The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-01 00:00:00

COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES.

There is no doubt that the main motive for support-
ing tradea unions, combination.', and strikes, has bean the
desire of the working clams to keep up their condition, and
to obtain for their services some remuneration beyond what
is sufficient to preserve them in hare existence, u the ma-
chines by which their employers manufacture their com-
modities. These social anomalies may thus he viewed an the
ss cuptoms of an uneasy feeling on the part of workmen,
that to prevent them from being the mere slaves of the
capitalist, hound to work on whatever wages will keep
them aiive and able for their functions, they must surround
themselves with restraints and reaervattorv, so that theyshall
not alwass ba at the capit dists' biduing to come humbly to
him when and where he wants them, and at his
own terms. They aro a machinery for working out
the alornative, that es be workmen, on the one
hand, sometimes know what it is to desire employment
without obtaining it, so the capitalist on his part may know
what it is to dun to employ men without being able to
obtain them, or at least without securing their services on
his own terms. The object is just and laudable; the
question is whether the means by which it is sought to be
attained at e either fair or effectual. The spirit ot ccmpeti-
tion, and a entree to make their services valuable—the
means by which the professional classes keep up their incomes
and their position—are alternatives on which the timid and
indolent are loth to rely. A limitet.on of the numbers who
are permitted to occupy themselves in any particular labour

ippears to them a far simpler and surer method of
their end. for they know enough of political economy to
assured that if a thousand hands could be employed, an cl
e,ii/h.t4h:fistdbrie.d.
number
ballowed
rtoet
,oittveer
moret hir
for hie. geg'retie
ach i
ce, tb
he would if the supply of borkmen were unlimited
The inju of such an arrangement, how yet, may
surely be fairly considered a defect. If • offers to perform
piece of work tor me for half • crown, and B prevents him,
violently taking the work into his own hands, and making
me pay five shillings for it, there can be no cavil or question
that he commits •he grossest injustice on the consumer whom
he cenpi is to buy from himself at a high price, and on the
ellow-workman whom he prohibits trim working at the
wages that would content him, and drives cut of the market.
Ali limitation of number, and fining of hours, are but the
accomplishment of this injustice. The committee fix sir
h are a day as the period cf work; there are men willing to
work seven or eight hours fur the market valor of their
labour, but they are not permitted to sell it. Yet the pla-
curds and advertisements in which these tyrannical interfe-
reoces are embodied generally enlar'e on "the sacredness
of the rights of labour," " the workman's inalienable privi-
lege," and " the tyranny of interfering wish the poor men's
espital—his r ght to take his labour to the best market."
Alas, poor se fish human nature is as vividly exhibited
here as in the magniloquently lauded motives that have led
to higher monopolies and wider restrictions. The liberty
demanded corresponds too closely with the American's desire
of freedom to wallop his own nigger. The sacrednese of the
rights lahnur is the sacred right of the unionist to mono-
polise it to himself, and let the free-trader starve.
It is one of the most incomprehensible of all social pheno-
mena that the large masses of the humbler orders on whom
these monopolies press with great severity should have so
long submitted to them. The 'rimes so frequently perpe-
trated—the assaults, the throwing of corrosive fluids in the
face to destroy the eye-sight, the assassinations—then the
strong tyranny necessary to support so gross an injustice ! la
a great strike there may he a thousand men whose wives and
children are starving at home, and who could comfortably
support them on the weer they are offered and would take,
hut the secret committee says " no," and they must descend
into beggary and idleness rather than fulfil their duties as good.
' citizens. In an article in the Edinburgh R, view for April, 1838,
I it is shown that when 650 spinners struck week in Preston
for thirteen weeks in 1836, they drove out of employment 1,3 B)
piecers, 6,100 card-room hands and weaver, and 420 over
lookers, packers, &c. Thus were 8,500 prone, besides an
undefinable number of clerks, porters, waggoners, &c,
doomed to all the horrors of idlene-s for more than a quarter
of a year by the despotic order of a small secret committee.
It is not unelessing to re fleet that it is spec the authors of
these cruel movements that the calamity generally fells
hardest. The time when s strike is usually planned is of
course the moment when it will most severely paralyse the
capitalist. If he have heavy bills to meet, or a difficult cone
tract to perform• then comes, at the order of the hidden com-
mittee, tt e suicidal cessation of work. If the capitalist can
weather the storm, he winds up his affairs at the time of
quiet and retires from the dander, to invest kis money in
some other place. The Messrs. Alexander, of Dunfermline,
who were the chief employers in their district, have thus
lately been driven out of it, and the hands they employed
must go elsewhere, or remain idle. Too &tea, however, the
workmen ara successeil ; and the capitalist, fairly defeated,
goes into the Gazette, bringing dowu in his ruin all to whom
he gave employment. Thus a man offered his evidence
before the combination committee of 1838, whose occupation
at the time was breaking stones at Si. a week. Ho had been
employed in the calico printing establehmetit of Meer'.
Barr and Co., of Kelyindock, at from 30s. to 365. a week.
He planned a well-timed strike—it was perfectly successfuL
Meier. Barr gnye way and became hankrupt, and the tri-
umphant workmen reaped their own ruin.
As there is no law to prevent the workmen combining to
raise warms or limit the numb, r employed, so there is on tee
other hand none to prevent the employ sr looking elsewhere, or
to prevent other men ready to accept his terms from doing so.
When the workman establishes a nature] monopoly in bin
own skill and ability it is not easily infringed, end at all
events whatever nvalship he may he subjected to
must rise up gradually around him, perhaps teacbing
him as it makes progress how still to keep hie
lead. But the artificial mopopely attempted to be preserved
try force too often disappears instantar.eously at the time
when it is meet secure. The merneat the employers can
bring into operation a set of ni w hands t° e numbers of the
trade are doubled, and the uuionists subjeetee to the men
ruinous competition. Among a class from whose intelligence
better things might have been expected —the compositors of
Edinburgh—there was lately a strike against the introduce
tion of apprentices. Many of the masters at some inomve-
nienee allowed the men to take their ciurse, encouraged
hands from other places, induced young men rapidly to learn
their art, and thus weathered the storm. In the meantime
came :he depression of trade. The prise pal home in the
business t ecame bankrupt, and the new hands with the few
men who hau kept out of the strike were quite sufficient to
supply all the demand for letterpress printing. When
the unionists had exhausted their fuels, they awoke
to the true misery to which they hail brought al-
selves, and many of them, a year ago making condonable
incomes, and supporting their eimilies in decent comfort,
might be lately sten applying fur relief to the mmmittee tor
detributiog a fund collected for the one mpleyed. So they
erect their paltry embankment, and believe that they are
stopping the natural stream of red..; hut the II sod accumu-
lating behind, bursts through at last and overwhelms them.
In the report of 1844, " On the Mining pdpmation in
parts of Scotland and Staffordshire," it is observed that all
the attempts of the colliers to keep a monopoly and arti-
ficially lima the amount of work only tend to increase their
numbers. It is part of their monopoly system that their
own children are admissible to participate in their labour to
the exclusion of strangers, and thus the parent is tempted
to set his son to work fur the purpose of counteracting the
repletion which limits the amount of coal he is himself
entitled to excavate—the restriction of this " dug," as it is
termed. For tbi se reasons, the report proceeds to say:
" Their numbers are being continually increased by impro-
vident and early marriages' and by the habit of bringing
up every son to be a collier, by which they seek to evade the
effect upon their wages of this very regulation. Thee are
(either increased by the combination, and stiekes. Whoa
the masters find that their men are attempting to impose
unreasonable terms upon them, they are compelled to intro-
duce new men into their pits. Tame are generally Irish
labourer, who, ain a few weeks, learn to peat coals, and in
time become teleree ly expert collie:,. Tee n embers itaro-
ducted in-c the various collieries in Lanarkshire within the
last few years are stated to amount to nearly 4,000, or one.
fourth a the whole number employed. There is sometimes
a struggle before they are allowed by the other men to pursue
their work quietly ; hut in the end low gains the day, and
tine new hands become permanently engrafted on the trade.
The first consequence of this is, that from the superabund-
ance of men seeking employment, a competitien arises, which
tends to bring down the rate of wages. The difficulty bt,
that under their artificial system of restriction, one-filth
I more mess are at work as colliers than would be required un- '
der a system of free labour. If every fifth man could be die-
penseil with, four might keep to themselves the wages which
must now he distributed among five; but the fifth man, '
having be n brought in by the acts of the other four, it is no
easy matter to get rid of him, even were it not unjust to en-
deavour to do so precipitately." (37-38.)
But the main mectical mischief of them unhappy mgani-
sations has yet to be stated. They area system for imposing
penalties on industry and enterprise. They keep the eager
of the strong, the active, the enternrising, and the intelli-
gent, down to the level of what can he made by the weak,
the indolent, the thoughtless, and the stupid. They predate
in the labour market to some extent the s ffeet that would
be produeed in law and literature, if the head of the bar
were prehibited from making more than his briefiem neigh-
boar, or Bislwer or Dickens were kept to the level cf the
penura liner. No one can mess di-covering illustrations at
this sal fact, if he open any one of the multitudinous
volumes on wages and labour that have from time to time
been laid before parliament. The report already cited states
that the colliers "have for many years past placed
themselves under regulations as to the umount of
their labour which, had they been attempted to
be enforced by tee authority of any government whatsoever
in any country calling itself civili-ed, wound have roused the
indignation of every thinking man, as egainst an act of the
most intolerable despotism." " Thew regulations are based
on the irrate.nal principle of allowing no one m en to do more
weik than another; of foreleg into an unnatural equality of
earnings the young and the old, the strong sail the weak,
the industrious and the idle ; a certain dayta week, called
the darg,' is fined, which the collie,. theme lees allow no
one to exceed. The young MIA desireut to employ his
strength and industry to accumulate a little money. before
marrying; the young man newly. married one anxious to
lay up a little store against the pinching time when be is
Bringing up his cfiildren; the young sail iedustrems and
active father of a growing family, wishing ti clutec and
educate them properly—each of these is elleeed to tarn nu
more, though he could get through hie yeanety in tie
hours, than the old man who takes ten hours to do tee sine
work. The Barg' is regulated by the carat i.y of the a Act.
men, and the yonneer are compelled to cent arm to it."
—(P. 32.)
The results are shown in the simplest arithmetic, Take
one instance from among many in the rate reject
" At the Gartsherric works, the men in sense of the pits
broke through the rule, and worked within: restriction for
some menthe in 1940 and lett. The result we. a. (01115,5:
' Splint' coal. wages 2s. Gd. per ton, month ended Nov; miler
1841, 37 unrestricted men earned die/. ; 48 restricted men
earned 1751.. The 43 in proportion to the -17 ought to have
earned 216/; difference, ell. The advantege, therefore, to
the unrestricted, amounted to nearly 17r. Id. per anectk per
man."--(P. 34.)
This was the average advantage; the pecuniary benefit to
those who were speciall active and industrious must have
been much greater. A fortnight extract was taken from the
pay-sheet of the Govan Free Labour fieciet. The lowest
sum in the scale it exhibited was "J. Jack, aril RI,
11. Os. 2d. ;" and so it went gradually upw.rds te " Peter
Lawson, aged 31, 21. 13s. 7d." One of the mtnagers of the
Shottts Iron Works stated to the commissioners:
" In 1837 we insisted on the men bra eking through the
rule by which they restricted their labour. They stood out
against it for four months, when they gave in. Sines
that, every man has done as much work as he
pleased. Many of our men colliers and others
have saved money. We have had a branch of the
savings bank here for three year. The amount in
it is nearly 6001. I believe that °O et le sat of our
colliers have saved coned• cable sums of money. All this is
since 1837, for daring the strike in that year they were
stripped bare. Indic year we had 160 in our employ. We
added 30 in 1842 and 36 more in 1843, so that the savings of
any amount have been made by the original 150. char emir-
ate fortnightly. Only one of onr colliers draws ktepleleme
fore the end of the forte ight. Within the last tee- monde "..tiseeset
sit of our colliers went away to Australia, and tbiessiee-Mereeee I. '
nada, each with from 301. to 1001.; also, about -26 leintligretWeo
have been built in the village, principally out of Ne.
of others of our collion."—(r. 3.5.) .1 *e
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