REVIVAL OF UNIONISM IN THE "FORTIES"

MARTINMAS of the year 1843 was drawing near when a rumour went round that at the impending annual hiring the employers contemplated a reduction in wages for the next yearly term. Instantly the potters set about the formation of another Union. 

But it is certain that they would have done so at that period even if no such rumour had obtained credence. Signs of restiveness and rebellion against the " allowance system " had long manifested themselves, and the threatened reduction merely fixed the moment when slumbering discontent should become translated into action.

The employers had enjoyed a happy independence for seven years, and the twopence which was first " allowed " had become in many cases threepence and fourpence, the amount varying according to the insistence of the employer and the compliance of his workmen. 

Probably, if no employer had had the temerity to go beyond the twopence, the allowance system would have passed into a settled custom of the trade, like the annual hiring-time and " good-from-oven," and would in after years have been defended as a settled system of trade discount. 

But by its extension it amounted to an evil which awoke the workmen from their lethargy. Meetings were held by the separate branches of the trade and of the combined branches, and the potters decided that they must look to union again as presenting the only means of resistance. Other meetings were then held to decide upon the constitution of the Union, and in September 1843 their plans were matured, and the Union came into existence.


THE UNION OF 1843
Revival of unionism in 1843

The Union greatly differed in its constitution from that of 1833. 

In the latter, the Committee of Management, as it was called, was supreme, and there was little delegation of power or responsibility to the branches.

In 1843 the Union had at its head a Central Committee, but it did not possess the power which was vested in the Committee of Management of 1833. 

Each branch was a Union in itself, and was divided into lodges, each town in The Potteries having its lodge. This was a condition necessitated by the geographical extent of The Potteries, and was designed to meet the convenience of its members. 

All the lodges possessed the same functions, which were confined to the affairs of the town or district in which each was situated. The united lodges of each branch elected an Executive Committee, which superintended the proceedings of its lodges, and dealt with all matters connected with the trade 

it represented. The Central Committee was composed of delegates elected by every lodge of each branch. It will thus be seen that the Central Committee was a very representative body ; and its functions were to superintend all strikes, to concentrate the powers of all branches on a given object, and to act as the mouthpiece of all the branches upon any matter common to them all. It was supported by a weekly subscription from each member of the lodges, but had not the power to raise any other levy amongst the members of the Union. Each branch had full control of its own financial arrangements.

 The Potters' Examiner started

The inception of the new Union was not characterised by enthusiasm so much as by determination. It did not regard itself as the agent of a high destiny, and was not hampered or inspired by any other idea than securing as much wages for its members as it could. 

It lacked the high incentive of its predecessor, but in the quiet resolve of its methods, and the definite, unheroic character of its aims, it had its compensations for the absence of a loftier inspiration. It was a business organisation, and for a time pretended to be no more. It early inaugurated one new departure, but one which was eminently practical. 

It determined to speak its voice through the trumpet of the Press, and started a newspaper. The Potters' Examiner was the property of the Union, conducted by members of the Central Committee specially deputed for the purpose. The Examiner was an unpretentious publication devoted to the direct interests of the working potters. 

Its conductors were able men, and edited their little paper with scrupulous fairness. They were, first and foremost, men of religious conviction — earnest and honest. They regarded every question from the altitude of a severe morality, and enforced their arguments with Biblical texts, and exhortations appealing to the Christian virtues. 

"open letters"

Wielding a new power, they addressed remonstrance, by means of "open letters," to offending employers, who received reprimands through the columns of the Examiner that, for their length and candour, could not have been uninterruptedly delivered through the medium of personal intercourse. And its contributors, among the rank and file of the working potters, revelled in a similar liberty. 

A grievance which fell on the idle ears of an employer in the workshop or in his office, found more deliberate and ornate utterance in careful compositions which they sent to their little paper. And not only were the employers singled out for the attentions of the Examiner, for in its columns were to be found reprimands to the idle and slovenly workman, and denunciations of the discredit which the Sabbath-breaker and the drunkard brought upon their class. 

Its contents demonstrated the difference of the attitude of the potters towards the questions of their industry in 1830 and 1843. In the former period they were seized with a sudden reforming zeal, and dreamt of founding a new era and a new order. In 1843 they still laboured towards the same goal, but saw it at a greater distance ; and recognised that though it might be reached in time the road was long, and that they could only march with their day, and must leave the days to come to complete the journey.

With men of such views and character it would naturally be expected that they would undertake no rash enterprises, nor pursue any visionary aims, and though in all their direct relations with their employers they showed moderation in demands and deliberation in methods and purpose, yet, in two movements which were more remotely connected with those relations, they lapsed into the heroic and impracticable, and served to illustrate again the wisdom of Trades Unions in narrowing their efforts to their elemental functions. It will be convenient to first deal with their efforts in pursuit of those primary aims — which at first alone engaged the attention of the Union — and to then describe the more diffuse employment of its energies.

ITS CHIEF OBJECTS

Guerilla warfare

The Union which started in 1843 did not witness any general strike in the trade. It adopted the policy of guerilla warfare, and learned to walk before it tried to run. 

The abuses which had created it had come into existence bit by bit, and the policy of the Union was to reform them by the same process. 

Good-from-oven, the hiring system, the allowance system, and the breaking of the Truck Act furnished enough scope for all their power, 

and the potters waged a steady war against them all. 

equalise the price of labour

That they, like their predecessors in 1836, had a broad conception of both their duties and rights, is shown by the fact that they announced their chief object to be to equalise the price of labour throughout the district.

They held that from the competitive state of the trade it was 

"a matter of injustice to compel one manufacturer to give a good price for labour if others around him were allowed to give five, ten, or twenty per cent. less than he paid to his workpeople." 

By this statement of principle — which was in its essence identical with the aim and policy of the Union of 1833 — they hoped to win to their side the more reputable manufacturers who had been the last to adopt practices of which the workmen complained, and who had only done so when they could justly plead the exigencies of a competition which had compelled them to follow a bad example. 

And this pronouncement of the men applied with still greater force to the few manufacturers who had refused altogether to adopt the "allowance system." But, whilst thus making a concession and an acknowledgment which was likely to conciliate the better class of their employers, the workmen were careful to explain that when they spoke of " equalising wages" they only meant that the highest rate should serve as a standard.

Unionism in out-potteries

In another direction also they gave an evidence of their comprehensive policy. 

Since 1836 there had been a great increase in the number of pottery manufacturers in other parts of the country — chiefly in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Scotland. The employees in these enterprises were almost entirely recruited from among the potters of Staffordshire, and the Union determined to bring the workers in those out - potteries into their Union. 

They sent out delegates to organise them, and generally succeeded. They had an easy task, for the rate of wages prevailing in the out-districts gave in but few cases satisfaction to the workmen, and, as the delegates found themselves among men who were almost literally their brothers, they had no prejudice to overcome. The Union hoped, by this organisation and spirit of co-fraternity, to anticipate any evil resulting to the whole from a weakness in its remote parts ; and the potters scattered in Scotland and elsewhere, on the other hand, felt that in their hour of need they had the support of their brethren at home. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE "MUFFIN"
The "muffin" becomes a "twiffler"

The Union of 1843 found, at its birth, a strike already in progress. It concerned two firms alone, but the grounds of dispute applied to nearly all the manufactories — good-from-oven, the allowance system, and the annual hiring all contributed to it. 

But there was a new grievance added to the list, which was the specific cause of the strike. In the trade the different size of plates are distinguished by separate names. The largest size is called a plate, the next a "twiffler," the smallest a "muffin." 

One of the employers whose workmen had struck re-christened the series. He called the plate a twiffler, the twiffler a muffin, and the muffin, in the words of the workmen, he "sent to God knew where." In other words, the men were told that they must make plates at the same price as twifflers, and twifflers at the same price as muffins. 

There was no alteration in the sizes — the nomenclature and prices alone were affected. This is an interesting circumstance, inasmuch as it is the earliest recorded example of a practice in the trade which subsequently became very common as an oblique method of a reduction in wages. 

Another incident in this strike worthy of mention is that one of the workmen concerned was sent to prison for one month, and another workman for three months with hard labour, for breaking their annual agreements. This circumstance caused much indignation among the potters, and stimulated more than ever their opposition to the custom of an annual agreement. The strike lasted nine months, and was ultimately successful, though at a cost of some three thousand pounds to the Union.


"TRUCK" IN THE OUT-POTTERIES
The Truck Act evaded

In its early day, the Union embarked on another campaign. 

Some of the manufacturers — but certainly the least reputable and important — had been in the habit of evading, or breaking, the Truck Act — an Act passed some years before, [footnote 1] which made it illegal for any employer to pay his workmen in any manner than by the coin of the realm. 

In 1843 the potters asserted, in a letter to the Chief Constable of Burslem, that at some manufactories this Act was being systematically broken. The workman, presenting himself for his wages, was handed so much cloth, the price of which, moreover, was calculated at an excessive rate. 

One passage in the letter is too striking to be passed unnoticed. It was this : 

" Cases have been known in which bankrupt stocks of Birmingham jewellery have been introduced into manufactories working on short time, and amongst a people wanting the common necessaries of life. Oh ! sir, it is a hard case to witness hungry men and women carrying home pins and brooches at two shillings and half-a-crown each, when the same may be had at Birmingham at one-and-sixpence per dozen ; and, when their little ones meet them at the door, crying for bread, to present them with paste." 

The evasion of the Truck Act was not confined to the Staffordshire potteries — it spread to the potteries of Derbyshire. Some of the manufacturers there were apparently also shopkeepers. They sold grocery, hosiery, clothing, and general provisions. Some of the employees rarely received any coin in return for their labour. 

A case was given in which a warehouseman had been compelled to pay his rent with flour, for he doubtless possessed a surplusage of that necessity, inasmuch as it formed the currency in which his wages were mostly paid. 

In another instance it was averred that a lathe-turner had only received tenpence in money in twelve months. 

One manufacturer, who presumably kept, as an auxiliary business, a butcher's shop, paid his men with pigs' liver, for which he charged half-a-crown. 

To check such truly monstrous abuses, the workmen had only one course to take, and they took it. They caused proceedings to be instituted against several employers in the Police Court, and they were convicted, and fined. A system so gross, and one in defiance of the law of the land, could not survive publicity, and with this salutary example, it speedily ceased. It is a remarkable fact, however, that acts which only needed an appeal to the law, which had recently and explicitly forbidden them, to ensure their cessation, should have been allowed to develop into an open practice ; and it certainly shows the lengths to which some manufacturers were prepared to go, and their low estimate of the power of resistance of their workmen.


THE "ALLOWANCE SYSTEM"

Not less successful was the Union in its war upon the "allowance system." 

The practice had existed, unchecked, for seven years, and amongst some manufacturers it had come to be regarded as an institution sanctified by time. It had spread to such an extent as to involve risking the preservation of any distinction between a mature journeyman and an apprentice. 

In many cases, work of an advanced nature, which had always been allotted to journeymen, was given to apprentices, whilst the journeymen were put to do the work of apprentices. Then the manufacturer triumphantly argued that he was obeying all that custom and fairness could demand in paying for apprentices' work at the rate of apprentices' wages. 

An apprentice, at the conclusion of his probationary period, was offered the alternative of leaving his employ, or of continuing to work at his bench at prices for his emancipation from which he had worked and waited for years.

Or, again, a journeyman was told that his services would not be required any longer unless he was content to become an "apprentice." Sometimes he refused, and was supported by the Union. Oftener he went along the line of least resistance, and consented, and then the employer answered inquiry or allegation by a reference to the "voluntary" character of the workman's action. 

But these were exceptional cases. In the main, the allowance system was enforced without any such devious and circumlocutory devices. 

Devious methods of "payment"
An incident of the latter method was given by a workman in 1843. It is amusing — but not only that. He applied for a situation, and was asked if he wished to be employed as a journeyman. He answered in the affirmative, and was then asked what kind of a journeyman he desired to be, as there were several kinds. "There were," said the manufacturer, "some like those of such a firm, who took provisions, and there were others, like those of another firm, who took clothes, haberdashery, and provisions ; but the class to which he wished to direct particular attention was that which allowed twopence in the shilling, which class was sub-divided into two parties : those who consented to the twopences being stopped out of their wages on the Saturday evening, and those who preferred to compound with their dignity and receive their wages in full on Saturday evening, but refunded the twopences on Monday morning. To which of those two parties did the applicant desire to belong?"

Lack of uniformity in working and selling prices 

There was no longer any pretence to uniformity or stability in the wages of the potters. A dozen manufacturers, producing identical articles, paid a dozen different rates of wages. The workmen placed their finger on the right spot when they stated that this lack of uniformity in wages was caused by the irregular prices at which the manufacturers sold their goods. 

They pointed out that no manufacturer in the potting trade had any material advantage over another one. They all carried on their business within an area of a few miles, and all possessed the same appliances and facilities. Therefore, presumably, all could sell their ware at approximately the same price. But it was notorious that there were the most striking discrepancies in the prices they asked for their goods. 

Therefore, argued the workmen, those who sold their goods cheaper than their fellows must obtain their labour cheaper than their fellows. All the raw material used in the trade had a definite market price ; labour alone (the heaviest item in expenditure) was not uniform and regular in value. The low price of labour produced the low price of manufactured goods, and then the effect was pleaded as justifying the cause. 

ABOLISHED WITHOUT A STRIKE

The allowance system illegal

The workmen, therefore, may be said to have taken a statesmanlike view of the question in putting in the forefront of their programme their effort to equalise wages where all other conditions were equal. And so they came back again to the " allowance system " — to them the source of all evil. 

They took the opinion of an eminent lawyer on the subject. He gave it as his opinion that the allowance system was illegal, and that all moneys deducted from the wages of the potters under that system constituted debts recoverable at law. He held that a man's wages, being based upon a certain rate, were inviolable, and no subsequent "understanding" could make the payment of a less amount anything but an illegal stoppage, pure and simple. 

The " Allowance System " abolished

Common-sense certainly seems to support that view, and it is in some senses to be regretted that no steps were taken to test the validity of the opinion in a court of law. The system, however, was discontinued, and it is probable that a conviction of the correctness of the lawyer's opinion had more effect upon the minds of the manufacturers than any fear which the Union, as a Union, inspired. Truth to tell, the system was repugnant to many of the manufacturers who practised it. They had adopted it as a means of defence when it had become almost general, and when the workmen had submitted to it ; and they were perhaps relieved at the prospect, which the efforts of the Union gave, of it being discontinued. And, amongst the main body, there was no suggestion of any combination to resist the demands of the men that the system should be abolished. 

Perhaps it would be true to say that the allowance system perished by its own inherent and indefensible unfairness. The loss to the workmen during the seven years of its operation could not have been less than many thousands of pounds ; and, apart from the obvious advantage to the workmen by its cessation, its abandonment contributed in some degree to the solidity of the trade by helping to check the ruinous competition among the manufacturers which it had fostered. 


It is an interesting chapter, not only in the history of the working potters, but in that of the whole industrial movement, for we can find no trace in any other trade of the adoption of such a devious method of reducing wages. What, also, is interesting is that the men accomplished their victory without a general strike, but by means of incessant appeals and remonstrances, and that they were assisted in no small degree by what may be called the " moral force " of public opinion — an element which, in our own day, has more influence in deciding the issue of industrial disputes than the capacity of the financial resistance of those who are parties to them.

The potters, then, had practically regained the position of 1836; and there they remained. 

Whilst attacking the allowance system, they had not forgotten good-from-oven and the annual hiring. Both these institutions were repeatedly assailed with protests and arguments and little rebellions, but practically no impression was produced upon them. There was really nothing new to be said about them, though much was said. 

 " Good-from-oven " again 

The same allegations were made about the good-from-oven system in 1843 and subsequent years, as at the strike of 1836. The men gave instances of having produced so many dozens of ware, and finding in the biscuit warehouse a greatly diminished quantity set before them as the amount for which they were entitled to be paid.

They roundly asserted that the bulk of the absent ware, though adjudged so bad as not to merit payment, was afterwards sent to be printed and glazed, and turned into a finished article, and then sold. They alleged that in other cases they had pointed out to their employer that what ware was really bad was not bad through fault of theirs, that the employer had admitted the truth of their assertions, but had insisted that the system must be upheld to protect him from loss. 

If, in admitting the truthfulness of their assertion, he had accorded them satisfaction, the workmen would only have been reaping the fruit of one of the " concessions" of the Betley Conference. That conference, however, was so completely forgotten that its result was never urged by the workmen upon the employers.


ANNUAL HIRING

In the hiring system there had been no developments : it remained as it was in 1836, and, as we have seen, had been enforced by the local magistracy. It had not, however, extended to the outpotteries. The potters of Scotland and Yorkshire knew no Martinmas ; in those places it would have been an exotic, and might not have been appreciated and cultivated by the administrators of the law. [footnote 2] In Staffordshire it was ably assailed by the men. They contended that " it contained no feature which gave it the appearance of legal validity." It was merely a stereotyped form which lay in the counting office, and which the workman signed, or to which he oftener affixed his mark. Above all, it contained no reciprocity of interest ; it imposed an obligation upon the man which it did not impose upon the employer.

So the workmen argued, as they had done in 1836, but without avail. Doubtless they were wise in not putting either the fate of the good-from-oven system or of annual hiring to the arbitrament of a strike ; but certainly they were wise in keeping both grievances to the front, lest it should be thought they accepted them as fair conditions of employment, and lest they should become still more hallowed by the passage of time.
The attention of the working potters, however, was now distracted from the consideration of all those matters which had hitherto engaged their attention, and which were legitimate subjects for the action of their Union, by other aims and concerns of an ambitious character, which were fraught with disastrous consequences to their cause.

FOOTNOTES

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