Industrial Democracy. Sidney Webb
Legislation by the People " from these pamphlets, and urged its adoption on the union, at first unsuccessfully, but at the 1861 delegate meeting virith the result that the Referendum was adopted as the future method of legislation.
22 Trade Union Structure
members. Nor was this practice of consulting the members confined to the central executive. Any branch might equally have any proposition put to the vote through the medium of the societ3r's official circular. And however imperfectly the question was framed, however inconsistent the result might be with the society's rules and past practice, the answer re- turned by the members' votes was final and instantly operative.
,n"hose who believe that pure democracy implies the direct
^Hecision, by the mass of the people, of every question as it arises, will find this ideal realised without check or limit in the
iiistory of the larger Trade Unions between 1834 and 1870.
i The result was significant and full of political instruction.
Whenever the union was enjoying a vigorous life we find, to
begin with, a wild rush of propositions. Every active branch had some new rule to suggest, and every issue of the official circular was filled with crude and often inconsistent projects of amendment. The executive committee of the United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers, for instance, had to put no fewer than forty-four propositions simultaneously to the vote in a single circular.^ It is difficult to convey any adequate idea of the variety and, in some cases, the absurdity of these propositions. To take only those recorded in the annals of the Stonemasons between 1838 and 1839; ^^ have one branch proposing that the whole society should go in for payment by the hour, and another that the post of general secretary should be put up to tender, " the cheapest to be considered the person elected to that important office." ^ We have a delegate meeting referring to a vote of the members the momentous question whether the central executive should be allowed " a cup of ale each per night," and the central executive taking a vote as to whether all the Irish branches should not have Home Rule forced upon them. The members, under fear of the coming Parliamentary
1 Quarterly Report, June l85o.
^ The sale of public offices by auction to the highest bidder was a frequent incident in the Swiss " Landesgemeinden " of the seventeenth century. Sec Eugine Rambert's Les Alpes Suisses : Etudes ffistoriques et Nationales, p. 225.
Primitive Democracy 23
inquiry, vot^ the abolition of all "regalia, initiation, and pass-words," but reject the proposition of the Newcastle Lodge for reducing the hours of labor " as the only method of striking at the root of all our grievances." The central executive is driven to protest against " the continual state of agitation in which the society has been kept for the last ten months by the numerous resolutions and amendments to laws, the tendency of which can only be to bring the laws and the society intb disrespect." ^ As other unions come to the same stage in development, we find a similar result. " It appears eviderjt," complains the executive committee of the Friendly Soci'ity of Ironfounders, " that we have got into a regular propo? tigji-in^ni^. One branch will make propo- sitions^simpIyL cause another does ; hence the absurd and ridiculous propositions that are made." ^ The system worked most disastrously in connection with the rates of contributions anffjBenefits. It is not surprising that the majority of work- jnen -shouLd have beeri unable to appreciate the need for ^xpert„.advice on these points, or that they should have disregarded all actuarial considerations. Accordingly, we^ find the members always reluctant to believe that the rate of contribution must be raised, and generally prone to listen to any proposal for extending the benefits—a popular bias which led many societies into bankruptcy. Still more dis- integrating^ in its tendency was fiie disposition to appeal to t:he^TOtes.of-the-m^iibers against the'executive decision that particular individuals werejneligible for certain benefits. In tlieTrnifgd"Kingc(om Society of Coachmakers, for instance, we find the executive bitterly complaining that it is of no use for them to obey the rules, and rigidly to refuse accident benefit to men who are suiifering simply from illness ; as in almost every case the claimant's appeal t.o the members, backed by eloquent circulars from his friends, has resulted in the decision being overruled.* The Friendly Society of
^ .Fortnightly Return, July 1838.
' Ironfounders' Monthly Report, April 1855.
United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers' Quarterly Report, September 1859.
24 Trade Union Structure i
Ironfounders took no fewer than nineteen votes in a single year, nearly al! on details of ben^t administration.^ And the executive of the Ston^nlasonriiaa early occasion to protest against the growing practice under which branches, preparatory to taking a vote, sent circulars throughout the society in support of their cfeims to the redress of what they deemed to be personal grievances.^
The disadvantages of a free resort td) the Referendum soon became obvious to thoughtfiil Trade T(Jnionists. It stands to the credit of the majority of the men^bers that wild and absurd propositions were almost uniformly rejected ; and in many societies a similar fate became cus \)mary in case of any proposition that did not emanate froi \ the responsible executive.* The practical abandonment "q)f the Initiative ensued. Branches got tired^f^ending up proposals which uniformly met with defeat. But the right of the whole body of members themselves to decide every question as it arose was too much bound up with their idea of democracy to permit of its being directly abrogated, or even expressly criticised. Where the practice did not die out from sheer weariness, it was quietly got rid of in other ways. In one society after another the central executive and the general secretary—the men who were in actual contact with the problems of administration—silently threw their influence against the practice of appealing to the members' vote. Thus the executive committee of the United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers made a firm stand against the members' habit of overruling its decision in the grant of benefits under the [rules. The executive claimed the sole right to decide who wias eligible under the rules, and refused to allow discontented claimants to appeal through the ofificial circular. This caused great and recurring discontent ; but the executive committee
> Report for 1869.
Fortnightly Return, 1 8th Janiftry 1 849.
' The political student will be reminded of the very small number of cases in which the Initiative in Switzerland has led to actual legislation, even in cantons, such as Ziirich, where it has been in operation for over twenty years. See Stiissi, Referendum und Initiative im Canton Zurich.
Primitive Democracy 25
held firmly to their position and eventually maintained it. When thirteen branches of the Operative Bricklayers' Society proposed in 1868 that the age for superannuation should be lowered and the office expenses curtailed, the general secretary bluntly refused to submit such inexpedient proposals to the members' vote, on the excuse that the question could be dealt with at the next delegate meeting.* The next step was to restrict the number of opportunities for appeals on any questions whatsoever. The Coachmakers' executive announced that, in future, propositions would be put to the vote only in the annual report, instead of quarterly as hereto- fore, and this restriction was a few years later embodied in the rules.* Even more effectual was the enactment of a rulej throwing the expense of taking a vote upon the branch whichl had initiated it, in case the verdict of the society proved to', be against the proposition.' Another device was to seize the' occasion of a systematic revision of rules to declare that no | proposition for their alteration was to be entertained for a specified period : one year, said the General Union of Car- penters in 1863; three years, declared the Bookbinders' Consolidated Union in 1869, and the Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons in 1878 ; ten years, ordained the] Operativ e Brid clayers' Society in 1889.* Finally, we have'^ the Re ferendumj abolished altogether, as regards the making^ or^alteration of rules. In 1866 the delegate meeting of the_ Amalgamated Society of Carpenters decided that the execu- tive should " not take the votes of the members concerning any alteration or addition to rules, unless in cases of great emergency, and then only on the authority of the General Council."* In 1878 the Stonemasons themselves, who forty years