On Monday there was a great Anti-Unionist demonstration in the
village of Stavely, in Derbyshire, among the colliers and miners of the Stavely Coal and Iron Company. It seems that the colliers and miners of Yorkshire tried to get up some time ago a • colliers' and miners' union in Derbyshire, but that the sister society in Yorkshire was disfigured by tyrannical and terrorist principles, which induced the Derbyshire men to resist the yoke. They have, therefore, kept non-unionist, and having to deal with fair and apparently exceedinglykind employers, they have naturally gone on a great deal better without a union. A great deal of non- sense, was, however, unfortunately talked at the meeting,—nonsense supported by a very able and very prejudiced writer in the North British Review,—as if the Unions were necessarily purely coercive bodies, and, with the extinction of coercion, Unions must die out. This is so absurd in theory and so false in fact, that we cannot express our wonder to hear accomplished economists like Mr. New- march and the North British reviewer talking in this vein. Of course, many Unions,—possibly most,—have been disfigured by attempts to coerce non-unionists. But that a very large propor- tion of Union funds have been spent in the most valuable and legitimate manner, in securing an earlier share for the labourers than they would otherwise have in the rising profits of a par- ticular trade, and in finding out where labour is most in demand and distributing it accordingly, no one who knows anything of the subject doubts for a moment. The reaction caused by the Sheffield iniquities is blinding even scientific men to the plainest teaching of science and fact.
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