THE PROTESTANT INDUSTRIAL ROOMS
One of the best principles in all social amelioration in the condition of workers is to help the poor to help themselves. As an instance of this the history of the movement of the Protestant Industrial Rooms of Montreal, which is now more than half a century old, is rightly in place here. Sixty years ago Miss Hervey, who founded the Hervey Institute, did a wise and kind act when she opened a “Repository” for giving out to deserving females the surplus work of families, so creating the “Protestant Industrial Rooms” of Montreal, which has grown up observing the same fundamental principles. The first start was made in 1862 in the rooms of the Hervey Institute, then on Lagauchetière Street, and shortly a transfer was made to St. Antoine Street, then one of the principal streets. In 1864 the Home of Industry and Refuge was built on Dorchester Street and the governors invited the ladies to take up quarters there. Until 1900 the kind offer was accepted. The work of providing sewing work to be done at home by poor but respectable women is now carried on at 57 Metcalfe Street.
THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
French-Canadians began to learn the use of trade unions before 1836, when they had commenced to migrate to New England countries. In this year the first union was founded in Quebec, known as the Association Typographique de Quebec. About the same time there was founded at Montreal, the Shoemakers’ Union which was followed, in 1844, by the Stone Cutters’ Association. Little by little the work of organization developed and became so general that, at the time the movement of the Knights of Labour arose, numerous lodges in the cities of Montreal and Quebec were formed. But, in 1886, the order of the Knights of Labour were taken to task by the majority of the clergy with the result that all the lodges were broken up within a short time.
On the ruins of the Knights of Labour there arose the International Union of Cigar Makers, which concentrated for a certain time all the strength of the international labour movement and was the first one to inaugurate the celebration of Labour Day in Montreal.
Then it was the turn of the Typographical Union, No. 145, made up exclusively of French-speaking members, and the Montreal Typographical Union, No. 176, followed by the Carpenters’ Union, which has developed to such an extent that, today in Montreal, it has seven locals and about three thousand members. Local No. 134 of this union is made up exclusively of French-speaking workmen and comprises about two thousand three hundred members. An impetus had been given, and the international labour movement is still powerful. Today there are 194 international unions in the Province of Quebec with a membership of over forty thousand members, of which 109 locals, comprising over thirty thousand members, are in Montreal. The proportion of French-speaking members belonging to these unions is:
Building trades, 75 per cent; boot and shoe industry, 90 per cent; cigar and printing trades, 90 per cent; metallurgy, machinists, etc., 25 per cent; railway employees, 50 per cent; musicians and others, 80 per cent.
As an example of what can be accomplished by political action combined with trade unionism, it may be pointed out to the credit of the workingmen of the City of Montreal, that it is the only city throughout the whole Dominion which found a way of electing one of its own labour members to the House of Parliament, Mr. Alphonse Verville, who was returned in 1906 by a strong majority, being reelected twice since by a still larger majority.
In the City of Montreal, another worker, Joseph Ainey, was elected as city commissioner by a majority of 8,000 votes over and above that of the second commissioner elected in the City of Montreal.