21 SEPTEMBER 1867, Page 6

TRADES' SOCIEHES IN THEM RELATION TO UNSKTMFID LABOUR, A GREAT deal

has' been written' and spoken of late about Trades' Unions, yet one side of the subject seems almost to have escaped notice,—their influence on the position of the unskilled labourer. So much attention has been drawn to their effect on the relation between the employer and the workman, that their equallyimportant action on the class beneath them has been little remarked. While the attempts to fix a minimum price for labour, to limit the amount of work which the artizan may accomplish in a day, or to put an unpleasant pressure on non- Union men have been severely reprehended, we have heard very little of the apprenticeship rules by which the Unions secure their privileges. Almost every Trade Society has such rules, in most cases restricting the number of apprentices ; in all insisting that every workman employed shall have passed through his full term of apprenticeship. These rules are enforced with greater strictness than others which have given rise to more comment, and in a different spirit. Refusal to work with non-union men is met with only in strong Unions, and its object is to drive these men to become members- of the Society. But every organized trade will do its utmost to prevent the employment of men who have not been appren- ticed, and, far from driving them into the Union, will.deny them admittance. These restrictions have met with little condemnation. Occasionally a master grumbles at the in- convenience to which he is subjected by the strict organiza- tion of the Trades, as when half a dozen masons, who do not know how to point stone, object to the work being done by a bricklayer who does ; but, as a rule, few people trouble themselves about the matter. Yet its influence in enforcing stagnation on the country labourer is enormous, and even to the artizan who supposes himself to profit by it it is not an unmixed gain. No contrast can be greater than that between the workmen of the United States, handy, full of resources, passing easily from one employment to another, and always able to fall upon his feet, and the English artizan, who never travels out of the groove where he was first placed, and -who, if his trade fails through invention of new machinery or change of fashion, is simply a candidate for the poor-house. He cannot turn to any other employment, for though it might be easy for hini to learn, he would not be allowed to work at it. No doubt labour must always be more divided fil- m old country than in- one that is new and sparsely settled, but that is no reason why artificial regulations should be introduced to help a tendency already too strong.

Something may be said in favour of requiring a' period of apprenticeship. It is a convenience both to master and men to have some regular form of initiation, instead of having to- trust to the bare word of a candidate for employment. On the other hand, every employer knows that many men remain incompetent in spite of their training, while many more would acquire the necessary skill if they had a chance of being allowed to exert it. Many of the occupations which are tech- nically classed under skilled labour, far from requiring a seven years' study, may be learned in a few weeks, as has sometimes- been proved in severe strikes. But the labourers who might thus have raised their condition are, so far as the Unions have- their way, refused permission to enter -a class which tries to be- as exclusive as an ancient noblesse.

The interest of the public is sometimes pleaded as a reasotv why the Unions should keep a control over- apprenticeship. It is said that bad and dishonest work is encouraged by the employment of half-skilled men, and that a strict system of apprenticeship is the best test of competency. Those who- have watched the working of the Union laws know that by limiting the number of apprentices' they do more to prevent- good training than to secure it. Thee large factories, where- good work is turned out;- and where the most skilful journey- men are employed, are- the best schools for training a work- man. But the owners of such are not usually very eager to engage apprentices. The small saving made in wages is matter of little importance to them, especially since it must be purchased by temporary inferiority in the work. Accord- ingly, they submit to Union regulations; and content them- selves with the " fair " number of apprentices. Meanwhile, less desirable academies• are touting for pupils. The small master, the journeyman who has just set up in business an& finds that he has rather more on his hands than he can do, anxious to buy his labour in the cheapest market, and takes. more apprentices than he' can properly instruct. The Society may protest, but will finally be obliged to admit them, lest- they should swell too largely the ranks of the non-Unionist& Thus-the rules framed to ensure skill only drive apprentiees, from the places where' they would' be well trained, to place them under inefficient tutors.

Even -if' they- were successful, they would' be quite.insufff-- cient. It is no use taking care that- the-workman can de hifP work unless' you also assure- yourself that he will. Clever workmen can, and do at times, scamp their work, and if we are to restore a protective policy at all, we had better return to the mediaeval system of certifying the manufactures appoint inspectors to see that our cutlery is made for use, and that our piece goods and threads are of full measure and honest workmanship. If this system were carried out we' should need no certificates for the workmen, and without it certificates are useless as far as the public is concerned. If it were not that there are obstinate heretics in political= economy, who refuse to believe that wages depend on the relation of the amount of the wages' fund to the number of` labourers seeking employment, and who even deny the exist- ence of a wages' fund, it would be unnecessary to do more than to point out that if one section obtains by artificial- means more than its fair share out of the aggregate funds, employed in hiring labourers, it must be at the expense of the rest. Even those who reject this general proposition must allow that whatever- labourers are shut out by the restrictive- system from the close Trades are thrown upon the employ- ments which are unprotected, and adding- to the number- already competing in them, bring down the rate of wages. It is this extra pressure which makes it almost impossible for any single Union to introduce more liberal customs, since it would be at once swamped. Still, in cases where a trade has been overcrowded through the• breaking up of a Union the• best workmen generally continue to receive fair wages, as they are an object of competition to masters of the highest• class. On the influence of the well fenced trades in reducing- wages outside their pale we may quote an instructive passage- from the account of Trade combinations in Sheffield, printed! in the Report of the Committee of the Social Science Associa- tion on Trades' Unions. It is written by Mr. F. H. Hill, who, is a thoroughly fair judge, without any prejudices against the Unions. " So far as a Union, such as that of the File Trade, succeeds in securing a high rate of wages for its members, so far it achieves a useful end. It should be remembered, however, the author who is protected- by a copyright." The last illustration is hardly to the point. At all events, no part of the reasoning, justifies the limitation or the number of apprentices.

"Considering that the trade whereby we live is our property, made ready the harness of the Old Whig champions, bought by certain years of servitude, which give us a vested and invites Mr. Disraeli to meet him next session on the right, and that we have a sole and exclusive claim upon it, as battle-ground of "the Irish difficulty." Already he seems to all. will have hereafter who purchase it by the same means ; be- measuring the field and searching out its pitfalls, while he such being the case, it is evident that it is every man's duty luxuriates among the beauties of lake and mountain at Kil- to. protect by all fair and legal means the property whereby he larney. Mr. Disraeli perhaps, like Marius at Vercells3, would lives, being always equally careful not to trespass on the rights gladly choose, if he might, his own fighting ground, but it is monopoly, the property of those who have been allowed to by their questionable manipulation of Reform. That their purchase it by apprenticeship. In some Trades membership leaders are not willing we make not the least doubt ; Mr. is regarded as a sort of hereditary possession. Either the sons of Disraeli and Lord Derby talk as if they meant to be in for members only 'are admissible as apprentices or some special ten years, at all events, and there is no saying what a dogged advantages are allowed to them, a system which, if it had full determination may not achieve. It may be conjectured from play, would turn all occupations into separate castes. Another a recent rumour that Lord Russell's challenge has been prac- form which- the spirit of monopoly takes is the attempt to tically accepted ; it has been said,—and there is, no doubt, secure for the members of a Union work which can be done authority for the statement, —that Lord Stanley and Mr. as well without their special training. Sometimes this attempt Disraeli contemplate an Irish tour similar to Lord Russell's. takes the form of a claim to do such work because it is con- Whether this be true or no, it may be taken for granted fleeted with the regular business of the trade ; more often it that the leaders, both of the Government and the Opposi- consists in resistance to some subdivision of labour in manu- tion, will do their best to organize their forces for an facturing, by which the easier and simpler part of a process Irish campaign. It becomes, then, an important as well as an would be entrusted to unskilled labour. These two kinds of interesting question,—how will the Irish Members range demands run into- each other, and are often difficult to dis- themselves ? In the case of English constituencies a problem tinguish. of this sort is very easily solved. Speaking roughly, the bold The principle on which. they rest is well laid down in a self- lines of party distinctions govern the political conduct of all denying ordinance of the Seamen's United Protection Society. representatives, except those who are either very earnest " No member shall work, whip, or discharge coals at any theorists or very corrupt intriguers. In Ireland one cannot creek, quay, or wharf, in the Port of the London, on the River guess with the same certainty. No doubt, the events of late Thames ; nor at any hulk,the Gravesend Canal, or Lobster years have tended to concentrate Irish political energy, to Wharf ; such work being an unjust interference with the labour enroll Irish politicians in one party camp or the other. Still, of men who get their living by such work." This enactment it would be unwise to forget that the mass of these are enrolled, shows the consideration justly due from the members of one so to speak, as mercenaries; that they abjure for the most part monopoly to those of another. All the Societies are not so the sanctity of party allegiance; that they are guided by prin- careful to avoid offence, and bitter quarrels have arisen more ciples or instincts which find no place in the creed of Whig, or than once from men belonging to one trade doing work which Tory, or Radical. If we have not the patience to study and another claimed as its special province. Monopoly is some- apprehend the intellectual position assumed by the varieties times carried further into local restrictions, and may then give of political sects in Ireland, we shall find ourselves involved in rise to such struggles as that between. the Ashton and Man- very serious error. that the undue limitation of its members forces labour, which I a perfect right to live on their property, i.e., their trade. would otherwise be attracted to it, into other and already Not only so, but as long as one of them is out of work his overstocked departments, and thus perhaps creates among the brother members will refuse to admit into a factory a man who working classes; taken as a whole, more distress than it pre- has not been regularly admitted to the trade, however com- vents in its own ranks. This consideration, which does not petent he may be. It is unnecessary to pursue this further. raise the much controverted points in dispute between We see that the Societies virtually acknowledge themselves employers and workmen, but keeps the question strictly a to be monopolies, both by the claims they prefer and those working-man's question, deserves, perhaps, to be more thought- they allow. It is fortunate that the pressure from below, fully weighed by members of stringently limited Trades than often supported by the influence of the masters, has had a it has yet been. The miserable condition of the penknife compensating power. Could the organization which seems to cutlers, and the unparalleled prosperity of the filesmiths, are be the dream of some of the Union leaders be effectually to some extent correlative. They are like the two arms of an carried out, we should have two distinct classes or castes of unequally weighted balance ; as the one rises, the other sinks." labourers ; the lower shut off from all hope of improvement. The members of prosperous Unions would probably. refuse It would be most unfair to reproach the Trades' Unions or to admit such conclusions- as these, and would disclaim with their managers with aiming at results which they have pro- honest indignation the odious name of monopolists. Yet that bably never anticipated. It would be equally unreasonable to they are conscious of the value of their monopoly, when dis- expect that regulations which have been so thoroughly Moor- guised under a more delicate name, we may see by referring porated into the Union system should be at once abolished. to their laws. Some of them speak more clearly than others. A single Union cannot be expected to throw up its advantages The great Society of Amalgamated Engineers decently throws and face a competition aggravated, as we have seen, by the a veil, though rather a transparent one, over its merely private restrictions still remaining in all others. But we must not interests. "If constrained to make restrictions against the refrain from pointing out faults because they can be only admission into our trade of those who have not earned a right gradually amended. The evils which we have touched on are by a probationary servitude, we do so, knowing that such examples of the worse side of Unionism ; of that purely class- encroachments are productive of evil, and when persevered in spirit which has now and then led to great crimes, and very unchecked, result- in reducing the position of the artisan to often to great blunders. Unless the Unions can purge them- that of the unskilled labourer, and confer no permanent selves of this they can do no permanent good to their mem- advantage on those admitted. It is our duty, then, to exercise bers or to their country. There will still be work enough for the same care and watchfulness over that in which- we have a them ; association need not be an instrument of enlarged vested interest, as the physician does who holds a diploma and selfishness.