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British Trade Unions and Popular Political Economy, 1860–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Eugenio F. Biagini
Eugenio F. Biagini
Affiliation:
Churchill College, Cambridge
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Extract

This paper is a study of the relationship between economic culture and trade union economic subculture during the years in which both the Victorian trade union movement and the classical economists' view of it reached their maturity. This period represented a turning point in the history of the movement, which achieved a full institutionalization and legitimation. The Webbs, and a historiographic tradition since them, maintained that these results were obtained at the price of a complete submission to the ideological hegemony of the bourgeoisie. In the 1960s R. V. Clements challenged this view and argued that such a subordination had never taken place, and that trade unionists had managed to keep their independent views – especially at the level of economic thought. Recent discussions have been content to stress the sound and ‘aseptic’ pragmatism of the working men, and the abstruse dogmatism of the economists. A footnote quoting Clements' article seems to be all that readers can reasonably ask for. The possibility of an alternative interpretation – namely, that classical economics could actually be useful to trade union strategies and interests – has not yet been sufficiently considered. The aim of this paper is to argue that there is much evidence in support of such an interpretation.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 811 - 840
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

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…On this and other points I am very desirous to be corrected and instructed by those better informed than myself…'. Gladstone then invited Potter and his fellow-unionists to send him a deputation with this aim, a request which labour leaders were only too happy to grant. After the meeting, which took place in February, The Times reported that Mr. Gladstone ‘had admitted that he had been misinformed in some particulars, and confessed that Trades' Unions were justifiable to a certain extent’ (report), ‘Mr. Gladstone and the Trades' Unionists’, ibid. 22 February 1868, p. 10.

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23 Leading article, n.t., The Leeds Mercury, 24 November 1866, pp. 2–3.

24 T. J. Dunning, Trades' unions and strikes, pp. 5–7.

25 J. S. Mill, Principles, p. 934, footnote: ‘Whoever desires to understand the question of Trade Combinations as seen from the point of view of the working people, should make himself acquainted with a pamphlet published in i860 under the title ‘Trades’ unions and strikes, their philosophy and intention’, by T. J. Dunning, Secretary to the London Consolidated Society of Bookbinders'…. There are many opinions in this able tract in which I only partially, and some in which I do not at all, coincide. But there are also many sound arguments, and an instructive exposure of the common fallacies of opponents. Readers of other classes will see with surprise, not only how great a portion of truth the unions have on their side, but how much less flagrant and condemnable even their errors appear, when seen under the aspect in which it is only natural that the working classes should themselves regard them.’

26 A. Knight to J. Head, n.d., Solly collection, vol. v, sect. 5, E66.

27 ‘Plain dealer’, ‘The tailors’ strike – The masters' meeting', Bee Hive, 4 May 1867, p. 4; and leading article, ‘The Royal Commission’, ibid. 29 June 1867, p. 4.

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43 Rogers, J E Thorold, Six centuries of work and wages (London, 1884), p 525Google Scholar In spite of Rogers' zeal in the cause of labour, in previous years he had been one of the upholders of the wage fund theory: see idem, Manual of political economy for schools and colleges (Oxford, 1869), pp. 79–97.

44 Longe, F. D., 'A refutation of the wage fund theory in modern economy, as enunciated by Mr. Mill and Mr. Fawcett (London, 1866), 88 pp.Google Scholar; Thornton, W. T., ‘Stray chapters of a forthcoming work on labour’, Fortnightly Review, new series, II (1867), 477–500, 592–602Google Scholar; ibid, new series, III (1868), 77–88, 437–51, 520–536; idem, On Labour. Its wrongful claims and rightful dues. Its actual, present and possible future (London, 1868); idem, ‘The wages fund’, Nineteenth Century, I, 3 (1879), 293–307.

45 Mill, J. S., ‘Thornton on Labour and its claims’, Part I, Fortnightly Review, new series, VI (05, 1869), 505–18Google Scholar; and Part II, ibid. (June 1869), 680–700; now in idem, Collected works, v, Essays on economics and society, J. M. Robson (ed.) (Toronto and London, 1967), 631–69.

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47 Ibid. p. 646. Cf. Taussig, F. W., Wages and capital, p. 248Google Scholar. That could have happend through a prolonged and successful trade union campaign to obtain major increases of wages, in the hypothesis that the whole of the workforce were organized. In a fiscal and monetary context different from that of Victorian Britain, inflation would have vanified such an effort: but in the days of Mill the gold standard imposed a rigid control over the price of money. Moreover, free trade forced the employers to keep prices of manufactured goods at least as low as those of imported goods of the same kind and quality; otherwise consumers would have bought exclusively imported goods. Therefore, employers' profits and workers' wages had to come out of an amount of money the value and quantity of which could not have been easily increased or decreased by inflation, and bargaining was about the actual distribution of wealth.

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63 G Howell, ‘Notes on books and readings, no 4, the science of political economy’, ibid, 7 November 1874, p 2, and Labour Press and Miners' and Workmen's Examiner, 7 November 1874, p 2 For the employers' point of view on the effects of the recantation see the journal of the National Federation of Associated Employers, Capital and labour, issue of 15 April 1874, pp 146–7, ‘Restrictions on industry’ (an unsigned article) The writer was very worried about trade unions ‘driving trade from the country’ by raising wages above their ‘natural’ level He showed a remarkable awareness of the danger that trade unionists might be ‘misled’ by ‘the Economists’ Economists, Capital and labour concluded, say that higher wages do not increase prices, but they should remember that they decrease profits, which is even more dangerous for the national economy

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70 Ibid

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72 Ibid.

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75 Ibid.p. 220.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.pp. 379–80.

78 Ibid.p. 392. That had been the case with the agitation of the London builders: eventually they gained the Saturday half-holiday, even if they failed to enforce the nine-hour day.

79 Ibid. p. 209.

80 Ibid. p. 197.

81 Ibid. p. 221.

82 G. Howell to Hamilton Hoare, 2 March 1876, Howell collection, Letter Books, IX, 457.

83 It may also be observed that The Operative Bricklayers Trade Circular – which Howell started and edited from September 1861 – bears no trace of an interest in theoretical economics and in the wage fund doctrine in 1861 or in the following years. Yet, according to the above quoted letter the question should have been ‘widely discussed’ between 1859 and 1862.

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86 There are many examples of Adam Smith's popularity, beyond the two quoted above (note 19). The library of George Edwards, an agricultural labourers' leader, included: the Bible, a Bible Dictionary, The lay preacher in 2 vols., the Dictionary of Dr Johnson, Harvey's Meditation among the tombs and Contemplation of the starry heaven, a History of Rome, and then – in the ‘economics’ section – Adam Smith, Thorold Rogers and Henry George (he did not specify the titles of the books to which he was referring, but almost certainly they were The wealth of nations, Six centuries of work and wages, and Progress and poverty: see Howkins, A., Poor labouring men (London, 1985), p. 50)Google Scholar. G. Howell too began his economic readings with The wealth of nations, and for a few years – possibly till the end of the 1850s – that remained the only book he knew on the subject (cf. idem ‘Autobiography’, 2, 46, in Howell collection). Even later he remained under Smith's influence, as he admitted in another passage of his ‘Autobiography’: ‘Economical works were more restricted. Adam Smith, James Mill and Ricardo were the chief, though I knew something of Malthus, McCulloch… But Adam Smith was the mainstay.’ (Ibid. ‘C. History, general literature and science’, p. vi.) However, J. S. Mill became gradually his favourite economist: he read Mill's works, received copies of them directly from the author, both for personal use and for distribution to working men's libraries (ibid. ‘Letter Books’, IX, G. Howell to W. Thomas, Esq., 4 May 1868, p. 426). But even in the 1870s Howell remained an admirer of Adam Smith and was always ready to defend him (ibid. ‘Plimsoll papers’, n.d., perhaps 1873, p. 259). Cf. also Thompson, E. P., The making of the English working class (Harmondsworth, 1981), p. 105Google Scholar, where it is argued that The wealth of nations and Paine's The rights of man were two ‘handbooks’ for working-class radicals even in the first decades of the century.

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