PIECING TOGETHER THE SHATTERED IDOL

Attempts to reconstruct the Board

The workmen found that it was easier to destroy than to rebuild the Board of Arbitration. 

They had not returned to work for more than a few weeks when their leaders made proposals to the employers for the reconstruction of the Board. The employers replied that the strike had so seriously interfered with their business, that they could not devote any time to the work of reconstructing the Board. 

The leaders of the men, however, were determined in their efforts, and in June of that year, 1882, they succeeded in arranging a Conference between the delegates of the men and the representatives of the employers. 

The workmen submitted to that meeting "a few general principles" which they thought should be clearly set forth in the Rules of the new Board when the time came for its constitution to be arranged. 

These "general principles" indicated the workmen's view of the inefficiency or incompleteness of the constitution of the old Board, and therefore represented what they regarded as necessary to a final and perfect Board of Arbitration. 

They had thought it had given them an equality of opportunity when it was first established in 1868 — or, at all events, when its Rules were revised two or three years later ; 

but the introduction of the element of selling prices had since made it manifest to them that the Rules of the Board must be altered so as to contemplate and provide for all the exigencies of that new factor in the government of their wages.

REVIVING ARBITRATION

The workmen therefore proposed: 

"(1) That, if they were to accept the altered mode of dealing with potters' wages, as brought about by the two last arbitrations, it would be necessary to lay down some basis which would show the proportion of wages to be paid under given conditions of trade. 

(2) That the Board or Umpire, should have full opportunity to verify any figures or statements made in evidence, providing that such verification be not allowed to interfere with or expose the private business affairs of any firm.

(3) That those questions that specially affected each branch, such as the trade usages and changes in modes of working, should be allowed to form a part of future arbitration on the wages question. 

(4) That each branch of the trade be dealt with by the Board upon its own merits in those questions which concerned that branch alone." 

The two last proposals meant briefly this : 

That whilst general wages might be affected by the general condition of the markets, it should be open to each branch to submit facts, special to itself, to an Umpire, modifying the general effect produced by the application of the commercial standard. 

This proposal was the outcome of the experience gained in the arbitration before Mr Brassey. 

Each branch had then come forward with its own special grievances — grievances that had nothing to do with the amount of exports or imports, but which arose mainly from actions on the part of the employers, wholly unconnected with the question of selling prices which they insisted should alone govern wages ; and Mr Brassey had answered them that he could take no notice of these "technical questions," as all he had to do was to decide upon the " general question " of the state of trade. 

The workmen, therefore, found themselves in the position of being unable to show — or, at any rate, of deriving any advantage from showing — how, from causes unconnected with selling prices, their wages had been affected, and Mr Brassey told them that the "technical questions" of their different branches were subjects for other arbitrations than that over which he was presiding. 

To the potters, however, it mattered very little by what causes their wages were reduced, if the effect was the same, and they could not understand why any distinction should be made in the processes when, to them, the only vital question was the result. 

And, certainly, to the average mind, it seems curious that the masters should have been able to plead for a reduction in wages because selling prices were low, but that the workmen should have been prohibited from retorting that reductions had already been made through different modes of working, increased count, or more direct methods, in carrying out which reductions employers had failed to invoke the authority of the principle by which they now insisted the same result should be effected. 

And so the workmen, in trying to re-establish the new Board, endeavoured to secure that that side of their case which was of a positive character, and upon which they could speak with authority, should be deemed worthy of a hearing by an Umpire. 

They had accepted the principle forced upon them by the employers, and now they desired that the employers should accept their contention — that each branch had its own characteristics and differences, and that an Umpire's award should not sweep like a harrow over all alike, and take no note of the irregularities of the ground.

Apathy of men and masters

EMPLOYERS HALF-HEARTED

The employers listened, and said little, but their attitude in regard to the proposal as to branch distinctions did not encourage the hope that they would accede to it. 

So the workmen's representatives returned to their leaders and told them how matters stood ; and one branch of the workmen, in petulant temper, and rather careless as to whether a Board were re-established or not, passed a resolution, declaring that as they were convinced from the report of their delegates that the employers would not agree to a separate consideration on the part of the Umpire of the circumstances of each branch, they 

"would have nothing more to do, for the present, with the proposed Board of Arbitration." 

Still the leaders struggled on. The movement was one entirely dependent upon themselves. 

The employers had no reason to desire the re-establishment of the Board — they had but recently had proof of the powerlessness of their workmen when they resorted to other methods, and a Board of Arbitration would only bring the combatants together, and give them equal ground. 

Besides, disputes with workmen were not a part of their business, but rather a hindrance to it, and a Board of Arbitration was a court which encouraged litigation. And, on the other hand, the workmen had to go back to 1872 to recollect when the Board of Arbitration had brought them any positive good — and then its proceedings had dealt only with branch questions, as separate questions entirely — and they were only interested in the present movement for the re-establishment of the Board because their leaders told them that arbitration was an enlightened and proper method of settling disputes, in those progressive days. 

And so the leaders of the men persisted in their task, receiving scant encouragement from their followers, and helped by no rapprochement from the employers. 

They drew up a set of suggested Rules, embodying the "general principles" which they had spoken of at the Conference, and sent them to the employers. There was, however, in the suggested Rules one very significant omission. 

The first general principle they had spoken of was that which proposed to " lay down some basis " for the settlement of wages in accordance with selling prices. 

But the proposal was received so coldly by the employers, or, perhaps, one should say, opposed by them so strenuously, that the operatives, desirous above all things of re-establishing the Board, and working to reduce contentious material to a minimum, omitted altogether, in their proposed new Rules, any reference to this principle. 

The new Rules then merely asked that an Umpire should have power to test the evidence submitted to him, and that each branch should have a 

"right to claim a separate arbitration upon any question that especially concerned its interests, modes of working, trade usages or privileges ; and further, that the right be allowed for any branch to appeal for an advance upon any special grounds that it might consider justified an advance, and that no arbitration be complete unless the particular grievances of each branch might be thus separately dealt with upon their own merits," 

whilst it should, of course, be perfectly understood that the general question, as it related to the condition of the markets, might be arbitrated upon, as one case for all the trade. 

Then they suggested three new Trade Rules: 

(1) That after Martinmas 1883 the annual engagements should commence each Midsummer ; 

(2) that the question of the proportion of apprentices to journeymen in the oven-men's branch should be considered a subject for arbitration ; and 

(3) that an appeal from any branch working under the system of good-from-oven " for an alteration of that system" should be considered a dispute subject to the general Rules of the Board.

UP-HILL WORK

Another Martinmas was now drawing near, and the men had decided, arbitration or no arbitration, to send in notices for the return of their " pennies." 

The manufacturers returned the expected answer : 

" That, considering the present selling prices, and the state of trade generally, they were unanimously of opinion that an advance in workmen's prices could not possibly be made." 

The leaders of the men then gave urgent counsels of prudence to their followers not to repeat the mistake of a year ago, and to the employers renewed their appeal for an effort to be made to establish a Board in time to deal, even retrospectively, with any difficulty that might arise at Martinmas. 

The employers then gave their reply to the suggested Rules of the workmen. They pronounced them to 

"contain suggestions which would undermine the foundations on which the trade had hitherto been conducted, and to be such as could not be entertained " ; 

and they expressed the opinion that if the workmen would send in more acceptable Rules, the Board might possibly be in working order for Martinmas 1883.

The employers gave no hint as to what were the suggestions contained in the proposed new Rules which would " undermine the foundations " upon which the trade had hitherto rested, and we can trace no reference to the matter at a later date which throws any light upon the reasons they had for their view. The workmen asked to be informed what the "suggestions" referred to were, and they received a reply which charged them with the fault of delay in reconstruction. 

They again wrote asking for an explanation of the " suggestions " which would undermine the trade, and, for reply, the employers merely repeated the resolution containing the opinion of which the workmen had asked an explanation.

In the absence of this explanation from the employers themselves it will be necessary to examine the " suggestions " contained in the new Rules, in the endeavour to discover what revolutionary principle they contained such as the employers had affirmed, but not indicated. 

As we have seen, the workmen had purposely omitted any reference to fixing a basis by which wages should be governed in relation to selling prices. 

They had abandoned such a Rule out of deference to the employers' feelings upon that sore subject, and in the hope of removing what they thought might prove to be the greatest obstacle to the re-establishment of the Board. As we think, however, they made a great tactical mistake by the omission. 

They had accepted the new conditions " forced upon them by the last two arbitrations," and were prepared to see their wages governed in the future by the advance or decline of selling prices ; and as the two quantities had now to bear a direct relation to each other, the workmen had proposed that the Board should fix the ratio, and the basis from which the relation should be regulated. That, of course, was an obvious necessity if the system was to be carried out as a permanent method of settling wages.

SELLING PRICES AND WAGES

The employers had said selling prices must govern wages, and the workmen had fought at two arbitrations against the equity of the proposal. 

Then they had accepted it, and naturally asked that the employers should sit round a table, with the representatives of the workmen, and suggest in what manner they proposed to arrive at the end they had in view. 

But, by withdrawing their original proposal that some basis should be established, the workmen relieved the employers of a difficult task, and threw the whole question into confusion. 

They had, in fact, really asked the employers and the Board to undertake the impossible, and their request simply demonstrated the absurdity and the " impracticability," to quote Mr Brassey, of the selling price doctrine. 

How could a basis have been arrived at? There would first have been the initial difficulty of deciding at what year and at what rates of wages and selling prices they should commence, and before that critical and essential agreement was arrived at — if it ever could have been — we fear that many Martinmases would have passed. But supposing that preliminary difficulty to have been disposed of, how would the process have been continued? 

Would the selling price of each article have been taken, and a certain proportion of that sum have been set aside as a fair share for the workman who made it? 

But the articles were of a " multitudinous " number, and the prices, according to the employers, were ever changing. 

Then, again, the prices of each of these articles differed at nearly every manufactory. 

Would the employers consent to reveal their price lists to their workmen, and their rivals? We think the question might safely be answered in the negative. But, if there was not uniformity in selling prices, how could there be uniformity in wages if the first quantity, at a general arbitration, was to govern the latter? 

Then again, even supposing this labyrinthian difficulty could be shown to possess a direct path to its solution — would that be the end of the matter? Would not the employers be inclined to retort, if selling prices were proven to have increased, that, from certain other causes, profits had nevertheless diminished ; or would not the operatives endeavour to convince an Umpire that even if selling prices were lower, the general cost of production had decreased, and manufacturers could therefore still afford to pay the same wages with decreased selling prices? 

And if either of these contentions could be seriously supported, would any Umpire take the responsibility of excluding them altogether from his consideration, and confine himself to the terms of a Rule which might no longer be equitable in its operation ? 

The plain truth is, of course, that if the operatives had persisted in their demand for "a basis being established," they would have forced the employers to admit the absurdity and impossibility of their own doctrine by declaring their inability to suggest how it could be carried out. Probably the workmen merely indicated their sense of humour in the original proposition, and gave proof of their sense of pity in withdrawing it.

MEN'S FAITH IN ARBITRATION

Difficulties in reviving the Board 

We have said that by withdrawing their suggested Rule, the workmen threw the whole question into confusion. They had practically admitted the principle, but omitted to provide for any way in which it could be carried out.

In the Rules which they did suggest — and which were, as we have seen, rejected by the employers — they distinctly contemplated that their wages should be regulated by the condition of the markets, into which general question, of course, that of selling prices would mainly enter, in the following words : — 

" That while the general question, as it relates to the condition of the markets, may be arbitrated upon as one case for all the trade, each branch, etc. etc." 

Their course was clear — either they should have accepted the principle as a scientific and permanent guide to an Umpire, and insisted upon knowing in what way, by what means, "and to what extent the condition of the markets" was to affect their wages, or they should have excluded that proposition altogether, for the proposition itself was of no assistance in settling the difficulty which it contained. 

As it was, they were endorsing and perpetuating a proposition which Mr Brassey had described as "impracticable," after having protested against it, and after abandoning their demand that some coherent method of applying it should be defined. And, in future days, they saw the difficulty in which they placed themselves ; but it is clear that at this time their one anxiety was to re-establish the Board and to make the points of conflict between themselves and their employers as few as possible, and to this end they surrendered much of the strength of their position. 

And so it became a vague and general understanding that wages and selling prices had something to do with each other, but what their exact relation was, or how the selling prices could be ascertained, and how the knowledge, when ascertained, was to be applied to wages, no man ever knew.

Still, this "principle" of fixing a basis between the two was not included in the set of Rules to which the employers objected, and there seems no ground for the belief that in an access of virtue they objected to its omission. 

What remained, then, to justify their opinion? 

There was the Rule recognising the individuality, so to speak, of each branch. Surely nothing in that could have " undermined the foundation on which the trade had hitherto rested," for the Board of Arbitration, when first formed, rested entirely and absolutely upon the principle that each branch had its own case, and deserved an award based upon its own circumstances. 

The next Rule provided that an Umpire should have power, and full opportunity, to verify any figures or statements made in evidence. That, surely, was an elementary principle, which should not have needed affirmation, and was not one to be described as of a far-reaching or revolutionary character, for it modified its own effect by the addition of the words " providing that such verification be not allowed to interfere with, or expose, the private business of any firm." 

Then, in the suggested new Trade Rules, the first one was that Martinmas should give place to Midsummer. It involved no inconvenience to any soul whatever, and no manufacturer has ever given any reason why Martinmas should be the object of so much veneration, above any other day in the calendar, as a convenient period for the beginning of the trade year. The workmen desired to abolish it, on the grounds of the hardships which, in certain eventualities, it involved for them — of which they had had bitter experience in the previous winter. 

There therefore only remained, so far as one can intelligently see, the "suggestions" that the number of apprentices in the oven-men's branch, and the question of good-from-oven should be questions capable of arbitration, which the employers regarded as involving a revolution in the trade. 

Much might be said, though little is necessary, to show that the employers over-rated the influence and importance of these two suggestions ; but, for the purposes of re-establishing the Board of Arbitration, a trivial objection on the part of the employers was as much an obstacle as one based upon grounds of supremest right and wisdom. 

And so Martinmas passed by, with the Board of Arbitration still unformed. The men, however, continued at work, and looked forward to the opportunity which next year might give them, when the Board would undoubtedly be in existence.

RE-ESTABLISHED IN 1885

But it was not until 1885 that the efforts of the leaders of the men, helped more sympathetically by the manufacturers, as time went on, culminated in the establishment of the second Potteries Board of Arbitration.

The arbitration of the new Board afforded a compromise between the method of branch arbitrations— as originally favoured by the first Board, formed in 1868 — and general appeals, affecting all branches alike. The compromise indicated that the workmen had accepted the position that wages, as a whole, were to be influenced by general conditions of trade, but, on the other hand, it recognised each branch as a separate unit, possessing the right to make its own voice heard upon questions peculiar to itself.

By Rule 19 it was agreed that while "the general wages question, as it related to the condition of the markets," should be arbitrated upon as one case for the whole trade, when a general appeal had been made by either side, yet "each branch should have the right, at such arbitration, to make special reference to any question or subject that specially concerned its interests or modes of working." 

The oven-men's branch, however, enjoyed a special privilege, for the Rule which followed provided that when the Umpire had finished the hearing of a general arbitration, "he should then consider the case of the oven-men, and give to them a separate award." 

There was no reason why the oven-men should have been so favoured beyond every other branch, but they had all along been the strongest in Union, and the most obstinate in regard to the re-establishment of the Board, and the concession to them was much more a tribute to their might than a recognition of any right which they possessed, entitling them to this distinction. 

The other branches, however, gained what they desired in regard to those "technical questions" which Mr Brassey had declared to be an intrusion into a general arbitration, for Rule 21 enabled any branch to make 

"a separate and special appeal to the Board for change in prices, on any special ground that might seem to them to justify such a change," 

but such an appeal could only be made when there was no general arbitration taking place, and not more than two branches could appeal for such special arbitrations at the same time. 

A further advantage obtained by the workmen was that the Umpire was given power to call in an accountant to " verify any figures or statements made in evidence," providing that such verification did not expose the business , of any firm.

These two Rules represented the concessions made by the employers for the constitution of a Board which should remedy defects in its predecessor. En revanche, however, the employers insisted upon stipulations being made in the Rules which should stereotype certain customs of the trade. 

For instance, the questions of " good-from-oven," and the Trade Rules — questions of bitter conflict in 1872-3 — were expressly excluded from the consideration of the Board, and the second of the Trade Rules re-affirmed the sanctity of the tradition of Martinmas.

ARBITRATION AND WEAK UNIONS
Weakness of the workmen's unions

The new Board had little work to do. 

The workmen did not feel that the time was ripe for a general appeal on the wages question — not because of any doubt as to the favourableness of the conditions of trade so much as on account of the weakness of their Union. 

As a matter of fact, they had found that Boards of Arbitration meant weak Unions. There was always a nucleus of the better class of workmen who kept a Union alive, and so long as a Board of Arbitration existed, its official dealings were only with the organised workmen, who alone were members of that Board. 

But the decisions of the Umpire affected all alike in the sense that it set the standard by which all were governed. 

A manufacturer might not subscribe to the Rules of the Board, and might take no part in its proceedings, but if a reduction in wages were decreed, he would, without hesitation, adopt that decree, which would, of course, thenceforth affect all the men in his employ, whether they were in Union — and, therefore, by the branches, represented on the Board — or not.

And so it had come about that the bulk of the working potters had come to regard it as a matter of little importance whether they were in Union or not, as, at any rate, with a Board of Arbitration in existence, there would always be a little band of Unionists, who would act as their spokesmen, and plead the cause of Union and non-Union potters alike ; and they knew very well that the best terms possible would be obtained for them, notwithstanding that they held aloof from any practical assistance, and were interested only in the result. 

Therefore they withheld their weekly sixpenny contributions, and looked upon it as money saved when others were fighting their battles for them. 

The ranks of the various Unions had thus become sadly thinned, and the disappointment which followed the arbitrations of 1879 and 1880 had contributed to the result which this laissez faire point of view had mainly brought about ; and so, ever since 1880, the leaders of the men had been preaching to them the obvious doctrine that the value of an Arbitration Board to workmen largely depended upon the strength of the organisation of the workmen engaged in the trade with which it was connected, and that the existence of a Board of Arbitration in no sense superseded the necessity of Union.

Some of the old branch Unions had fallen almost to pieces, and the leaders of the men decided that it would be a better plan to start a new and general organisation than to attempt to revive or reconstruct these branch associations. 

The National Order of Potters therefore came into existence. It was formally started in 1882, and was largely composed of flat-pressers, but its constitution embraced the membership of workers in every branch. 

The aim of its promoters, however, was to interfere as little as possible with those branches which still maintained a healthy organisation, whilst leaving it a matter of free choice to all working potters to decide whether they should join the larger and more heterogeneous organisation, or identify themselves exclusively with their branch Union, where it existed. 

Provision, however, was made for general and concerted actions by the Executive of the National Order and the representatives of the branch organisations. The National Order of Potters grew but slowly. A steady campaign of Unionism was carried on for several years, and continued even after the re-establishment of the Board of Arbitration.

THE EMPLOYERS COMBINE
The Staffordshire Potteries Manufacturers' Association 

The employers, too, had been engaged in the task of organising their ranks, and about the time of the Brassey arbitration, they formed themselves into the Staffordshire Potteries Manufacturers' Association. 

The North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce was no longer a body chiefly composed of pottery manufacturers— the growing local industries of coal and iron now had their representatives in that Chamber, and the pottery manufacturers were impelled to form a distinctive body of their own. 

Their Association included about one-fourth of the total number of manufacturers, but in importance and influence its members were vastly superior to those who remained outside it. 

Just as Trades Unions are composed of the better class of workmen, so it may be truly said that the Manufacturers' Association was composed of those employers who most felt the responsibility of their position, and were animated by a sincere desire, whilst justly protecting their own interests, to recognise the rights — though perhaps often opposing the effort to assert them — of those in their employ. 

The aim of the Association, however, provided rather for a united opposition against those who, in Union, were opposed to them, than for any mutual action in regard to their own affairs. Within the scope of such an organisation are, of course, two main questions : 

The relations of its members, as a body, to their workmen, and the relations of themselves to each other ; and 

those two main questions may be subdivided, or simplified, into two other : wages and selling prices. 

The position of the Association in regard to the question of wages was that of coherent, united action. Upon that point, at least, they must be unanimous — and were. Partly as a measure of protection, and partly out of a jealous consideration of each other's commercial advantage, they recognised their body as an entity complete in itself, which must look with a " single eye " upon the wages which it paid. 

Upon the other question, however, the entity became split up into isolated and independent fragments, for amongst its Rules was the following: — 

" The only action that the Manufacturers' Association shall take with respect to selling prices, etc., shall be that the Secretary be at liberty to call meetings of manufacturers engaged in particular trades, for the purpose of considering these matters, and taking independent action with respect to them ; but the action taken by such meeting shall not be considered as binding upon members of the Manufacturers' Association as such."

"TO KEEP DOWN THE MEN"

The manufacturers therefore were united in facing the enemy, but declined to bind themselves by any observances in their own camp. " Wages " was the bugle-call which brought them together — "selling prices" dismissed them to their tents, and in that retirement they carried on the internecine war amongst themselves which, by a strange paradox, then became a casus belli against the opposing side. 

Little wonder that the workmen spoke of the Manufacturers' Association as "a union to keep down the men, rather than to elevate the prices of the trade." 

The Rule we have quoted destroyed the last vestige of justification for the claim that wages should be governed by selling prices — or, rather, we should say, reduced to nought the contention that even if a direct relation could be established between the two, and the method could be made " practicable," it could be any longer urged as equitable. 

Their attitude to uniformity of selling prices

The manufacturers insisted that wages should decline with selling prices, and they formed themselves into an Association having for its main object united action in opposing an advance, or insisting upon a reduction, in wages ; and yet in the Rules of their Association they purposely deprecated and provided against any uniform action upon the question of selling prices, by which those wages were nevertheless to be governed. If, on the other hand, they had agreed in their Association to take united action in maintaining selling prices when they could, and had so given a guarantee that when prices had declined they had declined through causes over which the united body had no control, and despite its efforts, the manufacturers could have gone to an Umpire armed with a weapon against which any protest from the workmen would have been useless.

"SELL-AS-YOU-PLEASE" POLICY

They would, in fact, have brought about an approximation to such a condition in the potting trade as made the selling prices doctrine so applicable and natural in the iron trade. 

The workmen had always urged that the manufacturers were setting up a standard for their wages over which they (the workmen) had no control, but if the employers had agreed to united action in selling prices, they could then have said, with unassailable right : 

" These are matters over which we, too, have no control — both sides alike must be governed by a force beyond themselves." 

There was no need why, if their attitude in regard to this question was to be of so purely a negative character, they should have referred to the subject at all in their Rules, but they were guilty of an additional bêtise in thus going out of their way to gratuitously support the arguments of the workmen, by announcing that so far from selling prices being a matter for their concern and control, it was a matter upon which they pledged themselves not to take any controlling action whatever.

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