SHIPBUILDERS AND SHIPWRIGHTS.
DURING the terrible crisis of last autumn and winter at the East End of London, the prevalent belief, it may be said, amongst the self-styled " educated " or "cultivated " classes was that it was all owing to the wickedness of trade societies, shipwright's strikes, and the obstinate refusal of working men to accept Gs. Gd. a day wages instead of 7s. Day after day, between the turbot and the saddle of mutton, clergymen and men of business, pious ladies and officials, united in one chorus of horror over such selfishness, and the distribution of alms, freely given by the public, was actually stopped, if we remember aright, for forty-eight hours at the Mansion House, in order to coerce a handful of shipwrights by the sufferings of others,—the most shameful "lock-out" ever perpetrated. The Spectator was at that time one of the very few organs of the press which would admit the statement of facts, the expression of opinions, which might run counter to the creed of the hour,—as that the distress was caused by something else than trade societies,—that there was no such thing as a shipwrights' strike, that no question of Gs. Gd. or 7s. a day wages (in the proper sense of the term) had ever been so much as mooted, and that the case to which these figures applied was one entirely mis-stated and misunder- stood by the press and the public. Since that time the Trades' Union Commission, in the course of their investigations, have taken up the matter, and their Ninth Report is devoted to the subject of Shipbuilders' and Shipwrights' Associations. It is full of very curious matter, deserving to be carefully ! pondered. As to whether the East-end distress was caused by Trades' Unions or strikes, here is the employers' testi- mony :—Mr. Clifford Wigram, the great shipbuilder, speaking from nineteen years' personal experience of a business which has been in his family's hands since the beginning of the century, says expressly that he does not believe that the effect of Trades' Unions has been to drive trade out of the river Thames, does not attribute the present stagnation to them, but, on the contrary, believes that if trade has been driven away, it has been by the talk about unionism, and not by the Unions themselves. Mr. Samuda, Mr. Clifford's neighbour, a determined opponent of trade societies, "cannot impress" upon the minds of the committee "too strongly" that "quite as much of the unsatisfactory state of shipbuild- ing throughout this country is due to unsound trading on the part of the masters as to excessive demands on the part of the men." Mr. Dudgeon, of Millwall, also a strong anti-unionist employer, considers, "it would be unfair" to the Trades' Unions" to say that they were ever principally the causes of the stoppage of trade." Even Mr. Divers, Secretary to the Thames Ship- building Company, does "not agree with those who say that the constant demands of the shipwrights have driven wages up to such a point that the shipbuilding trade of the port of London has been destroyed." Only Mr. George Bayley, sur- veyor and auctioneer, believes that the unions "have driven the work away from the river Thames to an extent which is quite alarming "—a piece of evidence which, compared to that of the actual shipbuilders, may probably serve as an illustra- tion of Mr. Clifford Wigram's view of the mischiefs which have been produced by the talk about unionism. On the other hand, as respects the particular case of the 7s. or Gs Gd., it is perfectly clear from the evidence of all the witnesses, and in particular from that of Mr. Divers on behalf of his company, the establishment actu- ally concerned in the occurrence, that, as the men have always maintained, the dispute was not one about the amount of wages at all, but as to the mode of payment for a contract ; that the practice in shipbuilding is to agree with the ship- wrights for certain work to be done at a lump sum, the price to be drawn for on account at a given rate per day, and that if a certain contract was refused by the Thames Shipbuilding Company on the ground that the shipwrights had declined to draw on account at less than their customary rate of 7s. per day, so ruinous was that contract in itself that no one was ever found to take it up, even in those quarters to which we are told that the high wages of the Thames have driven its shipbuilding. On the other hand, if we complete this evidence by that of the men, we find it clearly established that, so far from the men having insisted on 7s. a day wages, they were willing to take a contract which, on the whole, might only pay them 5s. a day, and to guarantee the Company against loss, under a different system of payment, at so much per ton, and that the whole amount in question would not have exceeded 35/. per ship. That the men were mistaken in the course they pursued is clearly shown by the fact that they now accept a rate of drawing, not of Gs. 6d., bat of Gs. a day. But one cannot but feel that the mistake was one only of judgment, that to weigh against their selfishness, when the facts are known, is simply hypocritical ; and that Mr. Robson, the President of the "Shipwrights' Provident Union," deserved better treatment than he received at the Mansion House,—where his society, as with honest pride he says, had previously gone up to give 100/. to the Patriotic Fund, and 100/. to the Lancashire Distress Fund,—when, by the advice of friendly employers, he endeavoured to show that the ship- wrights were not the cause of keeping 30,000 men out of work.
But these are not by any means the most important portions of the evidence contained in the Ninth Report. These are to be found in the opinions expressed by certain employers on the wages question, and the facts which they reveal as to their own practices. There is nothing we hear more frequently insisted on than that labour is a commodity, like any other, of which wages are the price ; that such price depends upon the relation of supply and demand, and is to be fixed, like any other item of price, by what Adam Smith terms the higgling of the market. But, Mr. Joseph d'Aguilar Satauda, M.P., sets forth a quite different plutonomic principle. Formerly, he says, "we fixed the wages." But, says he, "gradually and by degrees the men have become the parties who have fixed the wages, and the masters have been ignored in the matter altogether, and now we have no power whatever in fixing men's wages in all those departments in which they belong to Unions ; we must submit to pay them that which they consider or which their unions fix as the price, and they in fact are the masters of the situation, and not ourselves." This seems to him such a remarkable, abnormal, portentous fact, that he returns to it again and again :—" What I am attempting to prove to you, and which is clear in my own mind is, that since the repeal of the combination laws (which I think were properly repealed) there has taken place a state of things which the men have not realized, which is this, that they have the power of fixing wages instead of myself." Again, "The answer which I gave to Mr. Roebuck was this, that formerly I, as the master, used to fix the price at which I would put the men on, and I fixed that price, having regard in my own mind to the value of the individual man ; but that lately . . . . I was obliged to submit to a way of engaging men at the price that they themselves in their own Unions regulated that they would take." Again, "The men have deprived me of the power which I possessed and exercised of fixing the rate of those men's wages according to the ability they display. I have no more power of doing it now than you have," &c., &c.
Now, it is a singular fact which results from the whole of the evidence, that the supposed exorbitant wages of Thames' shipwrights, in spite of all this " fixing " by the Unions, have only permanently risen by 6c1. a day since about 1815, whilst the amount of work done for the same money has become much greater. But leaving this consideration on one side, let us confine ourselves to Mr. Samuda's eminently simple view of the labour question—that labour, instead of being a marketable com- modity, like any other, is one of which the buyer and not the seller is to fix the price. The buyer did so formerly, he tells us, in the plenitude of his wisdom and benevolence. Now the seller actually fixes the price of his article for himself, and won't sell it under that rate. The buyer has positively no more power of fixing it, Mr. Samuda assures the Commissioners, than they have themselves.
There is a comic naiveté about Mr. Samuda's views which is really delightful. Only fancy a baker or a butcher coming up to Parliament to testify that formerly he used to fix the price he would pay for flour or for meat, "having regard in his own mind to the value of the individual" lot or beast, but that now the miller or the cattle-dealer actually fixes the price himself, and won't sell their wares for less! Or imagine what Mr. Samuda would have said himself, if during the Crimean War there had been sitting a Committee on shipbuilding, and a member of a shipping firm had come forward to declare that, before the financial reforms of Sir Robert Peel, he used to fix the price he would pay for ships, and that now the shipbuilder positively fixed his own price, and would not build for less? Let Mr. Samuda rest assured of this, that views like his afford to the working class an irrefragable demonstration of the necessity for their Trade combinations, and that of all friends to Unionism, there is none more widely influential than the employer, who claims the right to " fix " the price of labour.
Another employer shows himself, though in a different way, just such a friend. Mr. Charles Mark Palmer, proxi- mate Liberal M.P., it is said, for Shields, is managing partner in the collieries, and engaged in various concerns which embrace the whole series of operations connected with iron, from the quarrying of the iron-stone through the blast furnace and the rolling mill, to the shipbuilding yards and the engine works, the number of workpeople employed in the concerns of which he is managing partner being "upwards of 10,000 altogether." He is also chairman of the Ironmasters' Association, member of a Shipbuilders' association "something upon the same principle," and also of the Steam Coal Association. The financial power of these associations consists in promissory notes to order signed by each member, and deposited with the bankers of the association, the amount of such notes being calculated (as respects ironworks, for instance) at a fixed scale of so much
per puddling furnace. (The "Clyde Shipbuilders and Engineers' Association," concerning which evidence was given by its
secretary and one of its members, subscribes somewhat differently, at so much per man and boy employed.) Now, the object of these associations,—take the Tyne Shipbuilders, for instance,—is "the securing of prompt and united action against any attempt on the part of the workmen to obtain concessions injurious to the general interests of the trade." Such is, more or less clearly worded, the object of every trades' union ; and these associations of shipbuilders, iron- masters, steam coalowners are simply such. Like the men,
the masters "bind themselves to abide by the decision of the other masters, whether they feel they are right or wrong." The
masters' association may employ one or more of its members as delegates to discuss questions with working men. It has an honorary secretary, one of its members, and a paid secretary, not a master, who keeps the communications open by writ- ing letters when required," although he does not speak or act as a delegate to the workmen. And yet these Trades' Unions of masters absolutely refuse to acknowledge the Trades' Unions of the men ; Mr. C. M. Palmer, proximate M.P., utterly ignores all resemblance between the two bodies, and when pressed by his examiners, after vainly trying to enforce the distinction that the one is purely defensive the other aggres- sive, takes refuge in the pitiful plea that the President and Secretary of the men's union,—the chosen representatives of the whole body of workmen in the society,—are "not men actually engaged on manual labour!" a plea, by the way, whether true or false as to the Tyne Union (as to which no evidence appears), which would be totally false as to the Thames Shipwrights' Society, whose President, Mr. Robson, gave evidence in the afternoon before the Commissioners, having worked overtime in his yard till three that morning. Mr. Palmer's views, it may be added, were too much even for the strong stomach of Mr. Roebuck, who could only see that the- proceedings of the Masters' Associations were wiser than those of the Trades' Unions."
Now, suppose that these Employers' Associations, instead of following, had preceded the Trade Societies of the men. Sup- pose—broadcloth, the use of soap, and well filled purses make the supposition an impossible one, but it may be inade,—that the Employers' Associations had drawn upon themselves as much obloquy as has been poured till now on the Men's Trade Societies. Suppose, then, that such latter societies had been organized, and that the chairman of one, whose rules bore that its objects were "the securing of prompt and united action against any attempt on the part of the masters to obtain con- cessions injurious to the trade," but which absolutely refused to recognize the obnoxious combinations of the employer class, had been twitted before a Parliamentary Committee with the identity between the two bodies, what would be said if he had persisted in denying such identity ? Is there a term of con- tempt which would be deemed too strong for the obstinacy and obtuseness of such a witness ? Yet Mr. Charles Mark Palmer, proximate Liberal M.P. and employer of 10,000 men, declares that the Shipbuilders' Association, the Iron Masters' Association, the Steam Coal Association, of which he is member, are not Trades' Unions, and have a right absolutely to ignore the Trades' Unions of. the workmen ! He is benevolent enough towards them, indeed, to say, "I do not object to Trades' Unions, provided that they do not interfere between us and our work- men, and with our general operations." What if the president of the Tyne shipwrights' trade society (whatever may be its title) were to say, "I do not object to employers' associations, provided they do not interfere between ourselves and our masters, and with our general operations ?" Would not that be equally benevolent—and equally insolent to the other class ?
It is possible that the labour question may be fought out, and one or other of the parties concerned fought down, on this line ; solved it can never be. Until employers learn, what Mr. Samuda has not yet learnt, that they have no divine commission to fix the price of labour, until they learn what Mr. Palmer has not yet learnt, to call a spade a spade, and to acknowledge as free a right in their workmen as in themselves to associate themselves together for the protection of their class interests, and to be recognized as so associated,—the working man has no resource but to cling to his trade societies, fight in them and fight for them against the Cwsarism of such employers. When employers do learn something more than these M.P.s or proximate M.P.s, perhaps Mr. Mundella on the one hand, Mr. Briggs or Mr. Greening on the other, may have somewhat further to teach both parties.
Previous page
