Industrial Democracy. Sidney Webb

to the numbers of' the members in their respective associations. This practice, often called "proxy voting," or, more accm-ately, " the accumulative vote," has long been characteristic of the Coalminers' organisations, though unknown to any other section of the Trade Union World. Thus the rules of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain are silent as to the number of representatives to be sent to the supreme "Conference," but provide "that each county, federation or district vote upon all questions as follows, viz. : one vote for every looo financial^members or fractional part of Idbo, and that the vote in every case shall be taken by numbers " (Rule lo, Rules of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, 1895). A similar principle has always been applied at the International Miners' Conferences, and the practice prevails also in the several county unions or federations. The l>ancashire and Cheshire Federation fixes the number of representatives to be sent to its Conferences at one per 500 members, but expressly provides that the voting is to be " by proxy " in the same proportion. The Midland Federation adopts the same rule. The Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Durham, and West Cumberland associations allow each branch or lodge only a single representative, whose vote counts strictly inproportion to the membership he represents. This " accumulative vote " is invariably resorted to in the election of officers and in all important decisions of policy, but it is not uncommon for minor divisions to be taken, unchallenged, on the principle of " one man one vote." It is not easy to account for the exceptional preference of the Coalminers for this method of voting, especially as their assemblies are, as we have pointed out, in practice more " representative " in their character, and less trammelled by the idea of the imperative mandate, than those of any other trade but the Cotton Operatives. The practice facilitates, it is true, a diminution in the size of the meetings, but this appears to be its only advantage. In the absence of any system of " pro- portional representation " it affords no real guide to the relative distribution of opinion ; the representatives of Yorkshire, for instance, in casting the vote of the county, can at best express the views only of the majority of their constituents, and have therefore no real claim to outvote a smaller district, with whose views nearly half their own constituents may be in sympathy. If, on the other hand, the whole membership of the Miners' Federation were divided into fairly equal electoral districts, each electing a single member, there would be more chance of every variety of opinion being represented, whilst an exact balance between the large and the small districts would nevertheless be preserved.

       During the great strike in 1893 the Conference met eight times in six

      months.

      46 Trade Union Structure

      membership numbering two hundred thousand, furnishes eloquent testimony to the manner in which it has known how to combine efficient administration with genuine popular assent.

      The great federal organisations of Cotton Operatives and Coalminers stand out from among the other Trade Unions in respect of the completeness and success with which they have adopted representative institutions. But it is easy to trace a like tendency throughout the whole Trade Union world. We have already commented on the innovation, now _almgst universal, of entrustinglthej^k: of reyising^rules to a specially pIprtpH^ jrnmmittee. It was at first taken for granted that the work of such a revising committee was limited to putting into proper 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