The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-19 00:00:00

MB. GLADSTONE AND 21IE TRADES
UNIONS.

The opnferencts h'etweeli the Bight laon.W. E. Glad Stone,
and` A:cteOlt at i from the London trade societies'
delegates took place yesterday dternoon. The deputation
consisted 10.(.4e0rg6 totter (joiner), chairman of the
delegate meeting, Mr. J. T. bunnlni (bookbinder), Mr.
H. BrOadhiiistjrnason), M. W. Laivrence (tailor), Mr.
M`Namaza (plasterer), Mr. Joseph Leicester (glass-
Maker), Mr. Squire (painter), Mr. Lewis (brushmaker),
Mr. Cohen (cigar-maker), and Mr. R. Hartwell, secretary
of the Working Moil's Association aitd the delegate
meeting ; and reprdsento very many trade societies.

It was mutually arranged that the points to be discussed
should be reduced to four, with the collateral questions
arising out of them, viz.:-1. The limitation to apprentices;
2. The minimum rate of wages ; 3. Piece-work and over-
time ; 4. The restraint of trade by trades unions.
At.half-past two o'cioCk the members of the deputation
were received by Mr. Gladstone, when Mr. GEORGE
POTTIER opened the proceedings in a speech of some
length. He dealt with the four questions seriatim, and
concluded by maintaining that trades unions were not in
restraint of trade, but only in restraint of the overweening
tendencies which spring from the conscious possession of
large resources in capital an I machinery.
Mr. GLADsToNE: Perhaps it would be well if I were
now to state my general view of the matter, and to refer to
certain rules that I have heard of as existing in certain
trades and certain neighbourhoods. That will give you all
an opportunity of taking exception to anything I may say.
Before I begin I should like to Put aside two points. First,
I shall not say a word about any violence exercised by
working men towards their fellow workmen, because I do
not suppose, for a moment, that that would be a subject
of contention betiveen us. That is evidently a thing most
hostile to your main objects, and producing the most
violent reaction in the breast of society. Nor will say
anything about the remedy of which you have been de-
prived by a judgment in a court of law against fraudulent
officers. lam not able to give anything like a positive
assurance of what I shall do in Parliament on the subject.
I can only state my uninstructed impression that the
remedies against fraud ought to be maintained in full
efficiency as long as the unions or societies are acting
within the limits of the law, even though one may
some of their objects and modes of action impolitic. I
am bound also to say, as far regards the mere fact
of the unions being in restraint of trade, if the
members are to suffer as regards the security of their
property on that account, I must institute an inquiry to
see what other combinations of classes or trades have been
and are distinctly in restraint of trade—combinations
which would deem themselves very ill-used if they were to
be deprived of the legal remedies appertaining to thein-
Now, when in this conversation I speak of a " right," I
wish to remind you of the two senses in which we use that
word. A man has a right to do a thing which is proper to
be done ; and he has also a right to do many things which
are not proper to be done. A landlord has a right to turn
out all his tenants at the expiration of a given notice, but
he would be extremely wrong to exercise such a right.
Now, with regard to the principle of associations among
working men with a view to the diminution of the amount
of labour and getting the best price for it that it will
bring in the market, I can take no exception to associa-
tions on that principle. I rather think it is a natural
mode of what one may call self-defence in that friendly
strife which must always go on between the capitalist and
the labourer. I can conceive also many good reasons
for that association of working men, independently of
their title to obtain the best terms they can for their
labour. There is a beneficial tendency it the simple
fact of association among working men. It is obviously
beneficial to society that the members of trades should
make provision for themselves and their infirm members
by benefit societies. There is an important question, on
which I do not now enter, as to the economical effect of
combining benefit societies with trade rules. I have under-
stood from persons conversant with assurance, that a
benefit society, to be a good one, ought to extend over a
wide area, and not to depend upon the vicissitudes of a
single trade. That, however, is not the immediate question
before us. I will endeavour to state to you where my
objections or exceptions begin. lam not prepared to say
that a strike is in itself a thing unjust or improper. I
apprehend it requires great judgment to determine when a
strike is warranted by circumstances ; but in principle I am
not prepared to say that the thing is wrong in itself.
Then, there are further questions with regard to the right
that unions exercise in certain cases in refusing to work
with non-union men. It seems to me that that is a very
extreme right. Ido not, however, dwell upon it, because
I am not prepared to say that we can expect it to be
altogether renounced. I think it an extreme right, and
one that might be exercised in such a way as to assimilate
it very much to that which I have just referred to—of a
landlord turning out his tenants without any why or
wherefore at the expiration of a given time. I may say,
in passing, that I view with much interest the experin, nts
which appear to hold out some promise of a means of ad-
justment between employers and labourers. I heard, in
Oldham, only a few months ago, a very good account of
the working of a system of that kind, carried on by a
body composed of operatives and employers. I hope to see
the extension of that system if the machinery is found to
work. There is another thing I saw in Oldham, with great
satisfaction—that is, what they call a co-operative mill—
and there are various such mills, I believe, in Lancashire
and Yorkshire. There is nothing I look upon as more full
of promise than these institutions, provided they be com-
mercially sound, because nothing is so desirable as that
which puts working men in the condition of both capitalist
and labourer. It supplies a link between those two classes,
and as a system of that kind extends it creates a body of
men who would be, of all others, the fairest judges of these
questions, and whose opinion would form a powerful
element of mediation. Do not let me be undenhood as
saying that society at large has any reason to complain.
It is difficult to raise questions between class and class. Of
course, society has reason to complain of all unreasonable
and excessive use by any class of its privileges ; but that
is a point very difficult to define. It is not the bearing
of certain restrictions that prevail more or less in trades
unions upon society that I shall animadvert upon, nor
their bearing upon employers. The restrictions imposed
upon employers in many cases have had a most powerful
effect in stimulating invention, and the introduction of
machinery might have been less rapid but for the fact
that in some businesses employers have found themselves
hard driven by what they have thought the restraints im-
posed upon them. The question I wish to raise is whether
certain of these restrictions are beneficial to the labourers.
The whole .body of labourers of the country go farther
than the limit of each trade union. I will not under-
take to say that some of these restrictions are
beneficial to the carpenters, considered as car-
penters, or to the bricklayers as bricklayers. I
look at the whole of the wage-receiving population of the
country, and I own it appears to me as a general rule that
regulations in restrain of labour go to diminish the aggred
gate amount of the fund which constitutes the whole wages
of the country. Of course there is a difficulty in drawing
a line with precision. I may be told that the argument, if
it were taken without limitation, would imply that every
man was to slave from morning to night, seven days in the
week, without any consideration for his health or his
mind. I have not a word to say against limitations
imposed with a view to the preservation of health
and social considerations. Let me refer, for a
moment, to the rules against women, boys, and men.
There was a rule of which I have often heard in the porce-
lain business in the Potteries, which appears to be a very
strong one, that a woman was not allowed to paint porce-
lain with a rest for her wrist. The practical operation of
that, I understand to be, that no woman can do fine work
in porcelain where that rule is observed. Of course it may
be said that the labour of women competes with the labour
of men ; that women can work cheaper than men; and
that the men are thrown out of employment. My answer
to that is, I cannot look upon women as a class of beings
alien and separate from the men. If they do compete
with the men they are the wives and daughters of the
men ; and if their labour is cheaper than that of the men
it is for the benefit of the men themselves as a class ;
that is to say, the aggregate earnings of the labouring
class in the community and in that particular trade are
greatly increased. With regard to the boys, it is exactly
the same thing. The boys, whose entrance into trade is
more or less fettered and barred—sometimes by limiting
the number of apprentices, and sometimes by forbidding
them to labour except as apprentices—do not come into
the world of themselves. It is said that apprentices have
small wages, and that that is a reason for limiting their
labour. If that is the fact, the question is, whether it is
not desirable that they should work as unapprenticed
boys, and obtain the best wages the market would afford.
It appears to me that the best condition of the labouring
classes is that in which the way upwards is the easiest
and the most open. 'Well, gentlemen, that will, perhaps,
suffice to suggest to you anything you may desire to say.
13ut pray understand me. Ido not presume to say how
w that far these things prevail. I have so many other things to
think
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CUSZIO
and at the close e
Mr.
Gladstone for the courtesy with which he had heard
them.

OUTRAGE ON A FENIAN WITNESS. - Patrick
Joyce, a p:iblican, of St. Patrick's-quay, Cork, has been
committed to gaol under the Lord-Lieutenant's warrant
for Fenianism. The out-offices and haggurd of Mr. John
Hannon, Rathcormack, was maliciously burned on Sunday
night. This is the third incendiary fire on his premises
since he gave evidence for the Crown at the special com-
mission on the trial of a Fenian head-centre.