Note 360 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
This plan of “equalisation” is, so far as we know, peculiar to Trade Unions, though we understand from Dr. Baernreither’s English Associations of Working Men, pp. 283-84, that a few branches of some of the Friendly Societies adopted a somewhat similar system. Its origin is unknown to us, but the device is traditionally ascribed to the Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Society, established in 1826. It was also in early use by the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society, established in 1824. Until the Trade Union Act of 1871 it had a positive use. Depending, as Trade Unions were obliged to do, upon the integrity of their officers, there were great advantages in the wide distribution of the funds and the local responsibility of each branch for the safe keeping of its share.