DR. BAERNBEITHER ON ENGLISH ASSOCIATIONS OF WORKING MEN.• Spice the
publication, in 1870, of Dr. Brentano's really great work, Die Arbeitergilden der Gegenwarr, the first serious study
of Trade-Unions as an . important factor in contemporary economics, many volumes have been written by German economists on English social subjects. But none of them can be compared for ability—judging even only from the first volume, now published—with the present work of an accom- plished Austrian jurist, late Secretary to the Minister of Justice, but now a Deputy to the Austrian Parliament. Whilst, more- over, Dr. Brentano's work is only a monograph, and to some extent by this time out of date, nor has he shown in his more recent works an equal insight into other phases of the social movement amongst us, Dr. Baernreither'e book distinguishes itself by its comprehensiveness. He has sought, he tells us, to view the physical and intellectual life of our working class as a whole, and at the same time as a part of the life and develop- ment of the whole nation. And although the first volume only deals in detail with the subject of oar Friendly Societies, yet a masterly introduction of 140 pages maps out his whole work ; and the ability with which the Friendly Societies' province is dealt with, affords the best of auguries for his satisfactory treatment of the remainder of the subject.
Starting from the gloomy pictures drawn forty years ago by F. Engels and Venedey, of the condition of the English working class, many details of which still remained true at the much later period of the publication of Karl Marx's Doe Kapital, Dr. Baernreither treats it as irrefragably true, by the testimony alike of scientific bodies, the daily Press, Parliamentary reports, statesmen of all parties, of the landowner, the medical man, the clergyman, of the working men themselves, North and
South, in the Lancashire cotton districts, the Yorkshire woollen districts, the coal and iron districts of Northumberland and Durham, in the great centres of industry, such as Bir- mingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and Durham, that an investigation of the changes which have taken place in the dwellings, the clothing, health, sobriety, morality, education, and political culture of the working class, will show a complete revolution to have accomplished itself during the last forty years amongst a large portion of the class. An improvement has been realised on a scale which is beyond all the hopes of those who a generation ago devoted their whole strength to the work. What, he asks himself, are the causes, the moving forces of this revolu- tion? What economic, intellectual, and moral means have been employed in England to produce this change ? From whom went forth the impulse ? How was that impulse communicated to the masses P To what extent can the progress made be considered as assured P The improvement in the circumstances of the working man has not been the object of an official plan, still less has Parliament proceeded with it systematically ; nor has any economic doctrine united and impelled men's minds in any determined direction; nor, finally, has any tribune, like Leanne, carried with him the great mass of the working class. It has been the work of a society politically and economically free, led by an active, often reckless desire for gain, but in which a sense of duty and goodness labour to restore the lost equipoise. During the last forty years, economic and social causes have, indeed, combined to give in England to labour a higher value and a new form. Since the Reform Act and the repeal of the Corn Laws, the forces accumulated during centuries by policy, by the spirit of trade, by the spontaneous energy of the English people, have had, as it were, every sluice opened to them, so as to produce a growing influx of material wealth for distribution, whilst a social element, that of the working men united in their various associations, has so strengthened the position of labour as towards capital, that the share of the former in the newly accruing wealth has increased. The task which the author has attempted bee therefore been to trace the rise, extension, legal regulation, and results of Associations among English working
men :—
" England is to-day the theatre of a gigantic development of associated life, which gives to her labour, her education, her social intercourse, nay, to the whole development of her culture, a pro- nounced direction, a decisive stamp. The tendency towards the onion of forces and the working of this union are nowadays in England mightier than anywhere else. The free union of individuals for the attainment of a common object is the great psychological fact in the life of this people, its great characteristic feature. This union of in- • Die Englisollen Arbeiternerteinde and ihr Becht. Bin Beitrag oar Genahlehto der erndalen Bewegnog in der Geganwurt. Von Dr. J.1.1. Beernreither. Vol. I. Ttlbinnon H. lac pp. INA dividaal forces has worked even there, where adverse relations have sought to restrain it ; but when freed from all fetters and yet at the same time under discipline, it has become nowadays a mighty moving wheel of social development, especially in the raising of the working- classes. Since the abolition of the laws prohibiting combinations, which has been the turning-point in the history of the English work- ing class, associations of working men have gained immeasurably in significance, they have organised, purified, strengthened themselves. The power of union, the capacity for submitting to the lead of others, the perseverance and energy which they show in pursuing the aims set before them, are amazing. In the course of the last decades those associations have become more and more differentiated accord- ing to their various objects, and are now distinct economic and legal institutions. The combination of the earlier, more scattered, and unoonneeted groups into great centralised assooiations has extraordinarily increased their power."
Among the forme of these Associations, he enumerates as the oldest, Friendly Societies ; then Trade-Unions, nearly related to the Friendly Society in their historical development ; then Co- operative Societies, divided into two groups, the distributive and the productive, the former by far the more numerous of the two ; then Benefit Building Societies and Working-Men's (by a slight, and for him very rare inaccuracy, spoken of as " Work- men's ") Clubs :— " All these institutions lead a separate existence, are represented by associated organisations, substantial in themselves, wholly inde- pendent of one another ; and legislation itself has fixed the law of these institutions in separate Acts of Parliament. There is there- fore no difficulty in considering and determining separately their rise, their extension, their progress, their advantages and defects But only in the combined working of all these groups lies the secret of their encloses. It is not the separate observation of Friendly Societies, Trade-Unions, Co-operative Societies, or of the legislation on factories or wages, that will give us a sufficient answer to the ques- tion as to the impulses which have conditioned the progress of the working class in England, and condition it yet further ; but first of all the knowledge of how all these institutions work together. One com- pletes the other, a mistake on this side is made up for by a success on the other."
He goes on to point out that the element which determines the rise of the working class in England lies in the training of leaders for it by the various associated groups :—
" Friendly Societies are not only associations for purpcees of in- surance, but bodies which undertake to teach their members saving habits, foresight, care for the future ; Trade-Unions are no longer one- sided combinations to raise wages, but the protectors and guardians of the economic interests of the workers in a wide and just sense ; Co-operative Societies are not merely institutions which procure prac- tically for the English worker the advantages which he nowadays derives in so rich a measure from the cheap Import of the necessaries of existence, as well as from the cheap production of many articles of industry, but the school in which he learns to understand business life in all its directions and with all its difficulties and dangers. Yet, more than all this, the English worker, who has founded and directs all these countless Associations of the most various kinds, has ceased to be a spectator who stands by taking no part in all pro- ceedings of the State and of society. His life has acquired a new import. His evenings, his Saturday afternoon, and in part also his Sunday, are devoted to an intellectual work which brings him into close contact with all manner of financial, economic, and legislative questions. His understanding and his insight in economic matters are growing ; he learns by his own experience to know the diffioultiee which oppose themselves to the carrying out of social institutions ; he becomes more moderate in his claims, calmer in judgment, better
satisfied with success. On the other side, he loses nothing of that stiff-neckedness in pursuing his ends which has always distin- guished him. Step by step he wins for himself general interest by his meetings, journals, congresses, acquires influence in local bodies and in Parliament, and becomee a living, independent, and powerful factor in the life of the State. The chief point is, however, that his world of thought is fitted with clearly practical and attainable things, and that no Utopias find place in it. It would be quite false, indeed, to believe that the English worker does not reach in thought into the far future, and does not represent this to himself as far other than the to-day ; but in his sots he reckons with present facts, and that freedom of movement which he enjoys without limit in his combina- tion he only uses to reach one thing after the other."
That this picture is a somewhat ideal one as respects our working class as a whole, that class would probably itself admit ; but it is certainly true of a large portion of it.
The above extracts, pregnant with thought and insight as the reader will probably feel them to be, are all taken from the first chapter only of Dr. Basrnreither's masterly introduction, which sets forth the scope and limits of hie task. The following chapters are headed " Greater Britain," " Society and the Indi- vidual," "The State, Self-Government, and Self-Help." He then enters on the subject of Friendly Societies, connecting with it the Government annuity system, and devoting eighteen pages to "Plane of Compulsory Assurance for the Working Class," chiefly dealing with the scheme of the Rev. W. E. Blackley, which he concludes not to be suited to the character of the English people.
It may be added that Dr. Baernreither has recently introduced
in the Austrian Chamber of Deputies a Bill "concerning regis- tered Friendly Societies " (registrirten Hilfskassen) which, though, from an English point of view, overladen with officialism, is probably capable of bearing very good fruit, perhaps especially through its recognition of the federal prin- ciple, which has done so much for this country through the development of our great orders, with their tens and hundreds of thousands of members. To the two greatest orders, indeed, the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows and Ancient Order of Foresters —each of which has over 600,000 members—Dr. Baernreither devotee a special chapter in his book ; so that he has fully realised the importance of these really magnificent organisa- tions, built up, with very little help from outside, by the steady and sturdy industry of our working and lower middle class.
It is greatly to be wished that a work dealing in so masterly a manner with a specially English subject, may not share the undeserved fate of Dr. Brentano's Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart in remaining untranslated. It may safely be said that there are very few Englishmen who would not find something to learn from Dr. Baernreither's pages, and none who would not find in them suggestive material for thought.
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