FOOTNOTES
Reading edition
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
THE PREVENTION OF DESTITUTION
Demy 8vo (1911). Price 6s. net.
ADVERTISEMENT
In this volume the authors propound a constructive policy, worked out in considerable detail, by the adoption of which they believe that the nation could, within a very few years, progressively get rid of the great bulk of the involuntary destitution in which so large a proportion of our population is now plunged. They analyse the several causes of this destitution, and show how these can severally be arrested in their operation. The extensive ravages of preventable sickness are shown to be productive, directly and indirectly, of probably half the whole mass of destitution; and the authors give us the outlines of a national campaign against sickness. The evil effects of child neglect, from infancy to adolescence, are traced in their resulting adult destitution; and the authors describe the methods of securing, from one end of the kingdom to the other, what may be called a "National Minimum" of child nurture. The dependence of destitution on feeble-mindedness and mental deficiency leads to an examination of the bearing, upon the problem, of the doctrines of Eugenics. The effects of "Sweating" and Unemployment in producing destitution are specially dealt with; and a full exposition is given of the striking plan for actually preventing the great bulk of unemployment, and for maintaining under training those whose unemployment cannot be prevented, with which the authors' names are associated. The experiments and proposals in Insurance, whether voluntary or compulsory, against sickness or against unemployment, receive elaborate analysis and criticism; and the experience both of the Friendly Societies and of the German Government is invoked to indicate in what way Insurance may safely be made use of as part of the provision for Old Age, Invalidity, Industrial Accidents, Sickness, and Involuntary Unemployment. The proper sphere of voluntary agencies in connection with the action of the public authorities, and as a part of the national campaign against destitution, is described at length. The grave social evil of the "overlapping" and duplication of relief at present resulting from the multiplicity of unco-ordinated authorities and agencies is described at some length; and proposals are made for preventing it by a Common Register. Finally, an elaborate chapter is devoted to "the Moral Factor," and a full examination is made of the direct and indirect effects on personal character and on family life, both of the present system of dealing with those who are in need, and of the proposed campaign of prevention. "The universal maintenance of a definite standard of civilised life is the joint obligation of an indissoluble partnership between the individual and the community."
In order to keep the page free from footnotes and references these are relegated to an appendix following each chapter.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
Preface
I. Destitution as a Disease of Society.
II. How to Prevent the Destitution that arises from Sickness.
III. Destitution and Eugenics.
IV. How to prevent the Destitution arising from Child Neglect.
V. Sweating and Unemployment as Causes of Destitution.
VI. How to prevent Unemployment and Under-employment.
VII. Insurance.
VIII. The Enlarged Sphere of Voluntary Agencies in a Preventive Campaign against Destitution.
IX. The Need for a Common Register and a Registrar of Public Assistance.
X. The Moral Factor.
index
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GRANTS IN AID:
A CRITICISM AND A PROPOSAL
BY SIDNEY WEBB
Demy 8vo, 120 pp. (1911). Price 5s. net.
ADVERTISEMENT
This is the first volume dealing with Grants in Aid as an instrument of government. In the United Kingdom, at the present time, a sum of about thirty millions sterling is annually paid by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the various Local Governing Authorities of the Kingdom. This large subvention has important effects on Local Government which have never before been critically examined. The author's thesis is that in the Grant in Aid we have unconsciously devised an instrument of administration of extraordinary potency; and that its gradual adoption during the past three-quarters of a century has created a hierarchy of local government far superior to that of France and Germany on the one hand (termed by the author "The Bureaucratic System"); and to that of the United States on the other (which the author describes as "The Anarchy of Local Autonomy"). But the efficiency of our English system depends on the particular conditions upon which the Grants in Aid are made; and the book concludes with a detailed proposal for the complete revision, on novel principles, of all the existing subventions, and for their extension to other services. An elaborate bibliography is appended.
The book forms No. 24 of the Studies in Economics and Political Science, issued under the Editorship of the Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
Preface
I. What the Grants in Aid seem to be and what they really are.
II. Why have Grants in Aid at all?
III. How we distribute Thirty Millions a Year in Grants in aid.
IV. The Grants in Aid of the Poor Law Authorities.
V. The Grants in Aid of the Local Education Authorities.
V1. The Lines of Reform.
Index
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ENGLISH POOR LAW POLICY
Demy 8vo, pp. xiii and 379 (1910). Price 7s. 6d. net.
In this volume, the authors of Industrial Democracy and English Local Government present what is practically a history of the English Poor Law, so far as the policy of the central authority is concerned, from the Report of the Royal Commission of 1832-4 down to that of the Royal Commission of 1905-9. For this work they have analysed, not only the statutes, but also the bewildering array of General and Special Orders, Circulars, Minutes, Inspectors' exhortations, and unpublished letters, by means of which the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor Law Board, and the Local Government Board have sought to direct the policy of the Boards of Guardians. No such history has before been attempted. For the first time the gradual development of policy can be traced, with regard to children, to the sick, to the aged and infirm, to vagrants, to the able-bodied, etc. The reader is enabled to watch the gradual and almost unconscious evolution, from out of the "principles of 1834," of what may be called the "principles of 1907"; being the lines of policy to which the experience of three-quarters of a century had brought the administrator, when the recent Royal Commission overhauled the subject. Two concluding chapters summarise and analyse the proposals of the Majority and Minority Reports.
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ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT
(THE PARISH AND THE COUNTY)
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT
This work, the result of eight years' research into the manuscript records of the Parish and the County all over England and Wales—from Northumberland to Cornwall, from Cardigan to Kent—combines history and description in a continuous narrative of extraordinary interest. Avoiding the questions of the origin of English local institutions, and even of their mediæval development, the authors plunge at once into a vivid description of the Parish Officers and the Vestry, Quarter Sessions and the Justices of the Peace, the Lord-Lieutenant and the High Sheriff, together with all the other authorities by which the internal administration was actually carried on. An entirely new view is presented of the social and political development of Parish Vestry and Quarter Sessions, of their relations to the Squire and the Incumbent, and of their attitude towards Parliament and the problems of their age. But the book is more than a contribution to history and political science. Practically all the counties of England and Wales, and literally hundreds of parishes, find place in this unique record of life and manners, in which are embedded not a few dramatic episodes of absorbing interest. It is a new picture of English life between 1689 and 1835 as it actually was in country and town, with graphic tracings of its results on national progress and on the social and economic problems by which we are now confronted.
CONTENTS
THE PARISH
Introduction.
The Legal Framework of the Parish.
(a) The Area and Membership of the Parish; (b) The Officers of the Parish; (c) The Servants of the Parish; (d) The Incumbent; (e) The Parish Vestry; (f) The Parish as a Unit of Obligation.
Unorganised Parish Government.
(a) The Parish Oligarchy; (b) Government by Consent; (c) The Uncontrolled Parish Officers; (d) The Rule of the Boss; (e) The Turbulent Open Vestry.
An Extra-legal Democracy.
(a) The Organisation of the Public Meeting; (b) The Control over the Unpaid Officers; (c) A Salaried Staff; (d) The Parish Committee; (e) An Organised Democracy; (f) The Recalcitrant Minority.
The Strangling of the Parish.
(a) Eighteenth-Century Legislation; (b) The Sturges Bourne Acts; (c) The Sturges Bourne Select Vestries; (d) The Salaried Overseer; (e) The Referendum; (f) The Death of the Parish.
The Legality of the Close Vestry.
(a) The Close Vestry by Immemorial Custom; (b) The Close Vestry by Bishop's Faculty; (c) The Close Vestry by Church Building Act; (d) The Close Vestry by Local Act; (e) The Constitutions of Close Vestries.
Close Vestry Administration.
(a) Provincial Close Vestries; (b) Metropolitan Close Vestries; (c) Close Vestry Exclusiveness; (d) The Worst And The Best.
The Reform of the Close Vestry.
(a) The Assaults That Failed; (b) A London Movement; (c) Opening the Close Vestry.
THE COUNTY
Introduction.
The Legal Constitution of the County.
(a) The Area and Divisions of the County; (b) The Custos Rotulorum; (c) The Sheriff and his Court; (d) The High Constable; (e) The Coroner; (f) The Commission of the Peace; (g) County Service; (h) An Organ of National Government.
On some Anomalous County Jurisdictions, including the Counties Palatine.
The Rulers of the County.
(a) Number and Distribution of Justices; (b) The Justice of Mean Degree; (c) The Trading Justice; (d) The Court Justice; (e) The Sycophant Justice and Rural Tyrant; (f) The Mouth-piece of the Clerk; (g) The Clerical Justice; (h) The Leader of the Parish; (i) Leaders of the County; (j) The Lord-Lieutenant and the High Sheriff; (k) Class Exclusiveness.
County Administration by Justices out of Sessions.
(a) The "Single Justice"; (b) The "Double Justice"; (c) The Special Sessions; (d) Petty Sessions; (e) The Servants of the Justices; (f) The Sphere of Justices "Out of Sessions."
The Court of Quarter Sessions.
(a) The Time and Place of Meeting; (b) The Chairman of the Court; (c) The Procedure of the Court; (d) Administration by Judicial Process; (e) The Grand Jury; (f) The Hundred Jury; (g) Presentments by Constables; (h) Presentments by Justices.
The Development of an Extra-legal Constitution.
I. The County Executive.
(a) The High Sheriff and his Bailiffs; (b) The High Constable; (c) The Clerk of the Peace; (d) The County Treasurer; (e) The County Surveyor; (f) Executive Makeshifts; (g) Committees of Justices.
II. An Inchoate Provincial Legislature.
III. An Extra-legal County Oligarchy.
The Reaction Against the Rulers of the County.
(a) The Breakdown of the Middlesex Bench; (b) The Lack of Justices; (c) The Restriction of Public Houses; (d) The Justices' Poor Law; (e) The Growth of County Expenditure; (f) The Severity of the Game Laws; (g) The Stopping up of Footpaths; (h) The Stripping of the Oligarchy; (i) Why the Justices Survived.
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ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT
(THE MANOR AND THE BOROUGH)
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT
In this second instalment of their English Local Government the authors apply their method of combined history and analysis to the fascinating story of the towns and the manorial communities, of which several hundreds find mention, belonging to all the counties of England and Wales. An interesting new account is given, from unpublished materials, of the organisation and development in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the Manor and its several Courts, with picturesque glimpses of the hitherto undescribed part played by the Jury in the common-field agriculture. But the Manor is shown to be also the starting-point for a whole series of constitutional developments, passing through grade after grade of Manorial Borough, hitherto undescribed, into the complete Municipal Corporation. This, too, is analysed and described in a way never before attempted, so as to make the strangely interesting life of the towns live before us. A special chapter is devoted to the Boroughs of Wales, in which their national peculiarities are brought out. Their extensive study of the manuscript records enable the authors to set forth the inner working of the "Municipal Democracies" that existed alongside the chartered oligarchies, with their many analogies to modern American cities; and to bring vividly to notice the conditions and limitations of successive Democratic government. There is an interesting sketch of English hierarchies of town government, chief among them being the Cinque Ports, the constitutional position of which is presented in a new light. The anomalous history of the City of Westminster is explored by the light of the unpublished archives of its peculiar municipal organisation. An altogether novel view is presented of the constitutional development of the greatest municipality of all, the Corporation of the City of London, to which no fewer than 124 pages are devoted. The work concludes with a picturesque account of the "Municipal Revolution" of 1835, and the Homeric combat of Brougham and Lyndhurst which ended in the Municipal Reform Act of 1835.
CONTENTS
Introduction.
The Lord's Court—
(a) The Lawyer's View of the Lord's Court. (b) The Court Baron. (c) The Court Leet.
The Court in Ruins—
(a) The Hierarchy of Courts. (b) The Court of the Hundred. (c) The Court of the Manor: (i.) The Bamburgh Courts. (ii.) The Court Leet of the Savoy. (iii.) The Court Leet and Court Baron of Manchester. (d) The Prevalence and Decay of the Lord's Court.
The Manorial Borough—
(a) The Village Meeting. (b) The Chartered Township. (c) The Lordless Court. (d) The Lord's Borough. (e) The Enfranchised Manorial Borough. (f) Manor and Gild. (g) Arrested Development and Decay.
The City and Borough of Westminster—
(a) Burleigh's Constitution. (b) Municipal Atrophy.
The Boroughs of Wales—
(a) Incipient Autonomy. (b) The Welsh Manorial Borough. (c) The Welsh Municipal Corporation.
The Municipal Corporation—
(a) The Instrument of Incorporation. (b) Corporate Jurisdictions. (c) Corporate Obligations. (d) The Area of the Corporation. (e) The Membership of the Corporation. (f) The Servants of the Corporation. (g) The Chief Officers of the Corporation. (h) The Head of the Corporation. (i) The Bailiffs. (j) The High Steward and the Recorder. (k) The Chamberlain and the Town Clerk. (l) The County Officers of the Municipal Corporation. (m) The Mayor's Brethren and the Mayor's Counsellors. (n) The Courts of the Corporation. (o) Courts of Civil Jurisdiction. (p) The Court Leet. (q) The Borough Court of Quarter Sessions. (r) Courts of Specialised Jurisdiction. (s) The Administrative Courts of the Municipal Corporation. (t) The Municipal Constitutions of 1689.
Municipal Disintegration—
(a) The Rise of the Corporate Magistracy. (b) The Decline of the Common Council. (c) The Establishment of New Statutory Authorities. (d) The Passing of the Freemen. (e) The Mingling of Growth and Decay.
Administration by Close Corporations—
(Penzance, Leeds, Coventry, Bristol, Leicester, and Liverpool.)
Administration by Municipal Democracies—
(Morpeth, Berwick-upon-tweed, Norwich, and Ipswich.)
The City of London—
(a) The Legal Constitution of the City. (b) The Service of the Citizen to his Ward. (c) The Precinct. (d) The Inquest of the Ward. (e) The Common Council of the Ward. (f) The Decay of Ward Government. (g) The Court of Common Hall. (h) The Court of Common Council. (i) The Court of Aldermen. (j) The Shrievalty. (k) The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor. (l) The Officers of the Corporation. (m) A Ratepayers' Democracy.
The Municipal Revolution—
(a) Towards the Revolution. (b) Instalments of Reform. (c) The Royal Commission. (d) An Alternative Judgment. (e) The Whig Bill. (f) The Municipal Corporations Act.
Index of Subjects.
Index of Authors and Other Persons.
Index of Places.
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SOME PRESS NOTICES OF
ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"A book of the deepest, even of fascinating interest. Here for the first time we have a real study of local life in England, in village and town and country.... Everywhere we follow the gallant fights of humane and just men whose stories are scattered through these pages, along with the sharp dealings of the astute. Familiar names meet us—a great-uncle of Cecil Rhodes making his 'Empire' in St. Pancras; the novelist Fielding cutting down the gains of the magistrate who preyed on the poor.... Noble figures stand out among the ignoble. As in the parish, the rulers of the county ... found themselves left free ... to administer as they thought fit. They used the power fully; governed, legislated, silently transformed their constitution, and showed themselves capable of the same extremes as the men of the parish, except that they never surrendered to the 'boss.' ... We have only touched here on the tale the authors give, so absorbing in interest to any Englishman.... The best tribute to the writers of this most valuable work is the difficulty of turning away for comment or criticism from the subjects they present in such a vigorous and human form.... They have opened a new chapter in English history."—Mrs. J. R. Green, in Westminster Gazette.
"Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb's monumental work on our local institutions must be a source at once of pride and of something a little like shame. Here at last we have a book which is more than worthy to be placed beside those of the great continental writers on the subject.... Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb are as learned as the Prussian, as lucid as the Frenchman, and as scholarly and careful as the Austrian.... If it is literature to present a singularly vivid picture of a past stage of society, to render it real and lifelike by a careful selection and skilful grouping of illustrative details, and to explain its meaning with clearness, sound judgment, and not infrequent touches of quiet humour, then assuredly is this volume literary as well as learned.... Packed as it is with quotations and references, it is full of transcripts from life which one reader at least has found more fascinating than many of the efforts made to revivify the past through the medium of historical romance or romantic history. The story of the rise, the decline, and the fall of the parish autonomy and the old county oligarchy is in itself a sort of epic not wanting in the elements of adventure, and even of tragedy.... Here and there a remarkable personality emerges."—Mr. Sidney Low, in Standard.
"Without exaggeration it may be said that this work will necessitate the rewriting of English history.... We are ushered into a new world, full of eager and heated interest.... The authors have contrived to make these dead bones live. Everywhere are peepholes into the lives of the people, and occasionally a connected story ... throws a flood of light on English society. There is not a chapter which is not full of facts of general interest, while the whole volume ... will be altogether indispensable to the serious student.... There is a fascinating tale of the 'boss' of Bethnal Green.... A history of the English people, richer in local colour, more comprehensive in its survey of social affairs, and more truly human in its sympathies than any treatise hitherto given to the public."—Mr. R. A. Bray, in Daily News.
"Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb continue their laborious and luminous studies of English local institutions. In the last two volumes we find the same characteristics as those already published respecting the parish and the county—a minute investigation conducted not in the spirit of the antiquary, but with an eye to realities which are of interest to the politician, the historian, and the economist; an examination of the vast mass of printed matter on the subject, much of it practically inaccessible; and exhaustive enquiry among unedited manuscript records, some of them probably never before read. A few lines in the text or in a footnote are the results of prolonged local investigation; a few unobtrusive words at the close of a sentence, or qualifying some general statement, are the fruits of a careful search among the muniments of some corporation. We cannot speak too highly of the industry and patience which these volumes attest. They possess even rarer merits. The whole subject is set in a new light. We get away from traditional formulæ and conceptions. We see the local institutions at work, and they appear very different from what they are represented by lawyers to be."—Times.
"If it be true, as many deep thinkers maintain, that history affords the only sure key to a thorough knowledge of political institutions, then the work of which these two learned and elaborate volumes form a part is indispensable to every serious student of English Local Government, for the history of that subject has never yet been expounded with such completeness and so scientific an impartiality.... A pioneer in a new way of writing the history of institutions.... By the skill with which they present the general movement of institutional developments as the outgrowth of natural forces, and constantly illustrate it by particular points of actuality and human interest, these writers have given new life to a study too long neglected."—Scotsman.
"Closely packed tomes, crowded with detail, and exhibiting the result of a sum of research and investigation which leaves the indolent, irresponsible reviewer almost wordless with respectful admiration.... Such a collection of original material has been weighed and sifted as might move the envy of any German professor."—Evening Standard.
"For years to come they will still be sifting, amassing, arranging, but their reputation as the foremost investigators of fact now amongst us is likely to be confirmed rather than shaken. Their work is as minute in detail as it is imposing in mass. In their patience they possess their intellect, and they remind us of the scholar with a magnifying glass in a picture by Jan van Eyck."—Observer.
WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
THE BREAK-UP OF THE POOR LAW
BEING PART I. OF THE MINORITY REPORT OF THE
POOR LAW COMMISSION
Edited, with Introduction, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
Demy 8vo, xx and 604 pp. 7s. 6d net. Uniform with
"English Local Government"
Bluebooks, it has been said, are places of burial. The original edition of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law and the Agencies dealing with the Unemployed is a ponderous tome of seven pounds weight, crowded with references, footnotes, and appendices, impossible either to handle or to read. Mr. and Mrs. Webb have, therefore, rescued from this tomb the Minority Report signed by the Dean of Norwich, Messrs. Chandler and Lansbury, and Mrs. Webb herself. By omitting all the notes and references, and printing the text in clear type on a convenient octavo page, they present the reader with something which he can hold with comfort by his fireside.
This Minority Report is a new departure in such documents. More than 20,000 copies have already been disposed of, and it is still selling like the last new novel. It is readable and even exciting. It is complete in itself. It presents, in ordered sequence, page by page, a masterly survey of what is actually going on in our workhouses and in the homes of those maintained on Outdoor Relief. It describes in precise detail from carefully authenticated evidence what is happening to the infants, to the children of school age, to the sick, to the mentally defective, to the widows with children struggling on their pittances of Outdoor Relief, to the aged and infirm inside the workhouse and outside. It sets forth the overlapping of the Poor Law with the newer work of the Education and Public Health Authorities, and the consequent waste and confusion. It gives a graphic vision of the working of the whole Poor Law machinery in all parts of the United Kingdom, which is costing us nearly twenty millions sterling per annum.
The volume concludes with a Scheme of Reform, of novel and far-reaching character, which is elaborately worked out in detail, involving the abolition of the workhouse, the complete disappearance of the Poor Law, and the transfer of the care of the children, the sick, the mentally defective, and the aged to the several committees of the Town and County Councils already administering analogous services, in order that we may now, in the twentieth century, set ourselves to prevent destitution, instead of waiting until it occurs.
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THE PUBLIC ORGANIZATION OF THE LABOUR MARKET
BEING PART II. OF THE MINORITY REPORT OF THE
POOR LAW COMMISSION
Edited, with Introduction, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
Demy 8vo, xvi and 332 pp. 5s. net. Uniform with
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The Problem of the Unemployed, which the Royal Commission on the Poor Law was incidentally set to solve, is the question of the day. Part II. of the Minority Report deals with it in a manner at once comprehensive and complete. The whole of the experience of the Poor Law Authorities, and their bankruptcy as regards the destitute able-bodied, is surveyed in vivid and picturesque detail. There is a brief account of the work of Voluntary Agencies. A lucid description is then given, with much new information, of the movement started by Mr. Chamberlain in 1886, which culminated in the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905. The story is told of the various experiments and devices that have been tried during the past twenty years, the Relief Works and the Farm Colonies, etc. This leads up to an altogether novel descriptive analysis of the Unemployed of to-day, who they actually are, and what they really need. The final chapter on Proposals for Reform gives, in elaborate detail, the Minority's plan for solving the whole problem of Unemployment—not by any vague and chimerical panacea, but by a series of administratively practicable reforms, based on the actual experience of this and other countries, which are within the compass of the Cabinet, and could, if desired, be carried in a single session of Parliament.
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THE STATE AND THE DOCTOR
Demy 8vo, pp. viii and 276 (1910). Price 6s. net.
In this work a great deal that will be new to the ordinary citizen is brought to light. The authors show that we do a great deal of State Doctoring in England—more than is commonly realised—and that our arrangements have got into a tangle, which urgently needs straightening out. Everywhere there is a duplication of authorities, and more or less overlapping of work. We are spending out of the rates and taxes, in one way or another, directly on sickness and Public Health, a vast sum of money annually—no man knows how much, but it certainly amounts to six or seven millions sterling. Meanwhile, as is now being revealed to us, a vast amount of sickness goes altogether untreated, with the result of grave damage to our population, and unnecessary loss of productive capacity to the community as a whole.
The authors suggest that we put up with this waste, and we allow our statesmen to postpone the task of straightening out the tangle, very largely because we are not aware of the facts. There has hitherto been no popular description of our State Doctoring. Many worthy people, thinking themselves educated, do not even know of its existence. There is not even an official report setting forth exactly what is being done and left undone for sickness and the Public Health in the different parts of the kingdom.
But the authors do not content themselves with a picture of the costly and wasteful muddle that our responsible statesmen allow, session after session, to continue unreformed. The work concludes with a remarkable series of proposals for "straightening out the tangle"—proposals based on the very authoritative evidence received by the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, supported not only by the administrators, but also by a large section of the medical profession, and rapidly commending themselves to the unprejudiced enquirer.
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THE HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM
Demy 8vo; Tenth Thousand; New Edition, with New Introductory
Chapter; lvii and 558 pp. (1911).
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This work describes, not only the growth and development of the Trade Union Movement in the United Kingdom from 1700 down to the end of the nineteenth century, but also the structure and working of the present Trade Union organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded almost entirely on material hitherto unpublished, it is not a mere chronicle of Trade Union organisation or record of strikes, but gives, in effect, the political history of the English working class during the last one hundred and fifty years. The opening chapter describes the handicraftsman in the toils of the industrial revolution, striving vainly to retain the mediæval regulation of his Standard of Life. In subsequent chapters the Place Manuscripts and the archives of the Priory Council and the Home Office enable the authors to picture the struggles of the early Trade Unionists against the Combination Laws, and the remarkable Parliamentary manipulation which led to their repeal. The private records of the various Societies, together with contemporary pamphlets and working-class newspapers, furnish a graphic account of the hitherto undescribed outburst of "New Unionism" of 1830-34, with its revolutionary aims and subsequent Chartist entanglements. In the course of the narrative we see the intervention in Trade Union history of Francis Place, Joseph Hume, J. R. M'Culloch, Nassau Senior, William the Fourth, Lord Melbourne, Robert Owen, Fergus O'Connor, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, John Bright, the Christian Socialists, the Positivists, and many living politicians. The hidden influence of Trade Unionism on English politics is traced from point to point, new light being incidentally thrown upon the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1874. A detailed analysis is given of the economic and political causes which have, since 1880, tended to divorce the Trade Union Movement from its alliance with "official Liberalism." A new introductory chapter brings the story down to the last few years. The final chapter describes the Trade Union world of to-day in all its varied features, including a realistic sketch of actual Trade Union life by a Trade Union Secretary, and a classified census founded on the authors' investigations into a thousand separate Unions in all parts of the country. A coloured map represents the percentage which the Trade Unionists bear to the population of each county. A bibliography of Trade Union literature is appended (which, together with that given in Industrial Democracy, affords a unique index of almost every available source of information).
CONTENTS
Introduction To the New Edition.
Preface
I. The Origins of Trade Unionism.
II. The Struggle for Existence (1799-1825).
III. The Revolutionary Period (1829-1842).
IV. The New Spirit and the New Model (1843-1860).
V. The Junta and Their Allies (1860-1875).
V1. The Old Unionism and the New (1875-1889).
V1I. The Old Unionism and the New (1875-1889).
VIII. The Trade Union World.
APPENDIX
On the Assumed Connection between the Trade Unions and the Gilds in
Dublin—sliding Scales—The Summons to the First Trade Union Congress—Distribution of Trade Unionists in the United Kingdom—The Progress in Membership of particular Trade Unions—List of Publications on Trade Unions and Combinations of Workmen.
"A masterly piece of work."—Times.
"To the politician ... an invaluable guide."—Observer.
"An admirably lucid presentation of a great mass of complicated facts. Its very footnotes display a wealth of material such as would have amply sufficed to turn each note into an article of considerable length. In the learning they exhibit, and the concise and decisive way in which they settle important subsidiary questions and side-issues, they remind us of the notes in such monuments of German industry and erudition as Zeller's Griechische Philosophie.... The result is a full, clear, and condensed history such as can have few parallels.... We may fairly repeat that the book is a masterpiece of lucidity of knowledge. Every page is of value, and nearly every sentence contains a fact."—Speaker.
"Readable every word of it. There is plenty of excitement and plenty of romance in the book."—Queen.
"As fascinating reading as a well-written novel."—Cotton Factory Times.
"Infinitely painstaking, comprehensive, clear and acute, the first correct and scholarly history of Trade Unionism in England.... Marked by immense research.... The book must find a permanent place upon the shelf of every student of Economics.... Undeniably marked by the qualities of true history—fulness, accuracy, and clear connection in the presentation of facts."—Newcastle Chronicle.
"It would not be easy to overestimate the value and importance of their admirable and masterly work ... not likely to be superseded for some time to come."—Economic Review.
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Demy 8vo; Tenth Thousand; New Edition in 1 vol., with New Introductory Chapter; lxi and 929 pp. (1907), with Two Diagrams.
Price 12s. net.
ADVERTISEMENT
In this work the authors of The History of Trade Unionism deal, not with the past, but with the present. They describe, with the systematic detail of the scientific observer, and in the same objective spirit, all the forms of Trade Unionism, Factory Legislation, and other regulation of industry to be found within the British Isles. The whole structure and function of Labour Organisations and Restrictive Legislation in every industry is analysed and criticised in a manner never before attempted. The employer in difficulties with his workmen, the Trade Unionist confronted with a new assault upon his Standard Rate, the politician troubled about a new project for Factory Legislation, the public-spirited citizen concerned as to the real issues of a labour dispute, will find elucidated in this work the very problems about which they are thinking. It is a storehouse of authenticated facts about every branch of "the Labour Question," gathered from six years' personal investigation into every industry in all parts of the Kingdom; systematically classified; and made accessible by an unusually elaborate Index. But the book is more than an Encyclopedia on the Labour Question. Scientific examination of Trade Union structure reveals, in these thousand self governing republics, a remarkable evolution in Democratic constitutions, which throws light on political problems in a larger sphere. The century-long experience of these working-class organisations affords unique evidence as to the actual working of such expedients as the Referendum, the Initiative, Government by Mass Meeting, Annual Elections, Proportional Representation, Payment of Members, and, generally, the relation between the citizen-elector, the chosen representative, and the executive officer. The intricate relations of trade with trade have an interesting bearing upon such problems as Local Government, Federation, and Home Rule. Those who regard the participation of a working-class electorate in the affairs of Government as the distinctive, if not the dangerous feature in modern politics, will here find the phenomenon isolated, and may learn how the British workman actually deals with similar issues in his own sphere. The intricate constitutions and interesting political experiments of the thousand self-governing Trade Union republics are dissected and criticised by the authors in such a way as to make the work a contribution to Political Science, as to the scope and method of which the authors, in describing their investigations, propound a new view.
The analysis of the working of Trade Unionism and Factory Legislation in the various industries of the United Kingdom has involved a reconsideration of the conclusions of Political Economy. The authors give a new and original description of the working of industrial competition in the business world of to-day; and they are led to important modifications of the views currently held upon Capital, Interest, Profits, Wages, Women's Labour, the Population Question, Foreign Competition, Free Trade, etc. The latter part of the work is, in fact, a treatise upon Economics.
A new Introductory Chapter deals at length with Compulsory Courts of Arbitration and Wages-Boards in New Zealand and Australia.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction To the New Edition.
PART I
TRADE UNION STRUCTURE
CHAP.
I. Primitive Democracy.
II. Representative Institutions.
III. The Unit of Government.
IV. Interunion Relations.
PART II
TRADE UNION FUNCTION
CHAP.
I. The Method of Mutual Insurance..
II. The Method of Collective Bargaining.
III. Arbitration.
IV. The Method of Legal Enactment.
V. The Standard Rate.
V1. The Normal Day.
V1I. Sanitation and Safety.
VIII. New Processes and Machinery.
IX. Continuity of Employment.
X. The Entrance to a Trade.
(a) Apprenticeship.
(b) The Limitation of Boy Labour.
(c) Progression within the Trade.
(d) The Exclusion of Women.
XI. The Right to a Trade.
XII. The Implications of Trade Unionism.
XIII. The Assumptions of Trade Unionism.
PART III
TRADE UNION THEORY
CHAP.
I. The Verdict of the Economists.
II. The Higgling of the Market.
III. The Economic Characteristics Of Trade Unionism.
(a) The Device of Restriction of Numbers.
(b) The Device of the Common Rule.
(c) The Effect of the Sectional Application of the Common Rule
on the Distribution of Industry.
(d) Parasitic Trades.
(e) The National Minimum.
(f) The Unemployable.
(g) Summary of the Economic Characteristics of the Device Of
The Common Rule.
(h) Trade Union Methods.
IV. Trade Unionism and Democracy.
APPENDICES
The Legal Position of Collective Bargaining in England—The Bearing of Industrial Parasitism and the Policy of a National Minimum on the Free Trade Controversy—Some Statistics bearing on the Relative Movements of the Marriage and Birth-Rates, Pauperism, Wages, and the Price of Wheat—A Supplement to the Bibliography of Trade Unionism.
"A permanent and invaluable contribution to the sum of human knowledge.... We commend to the public a book which is a monument of research and full of candour.... Indispensable to every publicist and politician."—Times (on day of publication).
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WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
PROBLEMS OF MODERN INDUSTRY
Post 8vo; Fourth Thousand; New Edition, with New Introductory Chapter; xx and 286 pp. (1907).
Price 5s. net.
CONTENTS
Introduction to the New Edition.
Preface.
CHAP.
I. The Diary of an Investigator.
II. The Jews of East London.
III. Women's Wages.
IV. Women and the Factory Acts.
V. The Regulation of the Hours of Labour.
VI. How to do away with the Sweating System.
VII. The Reform of the Poor Law.
VIII. The Relationship between Co-operation and Trade Unionism.
IX. The National Dividend and its Distribution.
X. The Difficulties of Individualism.
XI. Socialism True and False.
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THE HISTORY OF
LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND
Small 8vo; Seventh Thousand; viii and 162 pp.
Price 2s. 6d. net.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. The First Century of Licensing.
II. A Period of Laxness.
III. Regulation and Suppression.
IV. Free Trade in Theory and Practice.
V. Legislative Repentance.
APPENDIX—The Movement for the Reformation of Manners.
"No book could be more opportune. The sale of alcoholic liquor has been under statutory regulation by means of licences for 300 years; but the period which Mr. and Mrs. Webb have taken as their special study deserves the very careful examination they give to it, for within those 130 years we find periods of regulation and suppression, of laxness and neglect in regard to the control of the liquor traffic, equally instructive. There is during this period one brief six years wherein the magistrates, awaking to their responsibilities and compelled to a consciousness of the evil results of excessive gin-drinking, made a general effort to improve the condition of things through the one means in their power. To this remarkable episode the authors devote a valuable chapter. Strangely enough, it has hitherto not been noticed by historians, nor has it been mentioned in the voluminous literature of the temperance movement. Yet the effort of the magistrates during those six years was very far-sighted. It included—
"The deliberate and systematic adoption of such modern devices as early closing, Sunday closing, the refusal of new licences, the withdrawal of licences from badly conducted houses, the peremptory closing of a proportion of houses in a district over-supplied with licences, and, in some remarkable instances, even the establishment of a system of local option and local veto, both as regards the opening of new public-houses and the closing of those already in existence, all without the slightest idea of compensation.
"All this in the closing years of the eighteenth century! But what a contrast to this spasm of local statesmanship the earlier years of that drink-sodden century display! Then, and not really till then, were sown the seeds of drunkenness in England. Contrasted with that reign of orgy the action of the magistrates in 1787 seems all the brighter, and the disappearance of the fact from public memory the more remarkable. Mr. and Mrs. Webb bring their detailed story to an end with the Drink Bill of 1830, which led to another outbreak of the drinking habit."—Guardian.
"A valuable contribution to the history of the liquor traffic."—Political Science Quarterly.
"This little book, with its abundance of newly discovered facts, is highly opportune."—Economic Review.
"The book is of great interest, contains evidence of laborious investigation, and provides an admirably clear history of a matter of immediate practical importance."—Speaker.
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LONDON EDUCATION
By SIDNEY WEBB
Small 8vo; viii and 219 pp. (1903).
Price 2s. 6d. net.
A Description of the Educational Organisation of London, with a Survey of some of its Administrative Problems—avoiding both politics and religion.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. The Evolution of an Educational System.
II. The Organisation of the University.
III. The Organisation of Commercial Education.
IV. The Organisation of the Polytechnics.
V. The Organisation of the Library Service.
VI. The Lion in the Path.
"This small but important volume.... It is a noble ideal."—Spectator.
"Patiently and laboriously he has surveyed our educational equipment ... and he presents a creditably clear and comprehensible picture of the whole field. It enables the administrator to see the various parts in their due proportion. It lays a much-needed emphasis on higher education; it suggests some administrative improvements, and forms an indispensable starting-point for the far-reaching schemes of co-ordination which it shows to be so sorely needed."—Speaker.
"In dealing with elementary education, Mr. Webb is most practical; in dealing with the nascent London University he is most stimulating."—Pilot.
"A debt of gratitude is due to Mr. Sidney Webb.... The book contains at once ideal and practical proposals for the attainment of this ideal."—Daily News.
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THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN
By BEATRICE POTTER (Mrs. Sidney Webb)
Crown 8vo; Second Edition (1893); Fifth Thousand; xii and 260 pp., with Coloured Map, Appendices, and Index.
Price 2s. 6d.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. The Co-operative Idea.
II. The Spirit of Association.
III. The Store.
IV. Federation.
V. Association of Producers.
VI. A State Within a State.
VII. The Ideal and the Fact.
VIII. Conclusion.
APPENDIX
Bibliography of the Industrial Revolution—List of Parliamentary Papers Relating To Labour Question in this Century—Classified Tables of Associations of Producers—Extract from Letter from Mr. D. F. Schloss—Table of Percentages of Co-operative Sales per Hundred of Population—Table of the Relative Progress of the Co-operative Movement.
"Miss Beatrice Potter's luminous and suggestive volume is not a mere bald, historical outline, but a thoughtful and pregnant study of tendencies, causes, and effects."—Times.
"The whole volume is full of suggestion, both to co-operators and politicians.... It is without doubt the ablest and most philosophical analysis of the co-operative movement which has yet been produced."—Speaker.
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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND
By SIDNEY WEBB
Crown 8vo; Second Edition (1894), with New Introductory Chapter; xxii and 136 pp.
Price 2s. 6d.
"The best general view of the subject from the moderate Socialist side."—Athenæum.
Published by George Allen and Co., Limited
THE LONDON PROGRAMME
By SIDNEY WEBB
Crown 8vo; Second Edition (1894), with New Introductory Chapter; viii and 214 pp.
Price 2s. 6d.
"Brimful of excellent ideas."—Anti-Jacobin.
Published by Walter Scott, Limited
THE EIGHT HOURS' DAY
By SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B., AND HAROLD COX, B.A.
Crown 8vo; 280 pp. with Bibliography
Price 1s.
"The unique value of this little book lies in its collection of facts. It is likely to hold the field as the handbook to one of the chief items in the social politics of the immediate future."—Pall Mall Gazette.
Published by Vandenhoek und Ruprecht (Göttingen)
DER SOCIALISMUS IN ENGLAND. Geschildert
von englischen Socialisten.
Herausgegeben von SIDNEY WEBB
Transcriber's note. In order to make the index more clear, it has been displayed in a single column, rather than the double column of the original. Other than obvious printing errors which have been corrected, the spelling and punctuation are as in the original publication. Corrections in punctuation were made on pages 2, 12, and 192.