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The Trade Union Tariff Reform Association, 1904-1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Kenneth D. Brown
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Extract

The controversy over the respective merits of free trade and protection was an old one in 1903 when Joseph Chamberlain launched his campaign for tariff reform which became a dominant theme of Edwardian polities. Workingmen, with the exception of those in the Conservative workingmen's clubs and the National Free Labour Association, had not generally been very receptive to the ideas of fiscal reform mooted in the last years of Victoria's reign. In 1887, for example, J. M. Jack, chairman of the Trades Union Congress, had claimed that although there existed a “somewhat hazy conviction that the depression we are suffering from is in some way attributable to the fiscal system of the country,” it was well known that in protected countries “trade depression existed in an equal, if not greater degree.” The Social Democratic Federation took its opposition to fiscal change even further, organizing counterdemonstrations against the meetings held by the Fair Trade League in the 1880s. One such demonstration attracted an audience of thirty thousand in February 1886.

In spite of its extravagant claims, however, it is doubtful whether the N.F.L.A. enjoyed a very wide influence; thus when Chamberlain left Arthur Balfour's Government in 1903 to concentrate on his national campaign, he knew that he needed the support of workingmen on a far larger scale than protectionists had hitherto been able to secure, a fact he openly admitted in October 1903: “If I do not convince the working classes I am absolutely powerless. I can do nothing.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , May 1970 , pp. 141 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1970

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References

1. For an account of the origins of Chamberlain's schemes, see Zebel, S. H., “Joseph Chamberlain and the Genesis of Tariff Reform,” J.B.S., VII (1967), 131–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. The N.F.L.A. passed a tariff reform resolution in 1893. See N.F.L.A., Annual Report, 1893, pp. 28–30Google Scholar. A resolution in favour of an imperial customs union was passed in 1896. See Free Labour Ashore and Afloat, 15 Oct., 1896.

3. T.U.C., Annual Report, 1887, p. 11Google Scholar.

4. Gould, F., Hyndman Prophet of Socialism (London, 1928), p. 104Google Scholar.

5. Times, 28 Oct., 1903.

6. Labour Leader, 23 May, 1903; Justice, 20 June, 1903.

7. T.U.C., Annual Report, 1903, pp. 61–63Google Scholar.

8. Quoted in Labour Leader, 21 Nov., 1903.

9. Custody of Mrs. J. Clay, Leo Maxse to Sidney Buxton, 26 May, 1903, Buxton Papers, uncatalogued.

10. Times, 8 Sep., 1903.

11. L.R.C., Annual Report, 1904, pp. 41–42Google Scholar.

12. Labour Leader, 6 Feb., 1904.

13. In 1904 the Hosiery Union had 1,784 members; the Paper Makers had 1,071. This compared with a total of 1,967,000 unionists affiliated with the T.U.C. Report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies, 1904Google Scholar, in Parliamentary Papers, 1905, LXXV, 405–12Google Scholar.

14. The organization had several names before adopting Trade Union Tariff Reform Association (T.U.T.R.A.), which is used throughout this paper.

15. This account is based on reports in the Times, 12 Apr., 1904; Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, July 1904, pp. 35–37Google Scholar, Aug. 1904, pp. 84–85, Oct. 1904, pp. 175-76 (hereafter cited as M.N.T.R.).

16. Times, 12 Apr., 1904.

17. Ibid.

18. G.F.T.U., 19th Quarterly Report, Jan.-Mar. 1904, p. 7Google Scholar.

19. Ironworkers' Journal, June 1904, p. 7Google Scholar.

20. M.N.T.R., July 1904, p. 37.

21. See Ironworkers' Journal, Aug. 1904, p. 2Google Scholar. The letter was read at a meeting of the union's executive committee on July 11.

22. M.N.T.R., Nov. 1904, p. 209.

23. Ibid., Nov. 1905, pp. 307–12.

24. T.U.C., Annual Report, 1905, pp. 98–100Google Scholar.

25. Sun, 27 Feb., 1905.

26. The voting was 1,253,000 against 26,000. T.U.C., Annual Report, 1905, p. 137Google Scholar.

27. Imports of glass bottles rose from 1,591,187 gross in 1900 to 1,618,138 gross in 1904; of flint glass products in the same period from 487,785 cwts. to 639,621 cwts. Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom, 1904, in Parliamentary Papers (Cmd. 2497), LXXIX, 255Google Scholar.

28. Birmingham Daily Post, 31 Mar., 1905.

29. Times, 1 Jan., 1906.

30. Hewins, W. A. S., Apologia of an Imperialist (London, 1929), I, 184Google Scholar.

31. M.N.T.R., June 1906, p. 377.

32. Ibid., Dec. 1907, p. 449.

33. Ibid., May 1907, p. 443.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., May 1908, p. 346.

36. Ibid., Jan. 1908, p. 78.

37. Ibid., Oct. 1909, p. 288.

38. There were thirty-nine in Yorkshire, twenty-three in the northeast, seventeen in the midlands, twelve in Scotland, nine in the northwest, and three in isolated towns. See ibid., Dec. 1907—June 1908, passim.

39. This was the figure alleged by the Anti-Socialist Union. See Times, 16 Nov., 1908.

40. BM, W. A. S. Hewins to A. J. Balfour, 14 Dec., 1908, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49779, fols. 202-03.

41. See, e.g., M.N.T.R., Sep. 1909, p. 216, Oct. 1909, p. 288.

42. Chapman, S. J. and Hallsworth, H., Unemployment in Lancashire (Manchester, 1909), p. 44Google Scholar.

43. Hewins, , Apologia, I, 237Google Scholar.

44. Times, 3 Aug., 1908.

45. Amery, L. S., My Political Life (London, 1953–1955), I, 336Google Scholar.

46. M.N.T.R., Feb. 1910, p. 127

47. Ibid., Feb. 1911, p. 144.

48. Ibid., Oct. 1911, p. 243.

49. Times, 10 Oct., 1911.

50. M.N.T.R., Nov. 1911, p. 316.

51. Ibid., Dec. 1911, p. 402

52. Ibid., June 1906, p. 377.

53. The candidate for Norwich was Willie Dyson of T.U.T.R.A. The first Conservative member of the working class to become an M.P. won the Bermondsey by-election in Oct. 1909. See Porritt, E. A., “The British Labor Party in 1910,” Political Science Quarterly, XXV (1910), 314Google Scholar.

54. Times, 2 Apr., 1912.

55. M.N.T.R., July 1912, p. 72.

56. Ibid., May 1913, pp. 346-47.

57. Times, 12 Dec., 1913.

58. For the Dudley branch, see BM, Hewins to Balfour, 14 Dec., 1908, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49779, fols. 202-03. For Gateshead, see M.N.T.R., Dec. 1906, p. 453. For Loughborough, see Daily Express, 23 Feb., 1909. The trade union figures are from Pelling, H., A History of British Trade Unionism (London, 1963), p. 262Google Scholar.

59. Amery, , Political Life, I, 298Google Scholar.

60. M.N.T.R., Nov. 1905, pp. 310-12.

61. See Blewett, N., “The British General Elections of 1910” (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar. I am obliged to the author for permission to read his thesis.