Trade Unions in the United Kingdom

IT is well known that trade unions were for a long time outside the law. Within the memory of living men, all agreements among workmen in the United Kingdom for higher wages, shorter hours of work, or “ controlling or in any way affecting any person carrying on any manufacture in the conduct and management thereof,” were illegal, and any single justice of the peace, on summary conviction, could inflict a penalty of two months’ imprisonment. Two justices might inflict three months’ imprisonment, or two months’ hard labor. In the teeth of the legal axiom, that no man is bound to criminate himself, offenders might be forced to give evidence (being of course indemnified if they Suffered) ; or any two or more of them might be indicted for conspiracy at the common law, in which case sentences of two years’ imprisonment were often inflicted. The still more heinous offense of a society having branches or a password might entail seven years’ transportation. The same penalty applied to any society or club that should appoint or employ any committee or delegate to meet, confer, or communicate with any other society or club. If some English Rip Van Winkle of the early part of the century were to return to life now, what would he see ? Trade unions recognized by law; registered, if they so please, by a public department; several of them represented in Parliament; their members appointed on royal commissions, two of them having become under-secretaries of state, others admitted to various offices under the Board of Trade ; annual trade union congresses, which are now habitually welcomed by the local authorities, and at the opening sitting of which the mayor of the place where they meet generally takes a seat on the platform; deputations sent to the heads of departments in London to urge amendments of the law, and receiving replies which are published throughout the press ; and trade union proceedings chronicled in a government Labour Gazette. And if Rip Van Winkle were a literary man, what would he think of the bulk of literature now devoted to the subject, from the massive blue books of the Trade Union Commission (for even parliamentary literature is literature of a sort) to Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb’s portly volume on the History of Trade Unionism ? Surely in all history there are but few instances of so complete a change in legislation and public opinion, wrought by facts and arguments alone.

The first step was purely an undoing. The laws against trade combinations were swept away by the acts of 1824-25, the credit of which must be divided between Joseph Hume, M. P., and Francis Place, tailor; the larger share of such credit falling to the tailor. Trade unions were no longer forbidden to live ; but no facilities for living were afforded them. The common law of conspiracy was left untouched, and was in fact used for many years afterwards against them. The corresponding and seditious societies acts, with their penalties against the conferring of societies together, the establishment of branches, the use of passwords, still subsisted. It is hardly too much to say that trade unions existed still on sufferance only.

Then came the pronouncement of the leading teacher of political economy of that day. Already the father of modern political economy, Adam Smith, had written the memorable words which not only justify combination among working men, but imply its necessity : “ Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit but constant and uniform combination not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate.” J. S. Mill went further. Speaking of trade unions, he “ found it impossible to wish, in the present state of the general habits of the people, that no such combinations existed. ’ “ So far as they do succeed in keeping up the wages of any trade by limiting its members, he would “ rejoice if by trade regulations, or even by trades unions, the employments thus specially protected could be multiplied to a much greater extent than experience has shown to be practicable.”

“ High wages and short hours are generally good objects,” he says elsewhere.

The first occasion on which the subject of trade unionism was considered by a collective body was that of a great strike and lockout of engineers in 185152. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers— then as now the leading trade union of the United Kingdom, though it had then only 12,000 members, and it has now 77,000 —sought to ” abolish overtime and piece-work in the trade. The masters retorted by closing their shops to all who refused to sign a declaration that they would not, whilst in the particular employment, become members of or support “ any society which, directly or indirectly, by its rules, meetings, or funds, professes to control or interfere with the arrangements or regulations of this or any other establishment, the hours or terms of labor, the agreements of employers or employed, or the qualifications or period of service.” With a few obscure exceptions, the press was then entirely on the side of the employers. From only one quarter did the men’s objects and arguments meet with fair consideration. The Society for Promoting Working Men’s Associations, established by the Christian Socialists of that day, resolved on the delivery of a course of six lectures On the Relation between Capital and Labor, with Special Reference to the Present Lamentable Contest between the Operative Engineers and their Employers. Three of these were delivered by myself, two by Mr. A. H. Louis, and one by Mr. E. Vansittart Neale ; only the first three and the last were published.

The Christian Socialists themselves, however, were struggling against opposition and calumny, and their attempt to secure justice for the aims and proceedings of trade unions met with a deaf ear on the part of the public, though it was the means of winning for them an amount of confidence on the part of the working classes which could not have been attained otherwise. Still, some change in public opinion can be traced from this time. Able young university men, who joined the Council of the Working Men’s College, took an interest in the subject of trade unions, and learned to understand it. But the next great step towards the rectification of public opinion was the appointment of a Committee on Trades Societies, by the Council of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, a body then prominently before the public ; this was suggested at a meeting held at Liverpool in October, 1858. The committee included, besides three members of Parliament (two of whom, Charles Buxton and Lord Robert Montagu, have left something of a name behind them), a peer (Lord Rudstock), three future Cabinet ministers (W. E. Forster, H. Fawcett, and G. S. Lefevre, of whom one survives), two future under-secretaries of state (the present Sir Godfrey Lushington and the late John Ball), Professor Maurice, R. H Hutton, editor of The Spectator, the late Sir James P. Kay Shuttleworth, the late Judge Hughes, distinguished economists such as W. A. Jevons and F. D. Lange, the secretary of a trade union, and various others, — altogether a strong committee, which did good work.

The report of the committee itself, indeed, signed by the chairman, Sir J. P. Shuttleworth, as “ on the whole expressing the views of the majority,” is a pattern of what may be called the judicious seesaw, but it completely cleared trade unions from the old charge of being mere conspiracies: —

“ A trade society, strictly speaking, is a combination of workmen to enable each to secure the conditions most favorable for his labor. The capitalist has the advantage of past accumulations in striking his bargain. The laborer, unassisted by combination, has not. It is the object of a trade society to give him this advantage, and thus to put him on more equal ground in competing with the capitalist.”

On the presentation of the report at the annual meeting of the association at Glasgow in September, 1860, besides the reading of several able papers on the subject, a very animated discussion took place, of which the most remarkable feature, perhaps, was the speech of Sir Archibald Alison, who, as sheriff or public prosecutor, had been concerned in various trials for trade union outrages, but who now expressed the opinion that “ trades unions in themselves are not only proper, but are a necessary balance in the fabric of society.” The fight was substantially between those who, like Mr. Edmund Potter, Mr. H. Ashworth, and Mr. Fawcett, maintained that labor was only a commodity like any other, and those who, like Mr. Hughes, Mr. Lloyd Jones, and myself, declared that it was that and something more, — a commodity with a will of its own ; or, as Mr. Hughes put it, that “the labor” of the men was, in fact, “the lives” of the men.¹ Although no vote was taken, Mr. Lefevre observed that “ the feeling of the meeting appeared to be favorable to trade societies.”

Six years later, in 1866, two important events took place in the history of English trade unions. Under favor of a clause in a Friendly Societies act of 1855, which allowed “ provident, benevolent, or charitable institutions, formed for the purpose of relieving the physical wants of persons in poor circumstances,” by depositing their rules with the registrar of Friendly Societies, if such rules were “not repugnant to law,” to obtain certain legal rights and facilities as to the holding of their property, the protection of their funds, and the settlement of disputes, certain trade unions had crept, as they hoped, under the protection of the law. A judgment of the Court of Queen’s Bench, in the case of Hornby v. Close, rudely dispelled this delusion, and all trade unions found themselves illegal bodies. At the same time, a number of villainous outrages in Sheffield were traced to a local trade union secretary named Broadhead. A howl arose against trade unions generally, and a royal commission was appointed to inquire not only into the alleged outrages, hut also into the organization and rules of trade societies. A mass of evidence was taken, filling, with the report, sixteen folio volumes.

When the report appeared, it was found that the commission had split into a majority and a minority. The majority report, whilst concluding that combination could be of no real use, recommended the legalization of trade unions under the 1 riendly Societies acts, with certain restrictions. The minority report, signed by Lord Lichfield, Thomas Hughes, and Frederic Harrison, recommended their being brought within the Friendly Societies acts only as respects the protection of funds, but urged the abolition of all special legislation relating to labor contracts.

As often happens, the minority carried the day outside of the commission. But a signal indication of the advance of public opinion respecting trade unionism is to be noticed in a temporary act passed even before the report appeared, limited in duration to a twelvemonth, “an act to protect the funds of trade unions from embezzlement and misappropriation” (32 and 33 Viet. e. 61) ; the last section of which runs, “This act may be cited as the Trade Unions Funds Protection Act.” It was the first time that the term “ trade union ” had been recognized by the law. And what a gulf lies between the time when a trade union was necessarily an unlawful combination and that 9th of August, 1869, — less than half a century afterwards, — when it was acknowledged by both Houses of the legislature to have funds requiring the protection of the law ! That was really — although Mr. and Mrs. Webb do not seem to have noticed the fact — the turning-point in the legal history oi English trade unions. Parliament could never thereafter, without stultifying itself, treat them as being out of the pale of the law.

Accordingly, in 1871 a trade union act was passed (34 and 35 Vict. c. 31) which followed the lines of the minority report of the commission.

As a new departure in legislation, the trade union act of 1871 may be considered eminently judicious. It was marred, however, by one extraordinary provision, making previous illegality a condition precedent of registration. A trade union was defined as “ such combination, whether temporary or permanent, for regulating the relations between workmen and masters, or between workmen and workmen, or between masters and masters, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business as would,” if the act had not passed, be deemed “ an unlawful combination by reason of some one or more of its provisions being in restraint of trade.” The consequence was that the most inoffensive trade unions were precisely those which could get no protection from the law.1

A valuable amending act, the Trade Union Act Amendment Act, 1876, very deftly piloted through the House of Commons by Mr. Mundella (the act of 1871 had been a government measure), remedied most of the recognized mischiefs, and conferred upon trade unions several of the advantages enjoyed by Friendly Societies under an act of the previous session (1875) ; the definition was altered so as to make a combination registerable, “ whether such combination would or would not, if the principal act had not been passed, have been deemed or have been an unlawful combination.”

But the trade unions had not awaited their formal recognition by the law to organize themselves and put themselves forward. In 1868 began the annual series of trade union congresses, which, though interrupted for one year, in 1870, have continued to the present, being represented during the intervening periods by a Trade Union Parliamentary Committee. Trade unionists had come forward as candidates for seats in the House of Commons in 1868, in 1869. in 1870; in 1874 two were elected out of thirteen “ labor” candidates,miners from the north both of them, one Scotch, one English, — Alexander Macdonald and Thomas Burt, the latter of whom became under-secretary of state for the home department in the last Liberal ministry. There remained another parliamentary victory to achieve in the field of criminal law, which was effected in 1875 by the passing of an Employers and Workmen act (38 and 39 Vict. c. 90), carried through the Commons by the present Viscount Cross, the Conservative secretary of state of the day.

From that time trade unions have fairly won their way to the front in public affairs. At every election, labor members, mostly secretaries or former secretaries to trade unions, are returned to the House of Commons in greater or smaller numbers. They hold their own in debate ; they bring forward motions and bills relating to labor, or take part in discussing them ; Mr. Gladstone conferred an under-secretaryship of state on Mr. Broadhurst, a prominent leader of the building trades and ex-secretary to the Trade Union Parliamentary Committee, and the same office was afterwards held by Mr. Burt. In 1882, Mr. J. D. Prior, secretary to the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, was appointed an inspector of factories, and his appointment was followed in course of time by that of many other trade unionists. In 1884, four leading trade unionists were made magistrates, and they were followed by others. In 1886, Mr. John Burnett, who had become the secretary to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, was appointed the first “ labor correspondent ” of the Board of Trade, and became (in 1898) “ chief labor correspondent ” in its commercial, labor, and statistical department. Prominent trade unionists now figure largely on school boards, municipal councils, county councils; no royal commission on any social subject is complete without them. The Trade Union Congress of 1895 contained among its delegates three members of Parliament, nineteen magistrates, five members of the London County Council, of whom two were aldermen, and seventeen members of town councils, five of them being also magistrates, and included among the nineteen.

But the shield has its reverse side.

The characteristic of trade unionism had been that it was confined in the main to the better paid, and therefore substantially the skilled trades. Attempts to form unions had not infrequently flashed out amongst the unskilled masses, but had soon come to an end. For the most part, the wages in such cases were insufficient to keep up the union; or there was a want of capacity to manage, or again of capacity to obey.² On the other hand, the well-paid members of the artisans’ trade unions were able to provide for a number of different benefits, such as are provided for by the ordinary Friendly Society, — sickness, accident, relief on travel in search of employment, a sum at death, whether of the member, his wife, or his children, often superannuation at a given age. They thus drew to themselves the great bulk of the better and more prudent workmen in the trade, since for a working man to join one of the better trade unions was virtually to guard against all the ordinary contingencies of life. This gave them immense staying power, but at the same time acted as a powerful drag in case of any labor dispute, inducing on the part of their leaders a cautiousness contrasting strongly with the common idea of such officials. I do not think I ever knew a more cautious man than my late friend William Allan, of the Amalgamated Engineers. So far was this caution carried that in one signal instance a labor contest in the north of England for a nine hours’ working day was carried to a successful close by the present chief labor correspondent of the Board of Trade, Mr. John Burnett, without any help from the headquarters of the union.

Another marked feature of the older trade unions, and indeed of the working classes generally, was the antagonism between the artisan and the laborer. The gulf between the two classes, less than half a century ago, was even greater than that between the working and middle classes, since a successful workman could easily become a shopkeeper, whereas it was almost impossible for a laborer to become a skilled workman. But what heightened the antagonism was the fact that the laborer was always the possible ally of the employe, whose constant object is to substitute machinery worked by unskilled labor for the skilled artisan, and the attempt on the employer’s part to do so was among the frequent causes of strikes. From being antagonistic in their interests the two classes often became antagonistic in their politics also. The artisan was all but universally a Liberal or Radical; the laborer was very commonly a Tory. Societies for coöperative production in the fifties frequently refused a share of profits to laborers, if they employed any. The two classes did not associate together for social purposes, and I have found in former days, even amongst my most intelligent and best informed friends of the artisan class, the most singular ignorance as to the habits and feelings of the laborers; my own knowledge of the class having been picked up through parochial work and free-school teaching.

Broader views, however, spread by degrees through the artisan class, and larger sympathies grew up in them. The deeper thinkers of the class began asking themselves, How is it that whilst, by our organizations, we are able to hold our own with our employers, to maintain and in many cases raise wages, to secure shorter hours of labor and better conditions of work generally, we cannot secure for ourselves the one substantial thing, employment, but only its conditions and remuneration when we have it ? And the cause of this which has lain nearest to their eyes has been the existence of the mass of unskilled, unorganized labor beneath them, huge, fluctuating, seething with purely individual wants and passions, ready it may be to fight for a mere day’s work at the dock gates, still more ready at all times to take the place of the skilled worker in tending any machine whose blind force is substituted for his skill. The first thought of such men must have been, If these laborers could once he organized, they would become our friends instead of being our worst foes. Accordingly, some of the most thoughtful and energetic among the trade unionists of the artisan class have of late years broken the traditions of their order by leading unskilled laborers in their labor conflicts, and organizing them into unions.

A new era in the history of trade unionism is thus marked by the dockers’ strike of 1889. As related by Mr. and Mrs. Webb, two years earlier, Mr. Ben Tillett, a laborer himself, had succeeded in setting up a Tea-Workers and General Laborers’ Union. A dispute over a trifling matter brought on a strike of dock laborers at the South West India Dock, the men demanding “sixpence an hour, the abolition of sub-contract and piece work, extra pay for overtime, and a minimum engagement of four hours.” Tillett had artisan friends, John Burns and Tom Mann, both members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. The whole body of dock laborers were appealed to, and 10,000 came out. The public took sides with the dock laborers ; nearly £50,000 were subscribed for their benefit, large sums being sent from Australia. By the mediation of Cardinal Manning and Mr. Sydney Buxton, an agreement was made with the employers which practically conceded the men’s demands.

And now there came a very outburst of unionism among the unskilled. The number of new trade unions registered, which in 1889 had already risen from 28 to 45, sprang in 1890 to 118. But there burst out also an antagonism between the older and the newer unions, to which Mr. George Howell, as one of the older leaders, gave voice in his book, Trade Unionism, Old and New (1891). This antagonism turned mainly on what may be termed the “ friendly benefits" of the older unions. Mr. Howell does not go beyond the truth when he speaks of these as constituting “ the chief glory of the old trade unionism.” But for the new trade unionism such grapes were sour. Whilst the spread of education, amongst other influences, brought out in the unskilled laborers a certain capacity for organization, and other powers in which they had been wholly deficient, so that a laborers’ trade union became a possible thing, experience has shown that the mere laborer’s employment is so precarious, and his earnings allow so scant a margin, if any margin at all, for supplying needs beyond those of bare subsistence, that his trade unions cannot assume the same comprehensive character, and can scarcely ever promise the same stability, as those of the better paid and generally more steadily employed artisan. This lies really at the bottom of the difference between the so-called “ old ” and “ new ” unionisms. The new laborers’ unions often cannot get so far as to provide for purely casual want of employment, and remain a mere standby in case of strike or lockout. The two classes have thus of necessity different aims, work under different conditions, show a different spirit. The older unions, with few exceptions, represent the conservative element of the movement, the newer the revolutionary. The former avoid labor conflicts ; the latter, those especially which promise help only in case of conflicts, may be said to be almost compelled to live by them, since men get tired of paying contributions year after year without getting anything in return.

Both new and old unionists were represented on the Royal Commission on Labour of 1891—94, the most weighty and impartial, perhaps, in its composition that has ever been appointed in the United Kingdom, and the reports of which — only too voluminous — contain a vast and it may be said an inexhaustible supply of information on all subjects connected with labor.

A considerable amount of evidence was taken by the commission on the subject of trade unions, and although Mr. and Mrs. Webb’s volume was published before its final report appeared, all future writers on the subject will have to take account of its weighty deliverances in respect thereof. The committee was indeed divided into a majority of nineteen and a minority of four, two of the best known working men members, Mr. Burt and Mr. Trow, signing in the majority. The majority, after a carefully balanced report, amounting on the whole to a decided judgment in favor of trade unionism, conclude as follows : —

“ Powerful trades unions on the one side, and powerful associations of employers on the other, have been the means of bringing together in conference the representatives of both classes; enabling each to appreciate the position of the other, and to understand the conditions subject to which their joint undertaking must be conducted. The mutual education hence arising has been carried so far that, as we have seen, it has been found possible to devise articles of agreement regulating wages, which have been loyally and peacefully maintained for long periods. We see reason to believe that in this way the course of events is tending towards a more settled and pacific period, in which, in such industries, there will be, if not a greater identification of interests, at least a clearer perception of the principles which must regulate the division of the proceeds of each industry, consistently with its permanence and prosperity, between those who supply labor and those who supply managing ability and capital.”

But four of the working men members of the commission — Mr. Abraham, Mr. Austin, Mr. Mann, and Mr. Mawdsley — presented a report (which I shall call the Report of the Four) differing from the conclusions of the majority, which they deemed too optimistic. They thought it “ high time that the whole strength and influence of the collective organization of the community should be deliberately, patiently, and persistently used to raise the standard of life of its weaker and more oppressed members.” In their opinion, “ the whole force of democratic statesmanship must . . . henceforth be directed to the substitution, as fast as possible, of public for capitalist enterprise ; and where this substitution is not yet practicable, to the strict and detailed regulation of all industrial operations, so as to secure to every worker the conditions of efficient citizenship.”(Pages 146, 147.) They had said, indeed, in the earlier portion of their report : “ Much may be hoped, especially among the better paid workmen, from the advance of trade union organization, coöperation, and other forms of voluntary association. But for the elevation of the standard of life of the most necessitous sections of the wage-earners we are driven to look mainly to a wide extension of collective action.”

By taking part in the trade conflicts of the laborers, by mingling with them on friendly terms, by helping them to organize themselves as far as practicable, skilled artisans like Mr. Mann, I take it, have learned how little mere organization can do for the class below their own, and have been led to feel more and more how the pressure from below of the unemployed reacts throughout the whole of society. Bearing this in mind, we shall see that the Report of the Four was to a large extent not so much antagonistic as supplementary to that of the majority of the labor commission. It is perfectly possible to hold with the majority that “a more cordial understanding, and one based on a better knowledge of the relations between employers and employed, is growing up.” And it is at the same time quite possible to hold — and I do equally hold —with the Four that “the relations between capitalists and manual workers are enormously imbittered by the demoralizing conditions in which great masses of the population are compelled to live ; ” and that “ the whole strength and influence of the collective organization of the community should be deliberately, patiently, and persistently used to raise the standard of life of its weaker and more oppressed members.” When they ask for “ the substitution, as fast as possible, of public for capitalist enterprise,” it means at bottom that these four energetic and experienced trade unionists feel the insufficiency of trade unionism for dealing with the labor question as a whole, through its inability to “ raise the standard of life ” of the lowest classes.

Nor have I any objection in principle to most of the reforms specified by the Four. If for instance, they ask for “ the adoption by the government and all local authorities of direct public employment whenever this is advantageous,” I agree with them entirely. I have always failed to see why the state or any local authority should not, “whenever this is advantageous,” do any required work for itself, — why either rates or taxes should be levied for the sake of putting profit into the pocket of an employer, whenever he can be “ advantageously ” dispensed with. I have always held that the state should be the model employer; that the greatest economy for the nation at large is to secure for itself the pick of all labor, physical or intellectual, by offering the best possible conditions of service ; and that the same holds good, within local limits of application, for all local authorities. If the Four ask for the “securing by appropriate law of an eight hours’ day for every manual worker,” I have always held that Ite moral consecration of a limitation of the hours of labor for both sexes and all ages lies in the enactment of the Sabbath, and that the question of any specific amount of limitation becomes thus one of mere expediency, to be determined from time to time by every nation for itself, until determined in a more effective manner by consent of the nations interested in any particular proposal for limitation. If the Four ask for “ honorable maintenance for all the nation’s workers in their old age,” I must own that this is an end which appears to me impossible to be reached by private effort, however difficult it may also appear to me as a result of public action.

Great weight must be attached to the Report of the Four. The signers were all trade unionists. And when skilled workmen like Mr. Mann or Mr. Mawdsley come forward to say, practically, that trade unionism is good, but insufficient to heal the ills of the labor world, it would be folly not to recognize the importance of the fact. Let us now, in this light, advert to the resolution adopted at the Norwich Trade Union Congress, September 6, 1894, by a majority of 219 to 61 : “ That in the opinion of this Congress it is essential to the maintenance of British industries to nationalize the land, and the whole of the means of production, distribution, and exchange ; and that the Parliamentary Committee be instructed to promote and support legislation with the above objects.”

Precisely what the majority of the Congress, and perhaps Mr. Keir Hardie himself, the mover of the resolution, understood by the nationalizing not only of the land, but of “ the whole of the means of production, distribution, and exchange,” it is impossible to say. Probably, if it had been explained to his supporters that under the resolution, if carried out, not one of them would have a farthing which he could call his own, scarcely half a dozen enthusiastic hands would have been held up in its favor. Moreover, if not only all the land, but all means of production and distribution (that is, all fixed and floating capital in the shape of houses, factories, warehouses, shipping, on the one hand, machinery, steam or other power, and labor, on the other), and all means of exchange (that is, all money and all credit), are to belong to the nation, trade unions can have no further raison d’être. and the Congress voted its own extinction and theirs, — which was evidently not the intention of its chairman, Mr. Delves, nor, probably, of the vast majority of the delegates.

We must, however, often look below, and sometimes far below men’s words to reach their real meaning. Or, to use a different image, sometimes the words are narrow and the meaning is large ; more often, the words are big and the meaning is much smaller. Above all, it is at the moment when the eyes are first, opened to some hitherto unrecognized fact, or realm of fact, that we are apt to “ see men as trees, walking,” the previously unknown looming upon us gigantic. Now, in spite of all symptoms of a contrary nature, of Irish murder-leagues and Continental anarchism (for indeed all strong action provokes strong reaction), the feeling which within my lifetime I have seen grow beyond all others is that, to use the French term, of human solidarity, of the responsibility of man for his brother man, — a responsibility which he cannot shake off, which dogs his steps wherever he may go, however strongly he may endeavor to stifle it or blind himself to it. It is precisely that feeling which seems to me to have dictated Mr. Keir Hardie’s resolution, and which ennobles it, impracticable though it may be.

But, on the other hand, behind the Report of the Four, behind the resolution of the Norwich Congress, behind all the truth which these set forth or imply, lies also the world-old fallacy, that moral ends may be reached by a change in social machinery. Parish councils, town councils, county councils, houses, of Parliament, are but men sitting together, good, bad, and indifferent. A fool is not made wise nor a rascal made honest by becoming a town councilor, or even a member of Parliament. The machinery of the labor world may be capable of being improved by state or municipal action, but only so far as that action is directed by the honest, the able, the high-minded.

We must not, therefore, take such resolutions au pied de la lettre, and it may safely be predicted that never on the lines of trade unionism will any real step be taken towards state socialism, or rather — for that is what Mr. Keir Hardie’s resolution points to — state communism. For trade unionism is simply labor militant in posse, if not in esse, for industrial purposes. Whatever else it may do, it must be organized to fight. And this is precisely what gives it its value towards the maintenance of industrial peace in ordinary times, just as standing armies have their value towards the maintenance of international peace, until the dread hour comes when they have to strike. But a state, the universal owner and employer, cannot afford to bear with any militant organizations beyond such as are required for its own defense. What is now merely a strike against employers becomes then rebellion against the state, and has to be put down as such. Indeed, the payment of wages disappearing, the main object of a trade union, that is, the keeping up of living wages, vanishes altogether. A decent burial is all that trade unionism can look forward to, should Mr. Keir Hardie’s resolution ever become a fact.³

One thing is clear: that in the interest of trade unions every effort should be made to remove the antagonism between the old and the new trade unionism. Some such efforts are no doubt being made. If it were possible to give the laborers the benefit of the superior management of the artisans’ unions without cost, admitting them for lower benefits at lower rates of contribution, the two groups in each trade might be welded into one, and a common interest created which would neutralize their antagonism.

This would be only consistent with the marked tendency which is observable in the history of trade unions, always to enlarge the area of their working. No doubt some very large societies were founded in the early years of the movement, but, relying on levies, they had no permanency. The first great step towards enlargement of area was the establishment in 1850 of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, at first consisting of seven societies in the engineering trade. In October, 1851, it had 11,000 members. In the following year, with 12,000, it found itself engaged in a conflict with the employers, in which it was worsted, but by no means killed. At the Trade Union Congress of 1895 it claimed 77,000 members.

A further extension of the area of trade union operations has taken place of late years through the formation of federations. An article in the Labour Gazette for June, 1895 (page 176), stated that information had been received with regard to 63 federations, to which are affiliated 628 unions or branches of unions, with an aggregate membership of 851,966. Of these, the largest number (29) are in the building trades, the next largest (12) in mining and quarrying, the third largest (10) in the textile trades ; no other group out of the seven enumerated reaching two figures. It should be observed that out of the 63 federations above mentioned, “46 have existed less than five years, and 31 less than two years.” The movement is thus to a great extent in its infancy, and does not yet seem to have worked out the elements of permanent success. “These bodies,” says the Labour Gazette, “ have not yet, as a rule, shown themselves to be longlived forms of organization.” Still, the fact that “ the last few years have been marked by a considerable increase in the number of federations ” shows the strength of the tendency in this direction.

Another marked feature in the modern history of English trade unions is the tendency to international relations. There was a time when the working men of the Continent were so wildly unpractical in their aspirations that the more prudent English leaders in the movement refused to take part in international labor congresses. But as every succeeding year brought out more and more the interdependence of all nations, and more especially of their working class, the opening up of international relations became a necessity for the class, and English working men have taken part more and more in labor congresses, both general and for particular callings or groups of callings. To take a single instance of the latter (which are apt to be more practical than the general ones), the second International Congress of Textile Workers took place last year at Ghent, August 12-15 ; 47 delegates being present, who represented 189,460 textile workers. No less than 24 delegates were from England ; Belgium itself being represented by only 18, and America not sending any delegate. An International Textile Federation is contemplated, and as a beginning an International Committee of National Secretaries is to meet yearly.

Trade unionism, then, it is quite clear, is both spreading and growing among us. Perhaps no greater tribute to its importance was ever given than by the formation of that comical body, the National Free Labour Association, with its rule that “ no member claims the right to apply force or threat of force, or any form of persuasion, to unionists or non-unionists,” embodying as it does the idea that trade unionism can be combated only by the formation of an anti - trade - union union. What may be the further developments of trade unionism I cannot say. But I do not accept it, as Mr. and Mrs. Webb appear to do, as a permanent element in society. That it tends to shake off its specially militant character I have already shown in the pages of this magazine, when speaking of the Industrial Union of Employers and Employed, and I am glad to think that a late dispute in the engineering trades of the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland was stopped at last through the refusal of strike-pay to the Belfast strikers by the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, when the former had set at naught Lord James’s award. The case, however, itself shows the failure of conciliation and arbitration of themselves to end a dispute, so that I must still look forward to the uniting of the interests of employers and employed in some form of coöperation as the only trustworthy remedy for trade disputes.

I cannot conclude this paper without saying a few words more in regard to Mr. and Mrs. Webb’s History of Trade Unionism, to be followed by their Problems of Trade Unionism, — the two together promising to form a really monumental work. As a history of trade unionism from within, the published volume is already invaluable, and it is so full of detail that I have abstained from dwelling on this side of the subject, notwithstanding the intimate relations in which I have stood towards several of the trade union leaders of thirty or forty years ago; preferring to bring out rather what the authors have treated with much less distinctness, the relations of trade unionism to other classes, and to society generally. Mr. and Mrs. Webb, I need hardly say, are themselves advocates of what is called “ municipal socialism.”

John M. Ludlow.