Revival: Trade Unionism (1900)

New and Old

George Howell

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351343374
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Public approval of a book is indicated by its sale. A second edition of this having been exhausted, my publishers deem it advisable to issue a third edition revised to date. In assenting, I have had to examine it thoroughly in order to see whether the work required correction, and, if so, to what extent. After careful perusal I find no reason to modify any sentence, withdraw any expression, or correct any statement of fact in its pages. Much has happened since it was written in 1890, the proofs finally revised in January 1891, but in all respects my views are unchanged 3 nor have the last ten years Shown cause for any abandon ment of the opinions then held. My conclusions have proved sound in all instances, even where I ventured to predict. I have therefore left the text untouched except for a few verbal emendations, and the restoration of two pages (soa and 595) which were unaccountably dropped out in going through the press.

All that I desire to add has been compressed into a Supplementary Chapter, in which the several controversial points are dealt with, and statistics are brought up to date. The book was written in the heat of controversies to which illusion is made, the somewhat severe criticisms being justified by the then facts and circumstances. If they now appear to be harsh, it is because the policy then denounced has been abandoned, or so modified as to be no longer open to the condemnation then pronounced.

TRADE UNIONISM:

NEW AND OLD.

CHAPTER I.

ORGANIZATION OF LABOUR.—PART I.

EARLY PERIOD.—THE GUILD SYSTEM.

Frith Guilds -Town Guilds—Merchant Guilds—Craft Guilds—Contests for Supremacy—Guilds instituted Free Association—Sought to regulate Industry and Labour—To limit and regulate Apprenticeships—Laid the Foundations for Local Government—Contained the Germs of Modern Trade Unionism.

TRADE UNIONISM is an outgrowth of, if not exactly an offshoot from, the old Guild system of the Middle Ages. This fact is clearly shown in the admirable preliminary essay by Dr. Brentano, in English Gilds, edited by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith, and published by the Early English Text Society in 1870. That essay formed the basis of the two first chapters in the Conflicts of Capital and Labour, by the present writer, the information contained in the essay being condensed, and in some respects amplified by reference to other sources, and to the Guild statutes and ordinances then and subsequently available. Trade Unionism not only owes its origin to the Old English Guilds, but the earlier Trade Unions were in reality the legitimate successors of the Craft Guilds, which flourished in this country down to the time of the suppression of the monasteries and other fraternities by Henry VIII., in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. It is therefore important that all who write or speak upon the Trade Unionism of to-day should know something of the history, constitution, objects, and work of the old guilds. Without the knowledge derived from a study of the Guild system, the organization, rules, and operations of Trade Unions cannot be properly understood. The materials for that study are so fully collected, arranged, and dealt with in the works above alluded to, that there is no need for any elaborate treatment of the subject in this volume. A brief recapitulation of the chief characteristics of the guilds only will be attempted, sufficiently to indicate the points of contact, and to explain the underlying and controlling influences which have been continuously at work.

1. The Frith Guild.—This, the oldest form of guild-life, was a fraternal alliance for mutual protection against usurped authority, political and industrial. The Frith Guild was partly religious, partly social, and partly industrial. The distinctively Religious Guild, and the Social Guild, respectively, appear to have developed out of the earlier form of Frith Guild; but in each the members seem to have met for fraternal purposes, the objects being religious observances and exercises, the distribution of alms, or Christian charity amongst the members, the furtherance of education, as far as it then existed, the celebration of feasts, representation of religious plays, the performance of secular plays, the enjoyment of pastimes, or recreation, and mutual assistance in cases of need by contributions, benefits, and insurance, in a primitive kind of way. At the meetings held, festivities were indulged in on the occasion of marriage, anniversary festivals, rejoicings at births, mutual condolence and religious exercises at death, and social feasts on occasions of public or private events, deemed suitable for such gatherings, and in some way affecting the members, or some of them. The guild was to a great extent responsible to the authorities for the conduct of its members, and in return exacted obedience to its ordinances and statutes, as they were called. This early form of the guild was at first mainly an extension of the family circle, but it soon widened so as to embrace not only blood-relations, but neighbours. In the early history of communities, the guild played an important part, protecting the rights of its members, avenging their wrongs, extending their privileges, fostering their interests, and otherwise exercising a beneficial and restraining influence when brute force was in the ascendant, and law and public institutions were in their infancy in this country. Some of the very earliest forms common to those guilds have come down to us, not exactly perhaps in their original shape, but in their essence; certainly they were to be found in the earlier Trade Unions, especially in the modes of initiation of members, in providing assistance in cases of need, in the burial of the dead, and sometimes in church parades —latterly revived somewhat.

2. The Town Guild.—As the earlier village communities expanded into townships, the social and industrial conditions changed. Neither the Frith Guild of the enlarged family, nor the Social Guild of the more or less blood-related coterie, any longer satisfied all the requirements of the people, the circumstances of the case, or the times, socially, or even industrially. Consequently there was instituted the Town Guild, consisting of the freemen, mostly landed proprietors and others, having a stake in the country. In some places this was termed the Burghers’ Guild, the government of the town, or township, being practically in the hands of the guild. That the supreme authority was to all intents and purposes centred in the Burghers’ Guild is evident from a variety of circumstances, not the least interesting being the fact that the Town Guild of Sleswig closed the gates of the town against the king, the citizens mustered at the sound of the guild bell, seized the king and slew him, and those who tried to defend him, because his son had slain Duke Canute, the Alderman of the Guild. In the earlier period, no doubt, the Town Guild more or less represented the inhabitants of the township, exercised judicial as well as local authority, and preserved law and order generally within its jurisdiction. It also prevented the incursions of marauders, and restrained the barons from undue exactions, at a time when the king and the court were nearly powerless to enforce the laws and charters in force. In London they seem to have attained a high state of development in Anglo-Saxon times. In the reign of Athelstan (901 to 925) it appears that the Frith Guilds united to form one guild for the better government of the town, its ordinances being binding even upon non-members. In this guild was vested the power of regulating the trades and occupations carried on within its boundaries, and even beyond, in some cases. The foundation was thus laid for the incorporation of towns by Royal Charter, and of the Municipal Institutions of later times. In a rude kind of way, the Town Guild was representative, the aldermen and wardens being chosen on the elective principle.¹

3. The Merchant Guild.—With the development of industrial life, as contradistinguished from agricultural pursuits, there came a time when the traders in the townships claimed equal rights and privileges with the possessors of landed property within the township. At first, doubtless, the owners of land, and those who carried on trade, were identical. Leaseholds had not then been invented, all occupiers being in fact the owners of the dwellings in which they resided, and carried on their business. But the pursuits of agriculture, and occupation in some special trade within the township, could not for long be prosecuted together. Traders and dealers developed into separate classes, and these soon found it to be of advantage to constitute a guild, the only form of association then known, for mutual protection and advancement. Possibly the terms of exchange were made too exacting by the property owners, who, to some extent, held the key to the position, by reason of the fact that they made the ordinances which controlled prices, and held in their hands the power to withhold food supplies, partially at least, if the citizens became obstreperous. That contentions arose at a very early date is certain. It is equally certain that the possession of land gave priority in matters of government and control. At Canterbury the Guild of the Thanes had precedence over the other two guilds in the city, the aldermen being selected from the Guild of the Thanes, the members of which were owners of estates within its jurisdiction. At Berwick all the existing guilds were, by a decision of the townsmen, united into one guild, all the separate possessions being consolidated. But this was at a later date. The distinction between the earlier form of guild, and the offshoot termed the Merchant Guild, arose out of the circumstances of the particular town, and does not distinguish a distinctive period in guild-life. In some places the Merchant Guild arose at a very early date, indicating that in these places some of the citizens had devoted themselves to trade and manufactures as a separate and distinct class from those who were engaged in agriculture. Some were traders in the produce of the field and farm, supplying the inhabitants with food; others in the materials of manufacture, while others were handicraftsmen —builders, clothiers, shoemakers, &c.

The growth of a separate trading class, many of whom were craftsmen, no doubt early led to some jealousy in the management of the affairs of the township. Some of them became opulent citizens, comparatively speaking, at that date. Many had as high claims to social distinction as the landed proprietors; and they soon claimed equal rights in the administration of the guild, and of the township. The possession of property in land was common to all; it was merely a question of extent or degree. All were freemen of the township, and all were masters in their particular handicrafts. Hired handicraftsmen were not then known; each had learned his trade, under the regulations of the guild ordinances, and worked at it, not only without feeling shame, but with a manly pride, as a pursuit worthy of all praise. The idea that trade was humiliating, if not dishonourable, originated with the patricians. The establishment of the Merchants’ Guild was at once a protest against this snobbish idea, and a declaration in favour of equal rights, as citizens, not only to be allowed to pursue their own avocations in peace, but to take part in administrative duties. The contest for equal rights was long, and sometimes bitter. The patricians sought to exclude the traders and merchants from some of the guilds. Those whom they tried to exclude found sympathizers in the ranks of those who had been members of the Frith Guilds, or their descendants, but who were not eligible for membership to the Town Guild. Foi the old Frith Guild was expansive, not exclusive. The struggle had a two-fold object: (i) The right to an equal share in the government of the township in which they resided; and (2) the right of regulating their own industry. Landowners had already begun to tax traders. The traders and merchants sought to make land pay its full share of local and other burdens. Besides which, the members of the Town Guild sought to exclude the mere merchant and trader from participation in the corporate property and revenues, much of which had arisen and accumulated out of the increased values resulting from trade. In the end the Merchant Guilds were victorious; they wrested the power from the hands of the then exclusive class, and shared in all the privileges which membership of an opulent guild could confer. They regulated their own industry, and assessed the taxes leviable upon property.

4. Craft Guilds.—In the earlier years of the institution of Merchant Guilds, and during the more severe periods of their struggle, the craftsmen were allowed to be members of such guilds. There was no distinction between the man who traded in cloth, and the man who made it, or worked it up into garments. But no sooner had the merchants and traders succeeded in achieving their victory, than they also sought to perpetuate their privileges and monopolies by exclusiveness. For example, Article 25 of the Statutes of the Berwick Guild make it a condition of membership that the craftsman “must forswear his trade for a year and a day.” If a butcher dealt in wool or hides, he must forswear his axe; if the corn-merchant baked bread, he was not eligible as a member of the guild. As the township grew, and population increased, men devoted themselves more and more to a particular branch of industry as a distinctive calling or occupation. Hence arose a class of handicraftsmen, trained to the trade. The merchant traded in the materials, or in the products of manufacture or other merchandise; and he sought to deprive the craftsmen of their share in the regulation of their own trade. As these were fast growing into a distinctive class, they were by no means content to be hustled out of the guild, or be denied admission thereto. Most of them were small masters, who made their own wares, and disposed of them by sale, barter, or exchange, in money or in kind, as the case might be. All had been regular apprentices to the craft, for there was no other portal through which they could pass into the status of the handicraftsman class, except by marriage, and then only if the woman was a widow, or daughter of a freeman of the guild. Thus, the earlier craftsmen, who established the Craft Guild, were small masters and their apprentices, for the journeymen handicraftsmen had scarcely come into existence at that date. The latter, however, were being created by the force of circumstances, and the expansion of trade, and we find that they also asserted their independence, and claimed participation in the advantages conferred by the guild. As these guilds regulated everything pertaining to trade, it is obvious that sheer necessity compelled those outside to combine in some similar fashion.

Then arose a contest more prolonged and more bitter than that between the Town Guild and the Merchant Guild. The number of Craft Guilds extended more rapidly, and covered a wider range, than the two previously-named classes of guilds. In the weaving trades, building trades, and those engaged in the manufacture of clothing, boots and shoes, and the like, we find distinctive traces of guilds of the free-handicraft class at early date; and also, following close thereupon, of a separate class of “operatives,” hired men, who formed the journeymen section of a somewhat later date. The most powerful of the earlier craft-guilds, if not actually the first in point of time, were the Weavers’ Guilds, the members of which, in some form or another, continued to fight labour’s battles all through the guild period, and down the closing years of the eighteenth century. The next in importance were the Masons’ Guilds, the members of which were perhaps the earliest genuine journeymen—men who travelled from place to place, to work at the cathedrals and other ecclesiastical structures, at the palaces of the princely, and at the baronial castles of the Middle Ages. In many instances actual conflicts with the Merchants, or Town Guilds were only averted either by the inclusion of the craftsmen in those guilds, or by the masters joining the Craft Guild. In those cases the more restricted and less hostile battles were fought out by contentions as to the internal government and administration of the guild. The craftsmen fought for a voice in the selection of the master and wardens; sometimes they waived all right as to the appointment of master, but insisted upon electing the wardens. In other cases the battle for ascendancy was hot and prolonged, so much so that the supreme authority in the township, and even the authority of the Crown, had to be called in to put an end to the strife. When this was done, the dispute ended in favour of the masters. But the general outcome of the long and severe industrial and political conflict was favourable to the Craft Guilds. They either triumphed over and subdued the opposing guilds, or attained such share in the management, and in the regulation of trade, as satisfied their aspirations, procured for them the control of their own affairs, and secured to them their privileges.

The period covered in the preceding brief sketch of the guild system, and industrial life in England extends from very early, probably before Anglo-Saxon times, down to the reign of Henry VIII., and the suppression of the monasteries. It is perhaps sufficient first to indicate their origin, development, and growth, and the chief departures in policy and government, during some seven or eight centuries in English history. We are not here concerned with the political aspects of the earlier or later struggles of the guilds, to obtain control in the government of the township, or the contentions of different guilds, or kinds of guilds, for supremacy and ascendancy one over the other, except in so far as those struggles and contentions pertained to social and industrial life, the regulation of trade, and the pursuits of labour. We look, however, into their internal economy and government as the prototype of the modern Trade Union, in order to discover the germs of that associative principle which has influenced to so great an extent the industrial condition of England, and moulded the life of her great army of workers, in nearly every department of manufacture and trade. To-day that principle is operating with intensified force. Indeed, it would seem that the fruit of ages of incessant labour had ripened prematurely, or else that it has been gathered while yet too green, judging by the history and experience of the last two years. The chief points of interest in the constitution and working of the guilds, illustrative of their history, as the predecessors of Trade Unions are:—

(a.) The guilds, in all ages, and of all kinds, instituted, preserved, and handed down from generation to generation the right of free association, to discuss grievances and provide remedies, to assist each other in case of need, to sustain each other in resisting wrong, to mutually advance each other’s interest, and generally to promote the welfare of the members of the particular guilds. Originally the Frith Guilds sought to extend the government of the family to blood-relations, outside the family circle; then to widen the fraternity to neighbours, and others having something in common; and latterly, in another form, to associate together those engaged in particular avocations, or seeking the attainment of a common object, or end.

(b.) The guilds endeavoured to regulate the conditions of the trade in which the members were engaged. In the earlier guilds this simply meant mutual restraint, for the mutual good of all, inasmuch as the Frith Guilds represented the whole village community, or the township, as the case might be. When diversified interests arose, in consequence of the altered conditions of industry and trade, each branch of industry sought to regulate the number who should follow the particular handicraft, by a restrictive system of apprenticeships, the mode in which the trade should be carried on, the prices and quality of articles; and, later on, the hours during which labour was to be performed, both in summer and winter. The regulations in many instances became so minute, and eventually so oppressive, that frequent revolts occurred, and often new guilds were instituted. Generally the disputes were settled by the master and wardens, at other times by the commonalty in the Town Guild, sometimes by statute, decree, ordinance or charter by the Executive Government of the country.

(c.) The initiation of members, the binding of apprentices, and their reception into the guild at the end of their term, the modes of payment, and the benefits provided in the regulations or ordinances of the guild, in cases of sickness, death, lack of employment, or dire distress, resembled, in very many particulars, the practices in vogue, and the rules in force in the Trade Unions of modern times. The solemnity of “initiation ” is to a great extent preserved, but for its full significance we must look to some of the Affiliated Orders of Benefit Societies, such as the Foresters, the Oddfellows, the Druids, the Old Friends, &c. With respect to modes of payment, or contributions, there is more regularity in the modern Trade Union; and in some of the older and better unions the provident benefits have been extended, and are carried out in consonance with commercial principles, on a sound financial basis. The burial of the dead guild-brother was common to all the earlier guilds; and often also the saying of masses for the repose of his soul. Relief in sickness, and assistance in distress, were generally voluntary, either out of the guild funds, or by collections, as each ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER I. ORGANIZATION OF LABOUR.—PART I
• CHAPTER II. ORGANIZATION OF LABOUR.—PART II
• CHAPTER III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF COMBINATIONS OF WORKMEN
• CHAPTER IV. TRADE UNIONISM: ITS ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND PROGRESS
• CHAPTER V. THE “OLD TRADE UNIONISM.”—PART I
• CHAPTER VI. THE “OLD TRADE UNIONISM.”—PART II
• CHAPTER VII. THE “NEW TRADE UNIONISM.”—PART I
• CHAPTER VIII. THE “NEW TRADE UNIONISM.”—PART II
• CHAPTER IX. MATERIAL FORCES AND RESOURCES OF TRADE UNIONISM: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS, SUCCESS AND FAILURES
• CHAPTER X. TRADE UNIONISM: ITS METHODS, MEANS, AND WORK— STRIKES—CONCILIATION—CO-OPERATION—CONCLUSION
• SUPPLEMENTARY—CHAPTER XI. WORK OF TRADE UNION AND PROGRESS OF LABOUR 1890 TO 1900