The introduction of all these labour-saving appliances was facilitated by the co-operation of masters and men on an arbitration board. A Trades Union—the fourth—had been reconstituted in 1863 from a few surviving branches of the old Union. They started a fresh newspaper, “The Potteries Examiner,” under the able management of the new Leader, William Owen, the nephew of Robert Owen, the Socialist. By 1865 they were strong enough to strike against that good old trade custom—the annual hiring. The oven-men’s Union, always the most determined branch of the Potters Trades Unions, refused to give up the fight when the other trades were prepared to go in, and by holding out alone they at last succeeded in abolishing the annual hiring, and secured for the potter the right to give a month’s notice. This was in 1866, and the whole trade shared the benefits of the change.[206] The Staffordshire Potters Unions seem at each burst of activity to have evolved some special enthusiasm or eccentricity. There was the attempt at co-operative manufacture in 1825; the enthusiastic idealism of Robert Owen in 1833; the attempt to put the unemployed on the land in Wisconsin, and so relieve the labour market, which absorbed the enthusiasm and funds of 1845-6; and now the new Union of 1863, under the guidance of William Owen, originated a far more important and practical movement—arbitration in industrial disputes. At Nottingham, Mr Mundella had in 1867 established a Board of Arbitration in the stocking trade. Its success made it attractive to both masters and men. William Owen approached Mr Mundella, who brought his influence to bear successfully on the pottery masters also, and in July, 1868, a similar Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was established in the potting industry.[207] On it there were ten representatives of each side, who were wherever possible to decide questions that arose. When they could not agree an umpire was to be appointed, whose decision was to be binding. Such men as H. T. Davenport, M.P., Mr Mundella, Sir Thomas Brassey, “Tom” Hughes, have at different times been umpires. At first the Board worked well. The introduction of each machine was made the occasion for a readjustment of prices; and, although the struggle over “good-from-oven” goes on to this day, the first step was taken before the Board in 1869 on the motion of one of the masters’ delegates, Mr Francis Wedgwood, to abolish this old trade custom and substitute “good-from-hand.”[208] An arbitration award in 1871 raised wages generally.[209]