word to say on the much-vexed question of
unions and trade societies. All things have
their dark side. Even a virtue may be so run
into excess as to be a vice; and a good thing
may be overstrained until it becomes bad. That
working men should frame positive laws for
their own protection, in place of trusting
to the traditions of professional etiquette, is
surely not a deadly sin. A barrister or a
physician would not be countenanced by his
brethren if working for a payment below the
scale of those charges which it was not below
the dignity of the Legislature once to settle; and
is not the ridicule which is cast on the penny-a-
liner owing to the meanness of his pay, rather
than to the badness of his work? It is a true
instinct which makes moral value and money-worth
to a certain extent interchangeable terms; for
the world is always willing to pay well for good
work, unless when the overstocking of the labour
market brings down the value of individual
merit by making it universal; and therefore a man
or body of men which stands out for first-class
payment stands out for the recognition of first-
class work. This is one of the moral aspects in
which trade-unions and societies may be
considered, and the proverb of the bundle of sticks
supplies another. But all the trade societies
are not political; some are simply provident and
helpful; and of these the best and most successful
seems to be "The Amalgamated Society of
Engineers, Machinists, Millwrights, Smiths, and
Pattern-makers." This is emphatically a benefit
and provident society, which gives ten shillings
a week for fourteen weeks, and seven shillings
a week for thirty weeks, and six shillings a
week ad infinitum, to its members when out of
employ by misadventure—not wrong-doing.
In cases of sickness, it gives ten shillings weekly
for twenty-six weeks, and five shillings a week
for ever, if the member be utterly disabled. A
member who, by accident, blindness, partial loss
of sight, apoplexy, epilepsy, or paralysis, is
unable to follow his special branch of the united
trades, may receive, if he will, one hundred
pounds in the lump instead of so much per
week. Men who have been members for eighteen
years, and who are fifty years of age and
upwards, and who are not in regular employment,
may have, if they will, a retiring allowance of
seven shillings weekly for life. Twelve pounds is
the sum allowed for the funeral expenses of a
member; but if a man's wife or child die, he
may draw five pounds for that interment,
leaving seven pounds for his own. The entrance
fee is from fifteen shillings to three pounds ten
shillings, according to age at the time of entering,
and the subscription is one shilling per week.
In 1865 the society numbered 30,978 members,
and they had 295 branches, of which 230 were
in England and Wales, 31 in Scotland, 11 in
Ireland, 8 in the United States, 6 in Australia,
5 in Canada, 2 in New Zealand, 1 in France,
and 1 in Malta. Their income was seventy-
seven thousand three hundred and seventy-three
pounds odd, their expenditure forty-nine thousand
one hundred and seventy-two pounds odd,
and the total balance in hand at the end of
December, 1865, was one hundred and fifteen
thousand three hundred and fifty-seven pounds
odd, exclusive of arrears. 1862, the year of the
cotton famine, pressed hardly on them, and called
forth an expenditure averaging two pounds
twelve shillings and fivepence-halfpenny per
member; since 1853 the largest call per member
in any one year had been one pound thirteen
shillings and tenpence-halfpenny per member,
and some years it had not reached half that
sum. Yet at the end of 1865 they had, as
we have seen, sixty-seven thousand six hundred
and fifteen pounds odd in hand. Among their
items of expenditure were "loans to other
trades, two hundred and forty pounds;" and
"gifts to other trades, one hundred and fifty-
four pounds eleven shillings."

This is a trade society to which not the most
bitter anti-unionist can take exception; but,
according to the showing of the journeyman
engineer, those societies which conduct and
provide for "strikes" and their consequences, are
praiseworthy in their working, and as beneficial
to employers as to employed. "No man," he
says, "is admitted into a trade-union unless
known to possess good abilities as a workman,
of steady habits and good moral character;" so
that by employing a member of a trade society
an employer secures a workman possessing
those qualifications. And again, "any member
of a trade-union who is discharged from his
employment for misconduct is debarred from
the benefits of the society till he again finds
employment, so that the members of a trade-
union have an additional inducement to
conduct themselves properly while at work." As
no member is admitted to the society unless he
is a properly qualified workman, so must none
so lower the general standard as to work for
less than the average amount of wages paid to
members of the same branch of trade in the
district in which he is employed. Not for less
than the average of wages paid elsewhere, but
only in the district. And this rule, says our
author, favours the masters as much as the men.
Suppose there is a "slap" of dull trade in
London, and that, in consequence, a number of
London workmen, usually the pick of the trade,
are on the funds of the society. The secretary
of the London branch club hears from the secretary
of a country branch club that workmen are
wanted in the provincial district of which he
is trade guardian. The London secretary tells
some of those who are out of employ to go to
the district and apply for work; and if it be
offered them, they must either take it, or forfeit
the out-of-work pay of the society, though the
district wages may be ten shillings a week
lower than the London wages. And as no
man in his senses refuses, the result is that
country masters often get first-rate workmen at
third-rate wages, to the relief of the society and
the better morality of the workman.

For trade outrages, like that exceptional
notorious matter of Sheffield, of course not a
word in extenuation can be said; but "strikes"