gains through his trade union, the harmony of socialist philosophy with the cruder thinking and desires of the depressed worker are sufficient reason for his allegiance to a militant organization and his adhesion to a revolutionary philosophy of life. Living his life in the world of urban contacts and stimuli, it is but natural that he should be more susceptible to new ideas than the farm laborer; liable at any moment to the derangements that come with the slightest disturbances of the impersonal industrial mechanism of which his activities form a part, it is but human that the manual laborer seeks in combination the strength that comes from numbers and cooperation.

The first efforts of the workman were along the course of direct action. The mental attitude of the laborer is to be explained according to the principles of mob psychology. In the remorseless, impersonal fight waged by the machine against human flesh and blood, the wage-earner found himself defeated, and enraged, struck blindly at the instruments of his downfall. The Luddite riots in 1812 and 1816, the Lancashire outbursts of 1826 indicate the intensity of the indignation which vented its force upon the machine: so blinded were the weaver and the artisan by the sensational aspect of the transition that they struck recklessly at the visual manifestation of the change which had taken away their occupation and livelihood. But in the very nature of the case the predominance of the emotional and sensational over the reflective and ideational in the content of consciousness signified that these aggregations could be only transient. Resentment, anger, and prejudice may be sufficient basis for a mob, but a definite principle and a practical program are needed to furnish an organizing element for the development of a stable and efficient labor organization. Chartism, in fact, was a step in the right direction. The aim here was definite enough, but the methods were revolutionary and the leadership was visionary. The agitation which centered around the demand for the People's Charter, with its mammoth demonstration and its passionate appeals to class hatred,102 was due in large measure to the hypnotic effect which the French Revolution103 exercised over the leaders of the workingmen. In spite of the revolutionary character of the movement, and the

102 See lives of William Cobbett, Feargus O'Connor, and James "Bronterre" O'Brien, in the Dictionary of National Biography.

103 Gibbins, op. cit., p. 418.

incompetence and arrogance10% of its promoters, Chartism called the national attention to the prevalence of destitution and misery105 and promoted the development of class-consciousness among the rank and file of the workers. The failure of the movement106 undoubtedly contributed to divert the activities of workingmen from political agitation.

With the failure of direct action and of political agitation, the influence of Robert Owen and of the middle class tended to turn the efforts of the wage-earners to co-operation and organized self-help. While the aim of Chartism and of the impractical schemes of Owen had been to amass huge, incoherent aggregates of working people, the followers of the New Lanark prophet and philanthropist and the level-headed leaders of the labor movement turned their attention to the achievement of less lofty goals and to the formation of more closely knit societies. The co-operative movement for production and for consumption, and the unions organized by trades are the noteworthy objective results of this change of attitude. The attempt to transform the circumstances of the entire working class was abandoned as hopeless, and workingmen in groups concentrated their efforts upon the more modest and practical task of bettering their own condition, with but little consideration of the general lot of the great mass of labor.

The co-operative movement affords us most interesting evidence of this change of heart and mind. In establishing consumers' and producers' societies, the working class attempted to utilize the weapons of capitalism to its own advantage. The restriction of the full benefits of these societies to the members showed the essentially individualistic character of the organization. It is sufficient to state in passing that this co-operative movement, while failing107 in association for production, has been successful108 in associations for consumption, both in retailing and in wholesaling.

The organization of the trade union is to be distinguished from that of the guild system. The Webbs have marshaled evidence to

104 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 158.

105E.g., cf. Carlyle, Chartism.

106 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 160.

107 Ibid., p. 321; Social England, VI, 427.

108 Symes, in Social England, VI, 426-27.

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demonstrate that the trade union is neither a continuation of the craft guild1o9 nor of the journeyman's club. It was rather an innovation, introduced into the industrial system of the eighteenth century to meet the new conditions 110 which, even before the invention and introduction of machinery, made for the proletarianizing111 of the artisan and the dissolution of the surviving ties between master and men inherited from the guild organization. The guild112 existed for the protection of the interests of the master, journeyman, apprentice, and even of the consumer; the trade union, like Hobbes' "Leviathan," was instituted for the purpose of the self-preservation of the wage-earner. Each individual upon joining the union surrenders his "natural" right of competing with his fellows, and of making individual terms of employment with his employer. Thus it is that the trade union, despite its obvious use of personal and local relations, is organized, fundamentally, upon an impersonal basis. The psychic force that gives the labor union its vitality is the economic incentive, the most impersonal save the aesthetic of all human interests. The maintenance of the standard of living and the question of higher wages becomes an object to be achieved only by the subordination of the individual to the group. Collective bargaining denotes the standardization of remuneration and the rejection, in some degree at least, of the principle of the apportionment of reward to the worth of individual service. While the member of the union has a vote in the referendum for a strike, his relinquishment of the ultimate control of his conduct to an organization often involves the surrender of his personal preferences. In mediaeval times, the control of life was in the hands of the guild master and his personality functioned in his work; in modern times, the personality of the wage-earner does not function in production, and the control of his life in its economic aspect has passed into the keeping of an organization into which his personality is merged.

There are three quite distinct stages in the growth of English trade unionism. These stages are marked off from each other by the three assumptions successively accepted by the unions, namely, "the Doctrine of Vested Interests, the Doctrine of Supply and Demand, and the Doctrine of a Living Wage." 113 The doctrine of

109 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 13. 110Ibid., pp. 3–9.

113 Webb, Industrial Democracy, p. 562.

111Ibid., pp. 37–41. 112 Ibid., p. 17.

a vested interest in a trade is only another name for the conservative attitude which distrusts and obstructs innovation and progress, and is best exhibited11 by the long and unsuccessful opposition of trade unionists to the introduction of machinery. The acceptance after 1840 of the dogmas of supply and demand marks the dominance of middle-class thinking and of economic theory over the minds of the working class. "Bentham, Ricardo and Grote were read only by a few; but the activity of such popular educationalists as Lord Brougham and Charles Knight propagated 'useful knowledge' to all the members of the Mechanics' Institutes and the readers of the Penny Magazine. The middle-class ideas of 'free enterprise' and 'unrestricted competition' which were thus diffused received a great impetus from the extraordinary propaganda of the Anti-Corn Law League, and the general progress of Free Trade. Feargus O'Connor and Bronterre O'Brien struggled in vain against the growing dominance of Cobden and Bright as leaders of working-class opinion." 115 After the working class developed leaders of its own, the submission to the middle-class ideas continued. In the sixties, "for the first time in the century, the working-class movement came under the direction, not of middle and upper-class sympathizers like Place, Owen, Roberts, O'Connor, or Duncombe, but of genuine workmen specially trained for the position. They brought to the task, it is true, no consistent economic theory or political philosophy. They subscribed with equal satisfaction to the crude Collectivism of the 'International,' and the dogmatic industrial individualism of the English Radicals. They accepted, with perfect good faith, the economic Individualism of their middle-class opponents, and claimed only that freedom to combine which the more enlightened members of that class were willing to concede to them. Their understanding of the middle-class point of view, and their appreciation of the practical difficulties of the situation saved them from being mere demagogues." 116 The adherence of the labor leaders to middle-class views is doubtless to be explained in part by one weapon which the doctrine of laissez-faire furnished. "What they demanded was perfect freedom for a workman to substitute collective for individual bargaining, if he imagined such a course to 114Ibid., p. 562.

115 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 161.

116Ibid., pp. 221-22.

be for his own advantage." 117 The acceptance of the dogmas of supply and demand signified the acquiescence of the practical leaders of the labor movement in the only feasible method of realizing class interests tolerated by public opinion at that time. The right of political action was surrendered, the recognition by the public of the worker to a minimum standard of existence was not urged, and labor thus secured the privilege of voluntary association and collective bargaining.

The third stage in the history of labor unionism, characterized by the dominance of the theory of a fair wage, marks the transition from the old to the new unionism, or the repudiation of the dogmas of classical economy and the formulation of a collective philosophy of action. The first successes of the attempts to widen the scope of union membership and of organized action came in the victory of the London match girls in their strike of 1888, and in the next year in the triumphant outcome of the great dock strike, successes118 due to the decisive intervention of public opinion. These striking contradictions of the principles of political economy tended to turn the attention of the younger element in the unions to the advantage to be derived from the conscious deliberative action of the social body, if the spontaneous aid of public opinion could accomplish so much. The new leaders,119 under the influence of collectivistic views, denounced the individualist Liberalism of the old leaders, and converted the rank and file to an acceptance of the policy of state interference for the welfare of the working class. Political action now became the practical method of promoting industrial betterment and a living wage was set up as the goal of attainment. Mann and Burns, forsaking the Social Democratic Federation, employed their best efforts to carry out a practical collectivistic program.120 The influence of the Labor group in Parliament and the growth of municipal ownership and control in British cities was largely due to this change of mental attitude from laissez-faire to collectivism on the part not only of the working class but also of public opinion. The necessary intervention of the government in the great railroad and coal strikes proved the correctness of the insight and the logic of the contenders for the inseparable character of the industrial and the political situation; the far-reaching social reform legislation of 117 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 278–79. 119 Ibid., pp. 394–95. 118【bid., pp. 390–91.

120 Ibid., pp. 398-99.