Note 176-9 — Chapter III

The greater number of strikes begin with a small minority, generally of the best paid workmen, whom the others follow unwillingly but blindly. (Edinb. Rev., 149, 422.) The despotic power of the Unions over their members depends principally on the fact that their treasury serves not only to maintain strikes but at the same time as an insurance fund for old age and sickness, and that every case of disobedience of a member is punished by expulsion, i. e., with the loss of everything he has contributed. Hence the Quart. Rev., Oct., 1867, advises that these two purposes which are so hard, technically speaking, to reconcile with each other, should be required to be kept separate, especially as most of the unions, considered as benevolent associations, are really insolvent. (Edinb. Review, Oct., 1867, 421 ff.) On the other hand, both the Count of Paris, ch. 3, and Thornton are favorable to the admixture of humane and offensive objects in the trades-unions, because the former contribute to make the latter milder. Brentano, I, 153, has no great objection to the insolvency shown by the books of the unions vis-a-vis of their duties as insurers, since, hitherto, the subscription of an extraordinary sum has never failed to make up the deficit. A strike is detrimental in proportion as the striking workmen represent more of the previous preliminary operations that go to finish a product; as when, for instance, the 50 or 60 spinners in a factory strike, and in consequence, from 700 to 800 other workmen are thrown out of employment and forced into idleness against their will. What might not have been the consequence of the great union of the coal miners of Durham and Northumberland, the members of which numbered 40,000 men, and stopped work from April to the beginning of September, 1864, so that at last it became necessary to carry Scotch coal to Newcastle! Compare Engels, Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England, 314 ff.