88 



ORGANISATION 



Early in July 1874 a strike in the linen mills of 

 Belfast followed upon an announcement by the 

 masters of their intention to reduce the wages of 

 operatives, consequently upon depression in trade. 

 The strike dragged on, with the usual accompani- 

 ment of acrimony and some measure of disorder, 

 until toward the close of August, when the British 

 Association held its meeting in the city. The 

 Section of Economics, as it chanced, had upon its 

 programme a report and two papers upon various 

 more or less abstract industrial topics among which 

 that of strikes was included. Here was an extra- 

 ordinary opportunity for the section to put its 

 science to practical test. It took that opportunity. 

 The discussion which followed the report and papers 

 centred upon the Belfast strike, for representatives 

 of both masters and men were there by invitation, 

 and practical suggestions were made and accepted 

 whereby the meeting afforded an opportunity for 

 mediation, through the agency of its principal 

 officers. At the concluding general meeting on the 

 following day Tyndall, the president of the Associa- 

 tion, was able to announce that he had had the good 

 fortune to be present at the meeting of the section 

 referred to, that he had recognised the desire on both 

 sides for conciliation, and that ' as the result of that 

 discussion and a suggestion made in the course of it, 

 he had now the most gratifying duty to announce 

 that the act of conciliation was completed and an 

 arrangement mutually arrived at/ 1 



The above incident was played as a trump card 

 by the supporters of Section F when, in 1877, Francis 



1 The Times, August 27, 1874. 



