The difference in method between the “New Unionism” of 1833-34 and that of 1889-90 may, we think, be ascribed in the main to the difference between the circumstances under which the movements arose. To Robert Owen, whose path was blocked on the political line by the disfranchisement of five out of six of the adult male population, open voting under intimidation, corrupt close corporations in the towns and a Whig oligarchy at the centre, the idea of relying on the constitutional instrument of the polling-booth must have appeared no less chimerical than his own programme appears to-day. The New Unionists of 1889-90, on the other hand, found ready for their use an extensive and all-embracing Democratic social structure, which it was impossible to destroy, and would have been foolish to attempt to ignore. The efforts of two generations of Radical Individualists and “Old Trade Unionists” had placed the legislative power and civil administration of the country in the hands of a hierarchy of popularly elected representative bodies. The great engine of taxation was, for instance, now under the control of the wage-earning voters instead of that of the land-owning class. The Home Secretary and the factory inspector, the relieving-officer and the borough surveyor, could be employed to carry out the behests of the workers instead of those of the capitalists. And thus it came about that the methods advocated by the New Unionists of 1889-94 resemble, not those of the Owenites of 1833-34, but much more the practical arts of political warfare so successfully pursued by the Junta of 1867-75.
We shall see the change which had come over the English working-class movement in the course of sixty years if we compare the leaders of the two movements which we have been contrasting. To Owen himself we may allow the privilege of his genius, which did not prevent him from being an extravagantly bad captain for a working-class movement. But in his leading disciples ignorance of industrial conditions, contemptuous indifference to facts and figures, and incapacity to measure, even in the smallest actions, the relation between the means and the end, stand in as marked contrast to the sober judgment of men like John Burns as they did to the cautious shrewdness of Allan and Applegarth. It would indeed be easy to find many traits of personal likeness between Burns and Mann on the one hand, and Allan and Applegarth on the other. High personal character, scrupulous integrity, dignity or charm of manner, marked all four alike, and the resemblance of character is heightened by a noticeable resemblance in the nature of their activity. The day’s work of Tom Mann at the head office of the Dockers’ Union from 1889 to 1892, and that of John Burns in the London County Council and the lobby of the House of Commons from 1892 to 1906, were close reproductions of Allan’s activity at the general office of his Engineers, and Applegarth’s assiduous attendance to Parliamentary Committees and Royal Commissions. In short, the ways and means of the leaders of the “New Unionism” remind the student, not of the mystic rites and skeleton mummery of the Owenite movement, but rather of the restless energy and political ingenuity of the Junta or the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee in those early days when the old Trade Unionists were fighting for legislative reforms with a faith which was as wise as it was fervent and sincere.
Some of the secondary characteristics of the New Unionism of 1889 promptly faded away. The revulsion of feeling against the combination of friendly benefits with Trade Union purposes quickly disappeared, though the difficulty of levying high contributions upon ill-paid workers prevented the complete adoption of the contrary policy.[576] The expansion of trade which began in 1889 proved to be but of brief duration, and with the returning contraction of 1892 many of the advantages gained by the wage-earners were lost. Under the influence of this check the unskilled labourers once more largely fell away from the Trade Union ranks. But just as 1873-74 left behind it a far more permanent structure than 1833-34, so 1889-90 added even more than 1873-74. The older Unions retained a large part, at any rate, of the two hundred thousand members added to their ranks between 1887 and 1891. But this numerical accession was of less importance than what may, without exaggeration, be termed the spiritual rebirth of organisations which were showing signs of decrepitude. The selfish spirit of exclusiveness which often marked the relatively well-paid engineer, carpenter, or boilermaker of 1880-85, gave place to a more generous recognition of the essential solidarity of the wage-earning class. For example, the whole constitution of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers was, in 1892, revised for the express purpose of opening the ranks of this most aristocratic of Unions to practically all the mechanics in the innumerable branches of the engineering trade. Special facilities, moreover, were offered by this and the other great societies to old men and artisans earning wages insufficient to pay for costly friendly benefits. Nor was this all. The plumber vied with the engineer, the carpenter with the shipwright, in helping to form Unions among the labourers who work with or under them. And the struggling Unions of women workers, which had originally some difficulty in gaining admittance to Trades Councils and the Trade Union Congress, gratefully acknowledged a complete change in the attitude of their male fellow-workers. Not only was every assistance now given to the formation of special Unions among women workers, but women were, in some cases, even welcomed as members by Unions of skilled artisans. A similar widening of sympathies and strengthening of bonds of fellowship was shown in the very general establishment of local joint committees of rival societies in the same trade, as well as of larger federations. Robert Knight’s failures to form a federal council representing the different Unions concerned in shipbuilding were retrieved in 1891 by his successful establishment of the Federation of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades, which maintained a permanent existence. The increased sense of solidarity among all sections of wage-earners, moreover, led to a greatly increased cordiality in international relations. The Coal-miners, the Glass Bottle Makers, and the Textile Operatives established more or less formal federations with their fellow-workers on the Continent of Europe. At the frequent international Congresses of these trades, as well as at the Socialist Congress of the workers of all countries, the representatives of the British Trade Unions largely laid aside that insular conceit which led the Parliamentary Committee of 1884 to declare that, owing to his superiority, the British Trade Unionist derived no benefit from international relations. All this indicates a widening of the mental horizon, a genuine elevation of the Trade Union Movement.
FOOTNOTES:
[511]See the History of the British Trades Union Congress, by W. J. Davis, of which two volumes have been issued by the Parliamentary Committee (1910 and 1916). William John Davis, one of the most successful Trade Union administrators, was born in 1848, at Birmingham. In 1872, when the National Society of Amalgamated Brassworkers was established in a trade hitherto entirely unorganised, he became General Secretary, a post which, except for one short interval, he has ever since retained. Within six months he obtained from the employers the 15 per cent increase which they had refused to the unorganised men, and established branches throughout the kingdom; and presently he completed the difficult and laborious task of constructing a list of prices for all brasswork, for which he obtained the employers’ recognition. He was elected to the Birmingham School Board in 1876, and to the Town Council in 1880. In 1883 he accepted appointment as Factory Inspector, but six years later returned to his former post at the urgent request of the workmen, whose Union had in his absence sunk almost to nothing, a condition from which he was able quickly to restore it to far more than its highest previous strength; and to take on, in addition, the secretaryship of the Amalgamated Metal Wire and Tube Makers’ Society. He was made a J.P. in 1906. Since 1881 he has been elected twenty-six times to the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress. He is the author, in addition to the History of the British Trades Union Congress, of The Token Coinage of Warwickshire and Nineteenth-Century Token Coinage(The Life Story of W. J. Davis, by W. B. Dalley, 1914).
[512]In 1878, for instance, the Parliamentary Committee resolved that Congress ought not to interfere either between the English and Scottish Tailors’ Societies or between the Boilermakers and the Platers’ Helpers.
[513]The Congress, from 1871, annually elected a Parliamentary Committee of ten members and a secretary. The members of the Committee were always chosen from the officials of the more important Unions, with a strong tendency to re-elect the same men year after year. Between 1875 and 1889 the composition of the Committee was, in fact, scarcely changed, except through death or the promotion of members to Government appointments. George Potter was secretary from 1869-71; George Odger in that year; and George Howell, afterwards M.P., from 1872-75. Henry Broadhurst was for fourteen years annually re-elected secretary without a contest, temporarily ceding the post, whilst Under Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1886, to George Shipton. He was succeeded by Charles Fenwick, M.P., from 1890-93; then followed S. Woods, M.P., from 1894-1904; W. C. Steadman, M.P., from 1905-10; and the Right Honourable C. W. Bowerman, M.P., from 1911 onwards.
[514]Odger died in 1877, Guile in 1883, and Coulson (who had retired many years before) in 1893.
[515]To the counsels of Frederic Harrison, E. S. Beesly, H. Crompton, and A. J. Mundella was, from 1873, frequently added that of Mr. (afterwards Justice) R. S. Wright, who rendered invaluable service as a draughtsman. Henry Crompton supplied us with the following account of the subsequent separation between the Positivists and the Trade Union leaders:
“In the year 1881 the connection of the Parliamentary Committee with the Positivists was modified. There was not the same occasion for their services as there had been. After 1883, in which year Mr. F. Harrison and Mr. H. Crompton attended the Congress by invitation, the connection ceased altogether, though there was no breach of friendly relations. Till 1881 there had been entire agreement between them both as to policy and means of action. The policy of the Positivists had been to secure complete legal independence for workmen and their legitimate combinations; to make them more respected and more conscious of their own work; to lift them to a higher moral level; that they should become citizens ready and desirous to perform all the duties of citizenship. The means employed was to consolidate and organise the power of the Trades Societies, through the institutions of the annual Congress and its Parliamentary Committee; to use this power, as occasion served, for the general welfare as well as for trade interests. That the measures adopted or proposed by the Congress should be thoroughly discussed in the branches, and delegates well posted in the principal questions. To express it shortly—organisation of collective labour and political education of individual workmen.