THE REPORT OF THE TRADES' UNIONS' COMMISSION.
TFIE Trades' Unions' Commissioners have issued their " Eleventh and Final Report." The trumpet, however, gives out but an uncertain sound. There is division in the camp. A minority has seceded from the majority, and both majority and minority are divided amongst themselves. Sir William Erle, Lord Elcho, Sir D. Gooch, Mr. Herman Merivale, Mr. Booth, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Mathews sign the Report proper ; but Lord Elcho and Mr. Merivale dissent jointly from two portions of it, and Lord Elcho alone from another. A minority of three, Lord Lichfield, Mr. Hughes, and Mr. Harrison, refuse to sign the report of the majority, and append a dissent, which is practically a minority report ; but Messrs. Hughes and Harrison append a " separate statement of their reasons," which Lord Lichfield cannot fully concur ill, and which forms the pendant to a draft report by Mr. Booth, referred to in the majority report, and apparently representing the views of what may be termed the " extreme right " of the Commission, as Mr. Hughes' and Mr. Harrison's paper does those of the " extreme left." Whilst, strange to say, Sir William Erie's memorandum on the law already published and on sale re-appears (with a few trifling alterations), printed at the public expense, as part of the new Blue-Book. Is this constitutional ? It seemed odd already that Sir William Erie should publish his conclusions before the issuing of the report ; but that he should thus (whether for his own benefit or that of a publisher it matters little) sell beforehand to the public an actual annex to that report which he is commissioned to make to Her Majesty, seems to us one of the most extraordinary breaches of etiquette we ever heard of.
But apart from special dissents, the tone of the majority report is itself an uncertain one. The comparison with Mr. Booth's draft shows that this, the substratum of the actual report, is conceived in a spirit decidedly adverse to Trade Societies. Much, if not the greater part, of the draft in question consists in mere argument against them. It would have " sternly repressed " all picketing ; would have practically imposed upon all engine-drivers the obligation of giving a month's notice of theirintention to leave to their Railway Company, without imposing any corresponding obligation on the latter ; and would have struck at the very existence of the various Amalgamated Trade Societies—beyond all question the best managed
of all—by rendering void any rule authorizing mere " advice " during any dispute with an employer by the governing body to branches of the same society in any other town. And
although the forty-three pages of this mischievous production have been pared down to twenty-two, and its worst extravagancies have been pruned away in the actual report, still its sour sub-soil is constantly cropping up in the latter, side by side with portions inspired by a larger and more generous spirit, and giving an air of ungraciousness to the whole. Substantially, the recommendations of the Commissioners tend to a considerable relaxation of the existing law. We use the word "tend " advisedly, as the specific recommendations made are so clogged with provisions and limitations, so little indicative of a clear perception of the questions actually in issue, so visibly mere compromises between views at bottom irreconcilable, that if carried out to the letter they would prove almost nugatory. The right of combining as to the stipulation of the terms of labour is to be made, nominally at least, general (it is now confined to two objects only, wages and hours of labour). Picketing is to be left to the operation of the existing law. Trades' Unions are to be entitled to be registered, and to acquire a legal status, provided their rules are not " framed in defiance of the well-established principles of economical science ;" and four objects are enumerated, which are to be deemed to preclude registration. Lastly, a separation of funds between provident purposes and trade purposes is strongly urged, and although not actually proposed to be enforced by law, societies which keep up such a separation are recommended to be invested with special privileges, as "FirstClass Trade Union Benefit Societies."
Christianity, it has been said, is part and parcel of the law of England. The Report before us, it will be observed, aims at making political economy part and parcel of the law. Whereupon the working-man may well ask,—' What political economy I The science itself has only acquired its name within about a century. It has many varying schools already. Thirty years ago Dr. Arnold spoke of " those oneeyed men, the political economists." Are you sure that they have by this time so completely got the sight of both eyes that they are to be trusted with the right of laying down the law in a matter which we consider concerns our daily bread, and the power to earn it, for ourselves, our wives, and our little ones?' A singular comment on the claim to exclude from the benefit of the law Unions framed " in defiance of the well-established principles of economical science," is indeed supplied by the fact that one of the four specified cases of such defiance forms also one of the express grounds of a joint dissent by two members of the majority of the Commission, Lord Elcho and Mr. Merivale.
But now the question arises,—Do not these gentlemen, who propose to ignore all Trades' Unions which defy " the wellestablished principles of economical science," really " defy " in their suggestions the principles of that school of political economy to which they apparently belong ? Nothing is more habitually dinned into the ears of working-men by the plutonomists of the day than that " labour is a commodity." The Commissioners visibly adopt this view, when they use such terms as the " supply of labour," " the labour market," the " disposal of labour," " bargaining " as to the terms on which it is to be disposed of. But if so, why is the disposal of this commodity to be specially regulated and restricted ? A Trades' Union aims at a monopoly of it within a given area, do you say ? Well, all statutes against forestalling, engrossing, regrating have been abolished. Even before they were, Sir W. Erie's own memorandum shows that the engrossing of all the oil of a whaling season was held to be no offence at common law. There is nothing in law to prevent a single capitalist from buying up—if he could—every grain of corn and ounce of flour in the country or coming to it, keeping all till half the population are starved to death, and then doling it out to the remainder for its weight in gold. There is nothing to prevent a firm of capitalists from doing so; nothing to prevent a joint-stock company from doing so ; it would be an altogether novel and unheard-of application of the law of conspiracy if there were found any means of preventing a combination of all the bakers in the country, or all the flour merchants, or all the millers, &c., or any two or more of such trades together, from doing so. The law steps in nowhere to prevent or restrict or regulate the accumulation in que or more hands of any single commodity, however necessary to the very life of the community. It does not even prevent the accumulation in a single hand of the commodity labour, provided that hand is the hand of a buyer. It never
interferes to restrict an employer from baying up all the skilled labour in a given trade,—it would not interfere to prevent his buying up all the labour in the country. But when the question is that of accumulating the commodity labour in the hands of its sellers, the question quite changes its aspect. Whether two or more of such sellers can lawfully agree as to the terms upon which they will sell it, becomes a very serious matter. Probably, say the Commissioners, it may be safe to exempt them from punishment for doing so ; but their agreements must not be held binding. Labour-sellers' associations may even be allowed to gain a legal status ; but only if they abstain, (1) from interference with the sale of the labour of apprentices ; (2) with the use of machinery ; (3) with the taking of sub-contracts, piece-work, or labour in common with non-members ; (4) from helping out of their funds members of any other unconnected' associations when in dispute with the labour-buyers. But if there is to be no law for restraining the labour-buyer, be he one or many, whether he choose to buy no apprentice labour, or none but such ; no piece-work labour, or none but such ; no unionists' labour, or none but such ; to use machinery nowhere, or everywhere ; to proscribe all sub-contracts in his business, or to let out all his business upon them ; to refuse all help to, or share his whole fortune with, other labour-buyers in dispute with the labour-sellerswhy are these last to be excluded from the benefit of the law for alleged violations of economic science which labourbuyers may freely commit, and enjoy all legal protection ? Take the instances which perhaps appeal most to the moral sense, those of a society aiming at limiting the number of apprentices (a practice, be it always remembered, held perfectly justified amongst attorneys) ; or at the exclusion of non-unionists from fellow-work (the ruling etiquette of the Bar, &c.); if labour be a mere commodity, in what do they differ in their legal or scientific effect from the case of the brewer imposing upon publicans the obligation of taking only his own beer ? What principle of law hinders the seller from making it a condition with the buyer that he shall deal with no other seller of the same commodity ? The thing is of every-day occurrence. Wherever any article, by its rarity, its excellence, its mere name, however undeserved or fraudulently won, seems capable of enjoying a more or less qualified monopoly of the market, efforts are at once made to secure that monopoly by sending travellers throughout the country to make agreements with dealers for the exclusive use of such article. Why are the labour-sellers to be excluded from benefiting by such a monopoly in the commodity which they have to sell ? Of course the mixture of fraud or coercion with the attempt to secure, and deal on fixed terms for, the supply of the article labour should be amenable to law ; but why otherwise than if the like fraud or coercion were mixed with the like attempt in the case of any other article ?
The more this question is looked into, the more it will be seen that the very " principles of economical science " to which the Commissioners appeal, i.e., those of the now ruling school of competitive plutonomy, require that the sale of labour and all combinations relating to it should be made as absolutely free, not only as the purchase of labour, but that of every other article of commerce, and all combinations relating to such purchase, subject only to the ordinary restraints of law upon abuses incident to the relation of buyer and seller. We do not say that those principles are the highest, are even the true ones for a nation's householding. We simply say that when those principles are applied, they should be applied fairly, justly, and equally between class and class. A Bill which should carry out the Commissioners' recommendations would fall yet far short of that end.
We must reserve to another time to comment upon the dissent of the non-signing minority. Meanwhile, we must not forget to thank the Commissioners for their hearty approval of Boards of Conciliation, as well as for their more qualified praise of the Co-operative system.
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