The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE REMOVAL OF PERSONAL DISABILITIES 761 tions to the union. When the work was taken up again some A.D. 1776 seventeen hundred men found that their places were occupied 1880. and that they could not return to the employment they had given up’ Their union was broken up; and a six months’ 4d, strike among the carpet-weavers at Kidderminster was also minster. a disastrous failure. The repeal of the Acts seemed to have done nothing for the benefit of the operatives; but, though the loss from trade disputes has been very great, it was an immense advantage to the community that these differences could be fought out above-board and not by secret and criminal means, while the working classes have gained enormously in self-respect and independence by the fact that they were not debarred from fighting their own cause. The moral effect of the repeal, in removing the sense of helplessness and apathy which had oppressed the working classes, was extraordinary, and it marks an era in the history of Trade Unions. Hitherto they had either been secret societies of a most unwholesome type, since they could only hope to attain their objects by criminal action, and were sometimes held together by a species of terrorism, or they had been constituted as Friendly Societies and engaged surreptitiously in trade affairs; but from this Jin com- time onward the action of Trade Unions, which existed for maintain the purpose of maintaining the standard of life? among a sand particular class of artisans, could be clearly differentiated from other benefit societies. The changed status which the artisans secured by the ! The Bradford manufacturers were inclined to forestall the recurrence of such demands by the introduction of machinery. Though so many years had slapsed since Cartwright's wool-combing machine had been invented, it had not as yet been generally introduced ; despite the commotion which had attended its first troduction some thirty years before, the wool-combers appear to have believed that the scare was idle, and that machines could not really compete with hand labour, except perhaps in wools of a special sort, the combing of which was badly paid. In 1825, the men still shared this confidence, and the assertion that the masters would introduce machinery was regarded as an empty threat. There can be but little doubt that the events of that year, disastrous alike to masters and men, gave a stimulus to the improvement and introduction of machinery, and before 1845 the trade was completely revolutionised. 2 The Select Committee on Manufacturers’ Employment (1830) recognised the advantage which accrued to the London tailors and other organised trades from ihe fact that they had funds from which an out-of-work benefit was paid. They proposed the extension of friendly societies which should have this object, but which would not as they hoped act as combinations to keep up the rate of wages in :;he manufacture of articles of export. Reworts. 1830. x. 228

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