tions. The plan of the trade unionists, therefore, was not to work through the state, but to secure to the workers in each particular trade the capital and machinery of that trade. The plans of the organization, however, were not consummated, and its ideals remained ideals. The panacea of the laboring class was sought not in the use of the ballot or in free education, but in a universal strike of all the workers throughout the Kingdom. It is needless to say that this universal strike did not materialize. Its possibility was never seriously entertained by the skilled laborers, and its success was despaired of from the beginning. The Grand National Union accomplished but little. It lost its first strikes and before long became of no importance or moment in the trade union world.

Although the combination laws had been repealed in 1824 and 1825, the employers had by no means reached the end of their devices for invoking the law against workingmen, and employees could still be indicted for simply notifying their employers that a strike was imminent. Picketing in almost any form was a criminal offense, and men were punished under the common law for the heinous offense of leaving their work unfinished. Any charge was good enough against a striker and any distortion of the law valid against a unionist. Following an ancient custom the unions admitted members under oath; and consequently an old law against the administration of seditious oaths was pressed into service. In the Dorchester case, in which an attempt was made to organize the agricultural laborers, the leaders were arrested and tried, and although there had been no intention or intimation of outrage or even a presentation of grievances, the men were convicted according to "due process of law" for administering an oath and were deported. The persecution of the unionists was found to be efficacious in putting down strikes, and recourse was had in those days, as in these, to all the subtleties and perversions of the law in order to stamp out the "odious" doctrines of trade unionism.

While the unions in 1834 increased their membership to an precedented extent, they were still not sufficiently strong to win substantial victories in their conflicts with capital. Some victories, it is true, were won,

but the newly organized trades were not in a condition to struggle advantageously, and most of their members had too little experience of trade unionism to undertake the arduous task of carrying a strike to a successful finish. If, during the good times following 1834, many strikes were lost, the failure of the unions in the lean years from 1837 to 1842 was even more apparent. Politically, the unionists were disappointed in not securing the franchise when in 1832 this privilege was extended to the middle classes; and the success of the Liberal party over the Conservative was of no advantage to workingmen. It was found that at this time the Liberals, representing the great manufacturers, were even more hostile toward labor unions than had been the Conservatives, representing the landed gentry. The ambitious plans of the unions and their hopes and aspirations for a reorganized society retarded their real internal development. The Grand National Union had striven toward productive coöperation, but nothing came of it. True, a few labor bazaars were opened, where goods were exchanged according to the labor cost, and attempts were made, and for thirty years sporadically repeated, to compete with employers by means of coöperative factories. A feeling of apathy toward the legitimate aims of trade unionism manifested itself, and while the skilled trades maintained their organization and other unions continued to exist in skeleton form, membership declined and for several years remained below the level of 1834. Many of the men threw themselves into the revolutionary Chartist movement in the hope of securing industrial reforms through political action, but for the most part the unions. in their official capacity held aloof. Thus within twenty years of the emancipation of trade unionism from the burden of the combination laws, the friends of labor had begun to despair of a peaceable escape from the misery which everywhere prevailed; and to the leaders of that day, the political skies of England seemed to be tinged with the blood of a coming upheaval.

CHAPTER VI

MODERN TRADE UNIONISM IN GREAT BRITAIN

Modern Trade Union Growth begins in 1842. Greater Stability. Growth of National Unions. Greater Strength and Consciousness of Unions. Miners' Strike of 1844. Financial Policy. The Lockout of 1852. "Presenting the Document." Prosperity. Steady Development. Permanent Trade Councils. Legal Persecution. Parliament Inquires. Victory for the Unions. Legalization. Unionists and the Criminal Law. The Era of Good Feeling. The Crisis of 1875. Lockouts. The Old Unionism and the New. The Great Dock Strike. Present Position of Unionism in England. The Employers' Liability Act of 1897. The Taff Vale Decision of 1902.

WE

'HAT is known as the typical modern trade union has developed largely since the year 1842. Prior to that time the British trade unions were more or less unstable bodies, oscillating between economic and political ideals and without fixed, conscious aims. To a large extent they were local in their scope and temporary in their nature, and the organization of such federations as existed was loose and fluctuating. From 1842, however, the unions developed internally, the local bodies growing into organizations of national scope and becoming more powerful and responsible.

It was about the year 1843 that the unions first recovered from the depression which followed the great advance of the preceding decade. In that year the Potters' Union was reëstablished, and immediately afterwards the Cotton Spinners' Organization began to embrace the greater part of the industry of the Lancashire towns. The Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland also dates from this period, and the strikes which followed resulted in an elevation of the miners out of the condition of practical serfage to which the truck system and the system of yearly hirings had reduced them.

The time was propitious for the advance of trade unions. The generations following the close of the Napoleonic Wars had been marked by a series of commercial depressions hitherto unknown in the history of British

trade; but from 1846 on the enormous expansion of English commerce, the conquest of foreign markets, the rapid extension of railways, and the wonderful development of manufacturing created a general prosperity, which was reflected in the condition of the workingmen. During this period, from 1842 to 1900, a period practically coeval with the reign of Queen Victoria, British labor and British trade unionism made gigantic strides. The small, local unions of the early part of the century expanded into national organizations; the seat of authority passed from the local to the central body; the insurance and benefit features of the unions were developed and widely extended, and organization upon a solid, permanent basis spread from the skilled to the semi-skilled and unskilled trades. During this period labor organization as well as most of the purposes and policies of trade unionism, received the definite sanction of the law, and unionists came to be regarded not as outlaws, but as responsible and law-abiding subjects. The workingman was vested with the franchise, and the schools were gradually opened to his children. Under the guidance of the unions, the workingmen successfully strove for higher wages, shorter hours, protection to life and health, regulation of the labor of children and women, and, in general, for the improvement and betterment of the conditions of work and life. Despite recessions and retrogressions, the membership, prestige, and power of labor unions grew, and the close of the century found trade unionism in England an established, recognized, and beneficent institution.

This development of modern British trade unionism may be said to have begun about the year 1842. Prior to that date the unions were, on the whole, without fixed ideals, and the modern spirit of trade unionism, a combination of aggression and conciliation, appears to belong to the latter period. The growing consciousness of power and self-worth was evidenced by the heroic but unsuccessful strike organized in 1844 by the Miners' Association. This was one of the most remarkable contests in the history of labor and a notable instance of the power of miners when organized to resist oppression. At this time, also, renewed attempts were made to form federations, and in 1845 the National Association of United Trades for the Pro

tection of Labour was created. This association, which remained intact for fifteen years, did not seek to supersede the old unions, but to bring them together for common action. A great change had come over the spirit of trade unionism since 1834, and the new federation, unlike its predecessors, was extremely conservative. The National Association opposed recourse to indiscriminate strikes and was inclined to seek a good understanding with employers rather than to antagonize them at every point. The organization proclaimed a policy of avoiding politics, except where certain definite labor aims were involved.

During this period the unions were becoming broader in scope and inore representative and responsible; but the hostility of employers did not abate. Indeed, the opponents of trade unions made the very improvement in union organization an excuse for their antagonism. Hostile employers now claimed that they did not object to local unions, but that they opposed all national organizations, since the latter exercised tyranny over labor and set limits to its freedom. During this period employers answered strikes by legal proceedings and by general lockouts and endeavored to force upon the unionists the universally odious "document." The employers in the London engineering trades met the formation of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and its protests against piecework and systematic overtime by a flat refusal to arbitrate or even to consider the propositions. In 1852 they locked out the whole trade and persisted in the presentation of the "document,” and in April, the men were obliged to submit and to return to work after a three months' struggle.

The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, which survived this lockout and prospered thereafter, was the prototype of a large number of organizations in England during this generation. It was created by the amalgamation of a number of rival unions in various branches of engineering work and was organized upon a national basis. The earlier trade unions had been based upon the idea of a number of completely separate or loosely combined local clubs, each exercising a large measure of individual freedom, controlling its own funds and acting on its own initiative and in its own behalf.