[325]The tinplate-workers of Wolverhampton had been endeavouring, ever since they joined the Association in 1845, to obtain a uniform list of piecework rates. By the influence of the National Association, such a list was agreed to during 1849 by all the employers except two. One of these treated the men with exceptional duplicity. Having, as he thought, adequately prepared himself; he threw off the mask in July 1850, and flatly refused to continue the negotiations. The fierce industrial and legal conflict which ensued attracted general attention. Many of the strikers were imprisoned for breach of contract; and the struggle culminated in the prosecution of three members of the committee of the National Association, together with several of the local Unionists, for conspiracy to molest and intimidate the employer by inducing men to leave his employment. Owing to legal quibbles, raised first on behalf of the Crown, and then on behalf of the defendants, the case was tried no fewer than three times, the final judgment not being delivered until November 1851, when five of the prisoners were sentenced to three months’, and one to one month’s imprisonment. See R. v. Rowlands, 5 Cox C. C. p, 436; also Appendix A to The Law relating to Trade Unions, by Sir William Erie, 1869.
[326]Duncombe formally resigned the presidency in 1852. In 1856 its secretary, Thomas Winters, gave evidence in favour of conciliation before the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils, etc.). He stated that the membership then numbered between 5,000 and 6,000, and that the central committee consisted of three salaried members, who gave up their whole time to the work. A subsequent secretary (E. Humphries) appeared before a similar committee four years later, his evidence showing that the association, though it was still in existence, had taken no part in any of the important labour struggles of the past seven or eight years. Mr. George Howell incidentally puts the date of its dissolution at 1860 or 1861 (see his article “Trades Union Congresses and Social legislation” in Contemporary Review for September 1889).
[327]English Stonemasons’ Fortnightly Circular, December 25, 1845.
[328]The Potters’ Examiner, started December 1843, was converted, in July 1848, into the Potters’ Examiner and Emigrants’ Advocate, published at Liverpool and concerned chiefly with emigration. It ceased to appear soon after 1851.
[329]See especially the articles on “Wages of Labour and Trade Societies” in the second, third, and fourth numbers (December 1850 to February 1851), in which he assumes that the general level of wages is irresistibly determined by Supply and Demand, but that Trade Unionism, in providing out-of-work pay, enables the individual workman to resist exceptional tyranny or exaction.
[330]This journal contains a mass of useful information relating to the trade, special reports of the Trades Union Congresses, and well-written articles on industrial and economic problems. It is marked throughout by moderation of tone and fairness of argument. Unfortunately, so far as we know, it is not preserved in any public library, and we were indebted to Mr. Haddleton, Secretary to the Birmingham Trades Council, who, in 1893, possessed a complete set, for our acquaintance with its contents.
[331]Opening Address to the Glass Makers of England, Ireland, and Scotland, No. 1.
[332]Report of London Compositors’ Committee on Amalgamation, 1834; Annual Report, February 2, 1835.
[333]Address of Delegate Meeting to the Members of the Friendly Society of Ironmoulders of England, Ireland, and Wales, September 26, 1846.
[334]Fortnightly Circular, December 25, 1845.