The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

COMBINATIONS AMONG PRINZ:CRS.

(From the Times.)

A recent trial in the Court of Exchequer has
dragged once more into the light of day those prin-
ciples and proceedings of Trades' Unions which
were so effectually exposed in the case of the
Amalgamated Engineers some six years ago. It is
not often that the actual operation of these societies
can be clearly brought before the public, and the
lesson, at the present moment, is far too instructive
to be lost. Readers in general will require to be
informed that the leagues in question are by no
means confined to those- purposes of mutual sup-
port which association naturally promotes. They
are not Merely unions, but combinations—or; anised
bodies, charging themselves with the abolutc
regulation of their particular trades,. in defiance
alike of economical laws and individual liberty. in
the case of the engincers the society was leagued
and bound to keep the trade as select as possible,
by limiting the number of appraitices, and to
enhance the remuneration of the workmen by im-
posing terms upon employers and employed
together. In the case of the Printers' Union the
objects are similar, and they appear, indeed, to be
so devised that, if they could be once accomplished,
masters and men throughout the kingdom would
simply be the slaves of the Union Committee.
Fortunately the very violence of the principles
defeats their end, and the society can by no means
extend its control over the whole of this important
trade. Here follows a sketch of its operations, as
illustrated by the case of " Harrison v. Pearce
Supposing a man desirous of getting his bread
as a letterpress printer, he has, of course, the option
of joining the Trade's Union or not. This option,
however, although representing one of the simplest
of personal rights, the Union does its best to render
merely nominal, for it affixes a stigma and penalty
on all who choose to take care of themselves and
manage their own concerns in their own way. A
printer not belonging to the Union is Called a
" rat," and Union men positively refuse to work in
his company. If in any printing-office the hands
engaged were Union men that office would be abso-
lutely closed against any independent operative,
however excellent might be his character or his
skill. If the employers ventured upon taking him
all the rest would leave, so that on his very first
entrance into his trade a young artisan finds- him-
self debarred as far as possible from employment
by men assuming to be his benefactors and protec-
tors. Let us next suppose that, with these terrors
hanging over his head, he joins the Union, and
accepts the chances of membership rather than fight
single-handed against the machinations of a league.
From that hour he surrenders every particle of
personal independence and individual freedom. He
is the slave of an unseen and distant conclave,
whose orders are imperatively conveyed to him, to
be obeyed at his peril. To begin with, certain
large establishments are closed in his face. He is
positively bound not to accept employment in the
offices of the Times or the Queen's Printer, or is
those of the Morning and Evening Star, or Morning
Post, besides which, wherever lie may be engaged,
he must resign his engagement if any non-Union
printer is called in to work by his side. This is
but the commencement of his slavery, for he cannot
even put a price upon his own work or measure his
own labour. The Committee assumes not only to
nominate the places of his engagement, but to fix
his wages for him, and determine the time and
period of his exertions. All this is no longer
matter of his own choice, capacity, or speculation ;
he is a mere unit in a mob—a living and a thinking
creature, but with no freedom in the exercise of his
will or power. These are the conditions of his
daily calling, which, underpenalty of proscription,
and, if the society could insure it, of starvation, he
must needs accept.

The ease came out with remarkable clearness in
the quarrel at Sheffield which occasioned the trial
before us. The plaintiff was a newspaper proprie-
tor in that town—a sort of head-quarters of the
Printers' Union, and the defendant pursued the
same profession in the same place. In the plaintiff's
office were a number of society men, of whom he
wished to be rid. Why he conceived this desire he
stated with great plainness. " The great objection
was that their connexion with the Union enabled
them to rule me and be my master, and they were
so, instead of my ruling them and being their
master. I could not employ what men I liked.
They would have struck if 1 had employed a non-
Union man. They would not allow me to make
arrangements as to the wages I should pay—an in-
ferior man must be paid as much as a good
man—and would not allow me to set a man his
work according to his capacity. They wanted soma
type, and I gave them some, and they refused to
use it, although it was detrimental to them not to
do so. They would not allow me to print for whom
I liked." Under these circumstances he took the
resolution of employing more manageable hands,
and the consequence was that the society issued a
placard so scandalous and injurious as to constitute
—when inserted as an advertisement in the defen-
dant's paper—a libel, which the jury visited with
£5OO damages.
There is one point in this precious illustration of
tyranny which we cannot pass over without special
notice. We need not advert particularly to the fate
of the unfortunate proprietor, who, because he
would not submit to dictation in his own office and
his own business. was thus malignantly assailed.
On this head the jury spoke out pretty plainly in
their verdict ; but what we wish especially to
indicate is the onslaught made by the Trades'
Unions upon everything resembling excellence
in industry, patience, or skill. It was
precisely the same in the case of the
Amalgamated Engineers, whose chief object of
attack was the practice by which a man able arid
willing to do better work than others received
somewhat better wages. This species of distinc-
tion is, in the eyes of Trades' Unions, an unlawful
and abominable thing. "An inferior man must be
paid as much as a good man ;" and no man must

presume to earn more than is convenient to his
idler or more dissolute neighbour. The result

aimed at is a dead level of mediocrity, with no
scope for energy or excellence either in proficiency
or diligence, and with one uniform scale of wages
maintained as high as possible by combination and
terror. It is lucky for these Unions that they can-
not quite have their own way. Their success, if
they could ever be successful, would simply end.in
ruining the trade altogether. When they talk of
" a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," they
forget that somebody must be found to provide the
work and to produce the wage, and that this some-
body is just as much entitled to consideration as
they arc.

And now we should like to point the moral of
this story by one remark more. The people who
are cajoled or coerced into these Trades' Unions
belong for the most part to those very " 'working
classes" whom it is now proposed to invest not merely
with a share, but with a possible monopoly, of
political power. We say, a monopoly, because in
many towns or districts, if Mr. 13right's designs
were carried out, the new electors could of them-
selves, and of their own suffrages alone, out-vote
the entire aggregate of existing electors. In Edin-
burgh, for instance, it is computed that there would
be 9,000 of the new voters added to the 8,000 old.

ones, and in Glasgow Mr. Bright himself antici-
pates a still larger infusion of fresh blood. At
first sight the obvious reflection is, that these men
would not go in a body either one way 'or the
other, but would merge indiscriminately in existing
parties, as at the period of the last Reform Bill.
Look, however, at the examples given by these
Trades' Unions ; observe not only the organisation
of which the working classes arc capable, but the
purposes to which they can be induced to apply it,
and then say if classes so easily ruled and so easily
led are qualified to exercise power so enormous
without even the obligation of exereising:litettg.eeeis2
public. If these classes are capable of sub-
mitting to the dominion of Trades' COrp:
and of allowing the edicts of these conclaves to
supersede all their personal rights and
why should they not be banded together behind
purpose ?which a
choose to
the shroud of the ballot, for any
" committee" of designing agitators may
conceive ? We are told that
_they are industrious,
havee it •
intelligent, and thrifty.
V
dt
ene
coeptehr aa
tt itohnesyo f
areth ens
not
tposocieties
rof we , but
against the machina-
tions of crafty leaders even in matters more imme-
diately within their own cognisance, and most
intimately affecting their daily interests. Can we
assume, then, that they will be more so when the
questions at stake are less familiar, and the deci-
sions less apparently important ?

THE FLITCH OF BACON.—A circular has been
issued stating it is the general wish of the committee and
the inhabitants of Dunmow that the ceremony "should be
postponed till the railway is completed from London
Dunmow .'" but how tar this will be agreeable to the candi-
dates who will be compelled to care/Idly bottle up the
rising connubial squabble till the parliamentary battle has
been fought and won, and the piokaxe has paved a way of
iron to the ancient rill, is somewhat matter of doubt,
Chelmsford Chronicle,
A LEAK STOPPED BY FISH.—As a brig belonging
to the Tyne was on her passage from Shields to London
during a late gale, she sprung a leak off Winterton, and as
she made so much water thc: crew refused to go any further.
The captain put into Grimsby, engaged four extra men, and
proceeded patch against the will of the obstinate crew.
After she was discharged in London and put on the shoe
the leak was found had proceeded from a hole in. whiet was
found two fish, the one about the size of a swot, and the
other of a larger size : the smaller one was quite ta and the
larger one had its body half in. The captain is of opinion
that had these two members of the finny tribe not taken.
shelter in the hole, he would not have been able tcl keep her
atioat.-2Vorthern,Pailv .Farms.