form the amendments pro- posed by the branches themselves, and sometimes to choosing between them. Though it is still -u&uaUbr ^ the revi sed rules to be formally ratified by a vote of the meinberA-tbe- revising Committees have been given an ever wider discretion, until in most unions they are nowadays in practice free to make_ changes according to their own judgment.^ But it is in "the constitution of the' central executive that the trend towards representative institutions is most remarkable, the old expedient of the " governing branch " being superseded by an executive committee representative of the whole body of the members.^
1 There is a similar tendency to disapprove of the Imperative Mandate in the principal Friendly Societies. The Friendly Societies Monthly Magazine for April 1890 observes that "Lodges are advised … to instruct their delegates as to how they are to vote. With this we entirely disagree. A proposition till it is properly thrashed out and explained, remains in the husk, and its full import is lost. Delegates fettered with instructions simply become the mechanical mouthpiece of the necessarily unenlightened lodges which send them, and there- fore the legislation of the Order might just as well be conducted by post."
' Thus the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (established 1872) administers the affairs of its forty-four thousand members by an executive committee of thirteen (with the three officers), elected annually by ballot in thirteen equal electoral districts. This committee meets in London at least quarterly, and can be summoned oftener if required. Above this is the supreme authority of the annual assembly of sixty delegates, elected by sixty equal electoral districts, !i and sitting for four days to hear appeals, alter rules, and determine the policy of the union. A similar constitution is enjoyed by the Associated Society of
Representative Institutions 47
This revolution has taken place in the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives (37,000 members) and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (87,313 members), the two societies which, outside the worlds of cotton and coal, exceed nearly all others in membership. Down to 1890 the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives was governed by a local executive council belonging to a single town, controlled only by occasional votes of a delegate assembly, meeting, at first, every four years, and afterwards every two years. Seven years ago the constitution was entirely trans- formed. The society was divided into five equal electoral districts, each of which elected one member to serve for two years on an executive council consisting of only these five representatives, in addition to the three other officers elected by the whole body of members. To the representative execu- tive thus formed was committed not only all the ordinary business of the society, but also the final decision in cases of appeals by individual members against the decision of a branch. The delegate meeting, or " National Conference," meets to determine policy and revise rules, and its decisions no longer require ratification by the members' vote. Although the Referendum and the Mass Meeting of the district are still formally included in the constitution, the complication and difficulty of the issues which have cropped up during the last few years have led the executive council to call together the national conference at frequent intervals, in preference to submitting questions to the popular vote.
Locomotive Enginemen and Firemen (established 1880). It is this model that has been followed, with unimportant variations in detail, by the more durable of the labor unions v/hich sprang into existence in the great upheaval of 1889, among which the Gasworkers and the Dockers are the best known. The practice of electing the executive committee by districts is, as far as we know, almost unknown in the political world. The executive council of the State of Penn- sylvania in the eighteenth century used to be elected by single - member districts (Federalist, No. LVII.), and a similar arrangement appears occa- sionally to have found a place in the ever-changing constitutions of one or two Swiss Cantons. (See State and Federal Government in Switzerland, by J. M. Vincent, Baltimore, 189 1.) We know of no case where it prevails at present (Lowell's Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, London, 1896).
48 Trade Union Structure
In the case of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers the constitutional revolution has been far more sweeping. In the various editions of the Engineers' rules from 185 i to 1 89 1 we find the usual reliance on the Mass Meeting, the Referendum and the direct election of all officers by the members at large. We also see the executive control vested in a committee elected by a single district—the chairman, moreover, being forbiddten to serve for more than two years in succession. In the case of the United Society of Boiler- makers we have already described how a constitution of essentially similar type has resulted in remarkable success and efficiency, but at the sacrifice of all real control by the ^members. In the history of the Boilermakers from 1872 onwards we watch the virtual abandonment in practiceflo?" the sake of a strong and united central administration, of everything that tended to weaken the executive power. \5"he Engineers, on the contrary, clung tenaciously to every institution or formality which protected the individual member against the central executive.^ Meanwhile, although the very object of the amalgamation in 1851 was to secure uniformity of trade policy, the failure to provide any salaried official staff left the central executive with little practical control over the negotiations conducted or the decisions arrived at by the local branch or district committee. The result was not only failure to cope with the vital problems
1 In financial matters, for instance, though every penny of the funds belonged to the whole society, each branch retained its own receipts, subject only to the cumbrous annual " equalisation." The branch accordingly had it in its power to make any disbursement it chose, subject only to subsequent disallowance by the central executive. Nor was the decision of the centrah executive in any way final. The branch aggrieved by any disallowance couTd, and habitually did, appeal—not to the members at large, who would usually have supported the executive—but to another body, the general council, which met every three years for the express purpose of deciding such appeals. There was even a further appeal from the general council to the periodical delegate meeting. In the meantime the payment objected to was not required to be refunded, and it will therefore easily be understood that the vast majority of executive decisions were instantlv appealed against. And when we add that each of these several courts of Appeal frequently reversed a large proportion of the decisions of its immediate inllk-ior, the effect of these frequent appeals in destroying all authority can easily be imagined.
Representative Institutions 49
of trade policy involved in the changing conditions of the industry, but also an increasing paralysis of administration,^ against which officers and committee-men struggled in vain.' When in 1892 the delegates met at Leeds to find a remedy for these evils, they brought from the branches two leading suggestions. One party urged the appointment, in aid o^ the central executive, of a s alaried staff of distric t delegates, ' elected, in direct imitation of those of the BoiTeSrmaKefsTby the whole society. Another section favored the transforma- tion of the executive committee into a representative body, and proposed the division of the country into eight equal electoral districts, each of which should elect a representative to a salaried executive council sitting continually in London, and thus giving its whole time to the society's work. Probably these remedies, aimed at different sides of the trouble, were intended as alternatives. It is significant of the deep impression made upon the delegate meeting that it eventually adopted both, thus at one blow increasing the number of salaried officers from three to seventeen.^
Time has yet to show how faf thfs revolution in the constitution of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers wilT conduce either to efficient administration or to genuine popular control. It is easy to see that government by an executive committee of this character differs essentially from government by a representative assembly appointing! its own cabinet, and that it possesses certain obvious dis-J advantages. The eight members, who are thus transferrea by the vote of their fellows from the engineer's workshop tq the Stamford Street office, become by this fundamental change of life completely severed from their constituents, \ Spending all their days in office routine, they necessarily lose the vivid appreciation of the feelings of the man
' It is interesting to observe that the United Society of
