A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



which included both trade-unionists and non-unionists, was backed up by 

 Joseph Cowen of the Newcastle Chronicle^ and ably organized by John Burnett, 

 afterwards the first labour correspondent to the Board of Trade. After a five- 

 months' struggle the masters found that even the Times and the Spectator 

 opposed them, and they gave way to the demand for a week of fifty-four 

 hours. The boiler-makers or iron ship-builders were organized into a strong 

 society in the 'seventies under the leadership of Robert Knight, and the idea 

 of trade-unionism became unceasingly popular until bad trade appeared. 

 In more recent times the London Dock Strike of 1889 produced the Tyne- 

 side and National Labourers' Union, while the National Amalgamated Sailors' 

 and Firemen's Union also took its rise in 1887 ; this time at Hartlepool and 

 on Tees-side. 



In 1863 the miners had to face a threatened reintroduction of the 

 yearly bond, which for the past eighteen years had been abandoned in favour 

 of a monthly agreement. It was this move of the employers that enabled 

 Macdonald and Crawford to reorganize the union in Durham and Northum- 

 berland. Strikes broke out in every direction, but as the miners had in 

 1863 organized a permanent relief fund, and saw that a national union had 

 been formed they entered upon the struggle with a light heart. However 

 the miners' leaders began to quarrel, and in 1864 the owners succeeded in 

 again enforcing the yearly bond. In disgust the Northumberland miners 

 seceded from the union of the two counties, and it was not until 1869 that 

 the present Durham Miners' Association arose upon the ruins. The new 

 union was lucky in securing William Crawford as its agent in 1870, and the 

 fall in wages that had just occurred helped Crawford to form a strong society. 

 In 1872 began the better era of Durham mining. In March both masters 

 and men agreed to abandon the yearly bond, and in April it was arranged 

 that a joint committee of masters and men should settle all disputes that arose. 

 In August the Coal Mines Regulation Act was passed, and since that date 

 strikes have rarely taken on the bitter nature of earlier days. 



In 1875 Alexander Macdonald could boast of his success in in- 

 ducing 75,000 workmen and their masters to submit their differences 

 to arbitration. The victory was only gained after twenty-five years' 

 hard work, but the principle of arbitration still holds the field in most 

 matters. In Durham there are two pieces of machinery which may vary 

 from time to time in detail, but are best described as the Board of Con- 

 ciliation and the Joint Committee of Masters and Men. Their working 

 is somewhat complicated, and they are concerned with quite different sets of 

 circumstances. 1 



From time to time representatives of masters and men meet as a Board 

 of Conciliation to settle whether wages should rise or fall in relation to an 

 artificial figure known as the County Average. Apparently the men claim 

 increased wages when the selling-price of coal rises, and resist as far as 

 possible the masters' proposals for a reduction in a falling market. The 

 Board consists of eighteen representatives of each side with an umpire 

 mutually agreed upon, or in default nominated by the Board of Trade. 

 However, when the agreement has once been reached the Board of Con- 

 ciliation are not further concerned with any disputes that may arise with 



1 For an interesting account of this machinery, see Webb's Industrial Democracy, \, 192. 



250 



