Note 405 — Chapter V

The Sheffield Outrages and the Royal Commission produced a large crop of literature, most of which is of little value. The Commission itself presented no fewer than eleven reports, with voluminous evidence and appendices. The Examiners appointed to investigate the outrages at Sheffield and Manchester presented separate reports, which were laid before Parliament. The mass of detailed information about strikes and other proceedings of Trade Societies contained in these reports has been the main source of all subsequent writings on the subject. The Trade Unions of England, by the Comte de Paris, 1869, 246 pp., and The Trade Unions, by Robert Somers (Edinburgh, 1876, 232 pp.), are, for instance, little better than summaries, the former friendly, the latter unfriendly, of the evidence before the Commission. The chapters relating to Trade Unionism in W. T. Thornton’s work On Labour, 1870, which made so permanent an impression on the economic world, are entirely based upon the same testimony. Among other publications may be mentioned Trades Unions Defended, by W. R. Callender (Manchester, 1870, 16 pp.); and Measures for Putting an End to the Abuses of Trades Unions, by Frederic Hill, 1868, 16 pp.