Minor Disputes before the new Board 

There was no active controversy between the two sides for several years. The Board of Arbitration was usefully employed in the settlement of minor disputes, but this work was done by the Committee of Conciliation, composed of equal numbers of both sides, to whom the cases were first submitted. The workmen had not forgotten their " pennies," but they had little confidence in being able to convince an Umpire that trade was in such a flourishing condition as to justify a verdict in their favour. As a matter of fact, trade was bad, and selling prices were still gradually declining.

THE EMPLOYERS WAKEN UP

Manufacturers take action to raise selling prices

The employers then seem to have awakened to the view that, for their own sakes, something must be done. They, too, could not hope to convince an Umpire that a further reduction in wages must be the moral outcome of this continuous decline in prices, and they therefore saw that competition amongst themselves had reached such a point that they alone would suffer from it. So then they began to call meetings, and discuss the question; and in 1888 it seemed that abstract discussion would result in definite action. The result, however, is best told in the following extract from the report of the Association for 1889:—

"An attempt had once more been made during the year to raise selling prices, and although this Association is prohibited by its Rules from taking any action with regard to selling prices beyond calling meetings of manufacturers engaged in particular trades for the purpose of considering and taking independent action, yet the members of your Committee individually rendered all assistance in their power to bring about a successful issue to so desirable an object. 

Numerously attended meetings were held, and at first it appeared that they would result in success, but as is unfortunately nearly always the case when important questions affecting manufacturers arise that can only be crowned with success by the several manufacturers affected thereby acting in unity, in this attempt, as in many former ones, failure was brought about to a great extent because a few manufacturers in the district did not see their way clear to act in harmony with the general body of manufacturers. 

Thus the time and labour bestowed by the Special Committee were thrown away; and we need not remind members of the Association that every successive failure makes it more difficult to induce manufacturers, who have the welfare of the trade at heart, to work on Committees when they so often see their time and efforts wasted."

Failure to agree

The above extract does not clearly indicate whether there was a lack of unanimity amongst the members of the Association, or whether the hopes of the Association were frustrated by the abstention from the movement of those who remained outside the Association, but we believe we are right in attributing the failure of the effort to the apathy of those within the Association, who justified their inactivity by pointing to the Rule upon selling prices which we have quoted.

THE MEN PROPOSE AN ALLIANCE

The workmen ask : "Will you agree to let us coerce you?" 

 Scheme to raise selling prices and wages 

In the following year, 1890, the workmen came to offer their assistance. The manufacturers had said that they could not agree amongst themselves to increase selling prices, and the workmen now blandly inquired : " Will you agree to let us coerce you?" The representatives of the workmen met the employers, and submitted to them a proposal for joint action, the pith of which is given in the following words from the address which the workmen had prepared : —

"What you could not do, the working potters, by your help, may be able to accomplish. To you, as the only organised body of manufacturers, we must of necessity appeal in such a matter as this, and, though you do not represent all the manufacturers, you, by reason of the individual and collective importance of your firms, represent a large proportion of the productive and employing power of the district trade. What you decide to-day can become the rule of the trade to-morrow if your decision be backed up by the willing co-operation of the working potters. 

We are convinced we can promise this cooperation if you will agree to an equitable revision of prices on the basis we have suggested. To put it tersely : You give the workmen the advance in wages, and they will guarantee to obtain it also from those who are not in the Manufacturers' Association, and also that those who will not 'act in harmony with the general body' of manufacturers as to selling prices, shall not have working potters to employ unless they do act in harmony with the Manufacturers' Association.

" Many of those who persist in selling at the lowest prices also persist in paying lower wages than we believe is averaged at the firms of which your Association consists ; and we, therefore, have a substantial reason of our own for making all to 'toe the score' of justice to the capital and labour of the trade. We, at least, owe no obligation to those who are not members of your Association as to not altering prices in the middle of the trade year, for they are not members of the Board of Arbitration, do not acknowledge its Rules, and reduce wages when they can.

"What we then request from you is that you will consent to the formation of committees to at once proceed to the revision of the wages list of each branch of operatives, with the view to incorporating the 10 per cent, advance in the prices for labour. We are convinced that the course we recommend — the honest co-operation of capital and labour in the trade — is the only course that will save the potting industry from impoverishment and commercial degradation. 

You know now, as the representatives of the workmen confidently predicted at the time, that the reduction of wages decreed by Lord Hatherton was an unmitigated evil to manufacturers as well as to operatives, for cheap labour has intensified competition among the makers of pottery, who are now harder pushed by a greater number of needy competitors than ever before.

" This present condition of the trade had its nearest parallel more than fifty years ago, and it was then met and conquered [footnote 1] by the very same action that we now recommend — namely, a combination of manufacturers and workmen to keep up wages and selling prices. If you refuse us what we ask, you force us to make an appeal to the Board at Martinmas, and even if you are able to again convince an Umpire that the time had not come for an advance, then you would only be proclaiming the weakness and poverty of the trade, and every argument you adduced against the workmen would only tell against yourselves in any effort to obtain that advance in selling prices which you desire.

"On the other hand, if we succeeded in obtaining a verdict in our favour by arbitration, it would not carry the stipulation binding upon us which we are now prepared to agree to, that we should assist you in the manner we offer in the effort to raise selling prices. In every way, therefore, it is the best for you, as it is for us, and the whole trade, that the plan we have sketched out should be adopted to ensure fair profits for employers and reasonable remuneration for labour."

THE EMPLOYERS REFUSE

The employers reject the offer

It was a proposal ideal in its object, and capable of being put into practice, for there can be no doubt that, with an improved organisation, which must further have been stimulated by the condition attaching to the proposal of a 10 per cent, increase in wages, the men would soon have possessed a power which would have brought any recalcitrant manufacturer, under-selling his fellows, to his knees. 

The employers, however, refused the offer of co-operation — and the suggested increase in wages. Probably they refused the offer because of the condition which attached to it — possibly they felt some repugnance at the proposal of cooperating with their workmen against their own class. 

A reduction in wages "imperatively called for"

They gave no reason, however, but merely declined the proposal. The men were keenly disappointed, and the manufacturers appear to then have been prepared for a more peremptory request from their men, for they passed this resolution in September 1890 — two months after the meeting at which the proposal for co-operation had been submitted to them : 

" That this meeting, having considered the expected demand of the operatives for an advance in wages, is of opinion that the present state of trade does not warrant any such advance being conceded, but, on the contrary, imperatively calls for a reduction." 

To go back a few years, the employers appear to have viewed the approach of successive Martinmases with much apprehension as to the possible demands of their men, for in 1886 they passed a resolution declaring that 

" although this meeting is of opinion that present selling prices are low enough to call for a reduction in workmen's wages, it is unwilling to disturb the existing relations between capital and labour, and recommends that no alterations be notified at Martinmas next, leaving to each member the modification of prices in any department that may be considered necessary in order to establish, as nearly as possible, uniformity ; but should any representatives of the operatives give notice for an increase in wages, in that case this meeting recommends employers to ask for such a reduction as the state of trade imperatively requires." 

It is an instance of remarkable forbearance on the part of the manufacturers to have thus restrained themselves, and made the asking for that which the trade " imperatively required " conditional upon the temerity of some bold and insistent "representatives of the workmen" disturbing the serene calm of the "existing relations between capital and labour " ; but the points more worthy of notice are that the employers evidently expected a demand from their workmen, and that they still looked upon a decline in selling prices — which they had bound themselves not to make any united effort to raise, and which their own competition continually depressed — as the one factor which should govern the wages of their workmen. In 1887 and 1888 they passed similar resolutions. In 1889 the same substance came out in slightly different form : 

" That this meeting considers that if any alteration is to be made in workmen's wages, it should be in favour of the employers, and recommends that if any intimation be given by the workmen for an increase, manufacturers should give a counter - notice of a like reduction to the workmen." 

The manufacturers therefore seem to have experienced, for five consecutive years prior to 1890, an annual throe of apprehension as to the intentions of their workmen, but to have refrained from "wounding" unless their workmen "struck." As we have seen, however, the workmen had been engaged in perfecting their organisation, and, besides, they had come to the conclusion that arbitration, under then existing conditions, was of little promise, but that a radical effort to change those conditions was necessary. If it succeeded, so much the better ; if it failed, then they would have strengthened their position by having made the effort. They made it in the proposal to which we have referred, and, as we have seen, it failed.

CLAIM AND COUNTER-CLAIM

The workmen appeal for an advance 

To leave this retrospective digression, and to return to the position in September 1890, the manufacturers showed "an intelligent anticipation of events" in "expecting" a demand of the operatives for an advance in wages. Each branch sent in a separate appeal for an increase in wages, all demanding 10 per cent, and some branches making a further claim for improved prices on certain defined articles which, in the course of the previous ten years, had been gradually reduced. 

The employers immediately sent in a counter-notice for a reduction of 10 per cent. The workmen complained that the counter-claim was not seriously advanced, but had only been put forward to complicate and prejudice their own claim ; but, in the light of the successive resolutions to which we have referred, it is clear that the manufacturers were only carrying out their oft-repeated threat of retaliation.

The masters proscribe the workmen's advocate

But a curious development of the situation then took place. At about the time when, according to the Rules of the Board, the notices were to be sent in — that is, six weeks before Martinmas — the quarterly meeting of the Board took place. 

The main business of this meeting was the re-election of the Board for the ensuing year. It is to be understood that each side elected its own representatives, and there was no suggestion in the Rules that either side should have any right of objection against the nominees of the other. 

The manufacturers now calmly announced that they could not proceed with the work of the Board unless the workmen withdrew one of their representatives. 

There were two objections which they had against him — 

first, that he was not an operative potter ; 

secondly, that he had recently written a letter to a newspaper in regard to the unhealthy conditions of labour in The Potteries which reflected upon the humanity of the manufacturers. 

As to the second objection, there can be no doubt that the form of the paragraph was indiscreet, but there was much truth in its substance. The writer of it frankly admitted the error into which a hasty pen had rushed him, and desired to withdraw the imputation of deliberate and intentional carelessness which that paragraph had directed against the employers, but he still maintained his ground in regard to the main point : 

that manufacturers showed an extraordinary indifference to the fearfully unhealthy conditions — capable of easy remedy — under which their employees worked. [footnote 2] 

As to the first objection, it was too ridiculous to be argued. The man against whom they had objected had established the first Board of 1868, and but for him the Board of 1885 would never have come into existence. He had been a continuous member of both Boards, from 1868 down to 1890, and there had never been the least objection to him on the ground that he was not a working potter. 

Moreover, two of his colleagues were not working potters — they were the paid representatives of the men. 

The employers made no objection to their presence, but naïvely remarked, "You ought to be obliged to us for not objecting to you also." But the workmen took a strong stand. The objectionable paragraph was forgotten, and the struggle became one, so far as they were concerned, to maintain their unquestionable right to nominate their own representatives, and they were all the more encouraged to fight for the principle because the employers had raised it by trying to deprive them of their ablest and most trusted leader. So matters remained at a deadlock, and the Board was suspended. The excitement in the district, however, was intense. Martinmas was drawing near, and the notices were still in force.

ARBITRATION DIFFICULTIES

The men were prepared to strike, but their leaders urged them to continue at work, and insist upon their right to have their case arbitrated upon. 

Again and again the workmen appealed to the employers for the continuance of the election of the Board. The employers replied by saying : 

" It is entirely your fault for not having elected a representative in the place of the one to whom we have objected," 

a masterly evasion of the point at issue. The workmen held meetings affirming their confidence in their leader, refusing to allow him to withdraw from the fray, and making his acceptance by the employers a sine qua non of the continuance of the Board. 

The employers said : " We will not have him for a colleague," and the workmen replied : " He is not your colleague, but ours." That was just the point. But, of course, the position of the manufacturers was wholly untenable, and if the workmen had allowed them to maintain it — and for twenty years it had never occurred to the employers to occupy it before — there would have been an end to any equality in arbitration.

ANOTHER OBSTACLE

Martinmas was now long passed, and December had come. The leaders of the men began to fear that their followers would get beyond control, and that the district would witness an unhappy struggle such as that which had occurred ten years ago. 

Then they suggested to the manufacturers that, for the time being, there should be a truce in the dispute as to the constitution of the old Board, but that a special Court of Arbitration should be re-established, to deal with the wages question, and the settlement of the other question should be postponed until the pressing matter of the wages dispute was out of the way. 

The last of The Potteries Board of Arbitration
An informal court created 

After some hesitation, the employers accepted the proposal, but with apparent reluctance. It was agreed that the inquiry should be conducted under the Rules of the lapsed Board — or, as it turned out, the defunct Board — but that, in addition to an Umpire, each side should appoint a representative to sit with the Umpire. 

By the very nature of his appointment, each representative became something of an advocate, as well as a judge. He held, in short, the position of amicus curia, and in the deliberations of the Umpire each would be presumed to see that no point favourable to the side which had elected him should be overlooked. 

It was further agreed that, in fixing the award, the Umpire and his two coadjutors should give no indication as to whether they were unanimous or not — at that point, the advocate was merged into the judge. 

The employers selected as their arbitrator a gentleman of wealth and position and an employer of labour — Mr Frank James ; 

the workmen selected Mr James Mawdsley, the leader of one of the largest trade organisations in the country — the Lancashire Cotton Spinners. He was a man of singular ability, and, though only a Trades Union official, had just been deemed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster worthy to exercise the functions of a magistrate. 

The employers object to the workmen's arbitrator 

All seemed to be going favourably, when a letter came from the employers inquiring, on behalf of their arbitrator, whether the gentleman appointed by the operatives "was paid for his services as a Trades Union official?" 

To this certainly unnecessary question, the workmen replied in terms which intimated, politely, that the inquiry dealt with a matter which was not their business. 

Then the employers wrote again, saying that their arbitrator had refused to meet the arbitrator appointed by the men, as, from his position as a Trades Union official he could not be supposed to be impartial, and would force him (the arbitrator for the manufacturers) into a similar position. 

Instead of saying nothing of so stupid an objection, and being thankful for the opportunity of selecting another and more sensible arbitrator in his place, the employers merely said that " under those circumstances, they did not see what further could be done in the matter."

ARBITRATION AT LAST

The Arbitration of 1891

But the arena of the contest had now been widened, and public opinion made itself felt. 

That opinion was that the masters had made themselves look rather ridiculous, and they seem to have soon adopted the same view. [footnote 3] They hurriedly elected another arbitrator, who made no irrelevant inquiries, but met his colleague and the Umpire, and fixed the date of the arbitration.

It took place in May 1891, and lasted three days. 

The case for the workmen was conducted by the leader to whom the employers had objected, and he was opposed by a barrister whom the employers had called in to look after their side of the question. 

The arguments and facts were the same as at previous arbitrations ; there was only a difference in the figures. The workmen showed increased bulk in trade, and the employers showed declining selling prices. 

The workmen, however, hoped much from the new Rule, which enabled the Umpire to call in an accountant ; but the manufacturers anticipated that action by calling in one themselves. 

He gave evidence that he had examined the books of the ten firms, and the result showed that they were not in a flourishing condition. 

The workmen contended that the accountant should be appointed by the Umpire; and the Umpire replied that he would adopt the manufacturers' accountant as his own. Then the workmen protested that this accountancy test was not the test which the Rule contemplated, as the manufacturers had selected their own firms — of course rightly giving no clue to their identity — and an examination of the books of any ten other firms interested in the arbitration might disclose a totally different state of affairs. 

The Umpire said that he would order a further examination if he considered it necessary. Apparently, however, he did not, and no more could be said. He was clearly acting within the four corners of the Rule ; but the workmen again found that what they had regarded as giving them all they needed was faulty in practice.

The employers, at the arbitration, plainly insisted that their notices for a reduction should not be regarded as merely provoked by the notices for an advance ; and the workmen struggled hard to establish a positive case, fearing that the Arbitrators and Umpire might take a short cut to their award by setting off one claim against the other, and leaving matters as they were. 

The anticipation was correct. The award was given a few weeks after the termination of the arbitration. It was provokingly brief, and those responsible for it had evidently profited by the experience of previous arbitrations, for they accompanied their verdict with no reasons. The document merely decreed that wages should remain as they were before the arbitration.

The workmen received the award very ungraciously, and looked at it as a compromise between two claims, one of which ought never to have been made. We think, however, that the Umpire and Arbitrators were really embarrassed by the lack of any definite basis in regard to the regulation of wages by selling prices. The workmen had shown an increase in trade, and that had destroyed the claim of the employers for a reduction ; the employers had shown a further decline in selling prices, and that was held to disentitle the men to an advance. [footnote 4].

A DRAWN BATTLE

Its negative result

But it is certain that the result satisfied neither side, because of its perfectly negative character. 

It was exasperating to the men that nine months of strife and effort should end in the arbitration restoring them to the position in which they were before they started. 

The employers, however, could look more complacently upon the drawn battle. They had had little hope of obtaining a reduction, and there had been a real fear that the men might obtain an advance. Looked at from a practical point of view, therefore, they had some cause for satisfaction at the result ; but all the same their sporting instincts were outraged by what may be expressively, if not elegantly described as a " fizzle" They had been indulging in a pyrotechnic display of invective and general recrimination for nearly a year, and the climax of the entertainment, instead of being a gorgeous set -piece, was an inoffensive, unexhilarating, damp squib. 

There was, however, one incidental grain of comfort to the workmen in the arbitration of 1891. It rang the knell of Martinmas ; for the traditions of that holy day were broken by the fact that it had been agreed that the award should be retrospective from March of 1891, as so much time had been wasted in preliminaries. Henceforth, the trade year began in the spring month, and the working potters had the satisfaction of knowing that in any future strife with their employers they could, if dire necessity demanded it, " go out in the fields and eat grass," as one of their number once lamented the unpropitious season of Martinmas, bringing its foretaste of winter, prevented them from doing.

THE END OF ARBITRATION

Arbitration has had its day

But nothing more was heard of the Board of Arbitration. The leader who would have ventured to propose to the workmen that meetings should be called to consider the advisability of re-establishing the Board would have been more remarkable for his courage than his prudence. 

As a matter of fact, arbitration had lived its day in The Potteries. It had had a longer continuous trial than in any other trade — for arbitration itself had been judged in its own tribunals, no less than the causes which had been fought out there in its name — and it had been applied by the very men who had done most in England to establish its jurisdiction ; for the names of Mundella, Rupert Kettle, Brassey, and " Tom " Hughes had all been associated with arbitration in the potting trade. 

But the workmen had in the end found it wanting. It had been effective in one sense, certainly — that it had intervened in the disputes between master and man, and its decrees had furnished endings to the issues ; but they had only prevented war, and not left peace behind. 

And so the mass of workmen, at any rate, had come in time to think that they had put a King Stork over their heads, and their leaders — whose counsels had always been those of moderation, holding in check the swifter inclinations of their followers — were forced to admit that, although they still retained their old faith in arbitration, it had badly requited their allegiance and championship. 

It had been a success at the first, from causes which we hope this narrative has clearly indicated, and it had been carried on in after years as a concession to the spirit of a new age. But that age had now grown older, arbitration was no longer a novelty, and the platitudes by which it was supported had become insipid ; and besides, in the long run, whatever doctrinaires and reformers might say, the old Adam in man chafed at the restraint of an artificial suppression of his natural passions.

Such reflections, we think, express pretty nearly what the workmen felt after the award of 1891 ; and out of this tangle of disappointment and disgust another strike arose. There was, of course, a proximate cause, but it was quite out of proportion to its effect, and at any other time would have passed harmlessly by. The strike originated with the oven-men's branch over some alleged grievances at one manufactory, and the employers summarily replied by locking their gates on all branches alike. Then oven-men and all acted in sympathy, and said that they would fight to the bitter death, but about what some of them scarcely knew. As a matter of fact, the exciting material cause was effective only because it worked through a psychological medium.

 Lock-out and strike of 1892

The potters suffered from a plethora of long pent-up indignation and general unrest, and there was nothing for it but to be bled. And after that they were better again and went back to work ; and the only thing to be said about the strike and lock-out of 1892 is that a careful observer, knowing the explosive elements that were in the air, might have foretold that the timid award of 1891, so far from dissipating the clouds, would prove the fatal spark, and that the compromise at which it aimed would irritate all and satisfy none.

For several years matters slumbered, and until 1895 there was no development of any interest to chronicle. 

There were always numerous little branch disputes occurring at individual manufactories ; but as there was no longer a Board of Arbitration, with its Committee of Conciliation, to decide them, and as the workmen had no heart for strikes, these disputes were left for settlement to the diplomacy of their representatives and delegates. 

Here and there an informal Court of Arbitration, with some local gentleman as Arbitrator, was set up to adjudicate upon a point of comparative importance ; but no incident occurred of common interest to the general body of working potters which could bring them into common action. 

The members of the branches still in Union went to their lodges on Saturday nights to pay their subscriptions, and aired their branch grievances, and talked of " new shapes " and " longer counts," which often meant more work for the same money, and a lessened wage total at the week end ; and the officials and members shook their heads, and all agreed that things were in a bad way.

And amongst the manufacturers matters were pretty much the same. Their Association was only active when advances were talked of, and when reductions were thought possible ; but the workmen had given up thinking of Lord Hatherton's penny, and the masters were relieved from the consideration of the question of selling prices in relation to wages, in deference to the attention required by the more pressing matter of selling prices in relation to profits. 

But the game between them and their workmen had been played down to a stale-mate, and their Association had nothing to do.

A NEW MOVE IN THE GAME

Continual decline in selling prices 
The American tariffs 

Then the workmen began to ponder a new opening for a fresh game, and got into communication with their brethren in the United States in the hope of finding one. 

The employers had refused their proffered help in maintaining selling prices in the home market at a remunerative level, and when the American trade was spoken of, they found a sufficient answer in the word "tariff." 

But the Wilson Tariff of 1894 had considerably reduced the imports on pottery — in the case of decorated goods from 60 per cent, to 35 per cent., and on plain ware from 55 per cent, to 30 per cent. 

The leaders of the Staffordshire potters wrote to the working potters in the States, hinting that it might be possible for international industrial relations to be established which would work for the good of the English potter and his American cousin. 

The American potters took the hint, and in February 1895 the Potters' National Union of America issued an appeal " To the Working Potters of England," which they introduced by the lines of Hosea Biglow :

"Laborin' men and laborin' women, 
Hev one glory and one shame : 
Ev'rything thet's done inhuman 
Injers all of 'em the same."

" It is a certain fact," the appeal ran, 

" that this applies to working potters in this country and in yours, for they have one just interest in common as workers, and also one shame if they do not protect that interest, which we now appeal to you to join us in protecting. 

The American potting industry (and therefore our labour as part of it) up to the passing of the Wilson Bill has been in some degree protected by the High Tariff imposed upon imported English pottery goods, but now this Wilson Bill has reduced the duty upon your goods by a 'cut-down of nearly one -half.

Our feeling is that the best protection for labour in one country is that the workmen in both countries should receive an adequate remuneration for skilled labour, according as their employment is a tax upon the physical energies and health of the man who spends his powers to live. Is such a rate of pay given in Staffordshire, or in other parts of your country ?

"You can best answer that question, but we have sufficient knowledge of the fact that a dollar's worth of pay is not given to English potters for a dollar's worth of skill and sweat. 

Now, with such a reduction in the United States tariff, we did anticipate that a portion of the difference would have found its way into the pockets of English working potters, by an advance upon your working prices, and that such a wages increase would have prevented the English manufacturers from reducing their selling prices in our markets to the full extent of the difference between the M'Kinley and the Wilson tariffs. But, in a mad eagerness to exploit the American crockery market before it has had time, with the general trade of this country, to recover from its depression, the English manufacturers have rushed the whole business, and all the difference that the Wilson Bill makes has been more than given away by reduced prices. 

So labour in England and in the United States is to be crucified between forces of selfish competition, if you and we do not join together in self-protection, which would also be the best kind of potting trade protection. We have one interest, and we appeal to you to assert your rights by obtaining such an increase in wages as will in some degree place you in the position you occupied in former years.

"Why do we make this appeal?

"Because the maintenance of under-paid labour in England is a standing menace to our being able to maintain anything like a fair rate of pay here, commensurate with our position in a free country, where skilled labour is supposed to have a chance to live in decent comfort.

"In July next (1895), the agreement between the manufacturers and operatives here in regard to the wages list terminates, and we know that an advance in your wages would materially help us to keep up our wages; but if you are content in your present position, and your bosses would rather that the money went into the Exchequer of the United States than into your pockets, then we may have to oblige them, and join in action that may mean the re-imposition of a part of the duty the Wilson Bill has remitted."

AMERICAN POTTERS' PROPOSAL

The proposal of the American potters was one which puts the protective policy of the United States in another aspect than that from which it is commonly regarded in England, and illustrates very clearly what Sir Charles Dilke has written in " Greater Britain " upon this point. 

" Those," he says, "who speak of the selfishness of protection as a whole can never have taken the trouble to examine the arguments by which it is supported in America and Australia. In those countries, it is no mere national delusion ; it is a system adopted with open eyes as one conducive to the country's welfare, in spite of objections known to all, in spite of pocket losses that come home to all. 

If it is, as we in England believe, a folly, it is, at all events, a sublime one. . . . Hundreds and thousands of rough men are content to live, they and their families, upon less than they might otherwise enjoy, in order that the condition of many of their countrymen may continue raised above that of their fellow - toilers in old England."

The leaders of the Staffordshire potters went straight to the Manufacturers' Association with the statesmanlike and broad-minded proposal of their American brethren. 

" Here," they said, " is a weapon in your hands to fight against heavy tariffs in America if you will only give us a fair consideration in our wages, and so cut the ground from underneath American protection by taking away the justification for it." 

This was a matter, however, which the Manufacturers' Association regarded as beyond its scope; and it replied that it was unable to do anything in it, and the matter dropped there and then. 

Apart from the leaders of the working potters themselves, the proposal seemed to interest no one. The mass of the workmen did not understand it, and in the transactions of the Manufacturers' Association it did not get beyond the letter written by their Secretary declining to have anything to do with a proposal which did not seem to concern them. [footnote 5] 

In their restricted view they were right — it was a matter which primarily concerned their workmen. But the leaders of the workmen could not undertake the responsibility of urging them to take any action to give effect to the proposal, and the subject dropped out of mind without having roused to activity either side.

TARIFFS AND PRICES

Two years later, the duty on pottery imported into the States went up again to a higher level, under its protection American production increased, and the Staffordshire pottery manufacturers then began to complain of a lessened demand for English pottery goods in the American market.

AFTER A CENTURY'S STRUGGLES

The subsequent history of the Staffordshire potter may be told in a few words.

During the last few years several organisations have come to light in The Potteries of an entirely novel character. They are connected with subsidiary branches of earthenware manufacture ; the brick-making trade, the jet and Rockingham teapot trade, and a select little branch of industry called the "China furniture trade," which is concerned in the production of earthenware fittings for electrical purposes. 

New schemes of trade organisation

The basis upon which they were formed may be briefly stated in this proposition : that the employers formed themselves into a Union, and the workmen did the same, and the two Unions then united. 

The masters covenanted to keep up selling prices, and to maintain an equal rate of wages based upon those prices, and the workmen in return agreed to allow none of their number to work for any employer in the trade who proved false to, or did not act in accordance with, the Rules governing the Masters' Alliance. 

These combinations have now existed for three or four years, and have apparently been successful ; but they would probably have had no place in this narrative but for a circumstance which is now but a few weeks old. 

The general earthenware manufacturers, with whom and with whose workmen this narrative has exclusively dealt, have lately made inquiries about these organisations, and have found that capital and labour may work well together. 

They have determined, within the last few days of 1898, to do their part in the establishment of a similar combination for the whole earthenware trade. There can be no doubt that the workmen will heartily second them, and that the result will be entirely beneficent. 

An idea strikes the employers

The employers have, in short, come to see the wisdom, because now they feel the necessity, of some such system of co-operation as that which the workmen suggested in 1890, and for which they had been prepared ever since 1836.

Is it too much to hope that in this direction lies the final solution of all the differences of capital and labour, so long as economical and political conditions preserve a distinction between the two? 

It was a great thing when workmen first united to protect their class — it has not been without an effect for good when, as they have often done, they have used their strength, even at some cost to themselves, to enforce their rights. 

Proposal to combine with their workpeople

The working potters of Staffordshire moved further along the line of advance when, having taught their employers to respect the strength and principles of their Union, they established a system of arbitration under which each side met on equal terms, to conclude honourable terms of peace, when conflict separated them ; and the support which the employers gave was as honourable as the steady faith which, for many years, the workmen preserved in the elemental good of a system which had nevertheless disclosed many drawbacks and disadvantages to their cause. 

Hope for a new era

But there could be no more agreeable conclusion to this story of the Potters' Trade Unions than to be able to say that a still further advance had been made — an advance which would reconcile many of the antagonisms of the past, and make the possibility of their recurrence in the future very remote, for it would be based upon the broad, humane and human ground that capital and labour, invested in the same enterprise, are partners and friends, upon whom lies the common duty of promoting their common good.