THE HISTORY
OF TRADE UNIONISM
THE HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM: BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
(REVISED EDITION, EXTENDED TO 1920).
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LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30 STREET, NEW YORK
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
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INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1920
THE thirty years that have elapsed since 1890, down to
which date we brought the first edition of this book, have
been momentous in the history of British Trade Unionism. The Trade Union Movement, which then included scarcely 20 per cent of the adult male manual-working wage-earners, now includes over 60 per cent. Its legal and constitutional status, which was then indefinite and precarious, has now been explicitly defined and embodied in precise and abso- lutely expressed statutes. Its internal organisation has been, in many cases, officially adopted as part of the machinery of public administration. Most important of all, it has equipped itself with an entirely new political organisation, extending throughout the whole of Great Britain, inspired by large ideas embodied in a comprehensive programme of Social Reconstruction, which has already achieved the position of " His Majesty's Opposition," and now makes a bid for that of " His Majesty's Government." So great an advance within a single generation makes the historical account of Trade Union development down to 1920 equivalent to a new book.
We have taken the opportunity to revise, and at some
points to amplify, our description of the origin and early
struggles of Trade Unionism in this country. We have
naturally examined the new material that has been made
accessible during the past quarter of a century, in order to
vi Introduction
incorporate in our work whatever has thus been added to
public knowledge. But we have not found it necessary
to make any but trifling changes in our original interpre-
tation of the historical development. The Home Office
papers are now available in the Public Record Office for
the troubled period at the beginning of the nineteenth
century ; and these, together with the researches of Pro-
fessor George Unwin, Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, Professor
Graham Wallas, Mr. Mark Hovell, and Mr. M. Beer, have
enabled us both to verify and to amplify our statements at
certain points. For the recent history of Trade Unionism
we have found most useful the collections and knowledge
of the Labour Research Department, established in 1913 ; and we gratefully acknowledge the assistance in facts, suggestions, and criticisms that we have had from Mr. G. D. H. Cole and Mr. R. Page Arnot. We owe thanks, also, to Miss Ivy Schmidt for unwearied assistance in research.
^The reader must not expect to find, in this historical
volume, either an analysis of Trade Union organisation, policy, and methods, or any judgement upon the validity of its assumptions, its economic achievements, or its limitations./ On these things we have written at great length, and very explicitly, in our Industrial Democracy, and in other books described in the pages at the end of this volume, to which we must refer those desirous of knowing whether the Trade Unionism of which we now write merely the story is a good or a bad element in industry and in the State.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB.
41 GROSVENOR ROAD, WESTMINSTER, January 1920.
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1894
IT is not our intention to delay the reader here by a con-
ventional preface. As every one knows, the preface is
never written until the story is finished ; and this story
will not be finished in our time, or for many generations
after us. A word or two as to our method of work and
its results is all that we need say before getting to our
main business.