“Aware that it is our labour alone that can carry into effect what you have undertaken, we cannot but view ourselves as parties to your engagement, if that engagement is ever fulfilled; and as you had no authority from us to make such an engagement, nor had you any legitimate right to barter our labour at prices fixed by yourself, we call upon you to exhibit to our several bodies your detailed estimates of quantities and prices at which you have taken the work; and we call upon you to arrange with us a fixed percentage of profit for your own services in conducting the building, and in finding the material on which our labour is to be applied. “Should we find upon examination that you have fixed equitable prices which will not only remunerate you for your superintendence but us for our toil, we have no objections upon a clear understanding to become partners to the contract, and will see you through it, after your having entered yourself a member of our body, and after your having been duly elected to occupy the office you have assumed” (_Robert Owen: A Biography_, by Frank Podmore, 1906, vol. ii. p. 442-4). [230] _An Impartial Statement of the Proceedings of the Members of the Trades Union Societies, and of the Steps taken in consequence by the Master Traders of Liverpool_ (Liverpool, 1833); _Remarks on the Nature and Probable Termination of the Struggle now existing between the Master and Journeyman Builders_ (Manchester, 1833); _Times_, June 27, 1833. [231] _Pioneer_, December 7, 1833; _History of Birmingham_, by W. Hutton (Birmingham, 1835), p. 87. [232] It was edited by James Morrison, an enthusiastic Owenite, who died, worn out, in 1835 (_Beer’s History of British Socialism_, 1919, p. 328). [233] It was eventually finished by the landlord, and still exists as a metal warehouse in Shadwell Street. [234] In May 1834 an informer offered to supply the Home Secretary With full particulars of its organisation, leading members and their activities, for two sums of £50 each (Home Office Papers, 40--32). [235] Letters to Cobbett’s _Weekly Register_, reprinted in the _Pioneer_, December 21, 1833. See also Home Office Papers, 40--32; and the _Crisis_ for November and December 1833. _The Voice of the West Riding_, an unstamped weekly, June and July 1833, was devoted to this agitation in the Yorkshire textile industry (see Home Office Papers, 40--31). [236] For an unfavourable account of this Union, see the extremely biassed statement given in the pamphlet _Character, Objects, and Effects of Trades Unions_ (1834). The employers seem to have regarded all the demands of the men as equally unreasonable, even the request for a list of piecework prices. See _Times_, October 2, 1833. A printed address _To the Flax and Hemp Trade of Great Britain_, issued by the flaxworkers of Leeds, November 30, 1832, refers with admiration to the effectiveness of this Union (Home Office Papers, 40--31; see also 41--11). [237] _Times_, October 28, 1833.