[489]“Should Wages be Regulated by Market Prices?” by Lloyd Jones, Beehive, July 18, 1874; see also his article in the issue for March 14, 1874.
[490]Lloyd Jones, one of the ablest and most loyal friends of Trade Unionism, was born at Bandon, in Ireland, in 1811, the son of a small working master in the trade of fustian-cutting. Himself originally a working fustian-cutter, Lloyd Jones became, like his father, a small master, but eventually abandoned that occupation for journalism. He became an enthusiastic advocate of Co-operation, and in 1850 he joined Thomas Hughes and E. Vansittart Neale in a memorable lecturing tour through Lancashire. A few years later we find him in London, in close touch with the Trade Union leaders, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. From the establishment of the Beehive in 1861 he was for eighteen years a frequent contributor, his articles being uniformly distinguished by literary ability, exact knowledge of industrial facts, and shrewd foresight. From 1870 until his death in 1886 he was frequently selected by the various Unions to present their case in Arbitration proceedings. At the General Election of 1885 he stood as candidate for the Chester-le-Street Division of Durham, where he was opposed by both the official Liberals and the Conservatives, and was unsuccessful. In conjunction with J. M. Ludlow, he wrote The Progress of the Working Classes, 1867, and afterwards published The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen, to which a memoir by his son, Mr. W. C. Jones, has since been prefixed.
[491]Beehive, May 16, 1874.
[492]This information we owe to personal friends and colleagues of Macdonald, Thomas Burt, M.P., and Ralph Young, who, as we have seen, differed from him on this point, and also on the allied question of regulation of output according to demand, to be preached by the coal-miners as well as by the colliery companies, which Macdonald, throughout his whole career, persistently advocated. See, for instance, his speech at the local conference on the Depression of Trade, Bristol Mercury, February 13, 1878.
[493]A useful summary of these events is given in Dr. Kleinwächter’s pamphlet, Zur Geschichte der englischen Arbeiterbewegung in den Jahren 1871 und 1874(Jena, 1878; 150 pp.).
[494]Beehive, June 5, 1875.
[495]The operatives’ case is well put in the Weavers’ Manifesto of June 1878:
“Fellow-workers—We are and have been engaged during the past nine weeks in the most memorable struggle between Capital and Labour in the history of the world. One hundred thousand factory workers are waging war with their employers as to the best possible way to remove the glut from an overstocked cloth market, and at the same time reduce the difficulties arising from an insufficient supply of raw cotton. To remedy this state of things the employers propose a reduction of wages to the extent of ten per cent below the rate of wages agreed upon twenty-five years ago. On the other hand, we have contended that a reduction in the rate of wages cannot either remove the glut in the cloth market or assist to tide us over the difficulty arising from the limited supply of raw material. However, this has been the employers’ theory, and at various periods throughout the struggle we have made the following propositions as a basis of settlement of this most calamitous struggle:
“1. A reduction of ten per cent, with four days’ working, or five per cent with five days’ working, until the glut in the cloth market and the difficulties arising from the dearth of cotton had been removed.
“2. To submit the whole question of short time or reduction, or both, to the arbitrement of any one or more impartial gentlemen.