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62 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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. 1 Trades Appointed Societies By The An...
sively misunderstood . Many suppose that they are organizations for the sole purpose of promoting and conducting strikes . But
their objects are various ; all , however , aimed at securing the advantage of labor in its contest with capital . This contest ought
to be a fair , friendly , and honorable one ; and if it could be shown that trades' unions tended to introduce into it anything unfair ,
unfriendly , or dishonorable , they might justly be condemned . But this cannot be said of them as a whole ; individual societies have
often taken unfair advantage of employers in compelling them , at risk of immense loss or even failure , to raise wages when the
market did not admit of a rise , but only a fair advantage is sought when the rise is fairly justified by the state of the market . This is
all , with regard to variations of wages , that the unions attempt ; and even if unfair advantage is sought and obtained , it is a matter
speedily to be rectified . No power can maintain wages above their natural level for any length of time . Among the methods by which
trades' societies conduct their affairs , the following may be mentioned :- — I . Publishing periodically the state of the trade in
different parts of the country . This is a most useful function , and with the two succeedinggives to these societies an import and ,
beneficial share in the prop , er distribution of labor , sending the worker where his work is most wanted , and so promoting a natural _^
equality of wages . II . Keeping a book of names of unemployed men , and of employers wanting men . III . Assisting men from
town to town in search of employment , and occasionally to emiate . This latterbesides the good effect above mentioned , of
gr , sending the workman where his work awaits Mm , has also this , — - it prevents an incalculable amount of pauperism with its consequent
social and moral deterioration . This is an effect which the Report does not bring forward , but it seems to us a most important one .
The remaining modes of action are of a more questionable character . IV . Regulating the number of apprentices in the trade .
V . Maintaining men in resistance to their employers . VI . Regulating the number of working hours , and the rules of the trade .
And , VII . Organizing strikes . _" The conclusions at which the Committee arrived may now be
glanced at . The first and second affirxn that trades' societies and combinations of societies have of late years much increased ; the
third and fourth that they are conducted with greater fairness and with less of prejudice and unreasonableness ; fifth , that strikes ,
though more frequent , are conducted with less violence than in former daysthough there still remains room for improvement in
this respect , , especially as regards trade disputes at Sheffield , and the attempts elsewhere made to intimidate , by publishing in the
weekly balance-sheets injurious personal imputations or threats . We quote from the " Account of Strike in the . Cotton Trade at
Preston in 1853 / ' by J . Lowe , a curious catalogue of
threatening intimations published in the balance-sheet of the strike . The
62 Notices Of Books.
62 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1861, page 62, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031861/page/62/
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