Industrial Democracy. Sidney Webb
resei've fund entirely under their own control. We have no hesitation in saying that any such accumulated funds are of little use in promoting their purely trade interests." ^
The paramount ri ecessity of a. central fund, available fol^ the defence of any branch that might be involved in indus- trial war, has becpme so plain to every Trade Unionist that society after society has adopted the principle of a common purser- But a common purse, as one or two striking inttany psj amo ng successf ul friendly societies prove, does not, in itself; nece ssarily, involve the establishp r ^nt "* n d n m inn nt f i ' iilTi i lj <>vpriitivpjyip1HiTi[T all arii^i'^igtr^f ivp pnwpr . Where business, ran "Ge reduced to prec-ise rules, into the carrying out oK which no quest ion of policy enters, and no discretion' is allowed^ experience shows, as we shall presently see, that , local branch administratioiT may be as efficient and econo- ' mical as that of a central authority^ But the expenditures of the Trade Union funds is determined, not exclusively byj the legislation of its members, but largely by the judgment! of its administrators. In all matters of trade protection, whether it be the elaboration of a complicated list of piece- work prices, the promotion of a new factory bill, the nego- tiation of a national agreement with the associated employers,] or the conduct of a strike, it passes the wit, of man to pre- scribe by any written rule the exact method or amount of the expenditure to be incurred. It follows that the larger' and most distinctive part of Trade Union administration,! unlike the award of friendly benefits, cannot be predeter- mined by any law or scale, but must be left to the discretion] of the executive authority. To vest this discretion abso-N lutely and exclusively in the central executive representing the whole body of members is, it is plain, the only way by which those who have contributed the income can retain
1 Annual Refort of the Bolton Provincial Operative Cotton-siinner^ Associa- tion, 1882.
94 Trade Union Struchire
\^ ' any control over its expenditure. But this developmenn
necessarily entails the withdrawal from the branches of alK real autonomy in issues of policy and in the expenditure ofl their part of the common income. iLibllQWSjiecessarilYJromj t he merging of the fa aBch -iiT aQiffi i nfo n fu n d nomgion to the whole society, and froni. the . repl enishn ient of this fund by~levles Upon'^11 thTlmembers alike,4hat__iia.locanBraiich T!afl~sateiy be permitted'to "mvolve the whole organisatioii in wan" n^entraIIsatIonl)f finance implies, in a milita nt ^organi - sation, cg uUdlibation a f adm m istratio n. inose irade Unions which have most completely recognised this fact have proved most efficient, and therefore most stable. Where funds have been centralised, and power nevertheless left, through the inadvertence or lack of skill of the framers of the rules, to
local authorities, the result has ^been weakness, divided
counsels, and financial disaster.
This cardinal principle of democratic finance has been only slowly and imperfectly learnt by Trade Unionists, and a lack of clear insight into the matter still produces calami- tous results in large and powerful organisations. To take, for instance, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, which was formed for the express "purpose of bringing about a uniform trade policy under the control of a central executive. It was intended to secure this result by providing that strike pay should be awarded only by the central executive, leaving the branches to dispense the other benefits prescribed by the rules. But unfortunately this strike pay amounts only to five shillings a week, it being assumed that the member leaving his work will also be receiving the Out of Work donation of ten shillings a week, awarded by his branch. This con- fusion of Jtrade with friendly benefits has resulted in a serious weakening of the authority of the central executive in matters of trade policy. Whenever the men working in any engineering establishmeint are dissatisfied with any decision of their employer, they can appeal to their own branch, and, on obtaining its permission, may drop their tools, with the certainty that they will receive at the cost of the whole :
The Unit of Government • 95
society the Out of Work benefit of ten shillings a week.* The matter will be reported, in due course, by the district committee to the central executive, even if the branch itself does not trouble to apply for permission to pay the additional five shillings A ' week contingent benefit. But meanwhile, war has been -declared, and has actually begun ; the local employers may have retaliated with a lock-out, the whole district may even have "come out" in support of their fellow-workmen ; and the society may find its prestige and honor involved in maintaining a great industrial conflict without its central executive ever having decided that the* point at issue was one which should be fought at all. This, indeed, is precisely what happened in the most disastrous"^ and discreditable of recent trade disputes, the prolonged strike of the Engineers and Plumbers in the Tyneside ship- building yards in 1892, when thousands of men were idle for over three months, not in order to raise the Standard of Life of themselves or any other section of the workers, but because the local Engineers and Plumbers could not agree as to which of them should fit up two-and-a-half incl/ iron piping. It would be easy for any student of the records of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to pick out many other cases in which branches have, by paying the Out of Work donation to members refusing work, initiated important trade movements on their own account, without the prior knowledge or consent of the central • executive.
This uiifortunate confusion between Out of Work benefit and strike pay is not the only ambiguity that perplexes the administrators of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Although any authorised dispute is supported
• This injurious practice has been greatly strengthened by the fact that the "contingent fund," out of which alone the strike pay could formerly be granted, has often been abolished and subsequently re-established, by votes of the members. -During the periods in which the contingent fund did not exist, the society had no other means of resisting encroachments than the award of Out of Work benefit to members who refused to submit to them. But this left the decision to the branch, though the funds which it dispensed were levied equally on the whole society.
96 Trade Union Structure
from the funds of the society as a whole, it is left to th^ local members through their district committee to begin the quarrel. This would seem to mean complete local autononi}^ and it is cherished as such by the more active branches. But the rule also provides that the resolutions of district committees shall be " subject to the approval " of the central executive, the ultimate veto, though not the direction of the policy, being thus vested in headquarters. The incapacity of the Engineers to make up their minds whether or not they desire local autonomy in trade policy, has more than once placed the society in an invidious and even ludicrous position. Tlius, in the autumn of 1895 the Belfast branches, with the confirmation of the central fexecutive, struck for an advance. The federated employers thereupon locked out, not only all the Belfast engineers, but also those on the Clyde. In the negotiations which ensued the central executive naturally represented the society, and eventually arranged a com- promise, which was approved by the Clyde branches. The Belfast branches, on the other hand, refused to accept the agreement or to consider the strike at an end, and went on issuing full strike pay, from the funds of -the whole society, to all their members. The central executive found itself bitterly reproached by the federated employers for what seemed a breach of faith, and public opinion was scandalised by the lack of loyalty and discipline. Eventually the dead- lock was ended by the central executive taking upon itself peremptorily to order the Belfast members to resume work, without waiting for the resolution of the district committee. Whether the central executive had any right to intervene 'atx all, otherwise than by confirming or disallowing a resolution of the district committee, became a matter of heated con- troversy; and the Delegate Meeting of 1896 not only passed a resolution censuring this action, but also framed a new rule which expressly deprives both the central executive and the district committee of the. power of closing a dispute, by making the consent of a two-thirds majority of the local., members—some or all of whom must be the very persons
The Unit of Government ' 97
concerned—necessary to the closing of a strike.* This fanatical attachment of the Engineers to an extreme local autonomy—their persistent assumption that any one section, however small and unimportant, ought to be allowed to draw on the funds of .the whole society in support of a policy of which the