people, who, when the day of trial 
 they have demanded comes, have neither facts nor reasons 
 to contribute to the investigation. 
 
 FINDINGS OF THE COMMISSIONERS. 
 I. — THE MASTER AND SERVANT ACT. 
 
 The Commissioners show that until the reign of George 
 II., the idea of " Contract of Service," which implies mutual 
 and independent obligations, had not entered into the legis- 
 lation of the kingdom. There were " Statutes of Labourers " 
 from Edward III. down through the intervening centuries, in 
 which capital and labour, employer and employed, were 
 governed by what stems equal State license. Working 
 people were required not to become vagrants, but to remain 
 in the hundreds or parishes were they were born, under 
 severe penalties, and people of substance in the hundreds 
 or parishes are required to employ them ; the terms of 
 employment were sometimes fixed directly by statute, and 
 sometimes under statute by the local magistrates, who in 
 many cases may have been chief employers themselves ; and 
 many other regulations were made which in the present age 
 are incomprehensible on the surface, and form simply a 
 subject of recondite study in historical and social develop- 
 ment. 
 
 These "Statutes of Labourers," must have slept more or 
 less over long periods, as statutes often happily do. But in 
 the 20th of the reign of George II., the relation of master and 
 servant had become so far independent of State power, that 
 the principle of "Contract of Service," — or that you the 
 master having offered so much, and you the man having 
 agreed to take so much, any dispute between you must be 
 referred to the magistrate on the terms of the agreement — 
 began to be recognized. This principle, confined at first to 
 contracts for a year or more in husbandry, handicrafts and 
 mines, was extended eleven years afterwards in the same 
 reign to contracts of less than a year, and by a statute
 
 1 70 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 10 George IV. to labourers of all sorts. But the order of 
 the original statute, as in the succeeding ones, was that the 
 magistrate might decree ;£io to a servant in husbandry, and 
 ^5 in case of artificers and other labourers, and levy the same 
 in event of non-payment by distress on the goods of the 
 master or mistress. When the complaint was on the side of 
 the master, and was established, the magistrate might either 
 abate some part of the wages due to the man, or discharge 
 him from the service, or punish him, according to the aggra- 
 vation of the case, by committing him to the House of 
 Correction for some time not exceeding a month. A further 
 statute in the reign of George IV., c. 34, dealt with breaches 
 of contract where the servant, after engagement, failed to 
 enter into the service or quitted it before the period agreed 
 on had expired, and extended the period of imprisonment 
 in extreme cases to three months, but debarred any power 
 to order corporal punishment. Here the law rested till the 
 Master and Servant Act of 1867 was passed. 
 
 Though the principle of contract, marking a great eleva- 
 tion in the status of the working classes, was clearly intro- 
 duced in these Acts, yet the possibility of making a servant 
 or workman liable for breach of contract in money damages 
 does not appear to have dawned on the Georgian Parlia- 
 ments, beyond abatement of whole or part of the wages due, 
 or dismissal from the service, with terms of imprisonment, 
 with or without hard labour, as the extreme resort. On the 
 other hand, that these statutes were available for enforcing 
 payment of money damages from masters and mistresses 
 is fully established by the fact that to this day proceedings by 
 servants and workmen against employers continue to be 
 taken under the Act of George II. A law of contract, en- 
 forceable on the one side and not on the other, of course, 
 is no law at all ; and it is the interest of the working classes, 
 if the principle of contract is to be preserved, that there 
 should be available redress against breach on their side as 
 well as against breach on the side of employers. 
 
 The Master and Servant Act, 1867, was the result of a 
 Select Committee of the House of Commons in the previ- 
 ous year, which reported after full inquiry that the law of
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS." 171 
 
 master and servant, as it stood, was objectionable, and 
 recommended that instead of a hearing before a single justice, 
 all cases under this category should be publicly tried before 
 two or more magistrates, or before a stipendiary magistrate 
 in England and Ireland, or the sheriff in Scotland ; that pro- 
 cedure should be by summons, and only, on failure to 
 appear, by " warrant to apprehend ; " that punishment should 
 be by fine, and failing payment, by distress on goods or im- 
 prisonment ; that the Court should have power to order 
 defendant to fulfil the contract where advisable, and to 
 require him, if necessary, to find security that he would 
 duly do so ; and that in aggravated cases of breaches of 
 contract, causing injury to person and property, the magis- 
 trates should have power to award imprisonment instead of 
 fine. The Act embodied in effect these conclusions, and 
 was universally deemed a great improvement of the law, as 
 in various important senses it must still be held to be. 
 The introduction of a fine as the penalty of a contract- 
 breaking servant or workman was as near an approach as 
 could be made to the damages imposed on a contract- 
 breaking master or mistress, and the ultimate consequence 
 in both cases was the same. If the fine or damages were 
 paid, the case ended ; if not, there was distress on goods 
 or imprisonment on the one side as on the other. In the 
 provisions for a public trial before two or more magis- 
 trates ; for a civil summons before any warrant to appre- 
 hend ; for power to imprison in ordinary breaches of con- 
 tract, not directly out of the breach itself, but, as a necessary 
 auxiliary of the jurisdiction, for disobedience to the order of 
 the Court ; and in the elimination of "hard labour" from 
 any imprisonment that ensued — there is satisfactory evidence 
 of a fair adaptation of the law to employers and employed, 
 and to the extended industrial relations of recent years, 
 which was wanting in the Georgian statutes, bearing as 
 they do a rough aspect of dealing only with a limited and 
 reckless class of working people, under the one redeeming 
 feature that where masters or mistresses broke faith with 
 their servants or workmen, the latter had legal means of 
 getting the money out of them. 
 
 /
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 But yet the Master and Servant Act was by no means 
 a model Act. The Commissioners felt bound to report 
 that it was " a singularly ill-drawn Act in many particulars." 
 Not only were ordinary and " aggravated " breaches of 
 contract, and civil and criminal conditions, too much mixed, 
 but the clauses treating on these separate features were so 
 disjointed and confused that magistrates were not always 
 competent to the task of unriddling what the Legislature 
 should have made plain and clear. The consequence was 
 that in not a few cases the Act was administered contrary 
 to its own intention. " We find cases," reported the Com- 
 missioners, " where imprisonment on non-payment of a fine 
 " has been awarded for a longer period than the law allows. 
 " Hard labour has been made part of the sentence of im- 
 " prisonment, whereas by the nth Section it is specially 
 " provided that no such imprisonment should be with hard 
 " labour. Defendants have been brought into court, the 
 " amount of compensation, damages, or other remedy being 
 " omitted from the summons, contrary to the direction con- 
 " tained in Section 4, which expressly requires that these 
 " particulars shall be stated in the summons." These are 
 grave errors of administration which may not be confined 
 to this department of justice, but it proves the keen and 
 impartial scrutiny of this Royal Commission that they were 
 found out, and were reported. The popular impression 
 from such cases is apt to be that, whatever faults may be in 
 the law, the magistracy must be extremely partial and un- 
 just. But were one to go to the root of the evil it would 
 probably be found rather that the members of the House 
 of Commons, and even Cabinets, do not really study the 
 reports of Royal Commissions and of their own Select Com- 
 mittees of Inquiry as legislators ought to do, but are too 
 often led away for political reasons into ad capiandum 
 enactments, which, instead of being any amendment of the 
 law, make it on many points of detail rather worse than it 
 was before. 
 
 It appeared from the evidence that complaints were 
 chiefly directed against the 9th and 14th Sections of the 
 Act— to the former because it empowered the magistrate to
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS." 173 
 
 impose a fine and to order imprisonment as a means of en- 
 forcing payment or fulfilment of the contract, and thus 
 treated ascriminal or quasi-criminal casesof an essentiallycivil 
 character ; and to the latter because it dealt with " aggra- 
 vated breaches of contract" without clearly defining them, 
 imposed a heavy term of imprisonment, and thus confused 
 still more what was civil and what was criminal. Mr. Boa, 
 speaking in the name of 62 trades in the West of Scotland, 
 said that the Act was deemed "a very good Act if the 14th 
 clause were taken out and the 9th amended ; " that the 
 feeling among the workmen on these points, as well as in 
 favour of trial before stipendiary magistrates, was strong, 
 and that cases of breach of contract by workmen, he 
 thought, should all proceed on the principles of civil law. 
 The employers, on the other hand, who gave evidence, held 
 that the Act as it stood was necessary to enforce per- 
 formance of contract, and that it was mutually beneficial 
 both as against workmen and against employers. This 
 class of witnesses also spoke in favour of such cases going 
 l>efore a stipendiary magistrate when one was within reach. 
 Mr. Menelaus, of the Dowlais Works, thought it "lucky" 
 that "they had a stipendiary in his district to administer 
 " the law, since it removed all suspicion of partiality that 
 " might lie against the Justices, who were themselves era- 
 " ployers;" and Mr. Robinson, president of the National 
 Federation of Employers, observed as his experience that 
 Justices took a more lenient view of breaches of contract 
 than the Stipendiary Magistrates. 
 
 The testimony of the Stipendiary Magistrates, who were 
 examined, was that few convictions had issued under the 
 14th Section of the Act, and that proceedings were usually 
 taken under the 9th Section. Mr. Hannay, police magistrate 
 at Worship Street, said that " without imprisonment in case 
 " of non-payment of fine under the 9th Section it would be 
 " impossible to enforce the Act at all." At the same time, 
 he could hardly understand what particular mischief the 
 14th Section was intended to meet differing from such 
 wilful damage to person and property as was subject to 
 penal consequences under other Acts of Parliament. "The
 
 174 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 workmen," he said, when they had complaints against em- 
 ployers, " were very fond of this Act, and if refused a sum- 
 " mons under it, went away much disappointed, as the costs 
 " were higher and the delay greater in the County than in 
 " the Police Courts." Mr. Davis, Stipendiary Magistrate 
 at Sheffield, maintained the great utility of the 9th Section 
 as a means of enforcing specific performance of a contract, 
 "with imprisonment of course, in default of compliance." 
 Mr. Bridge, one of the Stipendiary Magistrates at Ham- 
 mersmith, proved that wages were constantly recovered by 
 workmen against employers " by the pressure of a summons 
 under the Act only." 
 
 The Commissioners, in their Report, had little difficulty 
 with the 9th Section, because the basis of the complaints as 
 to imprisonment there failed inasmuch as the imprisonment 
 was for disobedience to the order of the Court only, and 
 is not an exceptional but a universal remedy in the civil 
 law. In order to divest the Section of all character of 
 criminality it was only necessary to substitute for " fine " 
 compensation for damage actually assessable ; but since it 
 would be of no use for a Court to be employed unless it 
 had some means of enforcing compliance with its award, 
 the Commissioners could not take away the power of im- 
 prisonment, save in the mitigation that it should be in a 
 prison for debt only. On the 14th Section perfect oneness 
 of mind was not so attainable. All the Commissioners were 
 agreed that the " aggravated breaches of contract " referred 
 to in this Section were sufficiently grave to be matter of 
 special treatment, but the matter of doubt was whether 
 they should be relegated to civil or criminal process. 
 The characteristics of such cases are (1) that the party 
 breaking his contract does so wilfully, not only without just 
 cause, but without believing that he has just cause ; (2) 
 that he knows that by breaking his contract he will entail 
 serious injury, loss, or mischief on the other contracting 
 party ; and (3) that he knows he has no means of making 
 compensation for the injury or loss so caused. 1 Some of 
 
 1 The following instances in which such breaches of contract may 
 arise are put in the Keport :— 1st. Where a man knows that his employer
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS." I 75 
 
 the Commissioners were of opinion that it would be better 
 that even aggravated breaches of contract should be dealt 
 with under the civil than under the criminal law, and that 
 it would be sufficient if power were given to the magistrates 
 to commit to civil imprisonment for six months in the event 
 of the compensation awarded in such cases not being paid. 
 Others were of opinion that the law under the 14th Section 
 should be maintained with the provision that it should be 
 at the option of the party complained against to be tried by 
 a jury. The numbers heing nearly equal, the question be- 
 tween them as to the more dishonest and reprehensible 
 class of breaches of contract was submitted to the wisdom 
 of Parliament. 
 
 The Commissioners, while expressing favour for the 
 stipendiary magistracy as a preferable jurisdiction for dis- 
 putes between employers and workmen, concluded that, 
 where such magistrates were not appointed, it would be 
 impossible to find any other tribunal than the Justice Court 
 before which ordinary cases could be heard with the cheap- 
 ness and despatch necessary to both parties ; and they dis- 
 missed a proposition from the Trade Union side, that 
 proceedings of breach of contract should be valid only in 
 the case of written contracts, as uncalled for, and unsuitable 
 to the general interest of the working classes. 
 
 has a heavy contract on, which he is bound under penalties or legal 
 liabilities to complete, and knows that his service is necessary to enable 
 ihe employer to fulfil his engagement, his place not being capable of 
 being immediately filled. 2nd. Where a man quits his service, knowing 
 that serious injury to his employer's property will result from his doing 
 so ;*as, for instance, if the manager of a smelting furnace were to quit 
 his employment, ami cause the going out of the tires, and cooling of the 
 metal. 3rd. Where the necessary effect of abandoning the service is to 
 expose the master's property to serious injury and loss. 4th. Where the 
 purpose for which the service is abandoned is that of unduly coercing the 
 master in the conduct of his business. On the part of the employer, 
 we might have a breach of contract in dismissing a workman, aggravated 
 by attempts to prevent him frc>m obtaining other employment.' .v.. 
 Report t p. 12.
 
 \S 
 
 176 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 2. CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT ACT. 
 
 The Commissioners, in reporting on this Act, briefly 
 recite the previous legislation. The Act 5 George IV. 
 made a clean erasure of all the prior Acts antagonistic to 
 trade combinations, and gave the most extended freedom 
 to Unionists, in all their favourite objects and modes of 
 raising wages, shortening hours, and regulating labour, from 
 liability to any indictment or prosecution, or to any other 
 criminal information or punishment thereupon, whether 
 under Common or Statute Law. But to guard this liberty 
 against being abused, a clause was added submitting violence, 
 threats, and intimidation for the purpose of coercion to 
 criminal procedure, and to a penalty, in case of conviction, 
 not exceeding two calendar months' imprisonment with or 
 without hard labour. This Statute had no sooner become 
 law than it was found to give rise to mischievous con- 
 sequences, and in the very next session there was an 
 inquiry in Parliament, followed by a new Act, which secured 
 all the freedom given to the Unions by the preceding Act, 
 but put in a more comprehensive and stringent form its 
 provision relative to acts of coercion, and increased the 
 penalty to three months' imprisonment. This Act 6 of 
 George IV. remained the law of the country till the Inquiry 
 of 1867. It was then complained of by the Unionists as 
 being too " vague," " difficult to understand," and limiting 
 their freedom of action in various ways too much, and too 
 severely. Whatever vagueness or severity attached to these 
 provisions of the 6 George IV. they were totally incom- 
 petent to prevent or check the outrages that had grown up 
 in Sheffield and Manchester a few years before 1867, and 
 that had shocked the whole kingdom. Parliament, proceed- 
 ing on the elaborate inquiry of 1867-9, while extending the 
 privileges and security of the Unions still more in various 
 important respects, took up these penal provisions of the 
 6 George IV., revised them, made them more clear and 
 definite, and presented them in a form more acceptable to 
 the Unionists in what has since been known as The
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION' ON "THE LABOUR LAWS. 177 
 
 Criminal Law Amendment Act. But the Unionist com 
 plaints before the late Commission on " The Labour Laws ' 
 against the Criminal Law Amendment Act were the same 
 
 as against the older Statute. It was " vague," ''difficult to 
 understand," and placed the members of Unions in some 
 degrading exceptional position under the law, apparent only 
 to themselves. _^- 
 
 There is thus much see-saw in the legislation demanded 
 by the Trade Unions. Parliament goes on for a while 
 giving them their bent of liberty ; by and by it is found that 
 the liberty given is greatly more than can be well used ; 
 then Parliament is bound to meet the violences and inva- 
 sions of right that occur by some corrective measures ; and 
 in a year or two more, these give rise to more Trade-Union 
 complaints, and demands for more liberty and absolution 
 from all legal obligation. Still these provisions against cri- 
 minal invasions of right Parliament never can get rid of. 
 They may be condensed and transferred out of one statute 
 into another, and may undergo a hundred literal transmu- 
 tations from one time to another, but they will always re- 
 appear and, while the offences exist, will always command 
 the first importance in the country. If the Trade Unionists 
 could only comprehend that the more their liberties and 
 powers of combination are extended and sanctioned by law, 
 the more the law is bound to provide that these liberties 
 and powers shall not be abused, and that such of her 
 Majesty's subjects as do not happen to be members of a 
 Trade Union shall not be violently and directly overridden 
 in the exercise of their natural and civil rights — that a 
 faithful observance of this condition by Trade Unions, 
 indeed, is their only conceivable legal title of existence, — 
 no doubt they would soon begin to rectify their views of 
 the state of the law, and give Parliament much less trouble 
 than they do, to the sad neglect of matters in which 
 the interest of the working classes is much more deeply 
 concerned. 
 
 The Criminal Law Amendment Act has been the subject 
 of so much Trade- Union denunciation that it may he well 
 
 N
 
 178 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 to give the law it conveys, as stated in the Report of the 
 Commissioners : — 
 
 " Any person who with a view to coerce another — 
 " 1. Being a master, to dismiss or to cease to employ any workman, 
 or, Being a workman to quit any employment, or to return work before 
 it is finished ; or 
 
 " 2. Being a master, not to offer, or Being a workman not to accept 
 any employment or work ; or 
 
 "3. Being a master or workman, to belong or not to belong to any 
 temporary or permanent association or combination ; or 
 
 "4. Being a master or workman, to pay any fine or penalty imposed 
 by any temporary or permanent association or combination ; or 
 
 ' " 5. Being a master, toalter the mode of carrying on his business, or 
 the number or description of any persons employed by him, — 
 
 [Any person, who with a view to coerce another to one or other of 
 these ends,] 
 
 " Shall do any one or more of the following Acts, viz. : — 
 " I. Use violence to any person or property ; or 
 
 "2. Threaten or intimidate any person in such manner as would 
 jus ify a justice of the peace, on complaint made to him, to bind over 
 the person so threatening or intimidating to keep the peace ; or 
 
 "3. Molest or obstruct any person in manner defined by the section, 
 that is to say : — 
 
 "a. By persistently following such person about from place to 
 
 place ; 
 " b. By hiding any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used 
 by such person, or depriving him of or hindering him in the use 
 thereof ; 
 "c. By watching or besetting the house or other place where such 
 person resides or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, 
 or the approach to such house or place, or if with two or more 
 persons following such person in a disorderly manner in or 
 through any street or road — " 
 Shall be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a 
 term not exceeding three months. 
 
 To these enactments were added two important provi- 
 sions : — 
 
 " 1. That nothing in this section shall prevent any person from being 
 liable under any other Act, or otherwise, to any other or higher punish- 
 ment than is provided for any offence by this section, so that no person 
 be punished twice for the same offence." 
 
 "2. That no person shall be liable to any punishment for doing or 
 conspiring to do any act on the ground that such act restrains or tends
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAV I 79 
 
 to restrain tlic free course of trade, unless such act is one of the acts 
 hereinbefore specified in this section, and is done with the object of 
 coercing as hereinbefore mentioned." 
 
 The "vagueness" complained of here by the Trade 
 Unionists is so vaguely discernible that one must wish that 
 one hundredth part of the statute law were equally plain 
 and intelligible. To constitute the criminal offence it must 
 be done (i) "with a view to coerce another," which, of 
 course, must be to apply a force to which the will of the 
 person to be coerced does not freely respond ; (2) this 
 coercive influence must be exerted to one or more of five 
 distinctly specified objects in respect to which the person to 
 be coerced, whether master or workman, has a clear and in- 
 defeasable right to choose to act for himself without external 
 pressure of any kind ; and (3), before there can be any 
 offence, this " view to coerce " to one or more of five ends 
 in which coercion is totally impermissible, must be mani- 
 fested in outward acts of more or less violence, every one 
 of which is uncivilised, and contrary to all the usages of 
 civilised life. Yet the Unionists go on alleging that they do 
 not understand this, that it is too "vague,'*' that it is always 
 entrapping them into criminality when they do not mean it. 
 and that the law in some incomprehensible way is a most 
 grievous wrong and insult to them ! 
 
 The Commissioners, in weighing the complaints against 
 the Act, resumed the principles stated in the Report of 
 the Commission of 1867, where it was shown that the 
 greater the numbers and power of combinations, and the 
 more freely and fully the law sanctions the right of combi- 
 nation and extends the scope of combined action, the more 
 necessary it is, and the more is the law bound to secure 
 just and equal freedom of action'to those who do not think 
 proper to join the combination, and who choose to act for 
 themselves ; and that, in short, the power of the Unions 
 must be exercised within the bounds of their own rights. 
 and not aggress upon the rights of others. "To permit a 
 body of men," say the Commissioners, " to interfere with 
 " individual freedom in the matter of employment of labour. 
 " by any of the means specified in this .let, would be to 
 
 N 2
 
 l8o THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 " allow the freedom, which should be protected by law, to 
 " be tyrannically ami unjustly violated. . . . The demands 
 " of a body of men acting in combination may be excessive. 
 " The remedy of the employer is to be found in the possible 
 " willingness of others to accept employment on _ more 
 " reasonable terms." This is in reality the foundation ot 
 the right of combination itself; the Unionists cannot sap 
 and mine it without pulling down their own edifice; and 
 the reason of the case as thus stated effectually disposes of 
 such objections to the Criminal Law Amendment Act as 
 that it is specially directed against Unionists, and is invidi- 
 ously applicable to the case of employers and employed 
 alone. For the more the law has sanctioned and covered 
 with its protection the action of Unions, of workmen or 
 employers, the more careful must the law be to repress 
 special crimes and offences arising out of the new cir- 
 cumstances. Noblesse oblige. The higher the legal privilege, 
 the more necessary to guard against offensive abuse of the 
 privilege. 
 
 The Commissioners, however, were disposed to think 
 that in a few of the cases that had come before theCourts 
 under this Act there was some basis for the complaint that 
 the provision against picketing was too general, and might 
 be construed to include forms of picketing that were inno- 
 cent ; such as when a Union on strike kept watch to see 
 that men receiving strike pay were not taking work from 
 the employers and thus defrauding the Union; or when 
 attempts only to persuade might be held to be " molesta- 
 tion with a view to coerce." " But any such error," they 
 add, " would be immediately set right on appeal,'' as they 
 had been in several cases, six convictions having been 
 quashed in England and Wales on appeal in 1872-3, and 
 eight in 1873-4, out of a total of 174 convictions. "The 
 " fault of such errors is not in the Statute, the language of 
 " which is sufficiently precise and clear." The Commis- 
 sioners refer in corroboration of this conclusion to the 
 charge of Mr. Justice Lush in the Queen v. Shepherd and 
 others — 1869 —in which he clearly pointed out the distinc- 
 tion between force put upon the will and persuasion
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAV [8l 
 
 influencing the will, and the men were acquitted by the 
 
 J iir y- 
 
 A\ ith respect to administration, the Criminal Law Amend- 
 ment Act excluded from the bench any person who was a 
 master, or father, son, or brother of a master in the par- 
 ticular manufacture, trade, or business in or in connexion 
 with which the offence should be charged to have been com- 
 mitted. To meet an impression among Trade Unionists 
 that magistrates who are employers in any branch of trade 
 or business have a leaning in favour of the whole class of 
 employers, which, if followed out as a serious conviction 
 would seem to imply that only Trade-Unionists should be 
 judges in Trade-Union cases, the Commissioners recom- 
 mended as an improvement, as they had already suggested 
 in the case of the 14th Section of the Masters' and Servants' 
 Act, that an option be given to the party complained against 
 of being tried at Quarter Sessions by a jury. With this ex- 
 ception they saw no reason for a repeal or alteration of the 
 Act in question. 
 
 3. LAW OF CONSPIRACY. 
 
 The indignation of the Trade Unionists that the com- 
 mon law of conspiracy should be in any way applicable 
 to them was probably the most unreasonable and most un- 
 disguisedly revolutionary feature of the open-air demonstra- 
 tions that caused this Inquiry into the so-called "Labour 
 Laws;" because by the Trade Unions Act of 187 1, these 
 bodies had been already exempted from the operation of 
 the law of conspiracy in their capacity as Trade-Unionists. 
 The Imperial Parliament, moreover, had been so indulgent 
 as to make it plain that no charge of conspiracy could lie 
 against the members of a Trade Union or any similar com- 
 bination, save in direct connexion with the acts specified in 
 the Criminal Law Amendment Act, wherein both the ends 
 sought to be attained and the means by which they are 
 sought to be attained are alike wrongful and criminal. An 
 Inquiry into the subject could only expose the hollowness 
 of the agitation, or suggest some respects in which the im- 
 munity of Trade-Unionists from the law oi conspiracy
 
 1 82 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 had already been carried beyond the bounds of reason and 
 equity. 
 
 The Commissioners, in their Report, give the follow- 
 ing exposition of three categories, applicable to all classes 
 and conditions of men, in which the common law of con- 
 spiracy becomes vital and operative : — 
 
 " First where the end to be accomplished would be a crime in eacli 
 of the conspiring parties, a class of conspiracy which offers no difficulty. 
 Secondly, where the purpose of the conspiracy is lawful, but the means 
 to be resorted to are criminal, as where the conspiracy is to support a 
 cause, believed to be just, by perjured evidence. Here the immediate 
 intention of the parties being to commit a crime, the conspiracy is to do 
 something criminal, and the case again is consequently free from diffi- 
 culty. The third and last case is where with a malicious design to do 
 an injury, the purpose is to commit a wrong, though not such a wrong as 
 when perpetrated by a single individual would amount to an offence 
 under the Criminal Law. Thus an attempt to destroy a man's credit, 
 and to effect his ruin by spreading reports of his insolvency (though a 
 variety of other illustrative principles might be put), would be a wrongful 
 act, which would entitle the party whose credit was thus attacked to 
 bring an action as for a civil wrong ; but it would not be an indictable 
 offence. If it be asked on what principle a combination of several to 
 effect the like wrongful purpose becomes an offence, the answer is — 
 upon the same principle that any other civil wrong, when it assumes a 
 more aggravated and formidable character, is constituted an offence, 
 and becomes transferred from the domain of the Civil to that of the 
 Criminal law. It is obvious that a wrongful violation of another man's 
 right committed by many assumes a far more formidable and offensive 
 character than when committed by a single individual. The party 
 assailed may be able by ordinary civil remedies, to defend himself against 
 the attacks of one. It becomes a very different thing when he has to 
 defend himself against many combined to do him injury." 
 
 The Commissioners could see no reason to question the 
 propriety of the general law of conspiracy as thus established, 
 and were so convinced of its beneficial operation that they 
 were glad to escape from the direction given them to 
 consider whether it " might be limited or defined generally," 
 on the understanding that, if it should be found desirable 
 to alter or modify the law of conspiracy as now applicable 
 to employers and workmen, it would be better to make such 
 an exception to the general law than disturb and unsettle 
 what had been found alike necessary and just as regards all 
 other branches of jurisprudence. They had thus to examine
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LADOUR LAV 1 83 
 
 very closely (i) whether any changes should be made in the 
 law of conspiracy as it affects the relation of workmen and 
 employers, and (2) the objections made to the past applica- 
 tion of the law in this respect. 
 
 The cases in which a combination to interfere with rights 
 of hiring and service could fall under the law of conspiracy 
 — such as a body of workmen, some breaking their contracts 
 and inducing others to break theirs, or quitting their employ- 
 ment with the intention to injure their employer, and to 
 render him unable to fulfil his engagements; or a body of 
 workmen combining in like manner to break their contracts 
 with a view to any of the purposes condemned as wrongful 
 in the Criminal Law Amendment Act ; or a Union or other 
 body combining to induce the workmen of a particular 
 master to break their engagements and leave his service, 
 &c — were found to be so serious that no reason could be 
 discovered why the general law should be altered to afford 
 greater license to persons thus acting. The wrongful purpose, 
 and the wrongful and even criminal means necessary to an 
 offence of conspiracy, were all present in such cases. On 
 one point alone the Commissioners thought there was some 
 force in an objection of the Trade-Unionists, viz : " that 
 " by the application of the law of conspiracy men are made 
 " criminally liable for acts which are no longer penal under 
 " the statute law, which ought not to be penally prohibited, 
 " and in respect of which the Legislature meant to afford 
 " immunity from punishment." This objection, which 
 evidently rests on very narrow and shadowy grounds, ap- 
 pears to have been founded on some words of Baron Pollock 
 in a charge to the jury in a case of conspiracy tried before 
 him at the Summer Assizes at Leeds in 1874. The Baron 
 is reported to have said that if several workmen combined 
 not to work with another workman, and to refuse to work 
 for an employer with whom they had an engagement unless 
 he dismissed that workman, this act would amount to a con- 
 spiracy at common law ; and that the same principle would 
 apply to a combination of masters agreeing not to employ a 
 particular workman unless he left a particular society or 
 union, or agreed to do something or other not included in
 
 184 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 a free and honourable engagement of labour. Baron Pollock 
 may have been right or wrong in his view of the law as it 
 stood under the Act of 187 1. The learned Judge was most 
 probably stating what the equity of England would be, as 
 it has come down through centuries of administration, even 
 were there no immediate statutes on the question ; and it 
 must be observed in the reason of the case that a combina- 
 tion of working men, calling themselves " Unionists," to 
 exclude by force one or more working men, who are not 
 "Unionists," from employment and from the means of 
 earning their bread, is about as cruel an offence as can be 
 committed, and to all persons who have any comprehensive 
 conception of the working class-interest in its solidarity, must 
 appear one of the most ugly and revolting features which 
 Trade-Unionism has brought into the foreground of social 
 and industrial life. If breach of engagement be included, 
 as the learned Baron appears to have implied, the offence, 
 of course, becomes so much the worse. 
 
 But the Royal Commissioners, on mature judgment, did 
 not take this line of consideration. What they concluded 
 on this point was, in the first place, to avoid all opinion on 
 the correctness of the law as reported to have been laid 
 down by Baron Pollock, and in the second place, assuming 
 the lav/ as thus stated to be the law, that it required 
 amendment in this one respect, viz., that labour and capital 
 being alike free in their original conditions, it must be 
 equally free to workmen and employers, "not under con- 
 tract" to work for or with whom they please. Therefore, 
 a body of men or a body of masters, free of contract, could 
 not be subject to any law of conspiracy in refusing to work 
 with or to employ this man or the other man as they 
 severally determined. 
 
 The profoundest legal exegesis could scarcely infer that, 
 in passing the Trade-Unions Act of 187 1, the Legislature 
 had any intention to place under the law of conspiracy 
 such a commonplace Trade-Union procedure as the refusal 
 to work with non-union workmen, all its consequent hard- 
 ship and ruin to the latter notwithstanding, or, indeed, any 
 Trade-Union procedure but that disclosing itself in aggra-
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS." 1S5 
 
 vated violations of contract or in acts of personal assault 
 and outrage. One cannot but observe that the various 
 conundrums of legislation raised by Trade Unions, however 
 imperfectly solved, from time to time, by a semi-stupefied 
 Legislature, when pursued to ultimate reason, come down 
 to very simple A B C. All is comprehended in the simple 
 maxim, " Exercise your own right to the full, but do not 
 infringe the rights of others." A baby, even " Ginx's Baby," 
 could hardly lose itself in the whole question. 
 
 The substantial conclusion of the Royal Commissioners 
 — and it is very important to mark it — was that the common 
 law of conspiracy as applicable to Trade-Union action, had 
 been already greatly more repealed by the Trade-Unions 
 Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1S71 than 
 was reasonable, or could possibly be justified, and that it 
 was necessary in reason and in the public good " to add to 
 " the wrongful means set forth in the Criminal Law Amend- 
 " ment Act, that of wilful breaches of contract," as properly 
 subject to the common law of conspiracy. 
 
 These were the findings of the Royal Commission on the 
 " Labour Laws." The conclusions of the Commission, as 
 rarely happens, were practically unanimous. The only dis- 
 sentient report was that of Mr. A. Macdonald, M.P., who 
 stated without argument or reasons of any kind, but with 
 his authority as a leader of Mining Unions (1) that the 14th 
 section of the Master and Servant Act should be entirely 
 removed from the statute-book ; (2) that conditions of em- 
 ployment requiring to be enforced by criminal law should 
 be provided for by special statute in each trade, when 
 found absolutely necessary, as in the case of mining opera- 
 tions ; (3) that the Criminal Law Amendment Act should 
 be totally repealed ; and (4) that the Law of Conspiracy 
 should be altered in the manner suggested by Sir William 
 Harcourt.
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COM- 
 MISSION ON "THE LABOUR LAWS." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN ACT AND THE CON- 
 SPIRACY AND PROTECTION OF PROPERTY ACT. 
 
 Parliament, in the session of 1875, proceeded, on die 
 motion of the Home Secretary, Mr. Cross, to deal with the 
 laws which had been the special subject of inquiry by a 
 Royal Commission. What the conclusions of the Com- 
 missioners were has been seen in the preceding chapter. 
 
 The Home Secretary, on introducing two Bills, professed 
 to follow closely, with some few exceptions, the recommen- 
 dations of the Commission. The view of the Government 
 was that breaches of contract should be divided into two 
 categories — one civil, and liable only to civil remedy ; the 
 other criminal, and subject to penal consequences. To 
 obviate all confusion of the one class of breaches of con- 
 tract with the other, alleged to be the chief defect of the 
 Master and Servant Act, Mr. Cross proposed to treat them 
 in two separate measures, that would come in room of the 
 Master and Servant Act. The Criminal Law Amendment 
 Act, the repeal of which had been demanded by the Uni- 
 onists, had in his opinion been greatly misunderstood, and 
 the Government did not conceive that it could either be re- 
 pealed or much amended. " It was equally necessary to 
 " maintain the perfect free will and independence of the 
 " workman against his fellow-workmen as it was to maintain 
 " his freedom and independence against his employer." But, 
 as regarded the law of Conspiracy, the Home Secretary
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 187 
 
 perceived from recent cases in the Courts, as well as from the 
 Report of the Commissioners, some opening for a modifica- 
 tion that would meet the complaints of the Unionists. This 
 was a fair and intelligible programme, and seemed to 
 promise an exhaustive treatment of the question of breach 
 of contract, in both its civil and criminal aspects, and 
 whether on the part of employers or employed. 
 
 The second Bill of Mr. Cross, however, was found to be 
 an unsatisfactory exposition of the law as regards criminal 
 breaches of contract, and a rivalry ensued between the front 
 Opposition bench and the Treasury as to which party should 
 have the honour of doing most for the Trade Unions that had 
 singular results on the texture of the Bill, and presented the 
 most curious example of " legislating in a circle " that has 
 probably ever been recorded. This will fully appear on 
 consideration of the Bills as they now stand in the form of 
 completed Acts. 
 
 EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN ACT. 
 
 The Employers and Workmen Act does not expressly 
 repeal the Master and Servant Act, but it may be assumed 
 to come in its place, as the intention of Parliament obviously 
 was. 1 The older Act did not apply to domestic servants, or 
 to clerks, shopmen, and the like persons employed in trade 
 and business. It is curious to find that questions arising 
 with respect to these classes have been left wholly to the 
 Common Law. The Employers and Workmen Act main- 
 tains the same distinction, and applies to "the workman," 
 whether in rude or skilled labour, who has entered into a 
 contract, verbal or written, with an employer. The Act 
 does not apply to seamen or apprentices at sea. The obli- 
 gation of ordinary apprentices is touched upon, though not 
 materially changed, in distinctive clauses, the chief feature of 
 which is that die parent or other party to the indenture may 
 be called into Court in a case of breach by the apprentice. 
 It is thus an Act bearing on individual workmen or hired 
 
 ' 1'lie repeal of the Master and Servant Act is effected, with some 
 minor exceptions, by the subsequent Conspiracy and 1'rotection of Pro- 
 perty Act.
 
 ]S8 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 servants in husbandry of every class, who have entered into 
 engagement with an employer; and vice versa, on employers 
 who have entered into engagement with the same classes of 
 people. The distinction of classes is not very precise. For 
 example, it must be doubtful to the Courts whether a 
 kitchen-woman in a farm-house be under the Common Law 
 or under this Statute. The Act, indeed, embraces many 
 relations which scarcely come within the sphere of Trade- 
 Union concern or procedure ; but it is all the more import- 
 ant on this account since in practical operation it may 
 probably suggest how far laws may be wisely amended 
 under dictation from a totally different sphere from that to 
 which in numerous instances they apply. 
 
 The principle, and the whole import, indeed, of the Act is 
 to substitute in simple breaches of contract for some small 
 fine, or, failing payment, term of imprisonment, or for per- 
 formance of the contract, a decree of damages in favour of 
 the injured party. The fine under the Master and Servant 
 Act was practically the same as a decree of debt only it was 
 more capable of being modified to the means of the defend- 
 ant, when a workman or servant, than an assessment of 
 damages can be. But the alternative of imprisonment gave 
 effect to the fine, and was in its nature penal, though much 
 less so when under the regulation of statute and the miti- 
 gating discretion of the Court, than when imprisonment or 
 distraint ensues at the instance of a creditor. The sugges- 
 tion of the Commissioners, that personal detention should 
 only be in a civil prison, appeared to meet the case both as 
 regards the leniency and the efficiency of the law. Some 
 time might also have been expressly allowed a workman or 
 servant to pay the fine under security before any imprison- 
 ment could follow. Parliament, however, disposed of the 
 question otherwise. 
 
 When a servant abruptly leaves his service, or a work- 
 man breaks his contract, he will now be summoned, if the 
 employer chooses, in the ordinary civil form, as if he had 
 failed to pay his grocer ; and the Court, if the summons can 
 be served, will assess the damage done to the employer, and 
 order payment of the amount with costs. The employer will
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM TIIK COMMISSION'. 189 
 
 thus obtain a judgment debt against his servant or workman, 
 which, if paid, will be a satisfaction to him. Employers, 
 under the law as it has hitherto stood, have derived only 
 the negative benefit arising from the discouragement given 
 to breaches of contract by the fact that the breakers were in 
 some cases amenable to fine or imprisonment. On the other 
 hand, decrees of Court against employers for breach of con- 
 tract, or other damage to servants or workmen, have gene- 
 rally been valid in a positive sense, and the injured servants 
 or workmen have happily been able to put the recovered 
 money in their pockets. Employers, as the law now is, will 
 be able to obtain decrees of debt against any contract- 
 breaking servant or workman for the full amount of damage 
 done. The Legislature, however, in another course of 
 enactment, in itself humane and commendable, has much 
 reduced the value of judgment debts against poor people. 
 Debtors cannot be put in prison unless they have means 
 and are unwilling to pay ; and there can be no arrestment of 
 wages. Judgments of damage to employers will often be null 
 and void even when obtained. There is thus, in what will 
 be found to be a large proportion of cases, a dissolution of 
 the legal obligation of contract of work or service in the new 
 civil form. On the other hand, there are many cases in 
 which the operation of the Act may prove oppressive to 
 workmen and servants. It places a great power of future 
 annoyance to the person, against whom a decree of damages 
 is obtained, in the hands of his employer. Working people, 
 the few even who fall into breaches of contract, are not all 
 waifs and strays. They seek to live in one place, to settle, 
 and to occupy a respectable position. But with a judgment 
 debt out against them in the hands of rigorous creditors, this 
 will be impossible till the judgment be satisfied ; and the 
 judgment debt based on a strict assessment of damage, may 
 be much more severe than the fines by which the magistrates 
 have hitherto compounded such cases. 
 
 When the damage claimed does not exceed 10/. with 
 costs, the case may go before a court of summary jurisdic- 
 tion ; but the powers given by the Act to County Courts in 
 England imply that any amount of damage arising from
 
 irjo 
 
 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 4- 
 
 breach of contract of service may be sued for in the ordinary 
 civil form. The breaches of contract within the immediate 
 purview of this Act are no doubt breaches of the most 
 ordinary and simple character, where an individual workman 
 or servant only is concerned, where the damages can conse- 
 quently seldom be of large amount, and the moral influence 
 of a legal obligation of contract is much the most valuable 
 element in the case. But the County Courts in England, the 
 Sheriff Courts in Scotland, and the Civil Bill Courts in Ire- 
 land are now opened to the suit of whatever amount of damage 
 may arise. 
 
 The most flagrant breaches of contract, without acts of 
 violence or direct external injury to property, occur under 
 the auspices of the Trade Unions, where fifty or a hundred, 
 or several hundreds of men lay down their tools and cease to 
 work on some frivolous pretext, without any warning or 
 notice required by the works in which they have engaged. 
 This is a civil breach of the most wilful and lawless char- 
 acter, because it is done in concert, with the deliberation 
 of a multitude, and there is no room for the indulgence pro- 
 perly extended to acts of wayward personal impulse. It is 
 the more inexcusable inasmuch as, by giving the required 
 notice, the Unionists would have full liberty to withdraw their 
 labour, and to do whatever they pleased of a non-criminal 
 character, under the full protection of the law. In such 
 cases, moreover, the damages often amount to hundreds, and 
 even thousands of pounds. In a case of this kind the remedy, 
 under the civil process now formulated by Act of Parliament, 
 would properly lie against the Union, the wilful author and 
 inspirer of the whole mischief. But the Unionists, who are 
 astute enough in matters of law, have already provided by 
 the Trade-Union Act of 187 1, that Trade Unions can neither 
 sue nor be sued. It would be idle to inquire whether Par- 
 liament, which in the second Act under consideration, as 
 will be seen, has condoned all the most criminal breaches 
 of contract, involving direct and wilful destruction of pro- 
 perty, by payment of a fine of 20/., had any idea of re- 
 covering hundreds or thousands of pounds of damage under 
 this Employers and Workmen Act. But, wittingly or un-
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMM1 5ION. 1 91 
 
 wittingly, such remedy has been offered, and it is obvious that 
 a suit against fifty or a hundred or more men in the Civil 
 Courts for damage ensuing from their combined desertion 
 of work, without the notice required in their engagements, 
 might have under the civil law very ruinous effects upon 
 them individually. 
 
 Another feature, and one, indeed, of the details of this 
 Act illustrative of the danger to the interest of working men 
 in specious legislation of this kind, occurs in respect to what 
 was a most prudent recourse of the magistrates under the 
 Master and Servant Act, viz., to order performance of the 
 contract on the simple personal promise of the workman or 
 servant. The Bill, as introduced by the Home Secretary, 
 reserved this power both to the County Courts and to the 
 Summary Courts. In this way a multitude of cases of 
 breach of contract have hitherto been settled, without either 
 fine or imprisonment, and in the way most easy and welcome 
 to the defendants, who were only required to give their own 
 engagements. But this would appear to have been too much 
 good sense to bear the strain of party rivalry in the House 
 of Commons, and an amendment came forth that a workman 
 or servant, willing to return to his contract as a settlement of 
 all damage pending against him, must in future give the 
 surety of some adequate person or persons in addition to his 
 own personal promise. The sole object of this too liberal 
 device was that the word "imprisonment" might not appear 
 in the Bill ; but underhand, at the same time the cunning 
 legislators provided that the surety, whom a servant or work- 
 man in such a case may be happy enough to find, may 
 imprison him in recovery of the damages assessed in lieu 
 of performance ! This unwise and hypocritical provision, 
 greatly increasing the difficulty of a workman or servant in 
 extricating himself from the bad consequence of a breach of 
 contract, passed even the House of Lords, and stands 
 part of the Statute. 
 
 The principle of the Employers and Workmen Act is 
 one with which no one can have any quarrel. It proceeds 
 on a theoretical equality always sound, reasonable, and 
 desirable to be realised in so far as there is a practical
 
 1 92 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 equality of redress in cases of wrong. But there can be neither 
 utility nor progress in vamping up a theoretical equality in 
 law that is only to have the effect of relaxing the sense of 
 contract-obligation among a large number of working people, 
 and in many other cases inflicting worse results for breach of 
 such obligations than have hitherto been experienced. If 
 amendments of laws of this kind do not diffuse more widely 
 an honest moral sense of contract-obligation, and provide in 
 the administration that parties violating this obligation shall 
 be more equitably treated in proportion to the wrong and to 
 their own personal means of making honourable amends, 
 greatly more harm than good may be done. 
 
 CONSPIRACY AND PROTECTION OF PROPERTY ACT. 
 
 This measure, without departing out of the control of the 
 Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor, became much differ- 
 ent in its passage through Parliament from what it was when 
 originally introduced. Mr. Cross would probably have led 
 the discussions of the House of Commons more effectively 
 to a better end had he adhered in the scheme of this 
 second Bill to what was understood to be his programme, viz. 
 to deal with the criminal aspect of breach of contract, and 
 to settle the criminal law with respect to breaches of con- 
 tract which by one degree or more of crime passed out of 
 the civil category. The Home Secretary had undertaken to 
 separate the two classes of breach of contract mingled 
 somewhat incongruously in the Master and Servant Act, and 
 to make them the subject of two separate and thoroughly 
 satisfactory statutes. It seemed his duty in breaking up the 
 Master and Servant Act, to exhaust its contents, and to 
 obtrude no alien subject until the elements of breach of 
 contract embraced in that Act were fully examined, and 
 either dispersed or placed in some more clear and equitable 
 terms than they had hitherto appeared in the statute-book. 
 There would thus have been assurance of legislation proceed- 
 ing in a regular, scientific, and settled form, on this perplexed 
 industrial relation. But the Home Secretary introduced 
 what he deemed a change in the common law of conspiracy
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 193 
 
 as applicable to trade disputes, calling his Bill a " Conspiracy 
 Bill," and then drawing certain penal clauses bearing on 
 '• malicious injury to property " against which ample provision 
 had been already made in previous statutes, the Bill became 
 a " Conspiracy and Protection of Property Bill," with 
 criminal breaches of contract proper and per ses — the Prince 
 Hamlet of the play — left out, and disposed of by Parliament. 
 as may be judged, in a most unsatisfactory and vagrant 
 fashion. The erratic course thus given to the legislation by 
 Mr. Cross was greatly increased by an Opposition amend- 
 ment that the Bill should repeal the Criminal Law Amend- 
 ment Act, which relates not to breaches of contract at all, 
 but to specified acts of personal violence and molestation 
 in which no question of contract of labour is involved ! 
 The Government and the Opposition may equally have had 
 some intention of 'satisfying the whole platform of Trade 
 Union agitation in a single measure. But reasonable men 
 of either party do not regard with much favour flighty 
 legislation of this kind affecting the bases of the social 
 and industrial state ; and political leaders would be wise 
 not to indulge in such freaks. The country sees all and 
 judges all. 
 
 Before proceeding to look how the Law of Conspiracy was 
 amended and the Criminal Law Amendment Act was 
 repealed by this statute, it may be well to follow out the 
 question of criminal breach of contract. 
 
 The Bill of Mr. Cross had two clauses bearing on this 
 question, the effect of which was that workmen employed by 
 any municipal authority, or public company under Act of 
 Parliament, supplying gas or water to any city, borough, town. 
 or place, who wilfully and maliciously breaks a contract of 
 service, knowing the probable serious consequences of so 
 acting, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 20/., or failing 
 payment of this fine, to imprisonment for not more than 
 three months with or without hard labour; and that em- 
 ployers or workmen in any other case, Avho wilfully and 
 maliciously break a contract of service, knowing that the 
 probable consequences of so doing will be to expose valu- 
 able property, whether real or personal, to destruction or to
 
 194 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 serious injury, shall be liable in exactly the same penalties. 
 These clauses remain in their original integrity in the Act 
 as passed. 
 
 The formal distinction thus made between workmen in 
 gas and water works and workmen in other establishments is 
 not very clear in reason. In the one case, there is serious 
 annoyance to the public ; and in the other, there is serious 
 destruction or injury to private property. But both public 
 and private interests are injured in both cases, and Mr. 
 Cross's two clauses, more especially since they involve the 
 same penalties, might as well have been only one. The 
 offence in both instances implies a concert of workmen in 
 breach of contract with the knowledge that serious injury 
 will ensue. An individual workman in gas or water works, 
 by breaking his contract, can inflict little or no injury. But 
 even an individual in many other works, by breaking his 
 contract, may inflict a great deal of injury both on his 
 employers and on his fellow-workmen. A municipal autho- 
 rity or other corporate body employing men in gas or water 
 works, knowing the serious consequence of a sudden 
 stoppage of their works, have to be careful to have a term 
 of service from their workmen, with formalities of notice, to 
 which they have reason to believe that their workmen will be 
 faithful. Other companies and firms employing workmen 
 have to observe the same circumspection. But there is this 
 substantial difference, viz., that gas and water companies, 
 and railway companies (rather singularly excluded from the 
 Act), have little or no difficulty in employing men on this 
 understanding, whereas many great industrial establishments 
 requiring much stricter financial calculation, and of no less 
 importance to the country, have much difficulty in obtaining 
 terms of service from workmen, and still more difficulty in 
 securing their faithful observance when obtained. Nor is it 
 to be left out of view that " minute contracts," under which 
 bodies of workmen may lay down their tools at any moment 
 so as to give greater scope to the action of " strikes," and to 
 place the industry of the country more completely under the 
 dictation of some central junta of labour, have become a 
 favourite idea of Trade Union demagogues, who, when the
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 1 95 
 
 subject is well riddled, are found to be the prime movers of 
 all this legislation. 
 
 A fine of 20/., or, failing payment, any term of imprison- 
 ment not exceeding three months, must be deemed a 
 sufficient correction of any individual criminal breach of 
 contract that may arise, involving however much damage to 
 employers and to fellow-workmen. It would cover almost 
 all cases in which the working classes, properly so called, 
 are concerned. But it is impossible to eliminate from 
 criminal breaches of contract the incident of concert, where 
 a large number of workmen simultaneously and of set will 
 break their contracts, and where the injury, public and 
 private, is incomparably greater than in any individual case. 
 The new Act has introduced a considerable innovation in 
 this respect. The 14th section of the Master and Servant 
 Act adjudged for such aggravated breaches of contract, 
 involving much serious and wilful injury to public and 
 private interests, a penalty of three months' imprisonment, 
 with or without hard labour, but without any compounding 
 fine. The new Act, on the other hand, adjudges a fine of 
 20I. in lieu of all penalty for the most aggravated criminal 
 breaches of contract that may occur. 
 
 Lord Winmarleigh, one of the Commissioners on the 
 " Labour Laws," observed when the Bill came before the 
 House of Lords, that there were breaches of contract so 
 injurious that he could not think that they were adequately 
 met by Clause 5, and a fine of 20I. The mind of Lord 
 Winmarleigh was no doubt well stored with the information, 
 the cases, and the great variety of culpability and detriment 
 in criminal breaches of contract, that had transpired in the 
 course of the Inquiry, and hence perceived clearly enough 
 the imprudence of visiting with a fine of 20/., applicable to 
 an aggravated case of individual breach of contract, a 
 criminal breach of contract by hundreds or thousands of 
 men in concert, involving among other serious consequences 
 an enforced suspension of labour and loss of wages by 
 hundreds or thousands more of wholly innocent working 
 people. But what was the Lord Chancellor's reply? The 
 learned lord, at the head of the law of England, observed 
 
 O 2
 
 I96 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 that in such cases no pecuniary compensation could possibly 
 be afforded to the injured parties, that the question was one 
 wholly of penalty, and that " the penalty proposed by the 
 " Bill was exactly the same as that in force under the Master 
 " and Servant Act." But the Lord Chancellor was in error 
 here at the moment on the question of fact ; because the 
 14th section of the Master and Servant Act, dealing with the 
 most aggravated cases of breach of contract, did essentially 
 differ from the 9th and nth sections in that the magistrates, 
 where any pecuniary compensation or other remedy pro- 
 vided by the Act could not meet the case, might sentence 
 the parties complained against to the common gaol or house 
 of correction for a period not exceeding three months, with 
 or without hard labour. There is no fine under this section 
 of the Master and Servant Act, which appears to have con- 
 templated breaches of contract so criminal that nothing 
 short of a term of imprisonment could atone for them. The 
 Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act departs from 
 this modulated legislation, condoning by a fine of 20I, the 
 most criminal and injurious breaches of contract to be con- 
 ceived ; and it must be unnecessary to remind the Lord 
 Chancellor that where fifty or a hundred men wilfully and 
 unnecessarily violate their contracts, to the grievous loss and 
 injury of their employers and fellow-working-people, and 
 three or four of them are brought before the Courts with 
 hundreds or thousands of sympathising Unionists at their 
 back, the payment of 20I. is more likely to be a cause of de- 
 moralising exultation over the law than to be felt as a penalty. 
 The question may here be asked, why should " fines " have 
 any place in an Act professing to treat solely of criminal 
 breaches of contract? A "fine" in many ordinary cases 
 may be deemed a penalty, but it is always of the nature of 
 pecuniary damage for wrong done, and Parliament in these 
 Acts has been making a final separation between breaches 
 of contract for which civil or pecuniary redress may be 
 more or less effectively available, and breaches of contract 
 so uncivil, so irredeemable by pecuniary damage, and so 
 wholly criminal in their motives, incidents, and con- 
 se 1 icnces, that there is no possible award for them but
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 197 
 
 criminal punishment. In the Employers and Workmen Act 
 the Legislature was at extraordinary pains to exclude every- 
 thing of the nature of penalty from civil breach of contract. 
 In this second Act, supposed to be dealing exhaustively with 
 criminal breaches of contract, all penalty for the most ex- 
 tremely criminal breaches of contract is reduced to a money 
 payment of 20/. 
 
 The only fruit of this inconsistency must be a new crop of 
 grievances in the administration. Even as a Trade Union 
 question, it is impossible to conceive any reason for the bias 
 displayed in these Acts, because the Trade Unionists are 
 under no temptation to violate their contracts, seeing that 
 contract does not stand in the way of their greatest rights, 
 not even the right of " strike " — a right that may be carried 
 out legally and peaceably in all cases without any violation 
 of contract. It is only the most extreme and worthless class 
 of Trade Unionists that dream of promoting their interests 
 by breach of engagements ; and the power of Parliament, in 
 so far as it here encourages such violations, has been exerted 
 in a baneful direction. 
 
 This unsatisfactory settlement of the question of criminal 
 breach of contract was an almost unavoidable consequence 
 of mixing up with it a modification of the Common Law of 
 Conspiracy, and more especially a repeal of the Criminal 
 Law Amendment Act, which belongs to a wholly different 
 subject. The attention of Parliament was distracted from 
 the real question under its consideration to these extraneous 
 matters, to which it is necessary now to return. 
 
 The third Section of the Conspiracy and Protection of Pro- 
 perty Act provides that " an agreement or combination by two 
 " or more persons to do or to procure to be done any act in 
 " contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between 
 " employers and workmen shall not be punishable as a 
 " conspiracy, if such act as aforesaid, if committed by one 
 " person, would not be punishable as a crime." Of course 
 this would be a great relaxation of the law of conspiracy 
 if applied to all other matters as well as disputes between 
 employers and workmen, since there is construction of con- 
 spiracy in many cases where the thing done or procured to
 
 19S THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 be done is harmless in itself, but is done or procured to be 
 done for an unlawful or criminal end ; and the Commis- 
 sioners had reported that this law is so necessary an element 
 of jurisprudence that they avoided all inquiry whether it 
 could undergo a general modification. The Section makes 
 no mention, indeed, of the unlawful or criminal end, and 
 where that element is present in the " doing or procuring 
 to be done," it may be presumed that Trade Unionists 
 would still be liable to the law of conspiracy like other 
 subjects of the Queen. The main interest, however, is 
 to discover in what respect this Section of the new Act 
 relaxes the law more as regards trade disputes and Trade 
 Union action than it had already been relaxed by the legis- 
 lation of 187 1. The Trade Union Act of that year 
 annulled the law of conspiracy in so far as the action of 
 a Union or combination might be construed on the ancient 
 common law doctrine to be "in restraint of trade;" and 
 the Criminal Law Amendment Act of the same year pro- 
 vided that no person should be liable to any punishment 
 for conspiracy unless in immediate connection with one or 
 other of the acts of violence specified in that Statute. An 
 act of violence is a crime whether committed by one or 
 more persons ; and Trade Unionists had already received 
 emancipation from the law of conspiracy save when an act of 
 violence was committed. Jt is thus hard to see what further 
 change of any kind this Section of the new Act has in- 
 troduced. In so far as it may be supposed to bear on 
 breach of contract, it lands in what appears to be a 
 reductio ad absurdum; because breach of contract by a 
 single person is seldom more than a civil wrong, and the 
 Legislature has determined that it shall not be treated in 
 any other form than under the civil law ; so that hundreds, as 
 the Section reads in this point of view, may combine to 
 break their contracts, and may abduct by temptations of 
 drink and journeys to the country hundreds more from 
 their plighted service, and yet in all this procedure the act 
 done, if done by one, not being a crime, must not be deemed 
 a crime when done by hundreds, and, in other words, that 
 there can be no criminal breach of contract whatever ! It is
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. I QQ 
 
 scarce possible to believe that this was within the intention of 
 the Legislature; and yet some words were dropped by the 
 Lord Chancellor which seem to signify as much. " It was 
 " true," he remarked, " that under the existing law, if one 
 " man broke his contract that would not be a crime, while if, 
 " say fifty, broke their contract, that at common law might be 
 " regarded as a conspiracy. Under this Bill it would not 
 " be a conspiracy." There may be some imagined liberation 
 of criminal breaches of contract from the common law of 
 conspiracy, but one fails to discern how this liberation has 
 been or could possibly be carried farther than it had been 
 already carried by the legislation of 1871, which expressly 
 enacted that the common law of conspiracy should nowise 
 bear in trade disputes save in immediate relation to specified 
 acts of violence and molestation. 1 The Trade Unionists 
 have thrown so much dust in their own eyes on these sub- 
 jects that it would almost seem to have occurred to some 
 learned wits in Parliament to give them a little more of it. 
 
 Then, the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 
 though totally foreign to the Bill as a future law dispos- 
 ing of the question of criminal breaches of contract, was 
 accomplished by the singular and amusing expedient of 
 importing into the Bill the whole contents of the repealed 
 Act, with the exception of the provision in our foot-note, 
 which was so valuable to the Trade Unionists, and has 
 now disappeared. Mr. Lowe began this task, and was 
 immediately joined by Mr. Cross in its completion. Mr. 
 Lowe proposed the following substitution for the Criminal 
 Law Amendment Act : — 
 
 " Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain 
 from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right 
 to do or abstain from doing, shall use violence to any person or any 
 property, or shall threaten or intimidate any person in such manner as 
 would justify a justice of the peace in binding over the person so threaten- 
 ing or intimidating to keep the peace." 
 
 1 " No person shall be liable to any punishment for doing or conspir- 
 ing to do any act on the ground that such act restrains or tends to re- 
 strain the free course of trade, unless such act is one oi tl e acts herein- 
 before specified in this section." — Criminal Law Amendment . .' ,1871.
 
 200 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 To which Mr. Cross added : — 
 
 "And every person who, with a view seriously to annoy or intimi- 
 date any other person, shall persistently follow such other person about, 
 or hide any property owned or used by such person, or deprive him or 
 hinder him in the use thereof, or watch or beset the place where such 
 other person resides or is, or the approach to such place, or shall with 
 one or more persons follow such person in a disorderly manner, in or 
 through any street or road — " 
 
 And here followed the penalty alike of Mr. Lowe and 
 Mr. Cross — 
 
 " Shall be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, not 
 exceeding three months." 
 
 Now let the reader please turn to the enactments i, 2, 3, 
 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in the preceding 
 chapter, 1 and say whether he can discover any difference 
 between this substitute for the Act and the Act itself? May 
 it not even be argued that under Mr. Lowe's brief form, all 
 the consequences of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 
 would have been imported into the new law, without Mr. 
 Cross's addition, in which there is simply a more extended 
 copy of the Criminal Law Amendment Act ? Working 
 men may thus see how little is to be gained from such 
 chopping of law and legislation in matters of crime and 
 offence, to which no friend of working men can readily 
 believe them to be specially prone. The new version of the 
 Criminal Law Amendment Act, as suggested by Mr. Lowe 
 and Mr. Cross, commanded general approval in the House 
 of Commons, and members on both sides of the House 
 seemed pleased to think that in repealing one Act they had 
 introduced its whole contents into a new Bill, treating pro- 
 fessedly and ostensibly of an entirely different matter. 
 
 It may be remarked, as showing the danger of hap-hazard 
 statute-making of this kind, that an important provision of the 
 Criminal Law Amendment Act, to the effect that nothing in 
 its contents should exempt any person from any higher 
 punishment than is provided therein for any offence, was 
 omitted from this House of Commons' version. It is not 
 
 1 See page 178.
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 201 
 
 unusual in Trade Union frenzies to place explosive sub- 
 stances under a working man's stool or wheel, and to blow 
 up on a calculated accident all the apparatus of his work, 
 and himself as a mere appendage in the general account. 
 Then if A, for example, — another form of Trade Union 
 outrage — hires B C and D to shoot E, in order that all 
 the other letters of the alphabet may be, if not coerced, 
 inspired with a serious terror, the crime of A B C and 1) 
 is surely not to be less than murder or manslaughter at 
 least, or to be punished only by three months' imprisonment 
 with hard labour. The Bill, as amended by the House of 
 Commons, restricted the penalty for all violence on persons 
 and property, if it should only be done " with a view to 
 compel any other person to do or to abstain from doing," 
 contrary to his own will and legal right, — or, in other 
 words, done by Trade Unionists, since this is an almost 
 exclusively Trade Union phase " of violence to person and 
 property," — to three months' imprisonment, with or without 
 hard labour. Setting fire to a whole work, and even assassi- 
 nation, were not excepted. The Lord Chancellor appears, 
 from some timely hint, to have detected this omission, and 
 in the House of Lords' version of the Bill, and what is 
 now the Statute, the following further copy from the re- 
 pealed Act was introduced : — 
 
 " Nothing in this section shall prevent any person from being liable 
 Under any other Act to any other or higher punishment than is provided 
 by this section for any offence, su that no person be punished twice for 
 the same offence." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor slightly recast the comprehensive 
 clause contributed by Mr. Lowe and xMr. Cross, though not 
 in any sense to diminish the fully imported effect of the 
 ( riminal Law Amendment Act. The conduct " with a view- 
 to compel" — in the repealed Act it was " with a view to 
 coerce" — must be done, it now appears, "wrongfully and 
 without legal authority." But the conduct itself (i) using 
 violence or intimidation, (2) persistently following. (3) hiding 
 any tools, clothes or other property, or hindering the use 
 thereof, (4) watching or besetting the house or workshop or
 
 202" THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the approach to such place, and (5) following with one or 
 more persons in a disorderly manner through any street or 
 road, is denominated exactly as it was in the Criminal Law 
 Amendment Act. The Lord Chancellor gave only one 
 original touch to the law as it was under the repealed Act, 
 by introducing the following little qualification of " watch- 
 ing and besetting " : — 
 
 " Attending at or near the house or place where a person works, or is 
 employed, or the approach to such house or place, in order merely to 
 obtain or communicate information, and not with a view to intimidate 
 or to deter by serious annoyance such person from doing or abstaining 
 from doing that which he has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, 
 shall not be deemed a watching or besetting within the meaning of this 
 section." 
 
 " Watching and besetting with a view to intimidate or 
 deter," and " attending at or near in order merely to obtain 
 or communicate information," are no doubt different acts ; 
 but it is improbable that either the law or the Trade 
 Unionists will get out of the perplexity in which they 
 are being mutually placed without some closer stroke of 
 common sense than is found in this distinction. Does the 
 obtaining or communication of information require " watch- 
 ing and besetting " in any form ? Or are the means of 
 persuasion, so abundantly exemplified in this country by 
 public meetings, resolutions, advertisements in the news- 
 papers, placards on the walls, and all the free circulation of 
 opinion, so vague and indefinite and of so little efficacy as 
 to be capable of being confounded with acts of " watching 
 and besetting," of "intimidation," "compulsion," or "co- 
 ercion," or any officious interference whatever of one man 
 with another ? ' 
 
 1 I have had an opportunity, since writing thie chapter, of reading 
 the new text-book on The Labour Laws, by Mr. J. E. Davis, of the 
 Middle Temple, and late Police Magistrate for Sheffield, and have been 
 gratified to find from a professional authority so experienced and so 
 justly popular, much corroboration of my purely lay conclusions. Mr. 
 Davis, in his legal notes on the Labour Legislation of 1875, expresses 
 (1) much doubt whether the Employers and Workmen Act, in restrict- 
 ing the power of the Courts to order specific performance of contract 
 to cases where the consent of both parties is given, and in further
 
 LEGISLATION RESULTING FROM THE COMMISSION. 203 
 
 In concluding this review of the Royal Commission on 
 the " Labour Laws " and its sequent enactments, there 
 occurs not only the reflection — almost too trite now to be 
 mentioned — how very little intluence the elaborate inquiries 
 and reports of Royal Commissions have on legislation in 
 comparison with mere impulses and political expediencies 
 outside the reason of the case, but also, that the whole of 
 the questions brought under this review relate to breaches 
 of contract and acts of violence — to offences, whether civil 
 or criminal, to which no honest working man from one end 
 of the kingdom to the other would lend his conscious or 
 deliberate approval for a moment — and that consequently 
 the manoeuvres of Parliament to give a seeming encourage- 
 ment to such offences involve both a humiliation of the 
 working classes and a humiliation of the nation at the very 
 core of its honour — the source of its laws. 
 
 requiring that the servant or workman must find one or more sureties in 
 room of his own personal bond as under the Master and Servant Act, 
 will operate to the advantage either of employers or employed. A 
 large proportion of cases of simple breach of contract were settled in the 
 Courts by order to perform in the way most agreeable and .satisfactory 
 to both parties, pp. S6, 92. Mr. Davis (2) regrets that no distinction 
 has been left by the Employers and Workmen Act between breaches of 
 contract in which there is a bond fide dispute, and breaches of contract 
 in which there is every variety of groundless, wilful, or unjust motive, 
 p. 92 ; (3) that the breaches "I contract to be treated criminally under 
 the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act must be not only 
 •• wilfully " but " maliciously " committed, the last being a new term in 
 this branch of Criminal Law not only liable to confused interpretations, 
 but apt to be wholly exclusive of many criminal breaches of contract, 
 pp. 94-5, note^. p. 156; and (4) that the same Act, in giving persons 
 complained against option of trial by jury, no costs of prosecution are 
 allowed or provided to the prosecutors, pp. 98-9. Mr. Davis observes 
 (5) that under the clause relating to Law of Conspiracy "it is not im- 
 probable that cases of total irresponsibility to the Criminal Law may occur 
 not contemplated by the Legislature, although foreshadowed by some 
 observations and reflections in the Report of the Royal Commission," 
 p. 101.
 
 XIV. 
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 
 
 The " dismal science " is not a favourite study of any large 
 class of men, and of the members of Trade Unions probably 
 less than of any equally numerous body. An appeal to 
 political economy in a discussion of this kind, therefore, may 
 have no more weight among the Unionists than appeal to an 
 authority which they have already a priori discarded. But 
 nevertheless most people engaging actively and extensively 
 in industrial, commercial, and financial affairs, find not only 
 a useful, but an indispensable guide in the teachings of 
 political economy ; and it may not be too much to infer that 
 if capitalists, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and others, 
 have found advantage in paying deference to these oracles, 
 it is almost certain that the Trade Unions, who have been 
 adventuring as largely of late years as any other classes in 
 pursuit of their interests, and on a new route of their own 
 devising, will be none the worse, but all the better for con- 
 sulting them also. 
 
 SPHERE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 To show how reasonable this is, look (i) at what political 
 economy professes to teach, and (2) at what the Trade Unions 
 profess to do. The great masters of political economy 
 give or create no laws whatever ; they cannot bind any class 
 of men, or any man, or any element whether of capital or 
 labour, or of invention or skill, or of physical or moral force 
 that enters into the social and industrial economy, under ob- 
 ligation to their doctrine. What they profess to do, and 
 what they have done, is by an immense study of facts and
 
 WHAT POLITK \I. ECONOMY SAYS. 205 
 
 experience in all past and cotemporary periods, and by much 
 hard and close argument connecting cause and effect at 
 every point in logical order, to arrive at the general prin- 
 c iples by which the production and distribution of wealth, 
 and the economic progress and well-being of communities, 
 have been ultimately governed. Political economy, in its 
 highest scientific form, while extremely barren as regards the 
 creation of " new moral worlds " and other delectable 
 fantasies not under any experience, is thus extremely sug- 
 gestive in a practical, businessdike way, (1) of what will very 
 probably happen under given conditions, and (2) what cannot 
 possibly happen under any known conditions. This is a 
 source of guidance to which the Trade Unions should be 
 even more specially attentive than others, because they pro- 
 fess to do and compel where political economy professes 
 only to teach and suggest, and nothing surely could be more 
 irrational than for the Trade Unions, by a separate action, 
 and on a theory of their own, to attempt to accomplish what 
 the economists, in their sphere of impartial and generalised 
 reasoning, have declared to be contrary to what can either 
 probably or possibly happen. 
 
 VIEWS OF PROFESSOR CAIRN is. 
 
 It is unnecessary to quote largely from the best authorities 
 in political economy the doctrines that bear directly on the 
 action of the Trade Unions, and still less to weave out of them 
 any application of our own. The late Professor Cairnes, 
 in his last work — " Some Leading Principles of Political 
 Economy " — not only resumes the whole wisdom of Smith, 
 Ricardo, and Mill on the relations of capital and labour, and 
 the conditions determining the rates of profit and wages, with 
 many acute touches of independent thinking of his own, 
 which prove that the country has lost in him no mean master 
 of the science, but in two chapters devoted to Trade 
 Unionism he brings the established principles to bear on the 
 special subject under our consideration. No one will accuse 
 Professor Cairnes of any want of sympathy with the working 
 classes, or even with the Trade Unions. Indeed, he strains
 
 206 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 his intellect so keenly to discover every " coign of 'vantage " 
 for the Unions, that the reaction sways him to a less hope- 
 ful view of the condition and prospects of the working 
 classes in general than many may be willing to adopt. But 
 any one reading Professor Cairnes's chapters on this subject 
 can be at little loss to know, in a condensed form, what 
 political economy says to the Unionists. 
 
 LAW OF SUPPLY OF CAPITAL TO LABOUR. 
 
 The principal object of Trade Unionism, at least in its 
 more active and ambitious character, being to divert by an 
 independent action of the workmen (against which there is 
 nothing to be said save in so far as it may be a possible or an 
 impossible operation), some portion of the profits of em- 
 ployers to the wages of the employed, the whole question 
 goes back at once to the conditions on which capital is sup- 
 plied to the employment of labour. The hand of capital 
 can no more be forced than the hand of labour. There is 
 an average profit on which capital will be freely supplied to 
 any branch of industry, and there is a minimum profit on 
 which it may be supplied for a time, but will not be increas- 
 ingly supplied, and at any rate of profit under this minimum 
 will certainly fall away from that branch of industry, and leave 
 the workmen nothing to dispute about. They will simply 
 in that case have to follow in their own way the movement of 
 capital, and withdraw their labour into other forms of employ- 
 ment, or endure the rigour of a branch of industry in which 
 the capital fund is constantly diminishing, and the constant 
 tendency of wages is to fall. Supposing, therefore, a Trade 
 Union, by a well-concerted movement, taking advantage, as 
 often happens, of employers under contracts requiring to be 
 fulfilled within a given period, or of the almost invariable 
 situation of nearly all employers, viz., a business requiring 
 to be steadily and unintermittingly pursued in order to pro- 
 duce profit, and having a large amount of "fixed capital" 
 on which any stoppage of the work must produce a heavy 
 loss, succeeds in obtaining a higher rate of wages, it does not 
 follow that the distribution of the profits of capital and 

 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 207 
 
 the wages of labour has been radically affected, or even that 
 the workmen in that branch of trade have gained any per- 
 manent advantage. They have triumphed over their em- 
 ployers for the moment, but the fundamental condition 
 remains, that if capital is left without its average rate of 
 profit in any trade, it will cease and fall away from that trade, 
 and the workmen will immediately find themselves all the 
 worse. 
 
 Many employers, of course, struggle under a losing trade 
 for a considerable period ; they exhaust every means and 
 source of credit before they succumb ; and as they fall 
 and close up their works one after another, new employers 
 and new capital come in and help to sustain a fleeting aspect 
 of prosperity. The fall of employers under Trade Union 
 action might be expanded into a sad and doleful history. 
 But the pleasure which Unionists seem to take in rolling 
 down firms is a wholly profitless pleasure so far as they are 
 concerned, because they only place themselves by the process 
 under firmer and stronger masters, and the new men and 
 capital coming in are under the same condition as the old 
 that have been supplanted — they must have a profit over 
 and above the wages established by the workmen. 
 
 Another ephemeral result by which Union-enforced wages 
 in any branch of employment may be kept in countenance 
 for a time is the declension that ensues in other and even 
 closely affiliated branches. " It is not inconsistent," says 
 Professor Cairnes, " with the general conclusion, that an ad- 
 " vance of wages in certain departments of industry should 
 "be effected by the action of Trade Unions where this is 
 "accompanied by an equivalent fall in others." The pro- 
 ducers of coal, for example, may, by Trade Union action 
 under highly adventitious circumstances, raise their wages 
 much above the level of all other wages of labour ; and 
 "if they can effectually exclude the competition of out- 
 siders," this superiority of wages may be maintained for a 
 considerable time. But the ironworkers will immediately 
 find themselves all the worse placed by this elevation of 
 the colliers ; when the effect passes on to the engineers, 
 it will be still more lamentable ; and when the iron-
 
 208 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 workers, the engineers, and other classes of workmen through- 
 out the general sphere of manufacture are on the decline 
 because of this inordinate prosperity of the colliers, the 
 reaction is apt to be very severe, and the probability is 
 that the colliers will have no reason in the end to plume 
 themselves on the advantages they gained by their Trade 
 Union action. There is considerable temporary scope for 
 Trade Unions, having great organized power, and the will 
 to use it with sufficient inconsideration, to bring about, 
 under favourable circumstances, an increase of wages in 
 their particular sections of the industrial sphere, at the ex- 
 pense of diminished remuneration of labour in other branches 
 of employment. But to effect a general increase of the wages 
 of labour over the whole sphere, or even a permanent in- 
 crease of the rate of wages in any particular section of the 
 sphere, we are referred to causes which lie outside the limited 
 action of the Unions, and which the tactics of the Unions 
 for the most part only tend to obstruct. 
 
 If the profits of capital be large in any branch of industry 
 open to competition, nothing is more certain than that there 
 will be a steady flow of capital to that industry, calling for 
 more labour both within and beyond its own circle, and that 
 the workmen particularly who are directly engaged in such 
 industry will have opportunities of earning higher wages and 
 improving their condition. This is so certain that to suppose 
 that any Trade Union action is necessary to render it more 
 certain would be as wise as to suppose that Trade Union 
 action is necessary to certify the thermometer. But this case 
 of a branch of industry in which the profits of capital are com- 
 paratively large — and in which there are both ground and cer- 
 tainty of an increase of wages of labour, though of frequent 
 example, visiting constantly, indeed, nearly all our industries 
 in turn under the immense, varied, and endless play of 
 economic forces concentrated in this country, and thus 
 capable, if wisely understood and improved, of being the 
 basis of a general elevation of the working classes — does not 
 carry us to the ultimate principles on which a general in- 
 crease of wages depends. 

 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 209 
 
 CAUSES OF A GENERAL INCREASE OF WAGES. 
 
 Mr. Mill, and following him Professor Cairnes, recognising 
 the freeness and fulness with which capital is supplied to all 
 branches of industry in this country, and the consequent 
 tendency of capital to fall throughout the whole sphere to a 
 minimum rate of profit, at which it ceases to be increased, 
 and below which it is absolutely withdrawn, have established 
 the following conclusions : — That a general increase of wages 
 depends (i)on the increased productiveness of labour itself, 
 whether from the increased skill and intelligence of the 
 labourers, or from the help of inventors, superior tools and 
 machines, and improved processes of industrial art ; and (2) 
 on the extension of markets for the products of labour, 
 whether by free trade policy, the opening up of great coun- 
 tries like India and China, the discovery of gold mines in 
 Australia and California, railways, steam navigation, or by 
 all these means happily combined, creating an increased 
 demand for the products of labour, and giving an increased 
 supply of the materials of labour and of food and other com- 
 modities that are necessaries of life to the working classes. 
 Now, it must be confessed that with these fundamental 
 causes of an increase of wages much of the action of the 
 Trade Unions cannot be reconciled. A great part of the 
 policy of the Unions, without referring to the decaying 
 barbarisms of machine-breaking and the like, is directed 
 towards lessening, not increasing, the productiveness of 
 labour; and as regards keeping or enlarging existing mar- 
 kets, or opening new ones, not only do Unionists give 
 inventors, capitalists, merchants and manufacturer?, or the 
 State, little thanks for their enterprising efforts and often 
 costly sacrifices in this direction, but display an indifference 
 to the whole subject resulting in Union procedure, by which 
 markets for British goods are being constantly imperilled, 
 and are often lost.
 
 2IO THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 TRADE-UNION METHODS OF RAISING WAGES. 
 
 Professor Cairnes reviews the various methods of the 
 Unions to operate on the rate of wages — (i) the direct 
 method of calling on employers, on peril of a general strike, 
 to raise the rate of wages, or to reduce the working hours 
 without proportionate reduction of wages ; and (2) the in- 
 direct methods of artificially restricting the supply of labour 
 on the one hand, and increasing the quantity of work to be 
 done on the other, by making the curriculum of labour as 
 tedious and restrained as possible. The Professor, of course, 
 has, on general grounds, to condemn them all. His conclu- 
 sion is summed up in the following sentences : — 
 
 " The doctrine we have been considering shows us that the ordinary 
 motives pressing upon capitalists are always sufficient, of their inherent 
 strength, to fill up the room constantly created for fresh investment, and 
 do in fact fill it up [under the constant tendency of capital in this full 
 fl >w to all branches of industry to fall to a minimum rate of profit] ; 
 and this being so, where is the scope for Trade-Union action in enlarging 
 the wages-fund ? I confess I am unable to see how, in presence of these 
 considerations, founded as they are on incontrovertible facts, the larger 
 pretensions of Trade- Unionism can be sustained. The permanent eleva- 
 tion of the average rate of wages— or, what comes to the same thing, 
 the permanent elevation of the rate of wages in any branch of industry not 
 accompanied by an equivalent fall in some other branch or branches — 
 bevond the level determined by the economic conditions prevailing in 
 the country, is, as it seems to me, a feat beyond its power. Such is the 
 broad general conclusion to which economic principles applied to the 
 facts of the ca-e appear to conduct us." 
 
 But Professor Cairnes had one exception to make in favour 
 of Trade-Union action, even in its most ambitious form of 
 enforcing a higher rate of wages by means of strike. He 
 did not wish to strain the general principles governing a 
 permanent increase of wages a single iota, as to any par- 
 ticular action of Trade Unions, or similar bodies, beyond 
 their own due terms ; and he supposed, therefore, the case 
 of a branch of industry which had become, from whatever 
 cause or causes, exceptionally prosperous, and in which the 
 employers were making large profits, while the workmen 
 had so far been reaping no advantage. Professor Cairnes
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 2 I I 
 
 observed that in a situation of this kind an advance of wages 
 was certain in any circumstances, the increased demand for 
 labour carrying its inevitable result on wages ; but as this 
 result might not be immediate, he was of opinion that Trade- 
 Union action had here a legitimate field of exercise, and 
 that an association of workmen, " using its powers judi- 
 " ciously, might determine capital at once towards those 
 " issues which under the ordinary motives governing indus- 
 " trial investment it would indeed in any case ultimately 
 " reach." This is clearly a case in which the workmen have 
 only to hold up their hands in order to obtain better terms, 
 ancl which could scarcely lead to any stoppage of work detri- 
 mental to the employers or the employed ; where any Trade- 
 Union action would be as unlike as possible to Trade-Union 
 action of the customary character, which in its movement 
 of forcing by great sacrifice advances of wages at one period 
 and resisting by equal sacrifice reductions of wages at 
 another, is more to be compared to a game of football 
 than to anything else, were not the results so sadly un- 
 sportive. It is somewhat difficult, indeed, to follow the 
 Professor's idea of " determining capital at once toward 
 issues " already in full process. The employers in a trade 
 the profits of which are large and increasing, must not only 
 be valuing the workpeople in their employment all the more, 
 but must be competing with each other for a larger number 
 of workmen than they have hitherto employed, and straining 
 their whole resources of capital to extend their operations. 
 If the profits be so large as to invite an influx of new em- 
 ployers with new capital, and an opening of new works, 
 advances of wages forced in any violent or premature way 
 by the workmen against their present employers could only 
 have the effect of warning away all this new enterprise, and 
 so far from " accelerating," only retarding " issues " already 
 sure of being realized. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that Professor Cairnes should 
 have had doubt whether, even in such a favourable case as 
 this, to use his own words, "the Trade-Union game be worth 
 the candle." He cannot absolve a Trade Union, even in 
 this exceptional situation, from the responsibility of " using 
 
 P 2
 
 2 12 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 its powers judiciously," and his deep distrust of the com- 
 petence of judgment by which Trade-Union action has 
 hitherto been guided, as well as his firm belief of the great 
 advantage that would arise were the Unions to collect 
 facts, and study well the principles and interests involved, 
 before they act at all, are equally worthy of attention. 
 
 COMPETITION OF CAPITAL. 
 
 It is constantly overlooked by the Unionists, as well as 
 by the quasi-economists who have hitherto kept the Union 
 policy in some little countenance, that there is a competi- 
 tion of capital with capital more keen and active, and more 
 flexible and facile in its movement, than any competition 
 of labour with labour ; and that the effect of this competi- 
 tion is to enlarge all profitable branches of industry while 
 reducing at every step of the process the rate of profit of 
 capital to a minimum, at which the enlargement ceases and 
 contraction begins. They equally overlook that there is no 
 possibility of compelling capital to invest more in wages of 
 labour when this minimum rate of profit is approached or 
 may be in danger. When the causes that determine the 
 amount of wealth which falls to the share of labour, and 
 which in proportion to the number of labourers, of course, 
 determines the general rate of wages, are closely examined, 
 they are found ultimately to turn on the rate of profit, under 
 existing conditions of the productiveness of labour, that is 
 necessary to decide the owners of capital in their several 
 circumstances whether to withhold their capital or to place 
 it freely at the service of industrial works. If capital be 
 largely withdrawn, as being no longer profitably employed, 
 wages must fall. It may thus be judged how futile it must 
 be for Trade Unions to attempt on the large and systematic 
 scale with which the public is familiar, to force a redistri- 
 bution of the wages of labour and the profits of capital. 
 Temporary victories may be gained in one branch of in- 
 dustry and another, and it must be owned that Trade Unions 
 have a great power of cornering and embarrassing many 
 employers, who must either Jsubmit to their demands or be
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 213 
 
 ruined ; but the economic principles in steady operation do 
 not permit this kind of warfare to have any permanent 
 sway. It is certain, on the contrary, that the frequency of 
 strikes is adding, like fires or other accidents and defaults, a 
 new element of loss and danger in industrial undertakings, 
 against which capital in its estimate of profit has to be in- 
 sured, and is consequently pushing any extended employ- 
 ment and remuneration of labour so much the farther back. 
 The fulness with which capital is supplied to all branches 
 of industry in this country, and is constantly bringing down 
 in the competition of capital with capital its own profit to 
 a minimum, while sustaining and raising the rate of wages, 
 is proved by an aggregation of facts which it would be the 
 merest madness for any one to dispute. It is proved by 
 the immensity of funds, yielding to their owners a deposit 
 interest of i-i- to z\ per cent, which are placed steadily 
 through the banks at the service of all branches of industry, 
 and of all who are either working industrially on their own 
 account or are employing labour. It is proved by the large 
 amount of capital unprofitably engaged and periodically 
 lost in the employment of labour, of which, or of the ill- 
 fortune and distress of the families to whom the capital 
 belonged, nothing is heard in one-sided tirades on the 
 condition of labour. If capital be thus freely and abun- 
 dantly supplied to every branch of employment, with the 
 effect of constantly reducing its rate of profit to a minimum, 
 and of being wholly lost to large amounts in the attempt, 
 what can be the foundation for thinking that labour is 
 injured by capital, or that the condition of labour can ever 
 be improved by processes that only tend to make the case 
 of capital much worse than it has hitherto been ? 
 
 "the wages fund." 
 
 Professor Cairnes has revived with much force the doctrine 
 of Mr. Mill, that there is a wages fund, or a proportion of 
 the national produce that has a necessary destination, subject 
 to various minor influences, to the employment of labour, 
 andean go nowhere else. It is difficult to conceive why this
 
 2 14 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 doctrine should ever have been contested. Bat it was 
 contested by Mr. Thornton in his work on " Labour" — an 
 unsound work in various respects, and wanting in comprehen- 
 sion of the ultimate operation of the principles of which it 
 treats — and yet the curious result was that this work had 
 some effect on the mind of Mr. Mill himself. The argument 
 of Mr. Thornton was that a national wages fund could only 
 be made up of several parts, and since Mr. Thornton could 
 not conceive that any individual employer determined what 
 proportion of his income or his capital should go to house- 
 hold and family expenses, to machinery and other fixed 
 constructions, and to wages for hired labour, his conclusion 
 was that a " wages fund " was a fund wholly " indeterminate," 
 and being indeterminate might as well not exist as to any 
 security of rate of wages. Mr. Thornton, in arguing from 
 details, had evidently no conception of a general law or 
 principle by which details on this magnitude are charac- 
 terized ; he mistook the " determination " that takes place 
 under free economic conditions for a physical compulsion 
 operating like a fixed and arbitrary law under all circum- 
 stances, and with undeviating uniformity in every section of 
 the industrial system ; the result being that the only " Wages 
 Fund " which Mr. Thornton would deem worthy of the 
 name, or which could satisfy his argument, should be a 
 definite proportion of the whole annual produce, set apart 
 by a decree, and divided with tolerable equality among the 
 working classes, irrespective of all other considerations. 
 Professor Cairnes has sufficiently disposed of this sophism, 
 and it is unnecessary to dwell upon it. 
 
 But the grosser blindness of Mr. Thornton — a blindness 
 which Professor Cairnes in what may be called a condes- 
 cension of argument, meeting Mr. Thornton on his own 
 ground of what may take place in the case of individual em- 
 ployers, has done nothing to unveil — was in failing to see that 
 whether an employer or a capitalist lays out his available 
 means in larger or smaller proportions in family expenditure, 
 in buildings, or machines and other materials of trade, the 
 destination of the capital in all cases is to wages of labour, 
 and that this is consequently a detail which does not enter
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAY?. 2 I 5 
 
 into the general question between capital and labour, nor 
 docs it touch the fact of a determinate "Wages Fund" in 
 any degree. Mr. Mill has included in his conception of a 
 wages fund unproductive as well as productive labour, and 
 of the former indicated soldiers, domestic servants, and the 
 like, who serve, but from whose labour no visible material 
 produce comes. But if, in addition to such unproductive 
 labour, the erection of buildings, whether they be of luxury 
 or trade, are to be deemed a subtraction of capital from the 
 wages fund, as Mr. Thornton appears to hold and as Pro- 
 fessor Cairnes somewhat countenances, then it will follow 
 that masons, bricklayers, and joiners are not workmen, but 
 mere hangers-on of the rich, injuring by all the wages they 
 receive some other and more proper members of the work- 
 ing class. If investment of capital in machines, boilers, 
 tools and fittings, be a lessening of the wages fund and a 
 wrong to labour, the working engineers must be drones, 
 sucking the life-blood that should flow more directly to 
 animate the industrial body. This absurdity might be pur- 
 sued till it would become impossible to discover where the 
 industrial body resided, or who were labourers and who were 
 not. The distinction of " fixed" ami "circulating" capital 
 is proper enough to show the different forms of the invest- 
 ment of capital ; but the " fixed capital " has contributed to 
 the wages fund, and contributes to it from year to year, as 
 certainly as the other. There is thus much reason to protest 
 against the principles of Political Economy being dealt wi:h 
 in any narrow or mousing spirit, arguing from what takes 
 place in a supposed individual case, and refusing even to 
 look over the boundary between one branch of labour and 
 another; whereas these principles are derived from a com- 
 prehensive survey as to how men will act in the disposal of 
 their capital or labour when free to act, and as they have 
 been found, on the general scale, from all experience to have 
 acted. 
 
 Capital, however expended or invested, has an inevitable 
 destination to the employment of labour, ami to the wages 
 of labour. At the same time, capital may be withdrawn 
 from one branch of labour to another, or may be increased
 
 2l6 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 in some branches more than in others, as the prospect of 
 profit may determine ; or if there be only prospect of loss, 
 it may to some amount go to sleep, suspend operations for 
 a time, and be simply idle ; in which case there will be a 
 pinch both as to the supply of work and the rate of wages 
 in the particular branches of trade thus adversely affected. 
 The stability of trade on the whole in this country, and the 
 amount of capital invested in a " fixed " form in every 
 branch of industry, are alike so great, that employers are by 
 no means either free or disposed to shift suddenly from a 
 losing manufacture to one more profitable. But as regards 
 the surplus capital, accruing from a thousand sources, it is 
 obvious that its owners will choose the forms of employment 
 that promise the best security and the most profit with 
 security ; and that this capital will be very unequally dis- 
 tributed among the various trades, according to their situa- 
 tion and their prospects. The surplus labour, on the other 
 hand, is not so agile in its movement. Men bred to a 
 particular employment must in most cases stick to it, and in 
 many cases are all too unwisely disposed to stick to it, even 
 though it should be a permanently failing employment. 
 This is a natural difficulty in the case of labour, for which, 
 apart from a more free circulation of workmen from one 
 branch to another, it is hard to conceive any remedy outside 
 the resources, physical and mental, of labour itself. But 
 when we here turn to the Trade-Union policy, so far from 
 affording any relief from this difficulty, it is found only to 
 add a new and special aggravation of it; because that 
 policy, as we have seen, is to raise up insuperable barriers 
 between narrow divisions of workmen, so that one may not 
 pass into the sphere of another even in the same employ- 
 ment, and in the most closely-related trades. 
 
 The hand-loom weavers, for example, are probably the 
 greatest sufferers from a revolution in manufacture, and a 
 diversion of capital from one form of employment to 
 another, that may be adduced. Their hand-looms had to 
 compete with the power-looms, and as the struggle became 
 more and more severe, they put, first, their wives, and 
 second, their children, on the hand-loom in order to eke out
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 2 I 7 
 
 a weekly income for the present, while making at every step 
 the future difficulty all the greater. The history of the hand- 
 loom weavers has now, over near a hundred years, been a 
 pitiful spectacle. But there was not a time, since the intro- 
 duction of the steam-loom, when labour could not have 
 been gradually retired from the hand-looms with a thousandth 
 part of the suffering with which it has been actually attended. 
 What prevented? This, for one cause, prevented, viz., that 
 under the Trade- Union instinct, tenters and others gathered 
 round the power-looms, and making a monopoly of their 
 little walk, would not leave a place for hand-loom weavers, 
 though these could have been employed on the steam-looms 
 at fifty per cent, more wages than they were earning on the 
 hand-looms. The inhumanity of man to man reigned 
 throughout. 
 
 There is a fundamental distinction, however, between pro- 
 ductive and non-productive labour which is worthy of being 
 observed in this problem of the " Wages Fund," though it 
 may not be marked by any strongly definite line. The general 
 attribute of productive labour is that it restores the capital 
 with some profit, and that the capital fund remains intact for 
 the renewed employment of labour. If the labour employed, 
 on the other hand, be absolutely non-productive, the capital 
 is not restored, and cannot again be any part of the wages 
 fund, because it has been consumed, and has disappeared. 
 Now, it would be difficult to say where this distinction 
 begins or stops, because non-production, or consumption of 
 capital, adheres to many industrial undertakings of an 
 essentially reproductive promise, and extends to many 
 branches of expenditure that have no reproductive promise 
 whatever, and into the motives of which neither the recovery 
 of the expenditure nor the employment of labour enters. 
 The members of the Trade Unions, however, are without 
 exception, by profession and classification, productive work- 
 men — an honourable or most honourable body in every 
 commonwealth. The)- are men who work under the general 
 condition that the capital expended in their employment 
 will on an average be returned to their employers with a 
 profit, and that the business of their several trades will thus
 
 2lS THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 proceed on a secure and always extending scale. But 
 supposing that the Trade-Union action, of which there has 
 been so much critical note in these pages, should have the 
 effect, in its zealous and incessant pressure, of violating this 
 general condition in any considerable degree, and that the 
 capital expended in their employment were not to be 
 restored with a profit, but rather to be tending on the 
 average to a loss ; what would the consequence be ? Would 
 it be favourable or unfavourable to the members of the 
 Unions, or to the cause of labour as against capital ? 
 
 In such a case the reflection of capitalists, having large 
 
 funds in industrial works, would probably run in the 
 
 following strain : — " We cannot make a profit in our business, 
 
 " in coal-mining, nor in iron-making, nor in textile fabrics, 
 
 " nor in anything else. What, then, can we do? There is 
 
 " that Foreign Loan, promising great profits, but on rather 
 
 " weak security, and it may be better to keep what funds we 
 
 " have to the ministration of our own pleasure. Let us 
 
 " have a yacht, or add a new wing to our mansion, or 
 
 " employ a larger number of domestic servants. Why not 
 
 " keep a stud of horses ? — there is much pleasure, and 
 
 " sometimes profit, in a stable. That flower-garden may be 
 
 " much embellished ; there are some rare pictures in the 
 
 " Royal Academy Exhibition which rise in value from year 
 
 " to year more than anything else ; and there is the pictur- 
 
 " esque little estate or shooting-box down in any shire, 
 
 " which after much necessary outlay among ditchers and 
 
 " dykers, and builders, joiners, plasterers, and painters, will 
 
 " yield one per cent, on the whole capital, even if it should 
 
 " have to be re-let. In any case, we may put business 
 
 '•' aside, and take a tour on the Continent, and spend some 
 
 " of our money on the Swiss Alps, on the shores of the 
 
 " Mediterranean, or in the Holy Land." These are all 
 
 commonplace outflows of the accumulated wealth of this 
 
 country, apart wholly from the Trade Unions, or anything 
 
 the Trade Unions can do. But they exhibit the nice balance 
 
 subsisting between what Mr. Mill calls " the effective desire 
 
 of accumulation," or, in other words, making profit on the 
 
 capital possessed, and the desire of simply expending and
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 2IQ 
 
 enjoying one's riches without any motive of profit ; and how 
 very easily, in this niceness of balance, the trade Unions 
 may turn the scale enormously against their own interests, 
 and against the permanent industrial well-being of the 
 country. Capital cannot be absolutely bound either to 
 productive or non-productive operations. It has always 
 the liberty of either eating itself up, or fleeing to some 
 more profitable shore. But in the complex modula- 
 tion of this 'desire of profit' and 'desire of enjoyment,' 
 the fact has always to be observed that capital cannot 
 expend itself either way but in the employment of labour. 
 Even Foreign Loans, on which tens of millions of British 
 capital have been lost within the last few years, served for 
 the time to stimulate British industry and sustain British 
 wages of labour; and it is also true, as Professor Cairnes says, 
 that a rich man of this country making the tour of Europe, can 
 only discharge his expenditure abroad by bills of exchange 
 drawn on British produce. Still the fundamental distinction 
 between productive and non-productive labour remains, and 
 it is a distinction to which the attention of Trade-Unionists 
 may be seriously directed. 
 
 It is a result of the growing wealth of nations that a large 
 amount of their capital fund, or the actual surplus over con- 
 sumption, can be annually expended in forms, that employ 
 labour indeed, and labour in its very highest degrees of art 
 and genius, and that yet yield no apparent return of the 
 capital expended. It would seem presumptuous for any 
 one to profess to determine strictly what forms of employ- 
 ment of wealth are non-productive. Paintings, music, 
 religious ministrations ; works of art, literature, and science ; 
 the embellishment of houses, parks, and gardens ; and all 
 the elaborate ornamentations of life in which the rich 
 indulge — who will venture to pronounce such forms of 
 expenditure non-productive ? The fortunate possessors of 
 so much riches may be envied by some, and in some cases 
 they may not be remarkably worthy of their good fortune ; 
 but the riches themselves are among the common treasures 
 and glories of the country. No intelligent man of the 
 working class, or any other class, will grudge the gains of a
 
 2 20 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 prima donna as long as he has admission to the shilling 
 gallery or the five-shilling pit ; or the brilliant fame and 
 fortune of a painter or a novelist while he can look at the 
 works of the one and read those of the other for nothing ; nor 
 will he find much ground of displeasure in the magnificence 
 with which a baron or a millionaire has improved, enriched, 
 and adorned his estate, though much of the money spent 
 has not been nearly so profitable financially as if it had been 
 invested in the Three per Cents. It is only, indeed, on 
 coming to what are of the nature of sensual, vicious, and 
 immoral uses of wealth, or such grossly unbalanced expendi- 
 ture betraying an error of judgment approaching to immo- 
 rality, as when the cost of the mansion-house is out of all 
 proportion to the value of the estate, or the stables of the 
 owner cast affront in their comfort and luxury on the 
 dwellings of the tenants and labourers, that one finds any 
 firm ground on which to pronounce outlays of capital non- 
 productive, or not so productive certainly as, on the ordinary 
 and average prudence, they might have been. Yet it is 
 important on the labour side of the question, and as regards 
 the causes that ultimately tend most to sustain and advance 
 the general rate of wages, to mark the difference between an 
 employment of capital that gives no visible return to the 
 capital fund, and an employment of capital in productive 
 branches of labour that restores the capital, and restores it 
 after a more or less lengthened period with an increase. On 
 this latter basis the employment can be regularly extended, 
 and this extension of employment meets a natural increase 
 of the working-class population, which is always an essential 
 element to be taken into account. Now, it is against this 
 reproductive employment of capital that the elaborate and 
 embarrassing action of Trade- Unionism is wholly directed ; 
 and in proportion as this action succeeds in embarrassing, it 
 can only direct capital into other channels much less pro- 
 motive of the "Wages Fund " than those in which capital 
 may thus be unwisely discouraged and reduced. 
 
 It will hardly be questioned, on any side, that whether in 
 agriculture, mining, manufactures, trades or arts, all those 
 forms of employment of which the condition is to reproduce
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 22 1 
 
 the capital expended in them with a profit, and apart from 
 which condition there would be no motive or inducement to 
 conduct them whatever, are the only solid and permanent 
 bases of the national wealth, and of the prosperity of labour. 
 Let these be obstructed or undermined, and all other forms 
 of employment would rapidly decline. 
 
 It thus never can be the interest of the working or wage- 
 earning classes, as the Trade-Union policy assumes, to im- 
 pede or run out capital specially in its reproductive and 
 profit-bearing destinations. On the contrary, this policy has 
 been, and always must be, adverse to the end proposed. 
 
 THE SUPERIORITY OF CAPITAL. 
 
 It may be freely acknowledged that there is an inequality 
 in the condition of capital and that of labour which political 
 economy cannot wholly remove or bridge ; and the reason 
 of this would seem to be that this inequality is founded not 
 only on economic elements, but on a moral difference in 
 which the economic elements have their origin. Political 
 economy cannot make a man who has never saved money or 
 acquired property as strong as another man who has done 
 one or both, or to whom some inheritance, whether of 
 money or property, or of commercial or manufacturing 
 means and prestige, has descended. It cannot even make 
 one capitalist of superior wealth as strong as another of 
 much less wealth. Firms flourish in the same business in 
 which other firms of older standing, and greater resources, 
 decline. There may be no superior moral quality in the 
 persons who have possession of the greatest capital power, 
 and who are or have been most successful. This is not the 
 question. The play of fortune has a great deal to do in 
 these matters. But on strict analysis it is found that 
 this superiority of capital over labour, as a separate interest 
 in the social system, has its origin in a moral quality — in 
 the quality of abstinence, and of denying oneself present 
 enjoyment for sake of a future gain. Political economy 
 cannot import a virtue of this kind into one man more than 
 another, or one class of men more than another; but taking
 
 222 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 the broad and unalterable facts of social and industrial life, 
 viz., that there is capital willing to give wages to labour with 
 some ultimate profit to itself, and that there is labour willing 
 to be employed for wages, political economy has great claim 
 and prerogative of showing the principles on which these 
 two factors may be combined with the highest advantage to 
 both, and to the highest good of the community. 
 
 JUSTICE TO LABOUR. 
 
 Now, substantial justice to labour in its relation to capital 
 seems, on economic principles, to be fulfilled by two condi- 
 tions : i st, that the supply of capital for the employment of 
 labour be abundant or superabundant, and that in all the 
 various branches of industry there be an active competition 
 of capital with capital ; and 2nd, that the working or wage- 
 earning classes have the same inducements to save, the same 
 legal and institutional facilities of saving, of becoming capi- 
 talists, and of joining in the movement and partaking of the 
 profits of capital, as any other part of the community. 
 
 If, as the economists hold, capital be abundantly supplied 
 to all branches of productive labour in this country, with the 
 constant effect of reducing its own rate of profit to a mini- 
 mum, while extending the employment of labour, the first of 
 these conditions would appear to be pretty well satisfied. 
 Jt is certain that in the greater freedom and resources of 
 capital, and in its greatly enlarged application to industrial 
 and commercial pursuits through free trade, scientific inven- 
 tions, and other means, labour has found ali its advantages 
 during the last thirty or forty years. But it may not be sup- 
 posed that the end of this progress has been reached ; and 
 any reform, any development, or any amendment of the law 
 by which capital may be more freely directed towards spheres 
 in which the profits of capital are high, or an impulse may be 
 given to the productive energies of labour, must be sound and 
 wholesome, and of essential benefit to the working classes. 
 
 The second condition has so far been fulfilled that great 
 inducements have been held out by the State itself, and by 
 other more private organizations, to the working classes to 
 save, to gather capital or invest in property, and to become
 
 WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY SAYS. 223 
 
 earners of profits as well as earners of wages. The deposi- 
 tors in the National Security Savings Banks obtain a higher 
 rate of interest than the depositors in any other banks ; and 
 it has been secured to them up to this time by a loss of 
 three or four millions sterling to the State. In other cases 
 millions of the savings of the working classes have been lost 
 through defective institutions, and other misappliances. but 
 there may be as little reason to suppose that this condition 
 of justice to labour has been exhausted as the other. There 
 is probably a great and hitherto unopened sphere of right 
 and good to labour in the application of a sound saving and 
 reproductive system to the working-class condition. 
 
 Professor Cairnes, as already mentioned, in his intellectual 
 struggle with the economic elements of the labour question, 
 fell into a somewhat hopeless view of the prospects of the 
 working man. "The remuneration of labour,'' he said, 
 " skilled or unskilled, can never rise much above its present 
 " level." This gloom might have been somewhat relieved 
 if the Professor, besides the hopeful glance he cast at co- 
 operation, had looked steadily, on the one hand, at the 
 power of saving and the profitable application of the savings 
 of the working classes ; and had taken into account, on the 
 other hand, the losses, the misfortunes, and vicissitudes of 
 other classes of society. It is certain that nothing can be 
 more unreasonable than for working men to waste their 
 thoughts and passions in exclamations against "the tyranny 
 of capital " while wasting the means by which they may 
 become capitalists themselves. Let us not, until at least 
 every proper means have been adopted, harbour the anti- 
 social and anti-Christian idea that a working man may not 
 be as happy, intelligent, honourable, and as well-conditioned 
 a man as any man of any other class or rank of life. 
 
 Three centuries even ago Montaigne could write, " I have 
 " known in my time a hundred artisans and a hundred 
 " labourers wiser and more happy than the rectors of the 
 " university, and whom I had much rather have resembled ; " 
 and in these present days it may well be considered whether 
 depreciation of the working man's condition has not been 
 carried to an unphilosophical and morbid extreme.
 
 XV. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 The aim of the foregoing pages has been to elicit the 
 policy of the Trade Unions from the most authentic 
 sources, and to examine this policy in its contact with right, 
 with rights of capital and rights of labour, with law, with 
 trade, with principles of political economy, with the interests 
 of the Unionists themselves, and with the conditions of 
 public well-being. The task in no case could be a light 
 one, because Trade-Union action, and the Parliamentary 
 inquiries and reports and legislation thereon ensuing, must 
 be deemed among the most elaborate and important pro- 
 ceedings in the country during the last eight or nine years; 
 nor could any one, making the attempt, profess to have 
 either exhausted the materials or the argument. But the 
 whole ground having been surveyed, with whatever merit or 
 imperfection, it remains only to state briefly what appears to 
 be the practical conclusions of the discussion. 
 
 T. The Trade Unions should place themselves in full 
 conformity with the law. They may think the law by no 
 means perfect, and may reasonably seek to have it further 
 amended, as others do. But their rules, their relations 
 between themselves and towards others, and their methods 
 of action, should be placed in strict consistency with the 
 requirements of the law as the first condition of improve- 
 ment and of all proper dignity of association. 
 
 This advice may be urged on various cogent grounds. 
 
 In the first place, the law not only sanctions the Unions 
 as lawful bodies, but gives them great power and liberty of 
 action. A combination of working men may do under the
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 225 
 
 law, with all the advantage of united force, what any indi- 
 vidual workman may do; in short, may do anything they 
 please, at whatever damage to others, short of breaking a 
 contract, of directly encroaching on the equal right of others, 
 or committing some violence that under any system of law 
 would be a criminal offence. Our law gives both sanction 
 and legal powers to Trade Unions which are not accorded 
 to similar bodies in any other country in the world ; it has 
 been largely modified of late years to suit them ; and they 
 have thus abundant reason to be satisfied with it as a basis 
 on which to conduct their proceedings. 
 
 In the second place, and what cannot but address itself 
 with much force to intelligent working men, conformity to 
 law is absolutely necessary to give full efficiency to the 
 functions by which the Unions best promote the good of 
 their own members, and may best extend their influence 
 among the working population. There has been much dis- 
 satisfaction in the Unions that their funds should not be 
 sufficiently protected by the law ; it is still a moot point 
 among them whether they should be societies capable of 
 suing and being sued at law ; and it has been a Trade- 
 Union grievance that they have not all the registration and 
 other rights of the Friendly Societies under the Acts ap- 
 plying to these bodies. It may be doubtful how far these 
 complaints should be treated seriously. But how, it may be 
 asked, can the law protect funds, save from burglary, which 
 no care has been taken to place on any legal basis ? What 
 more protection of funds, or right of suing and being sued, can 
 be given on the Union basis than have been more than even 
 fully accorded by the Trade Unions Act of 1871, unless it 
 be desired that a Union should have the power of suing and 
 forcing its own members to some end to which they are not 
 bound of their own will, and cannot be bound by law D 
 And how can a Trade Union be legally recognised and 
 registered as a Friendly Society when its funds collected for 
 friendly insurances are expended by rule and intention on 
 other purposes? How, in short, can the law extend the 
 legal rights of association to societies which will themselves 
 come under no legal obligations, even of the most simple, 
 
 Q
 
 2 26 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 universal, and fundamental character? The law has given 
 the most ample powers of civil transaction and civil suit to 
 the Unions and officers of the Unions, and the only griev- 
 ance is that of members of the Unions who may have often 
 just grounds on which to desire to have powers to sue the 
 Unions and their officers ; yet how can the law, even in such 
 cases, help men, however much aggrieved, who have gone 
 into a one-sided compact with their eyes open ? The 
 whole of this series of troubles arises not from the law, but 
 is the creation of the Unions themselves, which have never 
 condescended to place their affairs in any legal shape. 
 
 It will serve to illustrate this constitutional defect of the 
 Unions to observe how the question of registration has been 
 disposed of by the Legislature. The Royal Commission 
 of 1867-9 recommended, that in order to give Trade 
 Unions capacity for the rights and duties of corporations, 
 their registration should be effected through the Registrar of 
 Friendly Societies, on conditions that have been transcribed 
 in a former chapter. 1 The Unions might have strong views, 
 for example, as to the number of apprentices, the evils of 
 machinery, the inexpediency of piecework, or the crime of 
 working in common with non-Unionists ; but they could 
 not expect the law to give its imprimatur to such views, and 
 could only be content to advance them in free deliberation 
 with employers and with public opinion without the vantage 
 ground, from the outset, of express legal sanction and 
 approval. So also one or more Trade Unions might be 
 chivalrously disposed to support another and unconnected 
 Union on strike ; but this generosity could not be exercised 
 out of funds which the law by registration became bound to 
 protect for entirely different purposes, and it could only there- 
 fore take the form of special contributions, as in the case of 
 all similar benevolent and chivalrous efforts. This was the 
 view of the Royal Commission. The Act of 187 1, following 
 on the Report of the Commission, provided a method of 
 registration for Trade Unions so easy that it may be carried 
 out on the quest of seven members of any Union, giving all 
 the legal powers and facilities to trustees and officers of the 
 
 1 See page 118.
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 22; 
 
 I nions as in the case of other registered societies, and 
 without any one of the restrictions which the Royal Com- 
 mission sought to interpose. Yet this same Act ordains 
 that any agreements of Trade Unions " to provide benefits 
 to members " shall be null and void in law, neither en- 
 forceable nor recoverable by damages in the courts. There 
 is thus much legal strengthening of trustees, officers, and 
 governing bodies of the Unions in legal powers, side by side 
 with a legal nullification of the most common rights of 
 the members of the Unions. The situation thus produced 
 is perplexing and contradictory, but the mystery may be 
 explained in a few words. The Unions insist upon mixing 
 up the most different and separable objects in the same 
 compact, and on having legal and organic powers of en- 
 forcing this compact, while refusing to submit to the con- 
 ditions without which their heterogeneous demands can, 
 neither in law nor in equity, be conceded. The law can 
 give them all the rights and powers of corporations, as it has 
 already given them by the Act of 187 1 beyond even the due 
 reason of the case ; but the law in giving such rights is 
 bound to require corresponding obligations, the obligations 
 in particular of a corporate body to its own members, and 
 this is a necessity of the law which the Unions will not 
 submit to. Hence the humiliating concession of the Act of 
 1 87 1, that any agreement of a Union " to provide benefits to 
 members " shall be of no legal force in any court. 
 
 The absolute condition, it is true, on which the law has 
 been enabled to give so much scope to the right of com- 
 bination, clearing it from all ambiguity that might arise on 
 the common law doctrine of " restraint of trade,"' is that 
 the combination shall be a voluntary combination, that no 
 one shall be coerced into it and no one coerced from going 
 out of it ; and that, as regards parties outside the com- 
 bination, "full liberty be left to all other workmen to under- 
 " take the work which the parties combining have refused. 
 " and no obstruction be placed in the way of the employ u 
 " resorting elsewhere in search of a supply of labour." But 
 this principle may be well obeyed by the Unions to the end 
 of giving great additional strength and justice to their internal
 
 2 28 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 arrangements. When a member leaves a Trade Union of 
 his own will, he leaves his contributions behind him, and cuts 
 himself off from all participation in the funds, as in the case 
 of a person failing to pay his premium of insurance. The 
 Union has no debt to enforce against him, and he has no 
 further claim upon the Union. When a member of the 
 Union departs from a strike the Union cannot compel him 
 to return to the strike, or punish him for not returning, by 
 any means which the law can ever give. If they compel or 
 punish him at all the Union must take the law into its own 
 hands. These are unalterable conditions of the case. On 
 the other hand, if a member or members of a Union are ex- 
 truded against their will, without any breach of the regula- 
 tions on which they became members, why should they not 
 have legal redress ? If a Union breaks up into two parties, 
 one adhering to the officers who have possession of the 
 funds, and another forming round other officers or leaders 
 who have no possession, in that case the Union will either 
 be a lawless body, and a great wrong will be committed on 
 one side or the other, or it will be a legal body, and its 
 financial affairs receive a legal and equitable adjustment. 
 The Trade Unions may acquire most substantial advantages, 
 and become much stronger because juster in their consti- 
 tution, and be of much greater utility to their members than 
 they have hitherto been ; but to reach these ends requires 
 conformity to the law, and to the essential legal principle of 
 all Trade Union combination. 
 
 II. The benefit funds of the Unions should be fully 
 reserved for the purposes for which they are contributed. 
 
 As regards most of the Unions, including the largest, the 
 term " trade and benefit funds " is a misnomer, because they 
 have in reality no " trade funds " ; and the fact simply is 
 that funds are collected in the name of benefit, on a seem- 
 ingly insurance basis, and are expended freely for trade and 
 "strike" purposes. The most plausible defence offered for this 
 astounding practice is that the Unions, though dealing among 
 their members in matters of business requiring strict financial 
 accuracy and good faith, are yet, after all, only free clubs of
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 229 
 
 fellow-workmen, who are thinking primarily of trade pur- 
 poses, and care comparatively little for insurance of benefits ; 
 but that, at the same time, the pledge of benefits has so 
 great an effect in increasing the members and funds of the 
 Unions that it would be highly detrimental to introduce any 
 other arrangement. 1 This defence, of course, is full to the 
 brim, not only of sophistry, but of palpable dishonour, 
 placing on the Trade Unions a character of knavery, in- 
 deed, which no one would like to attribute to them. Hut it 
 may be observed that it surely rates much too low the intelli- 
 gence of members of the Unions, and that in any case it 
 throws their permanent interest to the winds. Why should 
 the Unions be at enmity with fundamental principles of law, 
 and with common integrity among themselves, by adhering 
 to a financial perversity of this kind ? Their present plan 
 is to levy contributions for " benefit purposes," and to spend 
 the funds thus obtained on strikes and trade purposes, and 
 when the fulfilment of the benefits is in danger to make 
 " special levies " in that first interest. But just turn the 
 system gently the other way ; suppose funds paid for benefit 
 purposes to be reserved for benefit purposes, and funds 
 required for strikes and other trade emergencies to be raised 
 by " special levies ; " and see how easily by this change of 
 "right shoulder" instead of "left shoulder" forward, the 
 whole movement would fall into order — into conformity with 
 law, with legal privileges to the Unions, with honesty between 
 the Unions and their members, and with a due maturity of 
 consideration in exercising the often self-hurtful power of 
 " strike." 
 
 III. There would follow from these changes an erasure 
 of various rules from the codes of the Unions, of the nature 
 of those indicated by the Royal Commission when tracing 
 the conditions of registration, the emblazonment of which 
 as rules is simply a needless offence, since they can have no 
 force as rules till they are agreed to by employers. " Limit- 
 ing the number of apprentices," for example, the Unions 
 
 1 Mr. \V. Allan's Evidence (Q. 7505.7, 7593). Report of Royal 
 Commission (S7).
 
 230 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 are in no position to make a standing rule, seeing that they 
 have no common proportion or principle by which the limit 
 is to be regulated, and the question, even as a matter of 
 practical adjustment between masters and men, presents 
 itself under entirely different conditions in one trade as com- 
 pared with another, and in the circumstances of the same 
 trade at different periods. Rules " to prevent or limit the 
 use of machinery " would perhaps be readily condemned by 
 most of the Unions, but Unions that made and acted upon 
 such rules should be cut off from the fraternity, and not 
 allowed to disgrace the general body of workmen. The 
 members of a Union may have strong views, correct or 
 erroneous, on matters of this kind, but they must know that 
 their views are only to be advanced by rational deliberation, 
 and by the fitness and expediency with which they commend 
 themselves increasingly to employers as well as employed. 
 To inscribe them in their books, often in the most vague 
 and unregulated form, does not make them rules, but is only 
 throwing a firebrand into the workshops of the kingdom, 
 and multiplying those partial strikes, which are constantly 
 breaking out like crackers on a Queen's birthday, and which 
 give the head-officers of the Unions so much toil and travel, 
 as they affirm, in attempting, often vainly, to extinguish or 
 compose them. That Trade Unions should weaken and 
 compromise their position under the law by a brutum fulmen 
 of this kind, to which publication gives no real force, and 
 in favour of which, so far as it was just or reasonable, they 
 would retain in any case all their powers of persuasion and 
 judicious action, must be pronounced in every point of view 
 imprudent. 
 
 IV. As few strikes as possible ; or, even better, none 
 at all. 
 
 The more intelligent, thrifty, and far-seeing members of 
 the Unions themselves must be heart-weary of the constant 
 turmoil and loss of the war of strikes and lock-outs, whether 
 on the petty or gigantic scale, by which the working classes 
 are grievously impoverished, and the productive industry of 
 the country is subjected to chronic suspense and paralysis.
 
 CONCLUSION'?. 2 
 
 .:> 
 
 It is obvious, that were the Unions to abstain from including 
 in their so-called rules various obnoxious declarations whii h 
 have not only obtained no manner of assent from employers, 
 but are contrary to public policy in the most liberal and 
 enlightened form hitherto conceived, three-fourths of the 
 minor strikes would disappear, and the administration of the 
 Unions assume not only a more consistent, but an incom- 
 parably more effective and beneficial method. It is no less 
 obvious that were the Unions to adopt the ordinary financial 
 integrity that funds subscribed on due scientific calculation 
 for benefit purposes should be sacredly reserved for these 
 purposes, and should not be appropriated to other purposes 
 in the prosecution of which the benefit liabilities of a gene- 
 ration may be dissipated in a few weeks or a few months, all 
 the larger class of strikes would be entered upon with much 
 more deliberation, and with so much greater knowledge and 
 understanding of the circumstances of the trade, as well as 
 so much greater sense of responsibility, that strikes or 
 resolutions to strike would much more seldom fail of their 
 object than hitherto. There would be reason to hope that 
 the demands of the workmen in the majority of cases would 
 be so mature and reasonable as to be no sooner made than 
 they would be conceded. 
 
 The too simply artful coercive tactics of one section of 
 a trade "striking" in the hope of being subsisted by the 
 contributions of other sections who remain at work, and 
 making the war, as it were, support itself out of the 
 " enemy's " resources, would disappear ; and along with 
 them "lock-outs " would as happily vanish from the country. 
 In any case it would remain to withdraw labour in detail 
 from a hard to a more liberal employer, and from a place of 
 lower to one of higher wages, and thus keep in action, by a 
 quieter and safer way, a wholesome competition among em 
 ployers for good work. 
 
 V. Do not stimulate or squeeze Members of Parliament 
 too much in favour of what may be only class prejudices 
 or the grossest errors. It requires a hero-candidate to stand 
 in the face of hundreds or thousands of working-class
 
 232 THE TRADE UNIONS. 
 
 electors, and tell them what their true interest is, in opposition 
 to what may be their own fondly-nourished prepossessions. 
 There are only few men of this heroic stamp in any age ; 
 nor is it likely that in the present age their number will 
 be much increased. Let not working men, therefore, be 
 deceived by supple members or candidates for member- 
 ship. Let them honour strength and breadth of mind 
 and absolute independence of character, even when the 
 impact of such qualities seems to rub against them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is not to be disguised that the change of legal, 
 economical, and political attitude thus recommended would 
 give the Unions more the character of Friendly Trade 
 Societies, securing mutual help to the members on an 
 assured basis, while affording means of a full and calm dis- 
 cussion of all trade interests ; and less of the character of 
 Fighting Unions contending pell-mell, and often blindly, for 
 indefinite trade purposes to the utter sacrifice in many cases 
 of the funds and well-being of the members. This, on the 
 contrary, is the sum of the lesson to be conveyed, and al- 
 most the last word to be said. Because it is in their 
 character as friendly societies of mutual help and of indus- 
 trial and intellectual culture that the Trade Unions, greatly 
 marred as this character must be admitted to be by the 
 enormous waste of funds and turbulent contentions of late 
 years, have been most beneficial from the beginning of their 
 history until now ; and it is in their character, on the other 
 hand, as fighting societies that they have been most baneful 
 to the interests of the Unionists themselves, and to the 
 interests of the general community on which all amelio- 
 ration of the condition of the working classes must stand 
 for ever. 
 
 LONDON: R. < LAV, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTRhS.
 
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