contributions. The results of this can be seen from the agricultural
industry, whose trade union membership rose to approximately
300,000 in the summer of 1921, when the repeal of the Corn
Production Acts abolished the Agricultural Wages Boards.
Something of the same result was achieved by the fixing of rates
of wages under the Munitions of War Acts for women and
unskilled workers in the munitions trades, and their subsequent
stabilization for a year and a half after the Armistice.
The last of the causes contributing to trade union growth is impossible to estimate in terms of figures. From 1910 onwards the working classes showed a diminished faith in political action, and a belief in industrial action, strikes and the power of large industrial organization. The theories of French Syndicalists and American Industrial Unionists, and later of English Guild Socialists, began to gain ground, and these all stressed the importance of strong trade unions, and the necessity for " blackleg-proof " organizations. All these tendencies combined to drive the workman into his trade union, and to induce him to canvass among his fellows, and the assumption that a worker must be a trade unionist steadily gained ground.
Nearly every trade union showed an actual increase of membership in the decade. But beside this, there was a marked tendency towards larger industrial groupings. A large majority of the trade unions known to the Ministry of Labour are small local societies, survivals of an earlier period, having in many cases no more than a hundred or two hundred members, and of no practical importance. Even in 1910 practically the whole effective force of the trade union movement was confined to about a hundred societies, and further amalgamations, speeded up by the Trade Union Amalgamation Act of 1917, which lessened the restrictions upon amalgamation, had by 1921 reduced the number to something like fifty. Thus, large national associations have come into existence on the railways, in road and water transport, in the Post Office, the iron and steel trades, the building trades and the woodworking trades, and the distributive industry; the various unions of general workers are now united in a single federation, and many other schemes of union were in 1921 either in process or under discussion. The movement towards federation is no less important than the amalgamation movement proper. In many cases, where the existence of many trade unions on differing financial bases render amalgamation difficult, there are often formed strong federations which fulfil many of the functions of a single organization. Of this kind are the federations in the building, printing and transport industries,
i and among general workers. In contrast to this unitary tendency must be mentioned the newer unions of non-manual workers,
who are in most cases organized separately from their manual fellows, but even here the tendency to federate or in other ways to ally themselves with the unions of manual workers is evident. This tendency towards large aggregations must be set down partly to the increased integration of capital since the beginning of the century, and partly to the theories of workers' control and industrial unionism, which have been making rapid headway. The day of the small master, and even of the single firm, is all but over, and the tendency of workers in the employ of one employer or of one company to unite in a single union is a natural sequel. The influence of the movement towards workers' control is equally obvious. Where trade unions were content to be " continuous associations of wage-earners for the purpose
JD! maintaining or improving the conditions of their employ- ment" (S. & B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, 1892 edition), the " craft " or " kindred craft " union, which organ- zed together workers employed on a single process or on processes nearly related, was a sufficient instrument. But as
- he plans of the Syndicalists, the Guild Socialists, and others
or the " control of each industry by the workers engaged herein " gained ground, the old craft union was regarded as neffective, and plans were made on all sides for the absorption )f all workers engaged in a single industry into one organization. Uany of the important amalgamations mentioned above are lue to this idea, though it must not be assumed that the whole ir even the major part of the British trade union movement
is organized on industrial lines. Craft unions and "kindred craft " unions continue to exist in a number of trades; many amalgamations are directed merely to the abolition of competing craft unions, as in the printing industry; and there is the further complication of the General Labour unions, which, beginning by enrolling the real " general labourer," the man whose skill is in the strength of his muscles, and who shifts from industry to industry as he finds an opening, have gone on to organize the mass of semi-skilled workers which machine industry requires, and even in certain cases to compete with the skilled unions on their own ground. There is thus no clearly defined principle governing the whole of British trade unionism, and bitter disputes over membership have not by any means ceased to occur; but the tendency to unite, by differing means in differing cases, the trade unionists of a single industry with one another, and even, as in the case of the Triple Industrial Alliance of miners, railwaymen, and transport workers, to unite several separate industries, made very great progress during the decade. Apart from increase in membership, the trade union move- ment as a whole gained considerably in consideration and impor- tance after 1910. This was shown in two ways. The trade unions secured, by general public consent, a much larger place in the mechanism of society than they had hitherto held, and at the same time they steadily turned their attention to new fields of activity. Before the passing of the Trade Disputes Act in 1906, the trade unions were hardly recognized as a political factor of importance. Even in 1910, though their importance had greatly increased and they were known to be the main support of the Labour party, that support had in many people's opinion been knocked away by the Osborne Judgment; and both before and after the Trade Union Act of 1913 enabled trade unions to take a direct part in politics, the view was openly expressed in many quarters that trade unionism was a dangerous growth, unwisely fostered by the legislature, which would be well advised to sweep it away at the first favourable opportunity. Dismissal of workmen for belonging to a trade union was comparatively frequent, and many strikes were fought on the question of the right of a trade union to negotiate on behalf of its members. The great Dublin strikes of 1913, the most considerable industrial upheaval before the war, arose out of Mr. W. M. Murphy's refusal to recognize the Irish Transport Workers' Union as a body competent to negotiate with him on behalf of his employees. Similarly, up to and during the war the three unions of railway workers were engaged in a struggle to obtain recognition from the general managers of railway companies, who, during the war, formed the Railway Executive Committee for administering the railways under Government control. The position was entirely changed by 1921. The Government itself had con- tributed to raise the status of the trade unions during the war, offering them a semi-partnership on many industrial questions, and both the Government and the larger employers found that they preferred on the whole to negotiate with organized than with unorganized bodies of workmen. During the war, for instance, the practice gradually grew up of appointing a rep- resentative of organized labour to any committee whose subject was of importance to the working classes, and such representa- tives were generally chosen from the trade unions. Recognition given at headquarters could not be denied locally; trade unionists qua trade unionists were appointed to Local War Pensions Committees, Food Advisory Committees, and the like, and were generally recognized as qualified to speak on behalf of their fellow-members. The result was to raise the trade union movement to a position such as it enjoyed in no other country save Germany or revolutionary Russia. Although cases might still be known where workmen were discharged because their individual trade union activities were not approved by their employers, the " victimization " of a man simply for being a member of a trade union was no longer likely to occur. Discrimination is, however, occasionally exercised both by public and private employers against a particular union's claim to organize a particular section. Thus the Railway Clerks' Association was long forbidden to speak on behalf of
