1
Miners’ Meeting Audley 1879
Researched by John Lumsdon
On Monday evening 9th February a meeting was held in a large room adjoining the Kings Head, Audley. The attendance was large and a good union spirit was manifested. The miners’ in and around Audley appeared to realise the true position. A reduction of 10% off all wages paid by the Silverdale Company is considered by a great number workman, to be a large reduction. But the men have no other alternative but to accept the reduction or cease working and they had more discretion than to enter into a strike at a time like the present.
Mr. Brown attended and in the course of his remarks he said that the croakers had shifted their charges against working men as being the cause directly and indirectly to the present depression in trade. The wages of colliers and all men working about pits had been reduced to the lowest minimum compatible with a bare subsistence, thousands of families found it more than they were able to do to keep the wolf from the door. Many speculators and political economists of the most shallow and flimsy kind were crying out for ‘reciprocity’ which meant in plain English ‘retaliation’, for it meat putting tax upon foreign goods which were imported into this country and the consumers from the greatest to the least would have to pay dearly for their whistle if such an injurious course was adopted.
He had that morning read a report of a speech delivered by Mr. Jacob Bright, MP at Ashton and the Hon. Gentleman was reported to have said that if he was a working man it would be his wish to work reasonable hours and receive fair wages and have the freedom to lay out his earnings in the best cheapest market and he considered that working men ought to study politics, as their social position was either improved or injured by the movements of politicians. Mr. Bright had said as much about the hours of labour and the wages of working men as any reasonable leader of unionism had ever said. The question of difference arose as to what was considered a fair day’s work, and how much was a fair day’s wage. Some people who had never worked as manual labourers an never expected to work as such, considered the colliers were not doing their duty as honest workmen, and honourable citizens, and obedient subjects, by their eight hours system of working. The men, however, believed as they had to hew the coal and load it, and do other kinds of arduous and hazardous work underground, they themselves were the best practicable judges as how long to an underground workman had to work, and how much labour he ought to perform each day.
Mr. Brown contended that the miners worked hard enough and long enough, and if any of the croakers would take the trouble to pay one visit to their blast furnaces, and the ironstone pit banks in all parts of Britain, and keep their eyes open they would see that millions of tons of ironstone, pig-iron and finished iron were in stock and could not be disposed of at any price, saying nothing remunerative prices; and such being the fact, and an ocular demonstrated fact, why should the cry be raised from one end of Britain to the other for an increase in the hours of labour? Such a cry in his opinion was an insult to the common sense of the industrious classes of the United Kingdom. No nation of workers could work like Englishmen, and no nation of workers did work like Englishmen, and no nation of workers earned their wages more honestly than did the British labourers, from the scavenger in the street to the collier in the mine, the mechanic at his lathe and the literary men at their desks.
Let the Beaconsfield Government be dissolved, and let abler, more honest, and better men be put into power and let the English nation once more become sane, and then confidence in commercial and in industrial circles would be restored and the British working men and English capitalists would soon witness and enjoy a revival in trade. Gentlemen in possession of mountains of wealth would not open their coffers and enter into business speculations whenever the government was playing its cards in secret and constantly taking the country by surprise.
In conclusion Mr. Brown warned the hearers against apathy and inconsistency. Non-unionists might escape paying a weekly contribution of 3p per week for the support of an association, but if for the lack of manliness and straight forwardness they allow the association to collapse they would not escape the evil consequences of their own foolishness and indifference.
It would be soon 9 years since he first tread upon the ground of Audley and addressed his first meeting in that locality. He had talked to the miners of North Staffordshire often about matters which concerned them and their families, and the more he talked and the more he endeavoured to persuade miners to be more discreet in their actions the more stupid a many of them appeared to be. If the colliers were as careful and as considerate as they ought to be, and as the labour demanded they should be, there would be no loaders be working for 3s 4p per day, and no able bodied, industrious, and well skilled collier would expected to hew coal for the miserable pittance they were working for at the present time. The working men could have the power to make one side of the bargain for the labour they had to do, but whilst they remained a disunited, loose and incongruous mass of humanity and a mole of men with neither union nor system nor principle invasions would by made on upon their industrial rights.
On the question of hours employers and managers differed in their opinions. The well disposed were not in favour of increasing the hours of labour and those who were in favour of extending the hours of labour might be sincere in what they advocated, but a little hood-winked by selfishness and a longing desire to accumulate capital faster than the circumstances by which they were surrounded permitted them to do so. Let capitalists preach their owndoctrines as much as they pleased, and let working men demand the right of association, and keep themselves well united at all times in such a position as would enable them to protect their labour, and defend themselves against everything that was considered to be unscrupulous and arbitrary.
The complimentary vote terminated the proceedings. Upwards of 200 miners were present, and the meeting was enthusiastic throughout.