This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Onishi, Shinsaku Title: Rules of Collective Bargaining 1860-1930 General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. 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RULES OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 1860- 1930 Shinsaku Onishi A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements of award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts September 2020 75720 words Abstract This thesis aims to examine an intellectual background of formation and development of collective bargaining between 1860 and 1930. In the voluntary framework of collective bargaining trade unions were able to negotiate trade and welfare issues with their employers on equal terms. Its institutional formation was secured by the trade union laws of the 1870s. To look into reasons behind its legal composition suggests an anomalous discourse of political economy in the mid-Victorian period, which embodied reciprocal and self-less public virtues of liberalism in contrast to its individualistic and optimistic proposition of free trade developed after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The cooperation between official and popular economic culture ensured the rule of law in free trade economy, when the voluntary operation of collective bargaining was successful in identifying the public interest by seeking market equilibrium between the interest of producers and that of consumers. However, Britain’s voluntary market culture of free trade faced a severe challenge from the growth of corporate capitalism. Exigencies of the latter turned the free operation of collective bargaining into a stalemate and extracted grave concerns from liberal intellectuals, who lamented ongoing separation between moral and economic law in the principle of political economy. In light of the public interest, both New Liberal and Conservative intellectuals developed their own visions of collectivist society. Focusing on their usages of the liberal concept of public opinion, this thesis argues that political economy of historical economists, by introducing economic organisation of labour as the means to identify the interest of consumers with producers, suggested pluralist solutions to make a reconciliation with the advancement of market economy. The end of liberalism was heralded, when revival of the progressive movement in the 1920s was oriented to achieving industrial cooperation based upon economic rationalisation in production. Acknowledgement In the process to write up this dissertation I received a lot of help and support from a number of people and places. This doctoral research project took a fairly prolonged period to reach this stage. An incubation period began, when I visited Cambridge University as a visiting student in 2012. I would like to thank Eugenio Biagini for giving me an opportunity and inspiration to make an approach to this subject during my seven-month stay. My thanks go to the faculty of Seikei University, Japan, especially Barbara Sato, Masaki Horiuchi and Keiko Takeuchi, all of whom, despite their different research interests, struggled for protecting my status as a research student until I enrolled in Bristol University. In Bristol, I am very grateful to encouraging environment provided to my research in British history. I would like to thank Richard Sheldon and Adrian Howkins, who have always been supportive, Jocelyn Betts and Lydia Redman, who kindly allowed me to read their theses, the faculty of historical studies, who welcomed me in various interesting seminars, and the staff of the Arts and Social Science Library, whose industry facilitated my progress. My particular thanks go to James Thompson, whose supervision led me to this stage of research. His dedicative and sincere attitude to history provoked my interest in the subject and his generosity and tolerance in personality freed me from a growing pressure as a PhD student. It is significant that he did not stop reading my drafts and returned to me with his comments, despite an exceptionally difficult situation we experienced under the Covid-19 pandemic. Let me express my gratitude to friends, whom I have ever met, and, above all, to my father, mother and sister, who have supported my study and did not change attitude at whatever moment. Author’s Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: ............................................................. DATE:...................... Contents Pages Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1: Market and Conciliation 1.1. Historiography and Collective Bargaining 29 1.2. Legislative Conditions of Trade Unions 38 1.3. British Positivism and Trade Unions 47 CHAPTER 2: The Rule of Law and Collective Bargaining 1870-1890 2.1. Co-operative Ideology and Collective Bargaining in the Mid-nineteenth Century 68 2.2. Voluntary Framework of Collective Bargaining 85 2.3. Public Opinion and Growth of Collective Bargaining 96 2.4. The Growth of Co-operation and Industrial Peace 111 CHAPTER 3: Corporation, Trust and Labour 3.1. Decline in Free Trade and Reformism of Historical School 133 3.2. Frederic Maitland and Making of English Trust 145 3.3. William Cunningham and Trust 157 3.4. Collectivism and Public Opinion of L. L. Price and H. S. Foxwell 167 3.5. William Ashley and State Intervention 178 CHAPTER 4: The End of Liberal Pluralism 1900-1930 4.1. From Liberal Corporatism to Corporate Pluralism 201 4.2. Unemployment and William Beveridge 210 4.3. The National Minimum and The Webbs 221 4.4. The Wartime Regime and Henry Clay 229 4.5. Progressivism and Industrial Peace by J. A. Hobson 245 Conclusion 270 Bibliography 282 Introduction An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye- law with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever. The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government of the trade is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is not that of his corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline. A particular set of workmen must then be employed, let them behave well or ill. It is upon this account that in many large incorporated towns no tolerable workmen are to be found, even in some of the most necessary trades. If you have your work tolerably executed, it must be done in the suburbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have nothing but their character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it into the town as well as you can.1 This thesis aims to rebuild the history of collective bargaining in Britain from 1860 to 1930. From the establishment of the boards of conciliation and arbitration in the Birmingham hosiery industry, the scheme of collective bargaining had an enormous impact not only on economic life of Britons, but also on national politics. Its institutional arrangements, in which representatives of employers and workers sat side by side with each other and discussed trade issues over a round-table on a voluntary basis, did not appear by accident in history. There was an underlying movement of liberalism, which developed in a distinct form in the isle. Collecting ideas about collective bargaining during the period, the thesis attempts to constellate them around the interacting discourse of political economy. It did not receive persistent reception, but variable in periods and 1 A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, London, 1999 (first pub. 1776), p.233 1 not in the least moved into the mainstream by attracting attentions of political or industrial elites or wider popular discourse than reformists. However, when the working-class right of freedom of contract was granted, freedom of collective bargaining became a symbolic virtue as the basis of civil society in the Victorian period. The salutary mood of co- operation between capital and labour invoked public virtue of trust, but, as a rule, its raison d’etre did not last for an infinite time.