English Economic History: Select Documents

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IV. And for the more effectual suppression of all combinations amongst journeymen, workmen, and other persons employed in any manufacture, trade or business, be it further enacted, that all and every persons and person whomsoever, (whether employed in any such manufacture, trade, or business, or not), who shall attend any meeting had or held for the purpose of making or entering into any contract, covenant, or agreement, by this act declared to be illegal, or of entering into, supporting, maintaining, continuing, or carrying on any combination for any purpose by this act declared to be illegal, or who shall summons, give notice to, call upon, persuade, entice, solicit, or by intimidation, or any other means, endeavour to induce any journeyman, workman, or other person employed in any manufacture, trade, or business, to attend any such meeting, or who shall collect, demand, ask, or receive any sum of money from any such journeyman, workman, or other person, for any of the purposes aforesaid, or who shall persuade, entice, solicit, or by intimidation, or any other means, endeavour to induce any such journeyman, workman, or other person to enter into or be concerned in any such combination, or who shall pay any sum of money, or make or enter into any subscription or contribution, for or towards the support or encouragement of any such illegal meeting or combination, and who shall be lawfully convicted of any of the said offences, within three calendar months next after the offence shall have been committed, shall, by order of such justices, be committed to and confined in the common gaol within his or their jurisdiction, for any time not exceeding three calendar months, or otherwise be committed to some house of correction within the same jurisdiction, there to remain and be kept to hard labour for any time not exceeding two calendar months.

VI. And be it further enacted, that all sums of money which at any time heretofore have been paid or given as a subscription or contribution for or towards any of the purposes prohibited by this act, and shall, for the space of three calendar months next after the passing of this act, remain undivided in the hands of any treasurer, collector, receiver, trustee, agent, or other person, or placed out at interest, and all sums of money which shall at any time after the passing of this act, be paid or given as a subscription or contribution for or towards any of the purposes prohibited by this act, shall be forfeited, one moiety thereof to his Majesty, and the other moiety to such person as will sue for the same in any of his Majesty's courts of record at Westminster; and any treasurer, collector, receiver, trustee, agent, or other person in whose hands or in whose name any such sum of money shall be, or shall be placed out, or unto whom the same shall have been paid or given, shall and may be sued for the same as forfeited as aforesaid.

[All contracts between masters or other persons for reducing the wages of workmen or for altering the hours of work or for increasing the quantity of work, are to be void. Masters convicted of such agreements, shall be fined 20l.: half to go to the Crown, half to the informer and the poor of the parish.]

XVIII. And whereas it will be a great convenience and advantage to masters and workmen engaged in manufactures, that a cheap and summary mode be established for settling all disputes that may arise between them respecting wages and work; be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that, from and after the first day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred, in all cases that shall or may arise within that part of Great Britain called England, where the masters and workmen cannot agree respecting the price or prices to be paid for work actually done in any manufacture, or any injury or damage done or alleged to have been done by the workmen to the work, or respecting any delay or supposed delay on the part of the workmen in finishing the work, or the not finishing such work in a good and workmanlike manner, or according to any contract; and in all cases of dispute or difference, touching any contract or agreement for work or wages between masters and workmen in any trade or manufacture, which cannot be otherwise mutually adjusted and settled by and between them, it shall and may be, and it is hereby declared to be lawful for such masters and workmen between whom such dispute or difference shall arise as aforesaid, or either of them, to demand and have an arbitration or reference of such matter or matters in dispute; and each of them is hereby authorized and empowered forthwith to nominate and appoint an arbitrator for and on his respective part and behalf, to arbitrate and determine such matter or matters in dispute as aforesaid by writing, subscribed by him in the presence of and attested by one witness, in the form expressed in the second schedule to this Act; and to deliver the same personally to the other party, or to leave the same for him at his usual place of abode, and to require the other party to name an arbitrator in like manner within two days after such reference to arbitrators shall have been so demanded; and such arbitrators so appointed as aforesaid, after they shall have accepted and taken upon them the business of the said arbitration, are hereby authorised and required to summon before them, and examine upon oath the parties and their witnesses, (which oath the said arbitrators are hereby authorised and required to administer according to the form set forth in the second schedule to this act), and forthwith to proceed to hear and determine the complaints of the parties, and the matter or matters in dispute between them; and the award to be made by such arbitrators within the time being after limited, shall in all cases be final and conclusive between the parties; but in case such arbitrators so appointed shall not agree to decide such matter or matters in dispute, so to be referred to them as aforesaid, and shall not make and sign their award within the space of three days after the signing of the submission to their award by both parties, that then it shall be lawful for the parties or either of them to require such arbitrators forthwith and without delay to go before and attend upon one of his Majesty's justices of the peace acting in and for the county, riding, city, liberty, division, or place where such dispute shall happen and be referred, and state to such justice the points in difference between them the said arbitrators, which points in difference the said justice shall and is hereby authorised and required to hear and determine and for that purpose to examine the parties and their witnesses upon oath, if he shall think fit.[368]

[368] Compare Pt. III. Section III, Nos. 7 and 8 Arbitration Acts, pp. 568 & 570.

7. The Scottish Weavers' Strike [Report from Committee on Artizans and Machinery, 1824 (V), pp. 60-63], 1812.

Evidence of Mr. Alex. Richmond. 23 February, 1824.

Were you one of the delegates appointed by the workmen in Glasgow?

Yes; on the failure of the last application to Parliament the association turned its attention to some Acts of Parliament that were discovered, empowering the justices of the peace to affix rates of wages, with a view to raising the wages; the fact was, fluctuation was a greater evil perhaps, than the lowness of the rate; previous to that period, fluctuations, to the extent of thirty per cent., took place in the course of a month, in the price of labour; an attempt was made to get an extra-judicial arrangement with the masters; the masters were divided in opinion upon the point, some of them were for a regulation, others opposed it; after several ineffectual attempts to come to an arrangement with that part of the masters who opposed it, part of the masters being in the interest of the operatives, at last a process was entered before the quarter sessions.

Will you state how the process proceeded?