Since the great strikes in the London building trades in 1859-61, the movement in favour of a reduction of the hours of labour had been dragging on in various parts of the country. The masons, carpenters, and other building operatives had in many towns, and after more or less conflict, secured what was termed the Nine Hours Day. In 1866 an agitation arose among the engineers of Tyneside for a similar concession; but the sudden depression of trade put an end to the project. In 1870, when the subject was discussed at the Newcastle “Central District Committee” of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the spirit of caution prevailed, and no action was taken. Suddenly, at the beginning of 1871, the Sunderland men took the matter up, and came out on strike on the 1st of April. After four weeks’ struggle, almost before the engineers elsewhere had realised that there was any chance of success, the local employers gave way, and the Nine Hours Day was won.

It was evident that the Sunderland movement was destined to spread to the other engineering centres in the neighbourhood; and the master engineers of the entire North-Eastern District promptly assembled at Newcastle on April 8 to concert a united resistance to the men’s demands. The operatives had first to form their organisation. Though Newcastle has since become one of the best centres of Trade Unionism, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers could, in 1871, count only five or six hundred members in the town; the Boilermakers, Steam-Engine Makers, and Ironfounders were also weak, and probably two out of three of the men in the engineering trade belonged to no Union whatsoever. A “Nine Hours League,” embracing Unionists and non-Unionists alike, was accordingly formed for the special purpose of the agitation; and this body was fortunate enough to elect as its President John Burnett,[460] a leading member of the local branch of the Amalgamated Society, afterwards to become widely known as the General Secretary of that great organisation. The “Nine Hours League” became, in fact though not in name, a temporary Trade Union, its committee conducting all the negotiations on the men’s behalf, appealing to the Trade Union world for funds for their support, and managing all the details of the conflict that ensued. [461]

The five months’ strike which led up to a signal victory for the men was, in more than one respect, a notable event in Trade Union annals. The success with which several thousands of unorganised workmen, unprovided with any accumulated funds, were marshalled and disciplined, and the ability displayed in the whole management of the dispute, made the name of their leader celebrated throughout the world of labour. The tactical skill and literary force with which the men’s case was presented achieved the unprecedented result of securing for their demands the support of the Times[462] and the Spectator. Money was subscribed slowly at first, but after three months poured in from all sides. Joseph Cowen, of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, was from the first an ardent supporter of the men, and assisted them in many ways. The employers in all parts of the kingdom took alarm; and a kind of levy of a shilling for each man employed was made upon the engineering firms in aid of the heavy expenses of the Newcastle masters. In spite of the active exertions of the “International,” several hundred foreign workmen were imported; but many of these were subsequently induced to desert.[463] Finally the employers conceded the principal of the men’s demands; and fifty-four hours became the locally recognised week’s time in all the engineering trades.

This widely advertised success, coming at a time of expanding trade, greatly promoted the movement for the Nine Hours Day. From one end of the kingdom to the other, every little Trade Union branch discussed the expediency of sending in notices to the employers. The engineering trades in London, Manchester, and other great centres induced their employers to grant their demands without a strike. The great army of workmen engaged in the shipbuilding yards on the Clyde even bettered this example, securing a fifty-one hours week. The building operatives quickly followed suit. Demands for a diminution of the working day, with an increased rate of pay per hour, were handed in by local officials of the Carpenters, Masons, Bricklayers, Plumbers, and other organisations. In many cases non-society men took the lead in the movement; but it was soon found that the immediate success of the applications depended on the estimate formed by the employers of the men’s financial resources, and their capacity to withhold their labour for a time sufficient to cause embarrassment to business. Wherever the employers were assured of this fact, they usually gave way without a conflict. The successes accordingly did much to create, in the industries in question, a preference for combination and collective bargaining as a means of improving the conditions of labour. The prevalence of systematic overtime, which has since proved so formidable a deduction from the advantages gained by the Nine Hours Movement, was either overlooked by sanguine officials, or covertly welcomed by individual workmen as affording opportunities for working at a higher rate of remuneration.[464] On the other hand, it was a patent fact that the mechanic employed in attending to the machinery of a textile mill was the only member of his trade who was excluded from participation in the shortening of hours enjoyed by his fellow-tradesmen; and that his failure to secure a shorter day was an incidental consequence of the existence of legislative restrictions. Thus, at the very time that the textile operatives and coal-miners were, as we have seen, exhibiting a marked tendency to look more and more to Parliamentary action for the protection of the Standard of Life, the facts, as they presented themselves to the Amalgamated Engineer or Carpenter, were leading the members of these trades to a diametrically opposite conclusion.

But though faith in trade combinations and collective bargaining was strengthened by the success of the Nine Hours Movement, the victories of the men did not increase the prestige of the two great Amalgamated Societies. The growing adhesion of the Junta to the economic views of their middle-class friends was marked by the silent abandonment by Allan, Applegarth, and Guile of all leadership in trade matters. Already in 1865 we find the Executive Council of the Amalgamated Engineers explaining that, although they sympathised with advance movements, they felt unable to either support them by grants or to advise their members to vote a special levy.[465] The “backwardness of the Council of the Engineers” constantly provoked angry criticism. The chief obstacles to advancement were declared to be Danter, the President of the Council, and the General Secretary, whose minds had been narrowed “by the routine of years of service within certain limits.... Never, since it effected amalgamation, has the Society solved one social problem; nor has it now an idea of future progress. Its money is unprofitably and injudiciously invested—even with a miser’s care—while its councils are marked with all the chilly apathy of a worn-out mission.”[466] What proved to be the greatest trade movement since 1852 was undertaken in spite of the official disapproval of the governing body, and was carried to a successful issue without the provision from headquarters of any leadership or control. Though the Nine Hours Strike actually began in Sunderland on April 1, 1871, the London Executive remained silent on the subject until July. Towards the end of that month, when the Newcastle men had been out for seven weeks, a circular was issued inviting the branches to collect voluntary subscriptions for their struggling brethren. Ultimately, in September, the “Contingent Fund,” out of which strike pay is given, was re-established by vote of the branches; and the strike allowance of 5s. per week, over and above the ordinary out-of-work pay, was issued, after fourteen weeks’ struggle, to the small minority of the men on strike who were members of the Society. An emissary was sent to the Continent, at the Society’s expense, to defeat the employers’ attempt to bring over foreign engineers; but with this exception all the expenses of the struggle were defrayed from the subscriptions collected by the Nine Hours League.[467] And if we turn for a moment from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to the other great trade and friendly societies of the time, it is easy, in the minutes of their Executive Councils and the proceedings of their branches, to watch the same tendency at work. Whether it is the Masons or the Tailors, the Ironfounders or the Carpenters, we see the same abandonment by the Central Executive of any dominant principle of trade policy, the same absence of initiative in trade movements, and the same more or less persistent struggle to check the trade activity of its branches. In the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, for example, we find, during these years, no attempt by headquarters to “level up” the wages of low-paid districts, or to grapple with the problems of overtime or piecework. We watch, on the contrary, the branches defending themselves before the Executive for their little spurts of local activity, and pleading, in order to wring from a reluctant treasury the concession of strike pay, that they have been dragged into the “Advance Movement” by the more aggressive policy of the “General Union” (the rival trade society of the old type), or by irresponsible “strike-committees” of non-society men.

Time and growth were, in fact, revealing the drawbacks of the constitution with which Newton and Allan had endowed their cherished amalgamation, and which had been so extensively copied by other trades. The difficulties arising from the attempt to unite, in one organisation, men working in the numerous distinct branches of the engineering trade, demanded constant thought and attention. The rapid changes in the industry, especially in connection with the growing use of new machinery, needed to be met by a well-considered flexibility, dictated by full knowledge of the facts, and some largeness of view. To maintain a harmonious yet progressive trade policy in all the hundreds of branches would, of itself, have taxed the skill of a body of experts free from other preoccupations. All these duties were, however, cast upon a single salaried officer,[468] working under a committee of artisans who met in the evening after an exhausting day of physical toil.

The result might have been foreseen. The rapid growth of the society brought with it a huge volume of detailed business. Every grant of accident benefit or superannuation allowance was made by the Executive Council. Every week this body had to decide on scores of separate applications for gifts from the Benevolent Fund. Every time any of the tens of thousands of members failed to get what he wanted from his branch, he appealed to the Executive Council. Every month an extensive trade report had to be issued. Every quarter the branch accounts had to be examined, dissected, and embodied in an elaborate summary, itself absorbing no small amount of labour and thought. The hundreds of branch secretaries and treasurers had to be constantly supervised, checked by special audits, and perpetually admonished for negligent or accidental breaches of the complicated code by which the Society was governed. The Executive Council became, in fact, absorbed in purely “treasury” work, and spent a large part of its time in protecting the funds of the Society from extravagance, laxity of administration, or misappropriation. The quantity of routine soon became enormous; and the whole attention of the General Secretary was given to coping with the mass of details which poured in upon him by every post.

This huge friendly society business brought with it, too, its special bias. Allan grew more and more devoted to the accumulating fund, which was alike the guarantee and the symbol of the success of his organisation. Nothing was important enough to warrant any inroad on this sacred balance. The Engineers’ Central Executive, indeed, practically laid aside the weapon of the strike. “We believe,” said Allan before the Royal Commission in 1867, “that all strikes are a complete waste of money, not only in relation to the workmen, but also to the employers.”[469] The “Contingent Fund,” out of which alone strike pay could be given, was between 1860 and 1872 repeatedly abolished by vote of the members, re-established for a short time, and again abolished. Trade Unionists who remembered the old conflicts viewed with surprise and alarm the spirit which had come over the once active organisation. Even the experienced Dunning, whose moderation had, as we have suggested, dictated the first manifesto in which the new spirit can be traced, was moved to denunciation of Allan’s apathy. “As a Trade Union,” he writes in 1866, “the once powerful Amalgamated Society of Engineers is now as incapable to engage in a strike as the Hearts of Oak, the Foresters, or any other extensive benefit society.... It formerly combined both functions, but now it possesses only one, that of a benefit society, with relief for members when out of work or travelling for employment superadded.... The Amalgamated Engineers, as a trade society, has ceased to exist.” [470]

It would be a mistake to assume that the inertia and supineness of the “Amalgamated” Societies was a necessary result of their accumulated funds or their friendly benefits. The remarkable energy and success of the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron-shipbuilders, established in 1832, and between 1865 and 1875 rapidly increasing in membership and funds, shows that elaborate friendly benefits are not inconsistent with a strong and consistent trade policy. This quite exceptional success is, we believe, due to the fact that the Boilermakers provided an adequate salaried staff to attend to their trade affairs. The “district delegates” who were, between 1873 and 1889, appointed for every important district, are absolutely unconcerned with the administration of friendly benefits, and devote themselves exclusively to the work of Collective Bargaining. Unlike the General Secretaries of the Engineers, Carpenters, Stonemasons, or Ironfounders, who had but one salaried assistant, Robert Knight, the able secretary of the Boilermakers had under his orders an expert professional staff, and was accordingly able, not only to keep both employers and unruly members in check, but also successfully to adapt the Union policy to the changing conditions of the industry. In short, it was not the presence of friendly benefits, but the absence of any such class of professional organisers as exists in the organisations of the Coal-miners, Cotton Operatives, and Boilermakers, that created the deadlock in the administration of the great trade friendly societies. [471]

The direct result of this abnegation of trade leadership was a complete arrest of the tendency to amalgamation, and, in some cases, even a breaking away of sections already within the organisation. The various independent societies, such as the Boilermakers, Steam-Engine Makers, and the Co-operative Smiths, gave up all idea of joining their larger rival. In 1872 the Patternmakers, who had long been discontented at the neglect of their special trade interests, formed an organisation of their own, which has since competed with the Amalgamated for the allegiance of this exceptionally skilled class of engineers. Nor was Allan at all eager to make his organisation co-extensive with the whole engineering industry. The dominant idea of the early years of the amalgamation—the protection of those who had, by regular apprenticeship, acquired “a right to the trade”—excluded many men actually working at one branch or another, whilst the friendly society bias against unprofitable recruits co-operated to restrict the membership to such sections of the engineering industry, and such members of each section, as could earn a minimum time wage fixed for each locality by the District Committee.