amendment and passing of the laws would under those circumstances take up the whole time of the society until the next delegate meeting came round. The request, however, was taken up by other
• Stonemason/ Fortnightly Return, May 1836 (the circular issued fortnightly to all the branches by the executive committee). 2 Ibid. May 1837.
Primitive Democracy 2 1
branches, and by 1844 we find the practice established of making any necessary amendment in the rules by merely submitting the proposal in the Fortnightly Return, and adding! together the votes taken in each lodge meeting. A similarl change took place in such other great societies as the Iron- founders, Steam-Engine Makers, and Coachmakers. The great bulk of the members saw no advantage in incurring the very considerable expense of paying the coach fares of delegates to a central town and maintaining them there at the rate of six shillings a day,^ when the introduction of penny postage made possible the circulation of a fortnightly or monthly circular, through the medium of which their votes on any particular proposition could be quickly and inexpensively collected. The delegate meeting became, in fact, superseded by the Referendum."
By the term Referendum the modern student of political, institutions understands the submission to the votes of the ' whole people of any measure deliberated on by the repre- sentative assembly. Another development of the same prin- ciple is what is called the Initiative, that is to say, the right of a section of the community to insist on its proposals being submitted to the vote of the whole electorate. As a repre-| sentative assembly formed no part of the earlier Trade Union constitutions, both the Referendu m and theljoitiative-took with them the crudest shape. Any new rule or amendment of a rule, any proposed line of policy or particular application^ of it, might be straightway submitted to the votes of all the
In 1838 a large majority of the lodges of the Friendly Society of Operative
Stonemasons voted " that on all measures submitted to the consideration of our Society, the number of members be taken in every Lodge for and against such a measure, and transmitted through the district Lodges to the Seat of Government, and in place of the number of Lodges, the majority of the aggregate members to sanction or reject any measures."—Fortnightly Return, 19th January 1838.
^ It is interesting to find that in at least one Trade Union the introduction of the Referendum is directly ascribed to the circulation in England between 1850 and i860 of translations of pamphlets by Rittinghausen and Victor Consid^rant. It is stated in the Typographical Circular for March 1889, that John Melson, a Liver- pool printer, got the idea of " Direct Legislation by the People " from these pamphlets, and urged its adoption on the union, at first unsuccessfully, but at the 1861 delegate meeting virith the result that the Referendum was adopted as the future method of legislation.
22 Trade Union Structure
members. Nor was this practice of consulting the members confined to the central executive. Any branch might equally have any proposition put to the vote through the medium of the societ3r's official circular. And however imperfectly the question was framed, however inconsistent the result might be with the society's rules and past practice, the answer re- turned by the members' votes was final and instantly operative.
,n"hose who believe that pure democracy implies the direct
^Hecision, by the mass of the people, of every question as it arises, will find this ideal realised without check or limit in the
iiistory of the larger Trade Unions between 1834 and 1870.
i The result was significant and full of political instruction.
Whenever the union was enjoying a vigorous life we find, to
begin with, a wild rush of propositions. Every active branch had some new rule to suggest, and every issue of the official circular was filled with crude and often inconsistent projects of amendment. The executive committee of the United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers, for instance, had to put no fewer than forty-four propositions simultaneously to the vote in a single circular.^ It is difficult to convey any adequate idea of the variety and, in some cases, the absurdity of these propositions. To take only those recorded in the annals of the Stonemasons between 1838 and 1839; ^^ have one branch proposing that the whole society should go in for payment by the hour, and another that the post of general secretary should be put up to tender, " the cheapest to be considered the person elected to that important office." ^ We have a delegate meeting referring to a vote of the members the momentous question whether the central executive should be allowed " a cup of ale each per night," and the central executive taking a vote as to whether all the Irish branches should not have Home Rule forced upon them. The members, under fear of the coming Parliamentary
1 Quarterly Report, June l85o.
^ The sale of public offices by auction to the highest bidder was a frequent incident in the Swiss " Landesgemeinden " of the seventeenth century. Sec Eugine Rambert's Les Alpes Suisses : Etudes ffistoriques et Nationales, p. 225.
Primitive Democracy 23
inquiry, vot^ the abolition of all "regalia, initiation, and pass-words," but reject the proposition of the Newcastle Lodge for reducing the hours of labor " as the only method of striking at the root of all our grievances." The central executive is driven to protest against " the continual state of agitation in which the society has been kept for the last ten months by the numerous resolutions and amendments to laws, the tendency of which can only be to bring the laws and the society intb disrespect." ^ As other unions come to the same stage in development, we find a similar result. " It appears eviderjt," complains the executive committee of the Friendly Soci'ity of Ironfounders, " that we have got into a regular propo? tigji-in^ni^. One branch will make propo- sitions^simpIyL cause another does ; hence the absurd and ridiculous propositions that are made." ^ The system worked most disastrously in connection with the rates of contributions anffjBenefits. It is not surprising that the majority of work- jnen -shouLd have beeri unable to appreciate the need for ^xpert„.advice on these points, or that they should have disregarded all actuarial considerations. Accordingly, we^ find the members always reluctant to believe that the rate of contribution must be raised, and generally prone to listen to any proposal for extending the benefits—a popular bias which led many societies into bankruptcy. Still more dis- integrating^ in its tendency was fiie disposition to appeal to t:he^TOtes.of-the-m^iibers against the'executive decision that particular individuals werejneligible for certain benefits. In tlieTrnifgd"Kingc(om Society of Coachmakers, for instance, we find the executive bitterly complaining that it is of no use for them to obey the rules, and rigidly to refuse accident benefit to men who are suiifering simply from illness ; as in almost every case the claimant's appeal t.o the members, backed by eloquent circulars from his friends, has resulted in the decision being overruled.* The Friendly Society of
^ .Fortnightly Return, July 1838.
' Ironfounders' Monthly Report, April 1855.
United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers' Quarterly Report, September 1859.
24 Trade Union Structure i
Ironfounders took no fewer than nineteen votes in a single year, nearly al! on details of ben^t administration.^ And the executive of the Ston^nlasonriiaa early occasion to protest against the growing practice under which branches, preparatory to taking a vote, sent circulars throughout the society in support of their cfeims to the redress of what they deemed to be personal grievances.^
The disadvantages of a free resort td) the Referendum soon became obvious to thoughtfiil Trade T(Jnionists. It stands to the credit of the majority of the men^bers that wild and absurd propositions
