The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-25 00:00:00

CONFERENCE OF TRADES'
DELEGATES.

A General Conference of Trades' Delegates, from all
parts of the kingdom, commenced its sittings yesterday
at the Parthenium Club-rooms in St. Martin's-lane.
It originated in a meeting of delegates from the London
Trades, held at the Bell Inn, Old Bailey, on the
6th of February, when resolutions were passed
by which the present position of the trades was
described as " extremely perilous," and it was an-
nounced that a conference would be held at Easter, " to
devise means by which an effectual resistance may be
given to any measure introduced in the 'present session
of Parliament, tending to impair the interests of the work-
ing classes." A hope was expressed in the circular issued
by the Committee appointed to prepare for the Confer-
ence, that it " would be all powerful in preventing the
ir.troduction, or deterring the prosecution, of any mea-
sure in Parliament of a similar character to that of the
Masters' and Servants' Bill."
Shortly after two o'clock the chair was taken by T. S.
Duneombe, Esq., M.P.
The CHAIRMAN then proceeded to open the meeting in
the following words:—Gentlemen, in assuming the office
which your confidence rather than my own will or fitness
bus imposed upon me. I feel some difficulty—a dif-
ficulty not arising out of any misgiving as to your ability
to devise and power to execute any plan that the
majority of this highly important assembly shall deli-
berately agree upon, but the difficulty of deciding
upon the most prelim- and apt machinery for
the purpose of giving effect to ye judgment.
Gentlemen, I learn that you have wisely 'de-
cided upon excluding all political topics from your
consideration; but I feel convinced that, should the day
arrive when the English mind shall see that " a fair
day's wages for a fair day's work" can only be achieved
through the fair representation in Parliament of those
seeking their just rights, that then my countrymen will,
with their characteristic boldness, demand such a
change in- the system as shall ensure to them not only
the possession, but the protection of the fruits of their
industry.—(Cheers.) It is wise, howev •r, that you should
first test the willingness of those who have the power-
not only t o remedy your grievances, but to render :any
great political change value less in your eyes.—(hear,
hear.) It is better to persuade men than to coerce
them, and should your first move have been in a poli-
tical direction I fear that the vrried elements of which
this national assetnbly must naturally consist, would
have presented an appearance of internal contention and
strife, rather than of organisation and union, two him-
' clients indispensable to the success of your project.. Gentle-
men. although I am here rather to learn teen to instruct,
yet I hope I may, without presumption, be permitted to
suggest such a course as I conceive best calculated to in-
sure success. You may, and most probably will, evince
great wisdom and astuteness in those several discussions.
bearing relatively or positively upon your several
sitions, while the manifold interests which arc re•
presented upon this occasion may lead some to suppose
that there is difficulty in combining those interests in
any. one-common plan. Such, however, is not my opinion,
for while there may appear no connexion between a
cotton-spinner and a shoemaker, nevertheless, we must
come to the conclusion, that that machinery cannot be
perfect which does not equally-represent and equally
protect the interests of both.—(Hear, hear.) This,
then, is the important point to which I would respect-
fully direct your attention :—The establishment of such
a devising and controlling body as shall give effect to,
and fully carry out, whatever plan the majority of this
assembly shall decide upon. You will have done bat
little, if you meet and separate, after having merely pro-
claimed your wrongs and suggested your remedies. You
must do more—having the power, you must boldly pro-
claim your determination to redress yourselves ; and,
humble as I am, I shall have sufficient confidence in your
importance and integrity, when backed by your concur-
rence, to declare in my place in Parliament, that the
hour has at length arrived when Englishmen know their
risehts' and are determined to possess them.—(Cheers.)
In the debate upon the " Ten Hours' Bill," during the last
session of Parliament, when the House of Commons
stultified itself by preferring the ascendancy of a Mini.ster
to the interests and even the well-being of the working.
classes, my mind was for the first time directed to the
practical operation of the principle of rcstriction, and to
that question I would now draw your most serious atten-
tion. You will naturally consider whether or not any,
or all the measures submitted by Parliament to the coun-
try, are calculated to cause an equitable distribution of the
profits; on trade between capitalists and labourers, and if
they are not calculated to do so, you will then, I hope,
enter upon the consideration of some well digested plan
to effect an object of the most vital importance, one upon
which I do not hesitate to say the existence of the middle
classes and of the landed aristocracy depends, and fur
this reason :—lf our mechanical powers of production
go on increasing according to well-founded anticipa-
tions, one ef two results must necessarily follow, either
n,w markets must be discovered as consumers, or
the surplus of idlers must progressively increase.
As then the discovery of new customers is at best
bet problematical, we must look upon an increasing sur-
plus as the more rational result from improved machinery,
and bow to deal with that surplus is the que. tion of
paramount importance to those who are as yet allowed
to lab ur and to live.— (Hear, hear.) Whether this sur-
Oa.; should be maintained by those employed to avert
competition, or by the Government—that is, by the
country, according to the rules of justice, is the grand
question. I hold that those at work cannot and ought
not be called upon to apply any portion of their earnings
to the support or a surplus created by the operation of
a new system, over which they have no emitted ; and I
further hold, that the Government has no right to tax
one portion of the community for the maintenance of
another portion, rendered dependent, while willing to
lebour.—(Hear, hear.) Those who t ave read the ac-
counts stated by me in the House of Commons, relative
to the effect produced by practising the principles of
restriction at Sheffield, must come to the conclusion
that short hours of labour do not lead to a reduc-
tion of wages, although it may tend to reduce
the inordinate profits of capitalists, accumulated rather
from their power over the labour market than
from the just sources of trade or speculation ;—in fact,
that calculations of profit and loss are now based upon
the ability of the powerful to reduce the wages of the
powerless, rather than upon the ordinary rules by which
we are told commerce should be regulated. The reasons,
however, why your employers have been enabled to hold
your labour in complete subjection are so well known to
all who have taken part in strikes, whether just, unjust,
or speculative, that I should abstain from any comment
upon that part of the subject, were it not necessary for
the direction of your minds to the adoption of such
measures as would enable you in future to judge, first,
of the justice of a strike ; and secondly, of your effici-
ency to carry it out. In all cases where strikes have
taken place they have been for the most part entered
upon rashly, though perhaps justly ; and the justice
of your case has been lost in the rashness of your
measures. However righteous your claims may
appear at first sight, it has too often happened that
your own rashness has enabled your masters to enlist
the power of the law to insure their own triumph, and
hence have been compelled to fight against the two-
edged sword of capital and legal persecution. When-
ever a strike takes place the local authorities, who are
for the most part employers have been able to warp
some enthusiastic and justly indignant minds from their
original purpose, to the adoption of what is easily con-
strued into constructive conspiracy or sedition, and thus
your imperfect machinery has been unable to compete
against the more perfect machinery of your opponents.
Through the legal acumen, perseverance, and steady
watchfulness of the miners' law adviser, Mr. Roberts,
that large body of men were enabled to continue what
I will call the most justifiable and extensive strike
upon record, for a period of many months, notwith-
standing that the vengeance and the power of their
masters was directed against them, and the power
of the law was at the it command, if the conduct of
the men had authorised its interference. This strike
failed, not because it was capriciously entered upon, but
because there was wanting a proper plan of national or
ganisation to insure its success. Gentlemen, this I un-
derstand to be a national body, and I must, therefore,
presume that one of your main objects will be the esta-
blishment of some permanent machinery for the regula-
tion of trades' matters and trades' strikes. That that
body shall be legally constituted, with power vested in
its members to hear all matters connected with trades'
business, and in all cases where the rights of any one
trade are threatenrd or invaded, that that trade, if a
strike should be sanctioned by the governing body, shall
be sustained, upheld, and supported during the struggle.
however long it shall continue: the terms to be sub:nit-
t to, and agreed upon by a majority of the governing
body. I think that such a plan would divest a strike
of that local and personal feeling which is in general
attributed to the prime movers, and would give protec-
tier] to those who, if' struggling alone, must necessarily
be subject to all those disadvantages which unprotected
poverty experiences in its struggle's with protected
wealth.—(Hear, hear.) 0: course, in the formation o

such a body, you most take local machinery into your
consideration ; that is, suppose a strike takes place in
Sheffield or in Manchester, sanctioned
.by the ruling
body, in such case you rut yourselves in communication
with the local delegates of that trade, appointed by their
body—who become honorary members, for the time, of
the general body—and, if necessary, you appoint one or
more its commissioners from your permanent executive,
to repair to the spot where the strike takes place, there
to instruct themselves upon, and to inform you of, all
matters connected with the movement, and in such cases it
is my opinion that any excitement necessary to sustain the
strike, should be transferred from the place where it
occurs to the metropolis, where of course the governing
body will hold its permanent sittings. By these means
strikes, when just, would be of short duration, because
the united power of the national trades of Great Britain,
when prop-51y and justly directed, as I feel assured they
would be, would prove an over-match for the power of
the local masters, or even the whole masters of the
kingdom, should a counter-organisation be attempted.
By systematic organisation of this kind the political
minority in each country has been enabled to hold the
ascendancy over the disunited and disorganised majority. •
You will perceive that I have thought it neeestary to
dwell more et length upon the description of machinery
by which your plans are to be carried out, than
upon the means you shall adopt for the adjustment
of the several ditThrences that exist between you and
your masters, or that may hereafter occur. Gentlemen,
you will also observe that I have not only abstained from
comment upon all matters upon which you must neces-
sarily bc better instructed than myself, but that I have
also abstained from noticing any political questions with
which, from my position,- I might be supposed to be
more conversant than yourselves. I have thought this
the wisest and best course for the achievement of our

cAmmon object, which I understand to be "a fair day's
wages for a fair day's work."—(Cheers.) Gentlemen,
whatever view the curious, the idle, or the timid, may
take of this great movement, I assure you, it gives rise
to very serious considerations in my mind. If this be in
truth, as I believe and hope it is, a fair representation of

that growing spirit of Englishmen of which we hear so
much, and to curb which requires so much artifice and cun-
ning, its matured deliberations must go to the world with an
irresistible effect.—(Cheers.) You have looked with
anxious hope to each political party, and to every poli-
tical party, for that amelioration in your condition
which you have at length wisely decided can only be
effected by your own united energies. Gentlemen, those
who shall scan and criticise what may be decided upon
by this representation of the industrious English people,
should recognise in your intentions the practical carry-
ing out of their. own theories. They one and all admit
the vast increase that has taken .place in the national
wealth, while they are convened also to admit your
legitimate title to a share of it, but by some inexpli
cable deficiency, in what may be called the
division of legislation, all have failed to put you
in posse sion of your admitted rights. If then, as
no man can deny, that the genius and industry
of our people have given rise to a vast accumulation of
national wealth, and if the principle of professing phi'an-
thropists be true, that you are pre-eminently entitled to
your share of this new-born wealth, I can characterise
this assembly no otherwise than as the new-born genius
of England righteously, peaceably, boldly, and honestly,
of for its share Nile property that itself creates—
(Loud applause)—while your willingness to submit your
social claims to be arbitrated upon by others, must con.
vince even your traducers that your demands are so
just that you are indifferent as to the character of the
tribunal to whose judgment they shall be submitted.
Gentlemen, if ou see prudence,. safety, and success
in the course that I have pointed out, as I
never recommend what I am not prepared to attempt,
and believing your cause to he just, your motives honour-
able, and your objects desirable, I shall hold myself in
increased estimation if I can be instrumental either within
or without the walls of Parliament in advancing your in-
tereste.e—(Cheers.) Gentle:nen, however the self--
satisfied, or the expectant may ri licule this your peace-
ful endeavour to achieve your right, I Nei fully im-
pressed with the importance of the working hand, and as
fully resolved upon persevering with you, until we test
e value of English union, English organisation,
English justice, and Englishmen's brarery.—(Cheers. )
Gentlemen, cur councils must be so pure, that we may
defy the espionage of the Home Secretary. as well as the
legal lash of the Attorney-General ; what my judgment
prompts me to advise, my heart will encourage me to
support, while the justice of your cause and the strength
by which it is backed, will preclude the necessity of
other than perfectly peaceful, mild, and constitutional
means for its achievement. Gentlemen—lf oat of this
first important experiment in the right direction should
arise an annual representation of the industrious people
of England, and you deem it necessary to manifest the
outward and visible sign of your greatness and power, as
your several opponents have done by the erection of
club-houses as places of resort—(Hear, hear)—and as a
means of multiplying and concentrating your resources,
I shall be most happy to assist in any way that can tend
to the furtherance of that or any other object promotive
of the national cause.— (Cheers.) Gentlemen—Feeling
pride as an Englishman and honour as a man, in the
situation to which your confidence has this day called me,
and rejoicing exceedingly that my humble exertions in
your behalf sould entitle me to your esteem. I shall
now conclude the remarks which I have deemed it my
duty to coffer, and shall open what I proudly call
" Labour's Parliament"—(Cheers)—by inviting those de-
legates who hare anything to urge to proceed to business,
trusting that your deliberations may prove beneficial to
yourselves and satisfactory to the country.---(Cheers.)
When the Chairman had concluded reading the above,
he suggested that the Secretary should read his report,
which he did. The substance of it was to the effect,
that this meeting was called in order to carry out a better
and more perfect organisation of the working classes
than now existed ; and the object to be effected by this
new and perfect organisation was, to enable the work-
ing classes to insure a better defence for themselves
against oppressive monopolists and capitalists. This
suggestion was made in consequence of the Committee
feeling deeply impressed with the great necessity that
existed for a good and clear understanding existing be-
tween the employer and the employed ; and in order to
secure the latter from acts of injustice and oppression at
the hands of the former. But great caution would be
necessary to be exercised in the formation of the laws
and rules, in order to avoid serious mistakes made on
former occasions. Every inducement was recommended
to be held out to individuals belonging to ther trades
who had not yet joined, to do so, in order that all should
make common cause ; and every support should be given
to that portion of the public press that should give the
fullest and most impartial reports of the proceedings of the
meetings. The rep.irt concluded by recommending a total
abstinence from the discussion of political topics.
The report was unanimously ae'reed to.
Mr. WILSON, boot-maker, and member of the Com-
mittee, next addressed the meeting. He said the Com-
mittee had instructed him to suggest that they conceived
that the best line of proceeding for this meeting to adopt,
in the first instance, would be to appoint a secretary ;
and, in the second, to appoint a sub-Committee, through
whom should come to the general Committee, and
thence to the meeting, all suggestions made by indi-
vidual representatives.—(Hear, hear) Every one in
this meeting should admit the necessity for this line of
proceeding from the knowledge they had of the past.—
(Hear, hear.) It was also most desirable that a good
understanding should exist between the working classes
and those upon whom they were dependent.—(Hear,
hear.) With these observations he would conclude by
saying it afforded him great pleasure to move that Mr.
Thomas Barrett be elected secretary.
This proposition was also unanimously adopted, and
Mr. BARRATT having returned thanks,
The CHAIRMAN said be conceived that the suggestion
of the Committee, that had come through Mr. Wilson,
namely, to appoint is Committee in the first instance,
was a wise and prudent course, and the one by which the
trades were most likelr to benefit their cause.—(lTear.)
Mr. ROBSON, ladies shoemaker, begged leave to be
allowed to suggest that as a means of raising a discus-
sion by which to ascertain the feelings and opinions of
the delegates now present, they should be called on to
say what suggestions they had to offer before the Com-
mittee be appointed.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. RATRAY, calico-printer, Crayford, Kent, said he
had been sent there not so much for the purpose of offer-
ing any suggestions, as to listen to those that should be
offered by others ; but from what had already taken
place, lie would respectfully recommend that the admi-
rable address of their chairman should be printed and
distributed amongst the members, for he conceived it
contained the gist of all that they wanted for a beginning.
—(Hear, hear.) He looked upon the address as an im
portant public document, and if his suggestion should be
adopted he would send some of them to Scotland and the
North of England. He would suggest that 1,000 copies
be printed, and that the report just read be printed with
it, as had been suggested by a member.
Mr. JONES, representative of the fustian cutters of
Manchester, said, there appeated to bins to be some differ-
ence of opinion as to whether the address should be
printed cr a discussion entered upon first. Now, he
could not see why both could not be done at once and
the same time.—(Hear. hear.) It appeared to him that
the one was not at all inconsistent with the other.
The address contained many very valuable, practical
suggestions, and, therefure,it could net be too extensively
distributed amongst the trades.—(Hear.) Then, with
regard to the course to be pursued in discussing sugges•
tions, he would recommend that an alphabetical list be
made out of the representatives of the trades, and that
the chairman should read out the names from that list,
and, in doing so, should call upon the representative
whom he named, to state what were the views and opi-
nions of those whom he represented.
The question was then put that 1,000 copies of the
address ho printed, which was agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN said he then held in his hand a list
similar to that mentioned by Mr. Jones, though it was
not alphabetical, and he could easily go through it ; but
he would, at the same time, say that it appeared to him
to be the most weful course to appoint the committee at
first. Whether that committee was to be a select one, or
" a committee of the whole house," as they said in Par-
liament—(A laugh)—would be for the meeting to deter-
mine ; but, if that committee should be appointed, they
would have the address and report before them, and
having taken both into consideration, then they could
meet again, say to-morrow, or the next day, and that
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some member would propose it.

. .
Mr. llonEnTsoN, bookbinder, had great pleasure in
making the proposition ; and, in doing so, he begged to
say he crite concurred in the views of the chairman. He
was aware that there were in the room representatives
from Bristol and other places who had suggestions to
make, and if these were first made to the committee,

when the committee brought up their report would be the
time to raise a discussion upon it.
Mr. DUNNING, bookbinder, begged to second the
motion. fie conceived that this course would afford the
Committee an opportunity of ascertaining how far the
suggestions of the delegates, and those of the Chair-
man's address, and the report. could be carried out. As
to the printing of the address, he believed there could be
no second opinion upon that, and the fact of the print-
ing was an admission that it had been adopted.
A DELEGATE suggested, that as the Chairman called
the nein! s, each delegate called should state what was
the number of the trade he represented, in order to
ascertain the strength of each body.
Mr. Ihrszineo, bookbinder, having then been called,
said he represented 600, and they were of opinion that
their discust.ions should keep clear of politics, except
when the proceedings in Parliament compelled them to
do so.—(llear, hear.)
Mr. Its:En, engine-maker, said that very little time
had been allowed the trades to at nd representatives there,
and therefere in calling over the names of those now
present, the number should not be taken as a criterion
by which to judge of the feeling that generally exited
amongst the trades in the country on the questi, n that
had caused this meeting to be convened.—(Hear, hear.)
He knew many trades in the country that were not at
all aware of this meeting, or they would have attended,
and therefore this meeting could not be fairly called a
meeting of the,representatives of the trade in the country
districts.—(Hear, hear.) He deemed it necessary to
make these few observations, in order that a contrary
impression should not go forth to the world.
A DELEGATE said he came from Sheffield, and could
say that but very few indeed of the trades there had
heard of this meeting, and those only a few days ago ;
and since that time he had been going round to the
other trades, but had not been able to complete giving
notice ; therefoie if the names called out were to be
presumed as the representatives of the locality he came
from, there would be but a mere fraction of Cie trades
of those places represented.—(Hear.) There were three
others with him here, and they represented about forty
different trades.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. SPURR said he had come there as the represen-
tative of eight different trades in Huddersfield, but they
bad heard nothing of this meeting, and could not there-
fore be expected to be present.