IV. (1)

The first and most obvious way in which Trades Societies strive to confer benefit upon their members is in acting as Benefit or Friendly Societies. So far as they relieve the necessitous and unfortunate at the expense of the prosperous they confer an unmitigated benefit, and act as insurance societies of most efficient character. Friendly Societies, such as the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, the Hearts of Oak, the Royal Liver Society, etc., are very excellent things in their way, but men of a trade have peculiar facilities for giving each other legitimate and judicious aid from the intimate knowledge which they naturally possess or can easily gain of each other's circumstances. Lord Elcho well observed in his speech at Dalkeith (Times, January 29th, 1867), that Trades Societies are thus a great benefit to the country. “They are the means,” he says, “by their sick funds, by their accident funds, by their death funds, by their funds for supporting men when out of employment, of keeping men off the poor rates.” The advantages thus conferred are, however, so evident, they have been so well summed up by Messrs. Ludlow and Jones in their excellent little work on the “Progress of the Working-classes” (pp. 211–214), and they are so generally recognised, even by Lord Derby himself, that I need hardly dwell further on them.

At the same time, it is impossible to help seeing that men in a trade when acting together are always apt to become narrow and exclusive in their ideas, whether they be merchants, bankers, manufacturers, or operatives. It is in Trades Societies which combine many grades of workmen and several branches of industry, like the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, that we naturally find the most enlightened policy. It is, therefore, I am glad to notice every step which the societies take towards amalgamation or united action. This amalgamation must gradually destroy selfish or exclusive notions, and it will often render apparent to the men of one trade that they are pursuing objects inconsistent with the welfare of their fellow-men in another trade.