their heads that they can run a cheap-jack show for every department of our trade with the same effect as our great combina- tion, we are to drop our arms, pull down our socks, hide our tail under our nether parts, and shout 'peccavi.' … Sectional societies for militant purposes are useless, and therefore they only exist—where such is practised—as friendly societies. … Amalgamation is our title, our war-cry and our principle ; and once we admit that it is necessary to ' federate ' with sectional societies we give away the whole case to the enemy. … Federatibn with trades whose work- shop practice is keenly distinct from our own is a good means to a better end.
134 Trade Union Structure
hi now, looking back on the whole history of organisation in the engineering trade, we may be " wise after the event," we suggest that it would have been better if the local trade clubs had confined themselves each to a single section of engineering workmen, and if they had then developed into national societies of like scope.J^ Had this been the case, and could Newton and Allan have foreseen the enormous growth and increasing differentiation of their industry, they would have advocated, not a single comprehensive amalgamation, but a federation of sectional societies of national extentjfor such purposes as were common to the whole engineering trade. This federation would have, in the first instance, included a great national society of fitters, turners, and erectors on the one hand, and smaller national societies of smiths and pattern-makers respectively. And as organisa- tion proceeded among the brass-workers, coppersmiths, and machine-workers, and as new classes arose, like the electrical engineers, these could each have been endowed with a sufficient measure of Home Rule, and admitted as separate sections to the federal union. This federal union might then have combined in a wider and looser federation, for specified purposes, with the United Society of Boilermakers, the Friendly Society of Ironfounders, the Associated Shipwrights' Society, and the other organisations interested in the great industry of iron steamship building and equipping.M
One practical precept emerges from our consideration of all these forms of association. It is a fundamental condi- tion of stable and successful federal action that the degree of unionbe tween the constituent bodies should corresp ond ^trictly w ith the degree of their unity of interest. This will
-Federation with trades whose shop practice is similar, whose interests are identical, and who ought to be with us in every fight, is a maudlin means to a general fizzle." The question is now (August 1897) a subject of keen debate in the society.
1 The several national societies of Carpenters, Plumbers, Painters, Cabinet- makers, etc., would, in respect of their members working in shipbuilding yards, also join this Federation ; whilst they would, at the same time, continue to be in closer federal union with the Bricklayers, Stonemasons, and other societies o< building operatives.
Inierunion Relations 135
be most easily recognised on the financial side. We have already more than once adverted to the fact that a scale of contributions and benefits, which would suit the require- ments of one class, might be entirely out of the reach of other sections, whose co-operation was nevertheless indis- pensable for effective common action. But this is not all. We have to deal, not only with .{"classes differing in the> amount of their respective incomes, but also with wide > divergences between the ways in which the several classes need to lay out their incomes,^ vThe amount levied by the federal body for the common purse must therefore not on^y be strictly limited to the cost of the services in which all the constituent bodies have an identical interest, but must also not exceed, in any case, the amount which the poorest section finds it advantageous to expend on these serviceg,^
But our precept has a more subtle application to the aims and policy of the federal bodig^and to the manner ih which its decisions are arrived at. rThe permanence of the> federation will be seriously menaced if it pursues any course of action which, though beneficial to the majority of its constituent bodies, is injurious to any one among thejal The constituent bodies came together, at the outset, for the promotion of purposes desired, not merely by a majority, but by all of them ; and it is a violation of the implied contract between them to use the federal force, towards the creation of which all have jcontributed, in a manner inimical to any one of them. \This means that, where the interests diverge, any federal decision must be essentially the result of consultation between the representa- tives of the several sections, with a view of discovering the " greatest common measurej These issues must, therefore, never be decided merely by counting votes. So long as the questions dealt wi|h affect all the constituents in approxi- mately the same manner, mere differences of opinion as to projects or methods may safely be decided by a majority vote. If the results are, in fact, advantageous, the dis- approval of the minority will quickly evaporate ; if, on the
136 Trade Union Struchire
other hand, the results prove to be disadvantageous, the dissentients will themselves become the dominant force. In either case no permanent cleavage is caused. fBut if the difference of opinion between the majority and the minority arises from a real divergence of sectional interests, and is therefore fortified by the event, any attempt on the part of the majority to force its will on the minority will, in a voluntary federation, lead to secession. J
^^.JfTKus, we are led insensibly to a whole theory of " pro- ' ^ggstional representation" in federal constitutions. In a homo- geneous association, where no important divergence of actual interest can exist,' the supreme governing authority can safely be elected, and fundamental issues can safely be decided, by mere counting of heads. Such an association will naturally adopt a representative systeni based on universal suffrage and equat electoral districts. /But when in any federal body" we have a combination of sections of unequal numerical strength, having different interests, decisions cannot safely be left to representatives elected or voting according to the' numerical membership of the constituent bodies. For this, in effect, would often mean giving a decisive voice to the members of the largest section, or to those of the two or three larger sections, without the smaller sections having any effective voting influence on the resultLj Any such arrange- ment seldom fails to produce cleavage and eventual secession, as the members of the dominant sections naturally vote for their own interest. \^ It is therefore pref erable, as a means of se curing the permanence of the federatio r i, tH^*' tV rTr ° ™n- ta tion of the constituent bodies should noJi J'p pvartly pmp nr- tion ate to their respective membersh ip s. Jm ^^ ^ representative system of a federation should, in fact, nice its finances, vary with the degree to which the interests of the constituent bodies are really identical. Wherever interests are divergent, the scale must at any rate be so arranged that no one con- stituent, however large, can outvote the remainder ; and, indeed, so that no two or three of the larger constituents could, by mutual agreerhent, swamp all t^eir colleagues/ If
Interunion Relations 137
for instance, it is proposed to federate all the national unions in the engineering trade, it would be unwise for the Amalga- mated Society of Engineers to claim proportional represen- tation for its 87,000 members, mainly fitters and turners, as compared with the 10,000 pattern-makers, smiths, and machine -workers divided among three sectional societies. And when a federation includes a large number of very" different constituents, and exists for common purposes so limited as to bear only a small proportion to the particular interests of the several sections, it may be desirable frankly to give up all idea of representation according to member- ship, and to accord to each constituent an equal voice . Hence the founders of the Federation of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades exercised, in our opinion, a wise discretion when they accorded to the 9000 members of the Operative Plumbers' Society exactly the same representation and voting power as is enjoyed by the 41,000 members of the United Society of Boilermakers, or by the 40^00 members of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters. \K federal body« of this kind, formed only for certain definite purposes, and composed of unions with distinct and sometimes divergent interests, stands at the opposite end of the scale from Jhe homogeneous " amalgamated " societyJ^-'irEe representatives of the constituent bodies meet for the composing of mutual differences and the discovery of common interests.
