Evidence before the Select Committee on Combinations of Workmen, 1837-1838
(Report of the Commissioners on the Combination of Workmen, ParliamentaryPapers, 1837-1838, VIII; in G. M. Young and W. D. Hancock, eds., English Historical Documents, XII(1), 1833-1874 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 960-63. In 1837-38 a Select Committee on Combinations of Workmen investigated an increase of trades union activity. Despite the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1824-25, the early Victorian establishment was extremely suspicious of and generally opposed to the growing trades union movement. Below a Sheriff gives evidence on trades union activity after a violent strike of the Spinners Union in Glasgow.)
1954. Mr O'Connell. Then the result of such a combination as that of the cotton- spinners is, to help to diminish their education and industry? -The tendency in practice clearly is to establish a monopoly of skilled against the efforts of unskilled industry, and to fence in the monopoly of skilled labour by a power of intimidation to which the working classes find it impossible to make any resistance.
1955. But if the means of intimidation, or the possibility of intimidation were taken away, then the evil effects of such a combination would not be much felt? -If you could only establish this state of things, that the workmen combine, and that they then give that liberty to others which they take to themselves, that is to say, that they keep their hands off their neighbours, I should be the greatest possible friend to combinations; and if we could once see that elysium established, I, for one, would give them my most entire support. Let them combine, but let them keep their hands off their neighbours; but unhappily that has never taken place yet, at least in that part of Scotland with which I am acquainted.
1956. In fact, that could not take place without their efforts being crippled to a great extent? -I know the opinion of all combinations is, and particularly the cotton-spinners, that, without intimidating the new hands who might interfere with their monopoly, their illegal efforts, of course, must prove nugatory. Their combination, I think, might have a very beneficial effect in their own favour, if it was limited merely to legal acts. I think, for example, that it is a very good thing for the cotton-spinners, as well as every other class of labour, to combine, because it enables numbers, to a certain degree, to compensate and to enter with equality into the lists with capital, and therefore I think that combinations are essential to support the rights of labour in the competition with capital; but then what I desiderate is, a means for the civil magistrate of separating the outrage and intimidation which hitherto, notwithstanding the change in the Combination Laws by Mr. Hume's Act, has been invariably the concomitant of every strike, not only of every strike, but of every trades' union during the whole of its existence, because the actual occasions of strike which come under the notice of the civil magistrate, and which attract the attention of the public, are but a small part of the operation of the trades' union. The trades' union is permanent in its operations. Every trades' union, including that of the cotton-spinners, is exercising a continual control, in subordinate matters, upon the masters in whose employment the men are. And occasionally strikes are going on between isolated individual masters and their own workmen, in consequence, not of a general contest about wages, but of some quarrel with the individual, such as about an unpopular manager, or their having admitted hands not members of the union, or their having admitted too many apprentices, or something of that kind. In consequence of that the trades union is exercising a continual control over the masters and over the other workmen engaged in the business; and the pressure of that continual control is felt permanently by persons in other trades who are wishing to get their sons into the cotton-spinning line.
2116. Mr. O’Connell. Is there any connection in your opinion between the combination of the cotton-spinners and the distress of the hand-loom weavers? -I gave some evidence on that subject in a former examination, in answer to the questions of my Lord Ashley; but I am strongly impressed with the effect it has had upon the circumstances of the hand-loom weavers, and I was so much aware of it that I recommended to Mr. Symons, the Government commissioner who is now investigating the state of the hand-loom weavers of Glasgow, to turn his attention particularly to that subject; but he told me just before I left Glasgow, that such was the terror of the witnesses in the hand-loom line on the subject of strikes, that out of the first 20 he had examined, he had only been able to get one who would utter the words " unions " and " strikes " but in the twenty-first witness he did stumble upon one who was less alarmed, and he gave important evidence on that subject. I am perfectly convinced that the distress of the hand-loom weavers is mainly and almost entirely to be ascribed to the exclusive monopoly established by the forcible conduct of the trades in all other lines, which prevents their sons getting into any other line.
2117. Preventing the free circulation of labour? -Preventing the free circulation of labour; every trade is fenced round by prohibitions, which render it impossible for a person to get into it, except a son or a brother, or some relation of an already existing member; in short, it is the old spirit of monopoly revived in the persons of the skilled labourers, with this difference, that it is not a few merchants, but a few hundred or thousand workmen, who exclude a hundred thousand of unskilled workmen.
2118. Who operate tyrannically upon all those who would wish to dispose of their labour freely and without the influence of those unions? -Who operate so tyrannically that the lower orders find it impossible to oppose any resistance to it. I am convinced that if a sufficiently vigorous and powerful government were established in the manufacturing districts to restore the freedom of labour, the immediate effect would be a great increase in the persons brought to trial for those offences, because in the transition from the present state, which is one of unlimited despotism on the part of the skilled trades, to one of freedom on the part of the unskilled trades, there would probably be a great contest. The present tranquillity arises from the comparatively irresistible power of the skilled trades, which nobody thinks of resisting, any more than they would think here of resisting the Queen's guards.
2119. Mr Milnes. In fact, it is a complete system of castes? -It is a complete system of castes, which are operating to exclude all persons from those particular lines, except the favoured connexions of the skilled trades; it throws down all the others to the lowest point of depression.
2120. Mr O'Connell. Thus making a species of aristocratic class amongst the labouring population? -Exactly; I have long been convinced that the system is just a system of the aristocracy of skilled labour against the general mass of unskilled labour; and I think the question is far more one between one class of workmen and another, than between the workmen and the masters; for the real sufferers are not the masters so much as the other workmen who are excluded. I am quite sure that for one complaint which I have received from the masters, I have received 50 from the workmen suffering under the system.
2121. By "skilled", do you not mean skilful? -By "skilled labour", I mean the labour of those peculiarly difficult trades to learn, which have got an organization of trades' unions, such as cotton-spinners, iron-moulders, colliers, iron-miners, and so on; and by " unskilled labour ", I mean the labour that is easily learned without an apprenticeship, such as the labour of a ploughman, a hand-loom-weaver, or a scavenger.
2122. Do you foresee any injury to the general interests of trade and commerce from these combinations? -I think that the system of combination, if it goes on as it has done, will undoubtedly ruin the manufacturing industry of the country, and that in more than one way. I do not think it is conceivable that the manufacturers will submit to the present system of coercion and ruin imposed upon them by the work-men; and if they find by experience that it cannot be arrested, I think they will either migrate with their capital to other States, as they have done already, or that they will contrive machinery which will supersede altogether the hand of man in manufactories. That effect has already taken place in a great degree in the cotton-spinners' line. There is the self-adjusting mule, which had been known, but it had not spread to any great degree in Glasgow; but since the late strike of the spinners in 1837, the number of persons who have given orders for self-acting mules, or for double wheels, which reduces the number of spinners to one half, is so great, that already it has had a very serious effect in throwing the cotton-spinners out of employment; and I therefore think it very probable that in five or seven years the cotton-spinners will be reduced to the same destitution as the hand-loom weavers are now. The destitute situation of the hand-loom weavers is in a great measure to be ascribed to the previous combinations of that trade. About 15 or 20 years ago, almost all the serious combinations were on the part of the weavers; the consequence was this, that the attention of the masters was turned in a most serious manner to the application of machinery to supersede the human hand in that department, and the consequence was the discovery of the power-loom weaving, which has brought machinery to compete with the human hand to such a degree in the hand-loom weaving line, as has, coupled with the combinations of other skilled trades, reduced them to their present deplorable condition; and I anticipate a similar result for the cotton-spinners, and all other trades in which the system of combination, accompanied by outrage, has taken strong root, at least in all those trades where the application of machinery is possible; because, where it is not possible, I anticipate the total destruction of the trade from the continuance of the system, and that the capital will leave the country. I know more than one instance of great mercantile establishments which have been decidedly ruined by strikes among the workmen; they calculated their strikes at the time when they knew there were heavy bills running against their employers, and by holding out a series of months they entirely ruined them.
2407. You stated that you thought the hours of employment, of work, should be peremptorily fixed at ten hours a day. In that answer, have you taken into consideration the power of receiving education, or of attending to religious observances, which would be conferred upon the workmen if the number of hours which they work were reduced? -I had in view that as one of the principal reasons; I think that would be one beneficial effect; and that another would be, that they would have more time for really useful education, for reading books worth reading, and that they would be less tempted to habitual indulgence in drinking spirits, which arises from the excess of labour, and from the undue command of money arising from high wages.
2408. Lord Ashley. Then you treat with contempt the argument often urged, that if the working classes had a little more time they would spend that time in a pothouse? -I think that if the working classes had more time, a considerable proportion of them would take to useful reading. in short, I think that the working classes are just like ourselves. In the House of Peers, or in the House of Commons, a certain portion of the Members are good men-, who will read; a certain portion of them are indifferent characters, who will take to dissipation; and I think that the working classes are just the same; I do not think they are a bit worse than we are; and I am sure that we, in the same situation, would do just as they do.
2409. Then your opinion is, that if more time were allowed to the working classes, it would tend to promote their moral and spiritual improvement? -I think it would have a considerable effect in adding to it.
2410. And that it would have a considerable effect in adding to the general prosperity of the state, and consequently to the safety of the country? -Certainly; in short, I think a diminution of the hours of labour is an indispensable preliminary. I am quite certain that if any person will consider the number of hours they work and the heat, and also the severity of the labour, they will find that it would require an intellect as gigantic as that of Sir Isaac Newton or of Lord Bacon, to come back after that and take to intellectual exertion; they require the excitement of ardent spirits.