

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Meanwhile the miners were developing in fresh directions. The 

 Rochdale Pioneers found disciples at West Cramlington in Northumber- 

 land, and during the 'sixties the Co-operative movement spread rapidly 

 in Durham. 1 



As usual co-operative distribution has been a success, and the existence 

 of the ' store ' has been an important factor in prolonging strikes as well as 

 inculcating teachings of thrift and forethought. Co-operative production, 

 however, has been no more successful in Durham than elsewhere, and the 

 miners who formed the Co-operative Colliery Company of 1873 paid dearly 

 for their enterprise. 



During the 'sixties the London Trade Unionist Junta (Messrs. Apple- 

 garth, Allen, and others) had won much support for their cause in the 

 reformed Parliament. They had northern colleagues of a like cautious nature 

 in Alexander Macdonald, who once more organized the Miners' National 

 Union, and John Kane of the North of England Ironworkers. Kane after 

 a great struggle established the Amalgamated Ironworkers' Association, with 

 its centre at Darlington, in 1868, and he remained its secretary till his death 

 in March, 1876. It was largely due to his shrewdness and reasonableness 

 that he and Sir David Dale called into being the famous doctrine ' that 

 wages should follow prices,' and so made possible the amicable relations 

 between employer and workman that prevail in the north to-day. 



The Miners' National Union was inaugurated in 1863, but at the 

 Leeds Conference of that year Crawford the Durham delegate gave the 

 first hint of the secession * which has since occurred on the Eight Hours' 

 question. In Durham and Northumberland the hewers work in two shifts 

 of six hours each, while the boys then worked single shifts of twelve hours. 

 As the miners elsewhere are generally in favour of a legal eight-hours' day 

 the difference is almost irreconcilable. However, the split did not occur for 

 some time, and Macdonald bided his time until a weakening on the part of 

 the Yorkshire coalowners enabled him to get a clause inserted in the Mines 

 Regulation Act of 1860, empowering the miners of each pit to elect one of 

 their number as check-weigher so as to secure that the hewers were paid 

 fairly for their work. Naturally the owners did not welcome the presence 

 of the check-weigher, but his rights were strengthened by the Act of 1872, 

 and finally in 1887 it was laid down that the majority of the men in any pit 

 have the right to elect a check-weigher to keep an independent and accurate 

 account of each man's work, and that all the hewers may be assessed towards 

 his wages. It is only natural that such men as are chosen should be strong 

 trade-unionists. Often the check-weigher acts as secretary of the local 

 miners' lodge, and of late years such men have become increasingly numerous 

 on the council of local governing bodies in Durham. 



Other unions followed in the paths marked out by Jude and Macdonald. 

 Between 1866 and 1871 the engineers of Tyneside and Wearside had fought 

 and finally won the battle for a nine-hours' day. A ' nine-hours' league,' 



'In 1891 it was estimated that the percentage of co-operators in Durham was j>2'i, the highest in 

 England. Northumberland with 40-2 per cent, came a dose third to Yorkshire's 40-8. 



'On the death of Macdonald in 1 88 1 differences arose among the members of the National Miners' 

 Unien. In 1888 there appeared the semi-Socialistic Miners' Federation, which agitated for a legal eight 

 hours' day and a minimum wage with its corollary of limitation of output. As a result the National Miners' 

 Union, which clung to the sliding scale, was practically confined to Northumberland and Durham. 



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