Responsible and cautious leadership of the Trade Union Movement was becoming increasingly necessary. The growth of the great national Unions, alike in wealth and in membership, and the manner in which they subscribed in aid of each other’s battles, had aroused the active enmity of the employers. To counteract the men’s renewed strength, the employers once more banded themselves into powerful associations, and made use of a new weapon. The old expedient of the “document” had, since its failure to break down the Amalgamated Engineers in 1852, and to subdue the building operatives in 1859, fallen somewhat into discredit. It was now reinforced by the general “lock-out” of all the men in a particular industry, even those who accepted the employer’s terms, in order to reduce to subjection the recalcitrant employees of one or two firms only.[391] The South Yorkshire coal-owners especially distinguished themselves during those years by their frequent use of the “lock-out.” One Yorkshire miner complained in 1866 that he had been “locked out about twenty-four months in six years.”[392] During the year 1865 it seemed as if the lock-outs were about to become a feature of every large industry, the most notable instances being those of the Staffordshire ironworkers, to which we have already alluded, and the shipbuilding operatives on the Clyde. In both these cases large sections of the men were willing to work at the employers’ terms, but were either known to belong to a Union or suspected of contributing to the men on strike. But though this practice of “locking out” created great excitement among working men, it did not achieve the employers’ aim of breaking up the Unions. Nothing but absolute suppression by law appeared open to those who regarded trade combinations as “a poisonous plant” and an “anomalous anachronism,” and who were vainly looking to “the happy period,” both for masters and men, when the questions, “What is the price of a quarter of wheat?” and “What is the price of a workman’s day wage?” shall be settled on the same principles.[393]