Industrial Democracy. Sidney Webb
- man representative becomes properly equipped for one -half of] his duties, he ceases to be specially qualified for the other. If he remains essentially a manual worker, he fails to cope with the brain-working officials ; if he takes on the character of the brain-worker, he is apt to get out of touch with the constituents whose desires he has to interpretl It will, therefore, be interesting to see how the shrewd workmen of
.1 In this connection see the 'interesting suggestions of Achille Loria, Les Baits Economiques de la Constitution Sociale (Paris, 1893), pp. 150–154.
Representative Institutions 57
Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands have surmounted this constitutional difficulty.
In the parliaments of the Cotton-spinners and Coalminers we find habitually two classes of members, salaried officials| of the several districts, and representative wage-earners still working at the mule or in the mine. It would almost seeffr as if these modern organisations had consciously recognised the impossibility of combining in any individual representa- tive both of the requirements that we have specified. As it is, the presence in their assemblies of a large proportion of men who are still following their trade imports into their deliberations the full flavor^ of working-class sentiment. And the association, with these picked men from each industrial village, of the salaried officers from each county, secures that combination 0/ knowledge, ability, and practical experience in administration,'which is, as we have suggested, absolutely i iydispensab le for the exercise of control over the professional experts, irthe constituencies elected none but their fellow - w brker s. it is more than doubtful whether the representative assembly so created would be competent for its task. If, on the other hand, the assembly consisted merely of a conference of s alaried o fficials, appointing one or more of themselves to carry out the national work of the federation, it would inevitably fail to retain the confidence, even if it continued to express the desires of the members at large. J'he conjunction of the two elements in the sanie repre- sentative assembly h'asTn practice resulted in a very efficient working bodyjj
It is important to notice that in each of the trades the success of the experiment hasjdsperi^ed^n the iact that the organisation is formed on a (federal basis^ The constituent bodies of the Miners' Federation and the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton - spinners have their separate constitutions, their distinct funds, and their own official staffs. The salaried officers whom they elect to sit as representatives in the federal parliament have, therefore, quite other interests, obligations, and responsibilities than those of
58 Trade Union Structure
the official staff of the Federation itself. The secretary of the Nottinghamshire Miners' Association, for instance, finds himself able, when sitting as a member of the Conference o^^ the Miners' Federation, freely to criticise the action of the federal executive council or of the federal official staff, with-j out in any way endangering his own position as a salarieJ officer. Similarly, when the secretary of the Rochdale Cotton-spinners goes to the quarterly meeting at Manchester, he need have no hesitation in opposing and, if possible, defeating any recommendation of the executive council of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton-spinners which he considers injurious to the Rochdale spinners. In the form of the representative executive, this use of salaried officers in a representative capacity is likely_ to tend, as we have seen, to the formation of a virtually irresponsible governing clique. But in the form of a federal representative assembly, where the federal executive and official staff are dependent, not on the members at large but on the assembly itself, and where the representatives are responsible to quite other constituencies and include a large proportion of the non-official element, this danger is reduced to a minimum.
We have now set before the reader an analysis of the constitutional development of Trade Union democracy. The facts will be interpreted in different ways by students of different temperaments. To us they represent the long and inarticulate struggle of unlettered men to solve the problem of how to <;qtnbin.e 3.dmimsJtra,.tive__ efficiency- with- popular control . Assent was the first requirement. The very formation of a continuous combination, in face of legal persecution and public disapproval, depended on the active concurrence of all the members. And though it is con- ceivable that a strong Trade Union might coerce a few individual workmen to continue in its ranks against their will, no such coercive influence could permanently prevail over a discontented majority, or prevent the secession, either individually or in a body, of any considerable number who were seriously disaffected. It was accordingly assumed
Representative Institutions 59
without question that everything should be submitted to the voices" of the whole body, and that each member should take an equal and identical share in the common project. As the union developed from an angry crowd u nanimously 'demandtflg the redress of a particular grievance mto an insurance company of national extent, obfigea" to followsoine^efiriite trade policy, the need for administrate efficiency' more and more forced itself on the minds of the , members. This efficiency involved an ever-increasing special ■ isation pfjunctiqn.^ .The growing mass of business and th ; difficulty and complication of the questions dealt with involved the growth of an official class, marked off by capacity, training, and^^Jiitof life Jrpm the rank and file. Failure to specialise the executive function quickly brought about extinction. On the other hand this very specialisation undermined the popular control, and thus risked the loss of the indispensable popular assent ) The early expedients of Rotation of Office, the Maas-MeeBng, arid the Referendum proved, in practice, utterly inadequate as a means of securing genuine popular "control. Atjeach particular crisis the individual member found himself overmatche3~by" the official machinery which he had created. At this^tage lrresponsible bureaucracy seemed the inevitable outcome. But democracy found yet another expedient, which in some favored unions has gone far to solve the problem.
(The specialisation of the executive into a^ permanent expert civTl^servTce was balanced by^the specialisation of the legis-
Jaiuri^ Jn the establishment of a supreme representative assembly, itself Undertaking the work of direction and control fo r wh ich the members at_large.. had proved incpm^etentj. We have seen how difficult it is for a community of manual workers to obtain such an assembly, and how large a part is
> " The progressive division of labour by which bofh science and government prosper."—Lord Acton, The Unity of Modern History (London, 1896), p. 3. " If there be one principle clearer than another, it is this : that in any business, whether of government or of mere merchandising, somebody must be trusted. … Power and strict accountability for its use, are the essential constituents of good government"—Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (^evYot)L, 1896), I2th edit.
6o Trade Union Structure
inevitably played in it by the ever-growing number of salaried officers. But in the representative assembly these salaried officers sit in a new capacity. The work expected from them by their employers is not that of execution, but of criticbjn and direction. To balance the professional civil servant we have, in fact, the professional representative.
This detailed analysis of humble working-class organisa- tions will to many readers be of interest only in so far as it furnishes material for political generalisations. It is there- fore important to consider to what extent the constitutional problems of Trade Union democracy are analogous to those of national or municipal politics.
The fundamental requisites of government are the same in the democratic state as in the Trade Union. In^ both cases the problem is how to combine administrative efficiency with popular control. Both alike ultimately depend on a continuance of general assent. In a voluntary, association, such as the Trade TTrilOn, this ge neral asstent is, as we have j;e(; ;n, the foremost requirement : in the demo cratic stat e rHinqiiishment of citizen s hip Js seldom a prac ticable alter n ative, whilct- the r\^p r r , \\nr \ rS changing gover nors i s_ not an pasy cxr\p Hence, even in the most democratic of states the continuous assent of the governed is not so imperative a necessity as in the Trade Union. On the other hand, the deg^ ree of adminis trative e fficiency necessary for the healthy existence of the state is far greater than in the case of the Trade Union. But whilst admitting this transposition in relative importance, it still remains true that, in the democratic state as in the Trade Union, government cannot continue