Lancashire converted and conciliated, London could now go ahead. Under Newton’s influence the London joint committee summoned a second delegate meeting at Birmingham in September 1850, which was attended by representatives of seven engineering societies. At this conference the scheme of amalgamation was definitely adopted; and the Metropolitan “Central Committee” was charged, as a “Provisional Committee,” to complete the details of the transfer of the old organisation to the new body. The tact and skill with which Allan and Newton carried out their project are conspicuously shown by the way in which the act of union was regarded by all concerned. There is no trace of suspicion on the part of the minor societies that they were taking part in anything but an amalgamation on equal terms. The whole Trade Union world, including the Amalgamated Society of Engineers itself, has retained the tradition that this great organisation was the outcome of a genuine amalgamation of societies of fairly equivalent standing. What happened, as a matter of fact, was that the society led by Allan and Newton absorbed its rivals.[350] The new body took over, in its entirety, the elaborate constitution, the scheme of benefits (with the addition of Sick Benefit and the adoption of the innovation of an Emigration Benefit of £6), the trade policy, and even the official staff of the Journeymen Steam-Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights’ Society, which contributed more than three-fourths of the membership with which the amalgamation started, and found itself continued, down to the minutest details, in the rules and regulations of the new association. An important addition was, however, the adoption of a definite trade policy of restricting overtime and preventing piecework; the institution of District Committees charged to carry out that policy; and the establishment of a new Strike Pay of 15s. per week.