EMIGRATION AND AFTER
The Five Thousand Pounds Fund

THE Five Thousand Pounds Fund was so called because it was expected that five thousand potters would contribute to it. There were estimated to be between seven and eight thousand adult potters in the district, and in allowing for the apathy of two or three thousand of them, the Union could certainly not be accused of basing their hopes on a too sanguine estimate, and, indeed, were only drawing a just conclusion from the indications around them of the general interest in the movement. 

It is doubtful, however, whether there were ever as many as two thousand subscribers to the fund, and it is certain that only half that number completed the payment of their eight levies, and so became entitled to a share in the Emigration Society. 

There were, however, many who took shares in the Society as shareholders pure and simple, and without contributing to the fund. 

As a matter of fact, the potters had many calls upon their slender purses, and the wonder is that they subscribed as much as they did. 

If a working potter at that time had answered to all the calls made upon him, directly or indirectly, by his Union, he would have paid away fully one-tenth of his income. 

Every potter in the Union paid his sixpence a week to his Union lodge, many of them paid their levies of half-a-crown a month to the Five Thousand Pounds Fund, and others took out their shares in the Emigration Society at the rate of sixpence or a shilling per week. 

Then, as soon as the last half-crown levy had been paid, another fund was started — a voluntary subscription for "the persecuted and unemployed," which money was to be invested in the Emigration Society for the especial benefit of all who lost their situations by " persecution " — a wide term, and one liberally interpreted— or as a consequence of the introduction of machinery. 

This latter fund, however, made little progress, and amounted in the end to so little that it was merged in the general assets of the Emigration Society, and was not exclusively appropriated to the benefit of those for whom it was created.

PIONEERS FOR AMERICA
The Emigration Scheme in operation — Pioneers for America

The levies having been called in, it was found that the Society had enough capital at its command to purchase 4000 acres of land. They had set out for the price of 12,000 acres, but that sum not being forthcoming, it was decided to make a start with what funds they then possessed. 

Meetings were held, and it was decided that the first practical step to be taken was the appointment of officers of the Society who should be sent out to America to purchase the land, and to prepare the way for those to follow. The offices created were those of estate steward, his deputy, and a conductor. Before the close of the year 1845 the officers were selected, and in February 1846 they set sail for New York. 

Before their departure they were entertained at farewell dinners and gatherings in every town in The Potteries, and when they left The Potteries for Liverpool the streets were full of enthusiastic crowds who bade them good-bye. Each officer was accompanied by his family, for they had no intention of returning to England, and hoped that when next they saw their friends it would be in the colony which they were going to prepare for them over the sea. 

Their duty was first to select the land — the territory of Wisconsin had been decided upon as their objective — then to purchase it, divide it into allotments of 20 acres each, and build houses or log huts for the accommodation of those who should next come after them.

THE ESTATE COMMITTEE

The departure of the Land Officers was regarded as an event of great importance, for it gave an air of reality to the proceedings of the Society. The scoffers were silenced, and the doubtful ones saw that there was something in the movement. 

The conductors of the Society determined to profit by this stimulation of interest in their aims, and proposed that the next step should be the appointment of an Estate Committee to be composed of representatives from each branch of the trade, who, with their wives and families, should be sent out to the colony as soon as the land was selected, to there watch over the interests of their branches, and presumably to also watch over the officers who had just been sent out. 

It was not suggested, however, that the expenses involved should be provided out of the funds of the Society. As a matter of fact, those funds would not have permitted such a strain upon them. It was proposed that each member of the different branches should pay, for twelve weeks, a subscription of threepence a week, and half of the resultant sum in each branch should be allocated to the expense of the emigration of its representative, and the remainder should be invested for branch shares in the Emigration Society. 

It was an ingenious plan, for it provided for the development of the colony, and committed each branch to the proceedings of the Society at no expense to the latter ; whilst at the same time, by it being proposed to devote half the sum raised to the purchase of branch shares, it directly increased the Society's funds.

Perhaps there was no more to be said of the object of the proposal. The interests of the branches were to be guarded rather in The Potteries than in Wisconsin ; and as the Land Officers had been specially selected with a regard to their character and trustworthiness, the appointment of a cumbrous Estate Committee of eleven members in order to control the Land Officers, would only have found an analogy in the appointment of a Committee of the Colonels of each regiment engaged in a campaign to control the proceedings of the General Staff. 

Still, the plan was adopted. There was plenty of time in which to carry it out, for some months must elapse before the Land Officers would have accomplished the first part of their mission, and the discussion of the plan served to keep the interest alive.

Funds come slowly in

Soon, however, a more important subject was presented to the potters for their consideration. The Land Officers were on their way to America to purchase 4000 acres, and to establish a store. 

They had gone there, however, without the means to accomplish those purposes. The total assets of the Society only amounted to the purchase price of the 4000 acres, and left no margin for all the cost of emigration and all the general expenses. 

The Emigration Committee, therefore, issued an appeal for further shareholders, and insisted upon the necessity of " regular and continuous funds." Many shares had lapsed, and the defaulters were pleaded with. Their shares had, by the laws of the Society, become forfeit, but the offer was made to reinstate the holders of them upon the payment of the arrears. 

This offer was in many cases accepted, and brought more funds into the Society's coffers. Still, it was obvious that more money was necessary. Part of the capital of the Emigration Society had been sunk in the establishment of a printing office — where the Union weekly paper was now printed and published— which was expected to produce a profit of £100 a year, but it was long before this expectation was even partially answered. 

The hollow - ware pressers had shown themselves most active of all the branches in the promotion of the Emigration Scheme, and they were appealed to. It was suggested that they should devote threepence out of every sixpence paid into their Union to emigration purposes. 

Whilst they were considering the suggestion, the long-expected communication from the Land Officers came to hand. They had arrived at New York, on March 13th, 1845, after a voyage of nearly six weeks, and their letter was merely the diary of their voyage. Still, it served again to stimulate the movement at home, and the Emigration Committee issued another appeal, pointing out that retreat was impossible, and they must have funds to go on.

"POTTERSVILLE U.S.A."

The hollow-ware pressers then decided to devote half of their Union subscriptions to emigration. It was a momentous resolve, for the Central Committee, encouraged by the reception which the hollow - ware pressers had accorded to their suggestion, now ventured to hint that each branch should do the same. 

Meanwhile, another letter had arrived from the Land Officers. They had surveyed the land in Wisconsin, and had selected the site for the new colony. But further than that they could not go, and others were stepping in and taking the land which they themselves had chosen. 

They must have funds. A general meeting of shareholders was then held, to consider the position, and some opposition showed itself. Upon a resolution being submitted to the meeting to withdraw £600 from the bankers, and to send a draft for that amount to the Land Officers, an amendment was moved suggesting that "the money should be kept in hand until the shareholders had decided what to do with it." 

Seeing that the resolution only proposed that the funds of the Society should be disposed of for the accomplishment of the purpose for which they were intended, and for which the Society had come into existence, the supporters of the amendment could only mean that they distrusted the whole business and did not desire the continuance of the Society. 

The resolution, however, was carried, and, amidst much enthusiasm, the colony in Wisconsin received its baptismal name of " Pottersville," and with that name for a battle-cry, the discontented ones were routed. Nevertheless, funds did not come in sufficiently, and the leaders of the movement saw that drastic measures were necessary.

EMIGRATION V. UNIONISM

They then revived, boldly and definitely, their suggestion of a few weeks before, that all the branches of the trade should follow the example set to them by the hollow -ware pressers. 

This suggestion came directly from the Central Committee of the Union — it was not the proposal of the Emigration Society, but the former had latterly been so absorbed in the aims of the latter, that the two organisations now scarcely suggested any distinction to the working potters. 

The Central Committee held a meeting "for the purpose of taking immediate steps to improve the prices of the district, and also to secure for the Emigration Society a regular and continuous contribution for the important purpose of peopling " Pottersville."

It may be safely said that the first-named object of the meeting was subsidiary to the latter. No further steps, indeed, were taken "to improve the prices of the district," and in announcing that object the Central Committee was doing no more than making a concession to its own conscience. The meeting lasted for some hours, and finally passed the following resolution : — 

" That this Meeting believes that the principle of emigration is the only efficient principle for permanently improving the condition of working potters, and that the same be recommended to the different lodges of the Society, to the end that one-half of the subscriptions to the Union be applied to emigration purposes."

The sentiments uttered by those at the meeting were mainly those of the inutility of strikes and turn-outs. They looked back upon all the money that had been spent in their Union's warfare, and wished that they could recall the past, whilst possessing the wisdom of the present, and devote all the money to the Emigration Society. 

The Central Committee, indeed, although not seeming to be quite conscious of it, was ringing its own knell, and writing its own epitaph. They pointed to the disunited branches of the trade, and contended that their disunion was only due to the fact that they had not taken part in the emigration movement. 

Dissensions in the Union

The Union was falling to pieces, and emigration was the only common interest which would keep it together. So they argued, but they were really mistaking the effect for the cause. 

The working potters in their Union were as a large family. The heads of that family had embarked on a big enterprise, which might have been strikingly successful had all the members of the family joined heartily in it. But some had looked at the enterprise distrustfully, and kept aloof from it, and so the family was divided ; but surely the heads of that family were responsible for the division. Those who had joined in the enterprise were naturally united because they had committed themselves to it, but those who had not joined in it pointed with much force to the emigration enterprise as the source of the disunion. 

The Central Committee asked : 

" Who then will dare to say that emigration ash injured the Union? It has been the foundation of our stability, and we must foster and protect it." 

Their method of " fostering and protecting " the Union was to make that Union give half its effort and wealth to emigration. 

They anticipated objections in this manner : Out of every sixpence paid into the Union, two-pence halfpenny has gone in the current expenses, and the remaining threepence halfpenny has been "wastefully squandered in foolish strikes, and in unemployed pay. The step that is recommended by the Central Committee is one that will raise the Union from the ghost of a combination up to a substantial land and property owning body." 

The functions of the Union forgotten 

The logical outcome of this view would have been the decision to abandon the Union altogether, to confess its utter failure, and to devote all combined effort to emigration. 

The attitude of the Central Committee was not even that of Brutus : " Not that I love Caesar less, but Rome more." 

They were sacrificing their Union to emigration, but, in the sacrifice, denounced the Union to which they owed so much, and which they had previously worshipped as their only means of salvation. 

It was generally conceded that about half of the Union subscription was necessary to pay the ordinary expenses, and the Central Committee, therefore, ought to have considered that in suggesting this revolution, they were reducing their Union to a condition which would only leave it a Union in name, and would deprive it of any power of carrying out its functions. 

It cannot be said for them that this view did not present itself, for it was the specific ground of objection on the part of those who disagreed with their recommendation. The only conclusion possible, therefore, is that they considered the Union as no longer of any use or importance, and were prepared to see it perish in their desperation to save the Emigration Society.

The scheme, then, was formally submitted to the different branches for their decision, and, in most cases, speedily agreed to. The Central Committee appear to have had some uneasiness as to the result of their recommendation, for they were agreeably surprised at its adoption. 

"They had feared," they said, "that its vast importance would not have been seen," and that " a narrow policy " would have prevailed. 

Fortunate, indeed, would it have been if their fears had been realised. As it was, every organised branch in the trade ultimately endorsed the policy of the Central Committee. 

Hollow-ware pressers "organise a Union upon better principles" 

And then came a curious development. The hollow-ware pressers who, as we have seen, had been the pioneers in the policy of half-payments from the Union subscriptions, which was now generally accepted by the whole trade, held a general meeting of their branch, and decided upon "a separation of the Emigration Society from the proceedings of the Union." 

Their motives in executing this volte face, and repudiating their own action, were obscure. They announced that they had "withdrawn from the Branch and Central Committees, owing to the determination of those Committees to appropriate the Union contributions to emigration purposes," and proceeded to pass resolutions affirming that "in a state of disorganisation they were powerless to obtain a fair price for their labour," and that they should take "immediate steps to organise a Union upon better principles" than the one they had left. 

They carried out this intention by forming themselves into a branch of the National Association of Trades. Like the Central Committee, the hollow-ware pressers had been reviewing the past, and coming to conclusions, and they decided that a Union of Potters, detached from any greater organisation of labour, was futile. 

Rival emigration schemes

They therefore looked to the National Association as the only agency which would, to borrow a picturesque phrase from their pronouncement, " hurl from their guilty eminence the oppressors of their race." But still even they could not shake off the thrall of the emigration spirit, and started a Society which they called "The Mutual Assistance Society for the removal of surplus labour." 

Their objects and their methods of attaining them were identical with those of the Emigration Society — that is to say, they inveighed against surplus labour as the source of all evil, and asserted that emigration was the only remedy, and they asked for subscriptions and shares just in the same way as the Emigration Society had done. The only shade of difference between the two was that the Mutual Assistance Society did not restrict its operations to emigration to America, but asked why the British Colonies should be neglected, and talked of two hemispheres instead of one. 

But, upon the slender foundation of this difference, they based violent and very often unscrupulous attacks upon the Emigration Society, whose programme they had so sedulously copied.

THE UNION IN RUINS

Their secession from the Union meant more than their repudiation of the Emigration Society. 

The Union was rapidly falling to pieces, and the action of the hollow-ware pressers, who had hitherto been its most constant supporters, left it much weaker than before. Lodges were broken up in the different towns, and though amongst their members had been some who were faithful to Unionist principles, they were compelled to be out of Union because their lodge, or their branch, no longer existed. 

Some ardent spirits thus left standing amid the ruins of their various houses, met together, and proposed that they should build themselves a common habitation, and call it a " Miscellaneous Lodge." 

The idea was carried out, and formed the germ of yet another revolution in the character of the general Union. It must be said of its leaders that they were amazing opportunists. The policy suggested by the moment became to them the one and only truth. 

The Central Committee discovered that they had been travelling along the wrong road all the time in conducting their Union upon "branch principles." They proposed to re-model the constitution of the Union, by eliminating any distinction of branch, and making it a general organisation.

They discovered that hitherto, " owing to the division of the Society into separate branches, the power of the Union was also divided," and that their only chance of salvation lay in the adoption of the Miscellaneous system.

It seems evident that some such alteration in the constitution of their Society had become necessary, for the secession of one or two branches, and the dissolution of various lodges here and there, had reduced the branch system to incoherency ; but it cannot be said, as the Central Committee then chose to argue, that the Miscellaneous system was a system of perfection. 

There were a dozen different and well - defined branches in the trade, working under different conditions and at different rates of wages. A grievance in one branch did not necessarily involve a grievance in any other, and, in matters of detail, the flat-presser had nothing in common with the printer or oven-man. The union of each branch by itself, federated into the general union by its delegates to the Central Committee, was a sane and obvious arrangement, and one that had really not disclosed any drawbacks. 

The Central Committee, however, had become adepts in the art of persuading themselves that they were only travelling to finality and perfection when circumstances compelled them to alter their plans, and they formulated the constitution of the new Union. They proposed that the existing lodges should wind up their affairs, and that the emigration shares and funds of each branch should be disposed of as the majority should decide, and that then 

"a Lodge of the new Union should be formed in each district, composed of individuals connected with the potting trade from the slip-house to the packing-house." 

A Central Committee was still to be supreme, and to be appointed by delegates from each lodge. Its duties were to "superintend the payment of unemployed and turn - out cases," and it was to be considered as " the highest judicature of the Union." And, finally, the basis of the new Union was to be "that the subscriptions of its members should be sixpence per week ; and that one half should go to the funds of the Emigration Society," to be converted into individual shares when the requisite amount had been subscribed, "and that the other half should be appropriated to the payment of unemployed and turn-out cases, together with the incidental expenses of the lodge." 

It may also be mentioned that the rate of payment to unemployed cases was fixed at five shillings a week, and to "turn-out" cases at seven shillings per week. These suggestions for the basis of the new Union were adopted, the old lodges broken up, and in October 1846 new lodges, under the Potters' General Union, were formed.

A PATCH-WORK UNION

The change was quietly effected, and there was no display of enthusiasm. Matters had become sadly disorganised by the successive changes which had supervened, and the old ardent and confident spirit of union had flickered out. 

Division and chaos had followed in the wake of the emigration movement, and those who now emerged from the wreck of the old Union, and still formed the main body, were mostly those who had ventured a stake n the emigration scheme, and felt that they would do better to stick to the ship, and see the voyage out, than lose all by desertion. 

The Central Committee had announced that at the impending Martinmas various manufacturers had given notice of a reduction, and that it was their firm intention not to submit to any alteration in the rate of wages. This announcement was merely an admission of the true functions of the Union — which had lately been completely overlooked — and figured prominently in the advocacy of the Miscellaneous system. 

When, however, the new Union was established, nothing more was heard of the active opposition to the manufacturers which the Central Committee had foreshadowed. The reductions were made, and the promised strikes did not take place. The new Union merely showed that discretion which is the better part of valour, for they knew they were not strong enough to force a fight.

THE PIONEERS IN POTTERSVILLE
EMIGRATION WINS

The Emigration Society had now been established for over two years. The results which it had to show were three Land Officers in lonely Pottersville, and they were asking for money. Their letters had become more and more urgent in tone, and at last the £600 had reached them, and their anxiety was relieved. 

Then, whilst they journeyed, as their letters said, for days and weeks over the prairies of Wisconsin, seeking the authorities to whom the purchase money had to be paid, losing themselves in forests, sleeping under the stars, and encountering Red Indians, their brethren at home were preparing to send out to them the long-talked-of Estate Committee. 

It had been decided that as far as possible the members of that Committee should be selected, as has been said, from different branches ; but the branch system had since gone by the board, and that distinctive qualification was no longer urged. Inasmuch as the Estate Committee had been suggested to look after the various interests of the branches, it might have occurred to them that the necessity for any Estate Committee had now passed away. 

But the Emigration and Union Committees revived the idea, with the modification that as far as possible the Estate Committee should be selected from amongst the unemployed, and that the Central Committee should borrow the necessary money from the Emigration Society. In other words, the Emigration Society delegated to others the expenses of its own business. 

There was a little murmuring, though no coherent complaint. The potters probably thought of the eighty weeks which they would have to wait before they were entitled to one share in the Emigration Society by virtue of half their subscriptions to the new Union. 

Land purchased in Wisconsin 

However, the suggestion of the Emigration Society was accepted, and eight " persecuted " potters, each having a family, were selected to form the Estate Committee. The new year, 1847, opened with the receipt of a letter from the Land Officers, in which they announced that they had purchased 1200 acres of land, and spoke of shipping their wheat, when the crops came round, to The Potteries ! This childish enthusiasm did not strike the potters as pathetic ; they only dreamed again of a store set up in their midst, which should be stocked with butter and eggs and bread from far-away Wisconsin ; and when reductions in wages were talked of, they turned for consolation to their promised 20 - acre farms. 

And so once more there came a round of farewell entertainments, and the Estate Committee responded to the toasts of their health, and prosperity to Pottersville, as the Land Officers had done before them.

MACHINERY AGAIN
"The Scourge" makes its appearance

In the midst of this reviving enthusiasm, the monster " machinery " created another diversion. The machine patented by Mr Wall, and pioneered by Mr Mason, was succeeded by another, patented by Mr Scott. 

It was designed to accomplish the same purposes as its unfortunate predecessor, and had already acquired in the out-districts such a reputation that it was complimented by the Staffordshire potters by being called " The Scourge." It had now arrived in their midst under the patronage of one of the most eminent firms — that of Messrs Copeland. 

Its advent enabled the Central Committee to issue an address reminding all whom it might concern of their predictions of two years ago, and asserting that the era of fulfilment had now indeed commenced. The occasion also served to justify an appeal for further half-crowns, and elaborate calculations were made as to how many families could be despatched to Pottersville if only certain hypothetical sums could be raised. 

But the Central Committee gave proof of their wisdom by adopting a second line of defence. 

They no longer cried out, " Bring on your machines, and we will take away your workmen and despatch them to Pottersville," but prepared a petition to be presented to Messrs Copeland, praying them to spare the trade the ill-effects of the threatened evil. It was a significant change of attitude, and its significance was found in the condition of their Union. The fortiter in re had given place to the suaviter in modo, and, strange to say, the latter method prevailed. 

Before the petition had been presented to Messrs Copeland, and whilst signatures were still being appended to it, the news came that Messrs Copeland had withdrawn the machine. The Central Committee were puzzled. The enemy had retreated whilst they were suing for peace, and they distrusted the operation, and thought it a manoeuvre. 

Finally, they came to the cynical conclusion that the withdrawal of " The Scourge " was not wholly unconnected with the fact that the general elections were drawing near, and that Alderman Copeland, Member of Parliament, was about to issue his address to the " worthy and independent voters of Stoke-upon-Trent." 

Moreover, "The Scourge" had not been broken up into fragments, or sold as old iron, but had been oiled and carefully locked away in a room of the manufactory.

The Central Committee, therefore, suspended final judgment, and looked askance at an armistice which they did not dare to regard as a victory. The machine, however, was never heard of again, and the episode of " The Scourge " had no further consequences or influence upon the trade. 

But, though a detached incident, it is interesting as showing the temper of the working potters at this period, and the little reliance which they placed upon their Union. The machine had been withdrawn, not in deference to the wishes of the men, and certainly not in fear of any action which they might take. It was merely found by Messrs Copeland to cause more trouble than its performances were worth, and was therefore laid aside. 

The workmen, however, dreaded its consequences, and were relieved at its withdrawal, for they were now disunited and demoralised, and were already prepared to accept machinery as inevitable, and to make the best of it.

EMIGRATION EXPEDIENTS

The last of the farewell entertainments to the Estate Committee had taken place, and they, with their wives and families — numbering forty in all — departed from The Potteries. 

They went in canal boats to Liverpool, and the banks of the water-way were lined with thousands of people who waved their adieux to the emigrants. 

Other boats, containing friends and bands of musicians accompanied them for some miles up the canal, and returned when night came on. 

The proceedings connected with the departure of the Estate Committee had attracted so much the attention of the general public, that the emigration movement received another stimulus, and the flagging faith of the potters in their venture was revived. 

The Emigration Committee passed resolutions declaring their intention of adding 80 acres a month to their estate, and providing for the promised monthly ballots to be immediately commenced.

The first ballot was in favour of the Oven-men's Society, who then had to decide which of their number should receive the advantage. 

The second and third ballots again went to branch shares — those of the hollow-ware pressers — though there was now no longer any hollow-ware pressers' branch — 

and it was not until the fifth ballot that an individual shareholder was successful. The ballots, however, had spread over a considerable period, and there had been much more than the promised monthly interval between them.

Another auxiliary movement was then started. Under the benevolent patronage of the Emigration Society, though independent of it, clubs were formed to purchase 20-acre farms from the Society, and to pay the passage out of the members of the clubs. 

Flagging faith in emigration

Calculations were made which demonstrated, on paper, the fact that by the payment of sixpence per week, every member of the club would, in three years, infallibly be the owner of a 20 -acre plot in Pottersville, and the necessary expenses of emigration. 

Unfortunately, these calculations were based on the assumption that the necessary number of members would immediately join the clubs, and that assumption was not realised. Very few members joined, and taking the highest enrolment of members of the most prosperous club, it would have been several years before the subscriptions would have enabled a single family to emigrate. The club movement speedily collapsed, and not a single individual received any benefit from it.

Proposed " Potters' Store"

Whilst it was demonstrating its failure, the resourcefulness of the Emigration Society produced another scheme. 

It proposed that a general store should be opened in The Potteries, with a capital of £250, raised by a thousand shares of five shillings each. 

The usual calculations were made, and it was computed that the store would sell a weekly stock of £250 — that is, an amount equal to its capital, slender though it was — and that a yearly profit of £1750 would result, which would go to swell the funds of the Emigration Society. 

The scheme was discussed, and resolutions determining to carry it out were adopted, and the potters' store was spoken of as familiarly as though it were already an accomplished fact. 

It is, perhaps, needless to say that nothing whatever came of it. 

Reduction in wages at home

Whilst it was being discussed, Martinmas of 1847 had came round, and a reduction in wages was first rumoured, then threatened, and finally carried out. 

The reductions were general, and of such an amount as would, in other times, have produced a violent opposition on the part of the potters. 

Then the "allowance system" again showed its head, at first timorously, but soon certain manufacturers made no compunction in avowing their purpose. 

The potters submitted, tamely enough. They could do little else. Their leaders, with doubtful honesty, reproached them for the position of affairs. " If," said they, " you had purchased 1 2,000 acres three years ago, you would have been in the position to resist these attacks." The potters might have replied : " And if you had not subordinated our Union to the Emigration Society, we should now have been in the position you speak of." 

But there was no longer any trade organisation worthy of the name, and the opening of the year 1848 saw the potters in a position as bad as that which they occupied between the defeat of 1836 and the revival of 1843. The Union had practically ceased to exist, and the Emigration Society was fast coming to an end.

"LOGGERHEADS" IN POTTERSVILLE

In March, news was received from Pottersville that the Estate Committee and the Land Officers were at "loggerheads" — a result which might have been foreseen from the first. 

Pottersville, in short, was sharing the fate common to Utopian experiments, and drifting to destruction upon the rock of human imperfections. 

The Estate Steward — one of the three original officers — wrote of the Estate Committee : 

" I am sorry to state that the generality of them are not the wise men of the East, but the foolish men of the West, and whatever unity there might have been amongst them prior to their leaving home, I can assure you there has been very little since they came here." 

Dissensions at home and in Wisconsin

And the financial difficulties at home had their counterpart in similar embarrassments in Wisconsin. The divided counsels amongst the emigrants had become bruited about amongst the settlers in the neighbourhood, and credit was refused. 

Then they wrote home to the parent Society to complain of the smallness of the money drafts sent out to them, and there was found to be considerable difficulty in legalising the possession of the land by the Society, according to the laws of the United States. 

So matters went on for another year. 

The ballots had been suspended, for there were no longer funds available to have given them any effect. The dying effort of the Society was made in the decision to open its ranks to members of all trades. It must have been obvious to its conductors that this step would destroy the last shred of pretence or hope to achieve its purpose. 

It had been established to remove the surplus labour in the potting industry, and now it was proposed that a bricklayer, carpenter, or a small tradesman, should rank equally with the potter. 

It was true that it had failed, and lamentably so, to achieve its primary aim, but the step proposed robbed its purpose of any distinctive connection with its very name. 

Still, its leaders kept up their reputation for opportunism. They spoke of the "local infant growing to national manhood" as a result of opening their doors to outsiders. 

Collapse of the emigration movement

The Emigration Society, however, did not survive the dangers and weaknesses of comparative infancy. Its ranks were not increased by this general invitation to all and sundry to join in the movement, and in the middle of 1849 the whole organisation quietly collapsed.

THE END OF THE DREAM

The enthusiasm of its inception had been long spent, and its later history was merely the dogged obstinacy of its leaders, and the hope of a few tenacious followers that some good might come out of it. 

In all, only about twenty families had been sent out to Pottersville, but in the accomplishment of this meagre result a splendid trades organisation had been sacrificed and frittered away. 

The justification for the emigration movement had been the fear of machinery, and, by a curious irony of fate, at the collapse of the movement there was scarcely a single machine to be found in the whole of The Potteries. 

In short, the emigration movement had fought a phantom. 

The general body of manufacturers were chary of introducing an element into their trade the results of which upon themselves they did not know, but feared. 

And so it came about that for the last few years of the existence of the Emigration Society — that agency which, according to the resolutions passed by the potters, was to afford the only remedy for the " evil of machinery " — the very cause of its existence was forgotten, and no longer urged to justify its continuance. 

The effect which the movement had had upon the " surplus labour " which it was its mission to diminish has been seen. To place twenty or thirty families " out of the combat " in five or six years was not a factor to be taken into serious consideration. 

The Union buried in its ruins 

And so it may be said that the nett result of the emigration movement was merely to destroy all that had been accomplished before it came into existence. 

There is no doubt that, after the initial mistake of inaugurating a movement which it was entirely beyond their power to make effective, the potters committed an act of suicidal folly in subordinating their Union to the Emigration Society, and even in consenting to any official connection between the two organisations. 

There is equally no doubt that if it had not been for the policy of using the Union as a milch cow for the benefit of the Emigration Society, the latter would soon have died a natural death from sheer lack of sustenance, and that the Union would not have materially suffered through any reaction of disgust or despair. 

But as it was, the Union had ceased to have a separate existence long before the Emigration Society languished to its death.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The Union, in its early days, accomplished much, and later, missed a golden opportunity of doing more. There are two facts which attracted but little attention at the time, that are, nevertheless, of prime importance in estimating what permanent advantage was lost to the trade by the apathy of the Union. 

Employers' efforts to advance selling prices

In December of 1845 the masters called together a meeting of their body to consider the state of trade, and to determine the future selling prices, in view of the advances that had taken place in the price of coal and general materials, in the rates of freight and in the wages of the potters. [footnote 1] 

The increased outlay in all cases — although in the latter case it was mainly the abolition of the "allowance system" — was accepted as an accomplished fact. The meeting was held, the Chamber of Commerce revived, and some basis of agreement in reference to selling prices was arrived at. 

A reduction in wages was no more contemplated than a reduction in the price of coal — a matter much more beyond their control. The strength of the Union was then unimpaired, and the emigration movement had not then occupied the attention of the potters to the exclusion of their more immediate and pressing concerns. 

It was the first time in the history of the trade that any serious attempt had been made by the main body of the masters to come to a frank understanding in reference to selling prices, and it therefore offered a golden chance to the Union to inaugurate a new period of common action, for mutual benefit, between master and man. 

Two months later, in March, the following communication was made "to the Manufacturers of the Staffordshire Potteries, under the appellation of 'The Chamber of Commerce/" by the Central Committee of the Union : —

"We, the Central Committee of the United Branches of Operatives, having heard, with much regret, that in your recent praiseworthy efforts to put an advance on the selling prices of the staple manufacture of this district you have been somewhat opposed by one or two of the cheap-labour traffickers of the district, beg to call your attention to the following resolution passed by us, and which we pledge ourselves to carry into practical operation : — 

' Resolved, That we, the Central Committee, acting by the instructions of and in behalf of the operatives of these districts, pledge ourselves to assist by all legal and moral means the combination of potting manufacturers entitled the Chamber of Commerce, in their present endeavour to put an advance on the selling prices of their ware, believing, as we do, that such endeavour is founded on the desire to give a fair and equitable price for potting industry, and that those who oppose the same are bad in motive and foolishly and mischievously avaricious in practice.' "

 

CHAOS COMES AGAIN

Neglected opportunities by the Union

This was a wise and comprehensive resolution, and if only it had been carried into effect, as its promoters pledged themselves to do, a happier history of the potting trade in subsequent years might have been written.

The manufacturers had come to recognise that the time had gone by when their first resource, in any endeavour to improve the financial condition of their business, lay in the opportunity which a reduction of their workmen's wages afforded. 

This was a state of mind for which the workmen themselves, through their action in Union, were responsible. But though the ground was tilled, the seed was not sown. 

No further advance was made by the workmen beyond the mere passing of the resolution. 

The temper of the masters was ripe for sympathetic action with the men, and if the latter had followed up their resolution by arranging, or endeavouring to arrange, for a joint conference between the two, it is very probable that their proffered alliance would have been received favourably by the employers, even though the latter might not have been sufficiently proof against their prejudices to make the first advance. 

The workmen, however, were too absorbed in thinking of homes in the far West to appreciate a possibility which, in other times, would have been hailed as an advance upon all that had been so far accomplished, and the opportunity passed by. 

Then, as we have seen, division crept into their ranks, the miscellaneous system came into being, and the masters then saw a more direct and ready means of accomplishing their purpose, and seized upon it. There was no longer any need to come to any understanding about selling prices, when each manufacturer could practically set his own standard of wages, and so chaos came again. 

Reductions in wages
Disorganisation of the men

Each employer played his own hand, reductions in wages became general, and for nearly twenty years the history of the trade can be summarised in the statement that the men were disorganised, wages were low, and trade fluctuated. Some branches reorganised themselves in the early fifties, but there was no attempt to bring about a general union. 

It was the inevitable reaction, and the general mass of potters were simply disgusted with the very name of Union. It would be useless to dwell upon a period of such complete stagnation, in which there was no single movement worthy of recording, and we will therefore pass to the work of another generation.

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