The Co-operative Societies were more suspect. They crept into legal
recognition as the children of the Friendly Society, under the 'frugal
investments' clause of the Act of 1846, being compelled by the legal
prejudice against association in restraint of trade to adopt this
unnatural mother. Their real nature was recognized in 1852, when they
were brought under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, and in
1862, when they were granted the boon of limited liability. But the
accident of their legal origin still survives; for they are regulated
to-day by the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1893. The
Co-operative Movement is now drawing closer to politics, following the
lead of most of the continental countries, notably Belgium and Germany.
Though we cannot say that there is any indication of the State taking
over the movement, we may note that the growth of municipal trading in
the 'nineties was, in principle, an application of the consumers'
association to monopolies of distribution such as tramways, water,
electricity, and gas.
The State was altogether hostile to the growth of the Trade Union. The
Charter of Emancipation, won by the guile of Francis Place in 1824, was
severely curtailed in 1825. Huskisson[68] depicted in lurid terms the
tyranny of a military trades unionism, 'representing a systematic union
of the workers of many different trades'. It was a 'kind of federal
republic', whose mischievous operations, if not checked, would keep the
commercial classes 'in constant anxiety and fear about their interests
and property'. Arnold, of Rugby, a decade later wrote of them in the
same strain: 'you have heard, I doubt not, of the trades unions; a
fearful engine of mischief, ready to riot or assassinate; and I see no
counteracting power.'[69]
The counteracting power was their own weakness. The early militancy
burnt itself out, and was succeeded at the turn of the century by a 'New
Spirit and a New Model'. The new spirit was anti-militant, and the new
model was a trade union representing the _elite_ of the skilled trades.
The Amalgamated Society of Engineers was founded in 1850 and served as a
model to the Carpenters, Tailors, Compositors, Iron-founders,
Brick-layers, and others. The Trades Unions were now respectable, and in
1867 the State recognized the fact.
The period of collectivism is denoted by the growth of the Labour Party
in Parliament, and the increasing part played by the State in industrial
disputes and the regulation of wages. The nationalization of railways
and the nationalization of mines are burning questions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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