THE EARLY TRADE UNIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1927, Page 4

THE EARLY TRADE UNIONS

The British people—whose genius for coming to sensible and good-tempered policies reconciling the principles of authority and of liberty gave models to the world of Parliamentary government and of a free Press—likewise set the foundations, in the organisation of the early trade unions, of a system of adjusting the relations between employers and employed, admirable in spirit and giving fair promise of developing into an effective means of keeping industrial peace. A knowledge of those early British trade unions and their work is the best starting point for an examination of the unhappy Labour position to-day. They have no policy of “class war”; their aim was, by fair collective bargaining with employers, to improve the lot of the workers in matters of wages, hours, and conditions of labour. I'lie common sense of their founders was shown in the fairly general rule prohibiting all discussions of religion and politics ; the spirit ol economic realism in the formation of special migration funds to assist surplus labour to find openings elsewhere: the high ideals of comradeship in the fact that officials were offered little recompense but the honour of service. -Sir Frank Fox in the “ Fortnightly Review.’’