He was right as to the factory districts, but not quite right as to Lancashire. In Prescot, a small Lancashire town on the fringe of the factory district, the watchmakers in 1871 were being paid in watches. The masters alleged that they only gave watches to the workers when the latter had orders for them, but the evidence showed that these orders only came to hand when the men were asking for fresh work. The pawnbrokers explained what happened. 'Watches', said a pawnbroker's clerk, 'pass from hand to hand as a circulating medium until they get very low in the market and are pawned.'[62] The pawnshop in question had 700 watches on pledge, most of them belonging to workmen in the town.
In railway contracting truck was prevalent in the forties. In roving employment of this type it is difficult to see how some form of contractor's shop could have been avoided. The navvy needed canteens or Y.M.C.A. huts, but such things had not been thought of then. However, when the big period of railway construction came to an end, the question lost its importance.
South Staffordshire and the Black Country were the ancient strongholds of truck. The campaigns against truck originated here. The nailers, the cash-paying masters, and the respectable ratepayers joined together to promote the Truck Act of 1820. Lord Hatherton, a Staffordshire nobleman, after three years hammering at the House of Commons, obtained the Truck Act of 1831. But in 1843, the year of the Midland Mining Commission, truck was still rife in the coalfields. The well-known Tommy-shop scene in Disraeli's novel Sybil, which was published in 1845, is taken direct from the Commissioners' Report. Diggs, the butty of the novel, is Banks, the coal proprietor of the Report. In the novel the people say of Master Joseph Diggs, the son: 'He do swear at the women, when they rush in for the first turn, most fearful; they do say he's a shocking little dog.' In the Report, page 93, the miner's wife says: 'He swears at the women when the women are trying to crush in. He is a shocking little dog.' One touch is Disraeli's own. He makes the miners keen to purchase 'the young Queen's picture'. 'If the Queen would do something for us poor men, it would be a blessed job.' In the Report there is nothing about this, but there is a section dealing with Chartism.
However, the truck-shop was gradually disappearing. Every year it became easier to expose evasions, and in good times the workers used their prosperity to slip away from the Company store. In 1850 a final campaign was initiated by five local Anti-Truck Associations, backed by the National Miners' Association under Alexander MacDonald. Truck-masters were prosecuted and truck was steadily dislodged from the coalfields and adjacent ironworks. Only in the nail trade did it survive, for the reason that the complete subjection of the nailers made it possible to practise the essentials of truck without a formal violation of the law.
In the remaining colliery districts in 1871 truck was prevalent only in West Scotland and South Wales.
In West Scotland it was yielding ground before the pressure of the unions. The companies only maintained it by active coercion. If a miner held out for money, they had to yield; and if they were malicious, they marked him as a sloper and dismissed him the first when a depression came. 'Black lists', said the Truck Commissioners, 'are often kept of slopers; threats of dismissal were repeatedly proved; and cases of actual dismissal for not dealing at the store are not rare.'[63] However, the masters themselves were getting tired of it, since it led so frequently to strikes.
Truck in South Staffordshire was bound up with the butty system; in railway construction with the system of contracting and sub-contracting, and similarly in South Wales, as also in the west of Scotland, it was bound up with and dependent on the system of long pays. In order to carry on from one pay day to the next, the men got advances on the company's store. In this way many lived permanently ahead of their wages. The thriftless and drunkards were always 'advance men, but the provident miners hated it and only dealt there on compulsion'.
The Commissioners drew a vivid picture of Turn Book morning in South Wales at the close of the pay month.
At 1 or 2 a.m. the women and children begin to arrive with their Advance Books. Perhaps one hundred would be there, wet or fine, sleeping on the doorsteps or singing ballads until morning.
At 5.30 a.m. the doors opened, and the waiters made a rush for the counter. Advance Books were produced, and goods handed over up to the amount of wages which would shortly fall due. Women took their pick of the articles, groceries, tobacco, occasionally a few shillings.