and the more speedily disseminate such knowledge as may be most conducive to their interests in their respective trades and arts, as well as their general interests as productive laborers". It referred to a "line of demarcation between the producers of wealth and the portions of society which subsist upon the fruits of the Working Man's industry".
- 101. How long did the National Trades' Union last?
- From 1834 to 1837.
- 102. What succeeded it?
- Trade societies organized upon a national scale.
- 103. What unions were so organized?
- The National Co-operative Association of Journeymen Cordwainers (1836-1837); the National Typographical Society (1836); (This union became the National Typographical Association in 1837). It was the first union to inaugurate the system of issuing union membership cards. These cards served to restrict the employment of apprentices as journeymen. A union card secured for the bearer courtesies from union craftsmen in towns where he was a stranger, where the society was in existence. The Comb Makers, Carpenters, and Hand Loom Weavers all started national unions in their trades.
- 104. What became of these national unions?
- Where previously the union movement had been killed by politics, the movement rising in 1836-37 committed suicide by undertaking co-operative productive enterprises through which the panic, beginning in 1837, wiped them out.
- 105. What was the attitude of the working class after the destruction of their unions?
- The idea of economic combination survived the passing of the unions. All through this panic, which lasted until 1849, the workers were involved in a condition which they were at a loss to understand; and consequently unable to deal with. Throughout its duration, and following its passing, the wage earners instinctively felt their supreme need to be economic organization. This is testified by their refusal to adopt the suggestions of the humanitarian philosophers who offered many schemes as panaceas.
32
