The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-06 00:00:00

Working Men's Club.

The President, Vice-President, and Council of
the Working Men's Club and Institute Union held
a conversazione last night at the Cavendish-rooms,
Mortimer-street. The main object of the associa-
tion is to help working men to establish clubs and
institutes, in which they may meet for the purposes
of conversation and business, and where recreation
and refreshment may be combined with mental im-
provement when the labour of the day is over.
Through its agency 300 clubs have been established
in various parts of the country within a period of
little more than three years, and nearly 60,000
working men have availed themselves of the advan-
tages which they are meant to confer. The list of
its Vice-Presidents and Council comprisesthe names
of the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Argyll,
the Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl Spencer, Earl Gros-
venor, Lord Lyttelton, Viscount Ingestre, Sir John
Pakington, the Dean of Carlisle, the Dean of West-
minster, Mr. Layard, Mr. T. Hughes, and several
other noblemen and gentlemen well known in pub-
lic life. Lord Brougham is the President of the
Asscciation, and be with Lord Lyttelton and Mr.
Layard were the most prominent members of it at
the conversazione. At 7 o'clock there were some 60
or 70 representatives of the metropolitan working
men's clubs and of the trade union societies in atten-
dance, and the time up to 8 o'clock was passed in
the singing of songs and glees, as well as in the per-
formance of pieces on the piano, which were very
creditably rendered ,by members of the clubs and
their female relatives. The trade societies repre-
sented were the joiners, the cordwainers, the shoe-
makers, the bootmakers, the gliders, the ironfoun-
ders, the united excavators, the decorators, the boot
closers, the builders, the amalgamated carpenters
and joiners, the cabinetmakers, the stonemasons,
the organ builders, the zinc plate workers, and the
upholsterers.
Mr. T. HUGHES took the chair at 8 o'clock, and
opened the question which had been set down on
the programme of the evening's proceedings for dis-

CUSSIOD-" Whether it is the interest of members of
trades unions to make general use of workingmen's
clubs and institutes, and what would be the chief
advantages which they might derive from them"—
by observing that the association had not been so
successful as he could wish in securing the co-ope-
ration of the trades societies in the promotion of
these clubs, which were, he contended, calculated to
do great good to the working classes, by taking
them out of the narrow groove in which trades union
societies, by reason of their constitution, moved. A
very critical time, he added, had, in his opinion, ar-
rived, in reference to home questions, based upon
the relations between labour and capital, on which
such societies rested, and it was desirable that they
should, as far as possible, partake of the broader life
of the country in general, and learn by the freer so-
cial contact of mind with mind that every question
had two sides.

Mr. SYMONS, secretary to the Southwark Work-
ing Men's Clu's4, was thenext speaker. He contended
that the atmosphere of the publichouse, in which the
members of the trade societies for the most part held
their meetings, was at once prejudicial to sobriety
and the proper transaction of business. Extremely
erroneous notions, he said, prevailed among the work-
ing classes in many quarters with respect to capital
and labour, the movement which was sometimes set
on foot for an increase of pay practically amounting
to a demand to place all labourers ou one common
level, no matter how great the difference between
them might be in point of skill and ability. If the
men who entertained those views were to become
members of the working men's clubs, they would, he
maintained, acquire increased knowledge, and would,
besides, make friends whose advice would be likely
to prevent them from going wrong, while in
cases where disputes arose a facility of having
recourse to arbitration would be afforded them
which as simple members of a trade union so-
ciety they might not possess. At the clubs they
would find the chief newspapers and periodicals,
and would be enabled by means of friendly con-
versation at once to recreate and improve their
minds.

Mr. COPE, a representative of the boot-closers'
society, while concurring with the last speaker in
thinking it desirable that the meetings of the trades'
unions should, as far as possible, be held outside the
publichouse, remarked that working men were often
obliged to have recourse to it, because they could
not get the necessary accommodation elsewhere.
lie denied that the habits of inebriety were common
at such meetings ; but there would, he thought, be
no doubt that it would be of great advantage to the
working man if something could be done to place
him in more favourable circumstances for the proper
transaction of his business, as well as for mental
cultivation.

Lord BROUGIIAM observed that there were seve-
ral objections urged against trades' unions, some of
which were groundless and some of which were not
altogether without foundation, adding that the best
mode of dispelling such erroneous notions as might
be entertained by their members on questions rela-
tive to labour and capital was the free intercourse
of working men in clubs such as it was the aim of
the association to provide.

After Lord Brougham, who met with a very
cordial reception, had resumed his seat,
Mr. G mu., representative of the ironfounders'
society, made a speech of some length, in which,
having announced that he was the father of nine
children and the grandfather of 14, he dwelt on the
usefulness of trades' unions, one of whose main
objects, he said, was to fix a minimum rate of wages,
leaving the working man to climb as high up the
ladder of advancement as his skill and industry
might enable him to do. He further observed that
although the meetings of the society to which he
belonged were held in a publichouse, not a single
pint of beer was allowed to enter the room in which
their business was transacted during business hours.
Believing that such societies, when properly
managed, were the mainstay of the working man's
existence, he should be sorry to see any course
taken which might tend to undermine their useful-
ness.

Mr. LAYARD spoke briefly in support of the gene-
ral establishment oi working men's clubs, remarking
that the question at issue was not whether those pre-
sent were opposed to or in favour of trades' unions,
but whether it was not expedient that the working
man should have a place to go to where he might
come into agreeable contact with his fellows, and
have the means furnished him at once of harmless
recreation and of enlarging the stock of his ideas.
As matters now stood the working man in the
country when he came up to London in search of
employment scarcely knew where to go, but if, as
was contemplated by the association, a central hall
were established in the metropolis, to which was at-
tached a club, he might at once have recourse to it
and obtain there the information and friendly advice
of which he might be in need. There were several
other advantages which, in his opinion, such clubs
were calculated to confer ; nor was there any reason
why it should be supposed that they were meant to
supersede trades' unions, which were as necessary
for the protection of the working man at the pre-
sent day as the guilds of the Middle Ages were for
the defence of commerce.

The discussion was continued by Mr. DAVIS, who
contended that it would be impossible to fuse society
men and non-society in any particular club into a
harmonious body, a statement which was denied
by Mr. Guill, who said nothing would afford him
greater pleasure than to meet non-society men, in-
asmuch as he thought he could do them a great deal
of good by inoculating them with sounder views.
The meeting was also addressed by Mr. SOLLY,