I. INTRODUCTION
In 1979, William D. Grampp published an article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, titled “The Economists and the Combination Laws.” In this article, Grampp raised the question of the role played by classical political economy in the 1824 repeal of this famous set of regulations prohibiting workers and employers from organizing to fix wages.Footnote 1 To the best of my knowledge, this article is the only serious attempt to understand the position of classical economists regarding these laws. In social and economic history, where the issue has been primarily studied, the repeal of the Combination Laws has been “represented as a triumph of classical economics” (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 501).Footnote 2 Grampp’s study of the writings and public interventions of classical political economists led to the opposite conclusion. He found their influence was altogether small, and that no evidence confirms their support of repeal. According to Grampp, the issue “simply [and surprisingly] did not interest most of the economists” (p. 509). This would explain their limited theoretical and doctrinal contribution to the outcome.
The central question that Grampp addresses is why the economists have been celebrated for the repeal of laws against which they did so little. He builds his argument from their writings and interventions bearing directly on the Combination Laws. While such an approach is highly necessary, making his case exclusively on this material is not sufficient to estimate the economists’ influence on the discussions over repeal. Especially in the repeal of the Combination Laws, generally presented as part of a more general movement towards economic and political liberalism following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the influence of the economists was exercised in ways that were less direct and less explicit in their reference to the specific issue of the repeal. It is therefore essential to take into account other debates connected to the repeal and the specific political setting through which this general liberal movement was channeled, as well as the wider political context in which the economists’ interventions, or their absence, were understood by their contemporaries.Footnote 3
Resituating the economists’ contributions on combination within the political arguments of their time will enable us to reassess Grampp’s main conclusions. We will show that, despite their limited engagement with the topic in print, the economists’ influence on repeal was more important than Grampp conceded. Moreover, as we shall demonstrate, they were clearly favorable to the measure. To do so, we will focus on the economists who intervened before Parliament or select committees, wrote pamphlets and articles in the press, drafted parliamentary reports, and contributed in these ways to the political debate on the Combination Laws or related issues. These were the economists John Ramsay McCulloch, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, Robert Torrens, and Nassau William Senior, whose interventions spanned the entire debate, from its beginnings in the 1810s—McCulloch’s first articles on combination being published in 1818—through later developments after repeal all the way to the 1840s, with the publication of Senior’s report on the handloom weavers in 1841.
To assess the influence of their arguments on the discussions over combination, it is first necessary to note how this issue had been associated for centuries with the question of wage regulation, on the one hand, and conspiracy, on the other. Wage-fixing mechanisms were generally used as a means to maintain political order, through the prohibition of combinations. This arrangement was called into question during the debates on the repeal of the Spitalfields Acts—private Acts designed to regulate the wages of the London silk weavers, which had become the symbol of traditional wage regulation. What took place in the parliamentary debates was in fact open bargaining, in which the repeal of the Combination Laws was presented as a necessary consequence of the revocation of the Spitalfields Acts, the latter repealed just a few days before the Combination Laws. Ricardo played a leading role in the debates over the repeal of the Spitalfields Acts (Clapham Reference Clapham1916; Hupfel Reference Hupfel2012), and there is no doubt he was favorable to this new arrangement, as were all the other economists considered here. Although they did not intervene prominently in parliamentary consideration of the repeal of the Combination Laws, they might have been perceived as favorable to the measure, explaining why their authority was used to support it.
Regarding their position in arguments over combinations, Grampp interpreted the reduced number of economists’ contributions as evidence of a lack of interest in the issue, and ultimately as proof that they could not have supported a measure designed “to reduce competition in labor markets” (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 501). Support to this measure could indeed seem puzzling for a contemporary reader.Footnote 4 Once reframed in the terms of early nineteenth-century political debate, the repeal of the Combination Laws appears as a way of substituting for the traditional wage-fixing mechanisms, inherited from the craft guilds, the interplay of free associated individuals, willingly choosing to sell their labor at a definite price.Footnote 5 This could explain why the economists were overall sympathetic to combinations, as a matter of principle, whereas they all straightforwardly condemned the use of coercive means, which should be strictly punished by law. They were also convinced that, in the state of true competition they advocated, combinations would be pointless and therefore should disappear. In this sense, the issue of combinations would appear as a minor one in the classical political economists’ analyses of the broader social and economic transformations that would determine their ultimate future, however much they were regulated. Nevertheless, their views on combinations could be seen as a significant part of the “system of economic freedom”Footnote 6 they promoted, and as representating their stance in the political arena and their preferences regarding economic policy.
To demonstrate these two points, we will first study how the case for the Combination Laws was made in the political arena, in relationship to the Spitalfields Acts and other wage-fixing mechanisms inherited from the eighteenth century, through the passing of the Combination Laws in 1799 and 1800, followed by the repeal of the wage-fixing clause of the Statute of Artificers in 1813 (section II). Our focus will be on the two competing policy perspectives that emerged in the 1810s and were on the table at the opening of the debates on repeal (section III). The discussions over the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws will then be examined, to show how political economy was clearly embedded in one of these two perspectives, implying the repeal of both Acts (section IV). We will study other interventions by the economists following the repeal, as manifest in the case of the handloom weavers during the 1830s, that confirmed their position in the earlier debates (section V).
II. COMBINATIONS AND WAGE NEGOTIATIONS, FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO 1813
In his 1979 article, William Grampp presented combinations and “trade unionism as a second-best method of wage-fixing” (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 502). This is consistent with the general picture emerging from the historical literature on the subject. As pointed out by Beatrice Webb and Sydney Webb: “What [the operative] demanded was the fixing of the ‘convenient proportion of wages’ contemplated by Elizabethan legislation. … It was a change of industrial policy on the part of the Government that brought all trades into line, and for the first time produced what can properly be called a trade union movement” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 41). Let us move a bit beyond this statement, however, to understand how this close relationship between the issues of combination and wage regulation came about in British political history.
Even though some of its features had fallen into disuse, the 1563 Statute of Artificers—also commonly called the 5th of Elizabeth—still constituted the fundamental piece of British labor law at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The negotiation of price lists between masters and journeymen, enforced by the justices of the peace, was still widely resorted to.Footnote 7 While the law allowed for the existence of combinations to negotiate wages within this framework, it strictly forbade all other gatherings of workers, thus overtly conceding some bargaining power to the workmen to secure political order. As the power of the craft guilds weakened in the course of the eighteenth century, and as the capacity of local authorities to give a legal sanction to price lists waned,Footnote 8 more and more petitions poured into Parliament asking for the enforcement of the laws on wage fixing and apprenticeship (on behalf of the workmen and often small employers), or for taking measures against combinations (on behalf of the large capitalists).
These demands first met with parliamentary “administrative nihilism,” an expression used by the Webbs to underline the fact that no specific doctrine or principle guided the government on these matters (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 44). Facing claims to enforce the seven years’ apprenticeship, to limit the number of boys to be taught by each employer, or to recognize the price lists negotiated between masters and men, Parliament sometimes chose to repeal entire bodies of legislation altogether, as it did in the case of the woolen cloth weavers or the framework knitters in the 1750s, leading these trades to “a degree of ‘sweating’ scarcely paralleled even by the worst modern instances” (p. 45). On many other occasions, Parliament passed private Acts to “provide for the fixing of wages, and contain other regulations of industry, amongst which the prohibition of combinations comes as a matter of course” (p. 62). The most famous of these laws, one that would remain in force for fifty years, was “An act to impower the magistrates to settle and regulate the wages of persons employed in the silk manufacture of London,” better known as the Spitalfields Acts.Footnote 9 These Acts were passed after a decade of remarkably high political tension (Rudé Reference Rudé1962), during which the conflict between the silk weavers and some of the large masters over the list of prices merged with the general discontent following the Seven Years’ War, channeled by John Wilkes into his run for a seat in Parliament. Weavers were then granted the possibility of having local magistrates enforce official lists of prices, in return for which they would promise never again to engage in riotous activity. The Acts clearly forbade any unlawful combinations that would not be designed to negotiate prices with the masters. Study of the discussions leading to the passing of the Spitalfields Acts shows demonstrably their first and foremost intention of securing public order. In this respect, it is significant to note the key role played in these discussions by the Sheriff John Fielding, who “sincerely hoped that this step will prove a radical cure for all tumultuous assemblies from that quarter so disrespectful to the King and so disagreeable to government.”Footnote 10
The same concern led William Pitt, a few years later in 1799, to enact the Combination Laws, fearing that the marked increase in workers’ mobilizations would degenerate politically as the difficulties of the French revolutionary war years were felt more keenly. Extended and amended in 1800, these laws made combination a summary offence and introduced harsher punishments that, for the first time, applied to any trade whatsoever. The Combination Laws thus increased the bargaining power of the masters, making it far easier for them to have their journeymen prosecuted and punished more severely. But an indirect effect of the new laws was also “to make the internal discipline more rigid in well-organized handicrafts” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 77). Workmen in these trades were still able to act against their masters through secret societies, and they continued to petition authorities for enforcement of the Elizabethan statutes, especially those pertaining to wage fixing and apprenticeship.Footnote 11 The repeal of these two main clauses of the Statute of Artificers, in 1813 and 1814, is generally considered as a milestone of liberalization of the British economy. Indeed, the new ensuing arrangement represented a remarkable breach in the traditional covenant Parliament had respected so far. Whereas “the prohibition of combination was in all cases incidental to the regulation of the industry” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 58), this new arrangement satisfied “both the capitalist’s objection to high wages and the politician’s dislike of democratic institutions” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 64).Footnote 12
Deprived of all their legal protections, workmen were forced to cope with rampant underselling practices, which often led entire branches of industry to economic and social catastrophe. Debates were not entirely over yet, however, as the repeal of the wage fixing and apprenticeship clauses of the Statute of Artificers did not apply to London. The lists of prices in the capital were still used as a point of reference in many trades, on the basis of which wage rates were adjusted throughout the country. This was especially true for the Spitalfields Acts (Clapham Reference Clapham1916, p. 462), which became the symbol of this traditional arrangement, according to which, by the prohibition of combinations, industrial regulations were granted in exchange for public order.
III. TWO COMPETING POLITICAL PATHS
Among the first to realize the consequences of the legislative changes of 1813–14 was very likely Francis Place. Right after these changes occurred, in 1814, he said he “began to work seriously to procure a repeal of the laws against combinations of workmen” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 203). Indeed, Place may have immediately understood that the unbalanced character of these measures would require further intervention, and saw this as an occasion to take a significant step toward the ideal of “political democracy with industrial liberty” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 86) for which he, a disciple of Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, advocated. His first task was to convince the workmen of the benefits of repealing the Combination Laws. At the time they were generally more eager to ask for the fixing of their wages. He thus opened a voluminous correspondence with trades’ societies across the kingdom and intervened in many strikes as a mediator, an ally, or a counselor of the journeymen.Footnote 13 He also wrote widely in the local press to demonstrate his point, and finally secured a useful medium in John Wade’s Gorgon, published in 1818–19. In this radical newspaper, Wade tirelessly denounced the tacit combinations among the masters to keep wages at low levels, and presented a great union of the workers as the only way to defeat these combinations.Footnote 14
Place rallied to his cause at least two other important supporters of repeal. One was the radical Tory MP Joseph Hume, who supervised the campaign for repeal in Parliament. The other was John R. McCulloch, who spread Place’s ideas about combinations in the national newspapers and economic journals, especially in the Scotsman and the Edinburgh Review. Footnote 15 As contended by Grampp (Reference Grampp1979, p. 505), it is quite clear that McCulloch took all his facts and initial ideas opposing the Combination Laws from Place, to which he made some significant additions. The first of his arguments was one of principle: combinations could not be censured because “there is no good reason why workmen should not, like the possessors of every other valuable and desirable article, be allowed to set whatever price they please upon the labour they have to dispose of” (McCulloch Reference McCulloch1824, p. 320). His reasoning always involved showing how peaceful combinations of workmen were “the only means by which their wages can be speedily and effectually raised to their just level” (p. 320), to face “the most perfect and complete union [that] has long subsisted among the masters” (p. 326). In this he quoted the famous passage from the Wealth of Nations, where Adam Smith denounced masters as being “always, and everywhere, in a sort of tacit, constant, uniform, and sometimes open and avowed combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate, and frequently even to sink them below it” (McCulloch Reference McCulloch1824, p. 326; italics added by McCulloch). The repeal of the Combination Laws would thus contribute to bringing about a “free and unrestrained competition” (McCulloch Reference McCulloch1824, pp. 331–332) in labor markets. Both Place and McCulloch were convinced that, in such a state, “combinations will soon cease to exist” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 217).
Though Ricardo recognized that “he never particularly turned [his] attention to the combination laws” (Sraffa Reference Sraffa1951, vol. 8, p. 316), he told McCulloch in a letter from December 4, 1820, that he broadly concurred with his view on the matter. He said the laws “appear to [him] to be unjust and oppressive to the working classes, and of little real use to masters. In spite of these laws masters are frequently intimidated, and are obliged to comply with the unjust demands of their workmen” (Sraffa Reference Sraffa1951, vol. 8, p. 316). While here he seemed more preoccupied by the interests of the masters than by those of the workmen, he clearly shared McCulloch’s perspective that “the true remedy for combinations is perfect liberty on both sides, and adequate protection against violence and outrage. Wages should be the result of a free contract, and the contracting parties should look to the law to protect them from force being employed on either side” (p. 316). Finally, Ricardo believed, along with McCulloch, that enforcing the law was sufficient to protect masters and men from “violence and outrage” and that “competition would not fail to do all the rest” (p. 316).Footnote 16
Although Place declared that he had begun to work for the repeal of the Combination Laws as early as 1814, we have found no archival evidence to ascertain his lobbying activities prior to 1818, precisely when another project of industrial reform was presented. This may suggest that his campaign was effectively launched as a reaction to the initiative of Peter Moore, Whig MP for Coventry, who managed the Select Committee on Silk Ribbon Weavers, and advocated, in his report, for the extension of the Spitalfields Acts (House of Commons [hereinafter HC] 1818b, p. 2). Indeed, immediately after the dismantling of the Statute of Artificers, the silk manufactures of Coventry and Macclesfield—specialized in lesser quality products, respectively ribbons and handkerchiefs—experienced a dramatic upsurge of sweating. The explosion of the poor rates in both districts persuaded Parliament to set up a committee, in response to the weavers’ petitions presented by Moore. This explosion had been caused by the drastic reduction of prices imposed by the merchants, who used every means, legal and illegal, to penalize the journeymen and small masters who opposed them.Footnote 17 In the larger manufacture of Coventry (which employed about 10,000 looms at the time), the practice of paying wages partially out of the poor rates rapidly spread, and a system of half-pay apprenticeship—consisting in paying boys and girls to work for half the price of a journeyman without teaching them the craft—produced the most terrible effects (HC 1818a, pp. 17, 25, 37).
To conclude his report, Peter Moore underlined that, “whilst the statute of the 5th of Elizabeth, c. 4, was in force, the distressing circumstances now complained of, never occurred” (HC 1818b, p. 2), as illustrated by the case of Spitalfields. This is why he presented, the following year, “a bill for the better regulation of persons employed in the silk manufacture in Great Britain” (Hansard 1819, vol. 40, pp. 337–339), which sought to extend the Spitalfields Acts to the silk industries of the country at large. The testimonies collected by the select committee produced a strong effect on the Commons, leading several important MPs to declare they would support Moore’s bill. Due to fears that such a measure would set an example for many other trades, Moore was asked to withdraw his bill temporarily and to present it again, once amended, at a later date. He thus began to work with Gravener Henson, a Nottingham framework knitter who became an important figure of the workers’ movement during the 1810s,Footnote 18 and with George White, a clerk of committees at the House of Commons, to draw up a complete set of new industrial regulations that would apply to every manufacture of the country. Such a perspective was in total contradiction to Place’s views and must have alarmed him very much. This could explain why it was only after 1818 that he really intensified his efforts to lobby the workingmen’s societies and Parliament. It was also in 1818 that John Wade and John Ramsay McCulloch published their first articles on the subject of combination, to prepare the public for Place’s project of repealing the Combination Laws.
In March 1823, Peter Moore introduced to the Commons his bill to “amend the laws against the combination of workmen” (Hansard 1823, vol. 8, p. 365).Footnote 19 The details of his project were presented in a bulky essay, published by Henson and White in the same year, in which they announced their goal of providing a new “general code which regulates masters and servants” (Henson and White Reference Henson and White1823, p. 61). As the 5th of Elizabeth replaced an entire system of ancient regulations, their intention was to repeal forty-four Acts of Parliament bearing on industrial relations, including the Combination Laws and the Spitalfields Acts, and to replace them with one comprehensive labor law. Composed of seventy-two articles, this law would lay down the terms of employment contracts, wage negotiation between masters and men, and arbitration of industrial disputes (Henson and White Reference Henson and White1823, pp. 110–138).
As soon as Moore’s plan came out, Place wrote numerous letters to discredit this “complicated and absurd scheme” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 208), which he called a “book of petty legislation” (p. 210) and “a mass of absurdities” (p. 210).Footnote 20 Place knew perfectly well that “Mr. Moore’s bill was a bug-a-boo” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 208) that would instantly repel the Tory majority. Indeed, it was not difficult for William Huskisson, recently named president of the Board of Trade, to convince the House that “it would be necessary to pause before they agreed to so extensive a measure” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 549), and to postpone its examination to the next parliamentary session. Place chose this moment to perform the first maneuvers—described at length by Graham Wallas (Reference Wallas1925, pp. 207–217)—of his plan to repeal the Combination Laws: “to repeal every troublesome and vexatious enactment, and enact very little in their place. Leave workmen and their employers as much as possible at liberty to make their own bargains in their own way” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 210).
Instead of presenting an alternative bill, Place advised Hume to move at once for a select committee, and to take Peter Moore on as one of its members. According to Place, “the only way to put him down [was] to let him talk his nonsense in the committee, where being outvoted, he will be less an annoyance in the House” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 210). Huskisson, however, would have preferred to drop the sensitive question of the Combination Laws entirely, and asked Hume to focus on the connected issues of the emigration of artisans and the exportation of machinery. Place convinced them not to do so, arguing that if they did not move during the next session for a repeal of the Combination Laws, Moore would introduce his bill once again. Hume finally obtained Huskisson’s authorization to set up a committee “on artizans and machinery,” the Combination Laws being presented as one of the committee’s minor issues, consistent with Place’s strategy of not stirring the Chamber’s attention, disconnecting the committee’s work from the debates on Moore’s bill.Footnote 21
Two competing plans of industrial reform, directly related to the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws, were thus on the table before the debates over their respective repeals took place, between May 1823 and July 1824. The conflict elicited by these plans deeply influenced the way both issues were treated in the political arena. This could explain why discussions about the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws overlapped so extensively, why they were presented as complementary, and how the matter was finally reduced to a clear-cut choice. The first option was to defend the traditional balance between the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws—industrial regulation and political stability—opening the path to a new industrial code along the lines proposed by Moore. The second option was to repeal both measures at once, to further the liberalization program suggested by Place. To understand the meaning of the arguments presented in the ensuing discussions, one must bear in mind how the debate was framed by this fundamental choice.
IV. THE DEBATES OVER REPEAL OF THE SPITALFIELDS ACTS AND THE COMBINATION LAWS
Ricardo played a major role in the debates on the Spitalfields Acts that opened on May 9, 1823. He was the first to speak after the petitions had been read. He expressed “his astonishment that, in the year 1823, those acts should be existing and in force. They were not merely an interference with the freedom of trade, but they cramped the freedom of labour itself” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 149). Huskisson immediately concurred with Ricardo’s view, to no one’s surprise. As in the case of the debates about the ribbon weavers in 1818, many members of the Tory majority condemned the Spitalfields Acts, chiefly because they contradicted the “principles of political economy.”Footnote 22 More interesting is the extent to which an important part of the Whig opposition had already been converted to these principles, and could not as a consequence find any serious argument to oppose to Ricardo. This was especially the case of the radical (and younger) part of the Whig party, whose influence was growing. To this group belonged Fowell Buxton, Edward Ellice, and Henry Brougham, who intervened at length in the debates.
Despite being the owner of a brewery in Spitalfields and having acted in the past to defend the weavers’ cause, Buxton directly “gave the petition [for repeal] his decided support, from a conviction that a compliance with its prayer would tend to better the condition of all connected with the trade, and of none more than the workmen” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 150). It was only after receiving a massive petition from the weavers of Spitalfields against the repeal that he became more critical. Ellice then presented the main argument that would be used by the opposition. While “he agreed that all the restrictions on trade which had been alluded to had probably better be removed,” the Commons “were, however, proceeding to remove a law which, as the workmen conceived, afforded them protection, while they allowed the Combination act, and the act against the emigration of artisans, to remain in existence, which statutes, as everyone knew, operated severely against certain of the working classes” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 379). The position of these opponents of repeal then was to admit “that it was an unwise principle to regulate the price of labour” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 814), condemning firmly the rationale of the Spitalfields Acts but asking for the repeal of the Combination Laws as a counterpart to the measure.
It is thus quite easy to guess which answer would be given to the question raised by Ricardo: “If these acts were indeed so beneficial, they ought to be adopted all over the country, and applied to every branch of manufacture; but the question was, whether labour should or should not be free?” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 816). Nearly all members of the Chamber concurred in saying that wage regulation was wrong in principle. Ellice, however, remarked that “where it suited particular interests, the House frequently deviated from such principles” to pass laws “by which the workmen were grievously oppressed” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 379). Consequently, he announced that if the majority “was determined to press the third reading of the bill, he would accede to a committee in the next session, to consider the propriety of a repeal of the combination acts” (p. 832). This was not at all of concern to Huskisson, who declared “he was an enemy to the principle of those laws,” and that “he had already stated to Mr. Hume that he should be ready to accede to a committee on that subject in the next session” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 833).
The bill rapidly passed the Commons, on June 11, 1823, thanks to the alliance of the Tory majority, the Board of Trade, and the radical wing of the Whig party, which largely subscribed to Place’s views.Footnote 23 Peter Moore played only a minuscule role in the debates. He simply “complained of the manner in which it was attempted to hurry this bill through the House” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 815), and said he “was persuaded that if this bill passed, it would compel thousands of journeymen to seek parochial relief” (p. 832). Although these arguments proved to have hardly any purchase in the Commons, the situation was quite different in the Lords, where the bill was subsequently headed.
The weavers organized an impressive campaign to lobby the House of Lords, before the bill was presented by the prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool. The Lords immediately showed their skepticism regarding the repeal of the Spitalfields Acts, proposed “merely to gratify the theoretical views of political economists” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 987). Lord Ellenborough stated that “he could not see how any alteration in the law, which would have the effect of reducing the rate of wages, could be beneficial to the labourer” (p. 987), and continued arguing “he always looked on the acts in question more as a measure of police than of trade. They were, in his opinion, most efficient in preserving peace, and a good understanding between masters and journeymen” (p. 987). This argument proved very effective in the Lords, who “did not wish to see another Manchester growing up near the metropolis; and thought that if the bill would have that effect, it would be an effect most injurious” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 988).
After Parliament decided to appoint a select committee, which pursued its inquiries during the month of June, the general tone of the debates remained nearly the same. The only change was introduced by Nicholas Vansittart (Lord Bexley), who said he could support the repeal “if the duty on the importation of the raw material were considerably diminished” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 1530). But the main argument remained that the Spitalfields Acts had produced “a state of order and quiet” and enabled the weavers to “resist, under every circumstance of pressure, the attempts of political agitators, which had been but too successful elsewhere” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 1530). The Lords thus feared that, were the Acts to be repealed, “thousands of weavers who now lived with their families would be taken away from them, and stowed into enormous buildings, where they would be exposed to every evil, and where their excellent moral habits would be destroyed, while half a dozen great manufacturers would amass large fortunes” (pp. 1531–1532). Overwhelmed by such interventions, Liverpool could only remind the Lords that “the laws which the bill went to repeal were injurious, and contrary to the liberal spirit under which our manufactures had succeeded” (p. 1532), and he merely asked for a “gradual” change. The Lords finally chose to propose some amendments—to allow the merchants to use their capital outside the city boundaries, and to limit to three months the lapse of time for complaints about wage-prices—but to maintain the wage-fixing clause of the Spitalfields Acts. When the amended bill came back to the Commons, Huskisson announced that the measure “had been so dealt with in the other House of parliament, and so materially altered, that it was not his intention to move the adoption of the amendments made by the Lords” (Hansard 1823, vol. 9, p. 1541). The bill thus remained stuck between the two Houses.
Right after the publication of McCulloch’s most important article on combinations in the Edinburgh Review, in January 1824, Joseph Hume formally asked the Commons for the appointment of a select committee on the emigration of artisans and the export of machinery, the chief objective of which was in fact the repeal of the Combination Laws. According to Grampp, Hume gave on this occasion “the most misleading of all the information from the period” (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 512), when he claimed to act on “the advice, and in hopes of the assistance, of a distinguished individual, whose recent loss the kingdom had to deplore. … The late Mr. Ricardo” (Hansard 1824, vol. 10, p. 141). There is indeed no evidence that Ricardo actually encouraged Hume to press for the repeal of the Combination Laws. Nevertheless, Grampp’s reason for finding Hume’s statement so misleading was the absence of explicit evidence, especially writings, that would confirm Ricardo’s direct support for repeal of these laws. Once situated within the political context of the debates we have presented so far, the statement appears far less misleading. Indeed, Hume continued his speech by simply drawing conclusions from the previous debates: “one of the most important measures to which Mr. Ricardo had directed his attention, was the Spitalfields Act, and those who were friendly to the principle of the change he suggested, still did not wish to remove the restriction, until it was seen what parliament intended to do on the subject of the emigration of artizans” (Hansard 1824, vol. 10, p. 142). This was precisely how the debate on the repeal of the Spitalfields Acts ended in the Commons. Given Ricardo’s attacks on these Acts, as well as the arguments used by the Lords in their defense, it must have seemed clear to the public on which side Ricardo would have stood in case both the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws came up jointly for repeal or preservation. This conclusion is reinforced by Ricardo’s private approbation of McCulloch’s efforts to denounce the Combination Laws (Sraffa Reference Sraffa1951, vol. 8, p. 338).Footnote 24 It is not at all implausible to conceive he could have done the same with Hume, as Grampp himself recognized (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 514). Even if he had not done so, this would have changed radically neither the significance nor the implications of his interventions in the political arena.
The committee began its enquiries immediately after approval of its appointment, by the end of February, as Place had had much time to prepare everything in advance. The details of the proceedings are presented by Wallas (Reference Wallas1925, pp. 212–218): the manner in which Place chose the witnesses, wrote the questions that would be asked by the committee, examined and cross-examined the witnesses, and briefed Hume about their testimonies. Place followed the proceedings that were printed from day to day, until the last witnesses were heard at the end of May. Among them were McCulloch and Malthus. The former was questioned exclusively on the exportation of machinery, perhaps because he had already widely exposed his views on combination. The latter was also interrogated on the Combination Laws, which “evidently appeared to be unjust, and ought to disappear” (HC 1824, p. 601). He then used basically the same reasoning as Place and McCulloch to substantiate his stance. First, the Combination Laws were “unjust to the men, because it is understood that the masters combine, without being liable to punishment; and that the men, when they combine, are liable to very severe punishment” (HC 1824, p. 601). Second, they “had very little effect” in preventing combinations (HC 1824, p. 601). Third, like McCulloch, Malthus conceived peaceful combination as a means to establish free competition on labor markets, while the existing laws “have no doubt operated against the general principle of wages finding their own natural level” (HC 1824, p. 601). He finally added “that any sort of force used in the part of the men, to prevent others taking lower wages, should be punished severely; such as acts of intimidation either towards the masters, or other men” (HC 1824, p. 601). Grampp put the emphasis on this last remark, in order to attenuate Malthus’s support for repeal, which in fact appears to have been quite straightforward.
As soon as the committee’s investigations were brought to a close, on May 20, 1824, Place decided to submit to the Commons only a set of resolutions, instead of a long report, to avoid any treacherous question or discussion. This was what Hume did the following day (Hansard 1824, vol. 11, pp. 811–814). The strategy was to prevent any debate and jump directly to voting on the measures at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile, another long debate took place on the opening of the silk trade, which was finally approved on March 22 by the Commons and on April 6 by the Lords. The bill consisted of the lowering of ad valorem tariffs to 30% for French silk articles, as well as redirecting the drawbacks on the importation duties of raw silk to the manufacturers as a bounty, which should come into effect on January 1, 1826. These measures corresponded exactly to the conditions previously stated by Vansittart, when considering the repeal of the Spitalfields Acts. It was the Earl of Lauderdale who asked Huskisson and Liverpool if he could bring again the bill for repeal of these Acts to the Lords, perhaps to show his loyalty to the Tories after he had just left the Whig party. He argued he had interviewed different manufacturers and weavers—including some of the most stubborn defenders of the Spitalfields Acts—who assured him that the repeal was now “regarded by the trade as a necessary consequence of the new arrangement that had taken place.”Footnote 25 Liverpool was very concerned that such an attempt would once again fail, and warned Lauderdale that he did “not think it would be wise to press it forward against any serious opposition.”Footnote 26 Lauderdale replied he was ready “to load [his] shoulders with all the unpopularity and odium of the measure”Footnote 27 and consequently presented the bill to repeal the Spitalfields Acts to the House of Lords on May 4, 1824. Many of the Lords were suspicious of Lauderdale’s claims that the weavers had changed their minds on the repeal, as well as of his desire to rapidly move to the second and third readings of the bill. Nevertheless, he succeeded in avoiding any serious debate or workers’ mobilization, to finally snatch a slim majority of six for the repeal, on May 21, the same day Hume presented the resolutions of his committee. Place then “induced [members of Parliament] not to speak on the several readings” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 216) of the bills he had “put into form” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 215), which went through both Houses without any debate. Only the bill on the exportation of machinery was rejected by the Lords, who approved the repeal of the Combination Laws on June 9, 1824.
It is difficult to grasp from the manifold archival evidence all the reasons that would account for the coordinated repeals of the Spitalfields Acts and the Combination Laws. It seems safe to assert, however, that the result was achieved according to Hume’s rationale, as if doing away with the Spitalfields Acts was prerequisite to the repeal of the Combination Laws or, consistent with the terms of the debates on the Spitalfields Acts, that the abrogation of the Combination Laws would be the logical consequence of the repeal of the Acts.
Besides the “principles of political economy” he represented in Parliament, Ricardo played a prominent role in the debates over the Spitalfields Acts. His authority was subsequently invoked on the subject of the Combination Laws, to support the repeal of both of these regulations. All of the historical evidence suggests that he was indeed favorable to such a reform. Even if he never considered combinations as a central issue, the violence of his critique of the Spitalfields Acts, coupled with his private assent to McCulloch’s efforts, indicates that he most certainly approved the terms of this new legislative arrangement, which at the very least he could not have ignored.
Subsequent discussions—in which the issues of combinations and wage fixing continued to be associated—would provide further evidence of the classical economists’ definite opposition to any form of administered wage fixing, and of their belief that combinations were not an obstacle, and could even contribute, to the establishment of competitive labor markets.
V. TORRENS AND SENIOR ON THE HANDLOOM WEAVERS
The belief, shared by Place and McCulloch, that combinations would quickly disappear after they had been legalized, soon proved to be wrong. A remarkable outbreak of trade unionism and strikes followed the repeal of the Combination Laws, leading many employers to petition Parliament “to re-enact the old laws or to devise some new and even more drastic legislation” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 218). Such was the reaction that Huskisson asked, at the beginning of the next parliamentary session, for a committee to revise the “Act to repeal the laws related to the combinations of workmen” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 224). Although “the act was fair in principle,” he argued that it “seemed likely to be attended with the most inconvenient and dangerous consequences” (p. 224). He questioned both the absence of a report by the previous committee and the way the bill was carried through Parliament without any debate. Another select committee on combinations was then appointed, and witnesses were heard during the months of April and June 1825. The new bill, which was presented to Parliament as a result, “differed very little from Mr. Hume’s act” (Wallas Reference Wallas1925, p. 238). It merely added a few clauses to put more strict limits on coercion to influence wages and to fix a legal period for bringing offences before the justices of the peace. Its passing, therefore, did not negate or even deviate from the general meaning of the legislative changes of 1824.
The 1830s are generally considered a turning point in the history of trade unionism. Sydney and Beatrice Webb spoke of a transition from the “old” to the “new trade unionism” (Webb and Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 102), or from the “Trade Union” to the “Trades Union” (p. 102), to highlight the moment when the size of unions reached a national scale, gathering workers from a variety of trades. This movement rested on the development of Owenite societies and the cooperative press of the late 1820s, but became increasingly politicized as a new generation of newspapers appeared in close connection to the campaign for the first Reform Act (Thompson Reference Thompson1984, pp. 125–157).Footnote 28 Place continued to play a significant role in this campaign, and the political measures adopted by the new Whig government were still quite consistent with—and partly influenced by—the Benthamite program for jointly enhancing political and industrial liberties. This was to be achieved with the Reform Act and the municipal reform, on the one hand, and with the opening of commerce and the new Poor Law, on the other.Footnote 29
Nevertheless, for an important segment of the laboring classes, the effects of these political reforms hardly offset the stiffening of employment relations and the general worsening of the working conditions daily experienced by laborers.Footnote 30 This is why some workers’ communities continued to ask for regulation of their wages, as illustrated by the famous movement of the handloom weavers. This movement began in 1799, with a petition by the Lancashire cotton weavers calling for the fixing of statutory minimum wages, as in Spitalfields (Bythell Reference Bythell1969, p. 149). The movement then spread to other regions of northern England and Scotland and to other branches of weaving (especially to the woolen weavers), which regularly petitioned Parliament in 1808, 1816–17, 1819, and 1826 to enable local boards of trade to fix lists of minimum piece-rates for their work.
In the wake of the Reform Act, a new parliamentary campaign was launched by the MPs John Maxwell and John Fielden, who became the flag bearers of the handloom weavers in the political arena. The appointment of a select committee was decided with the support of Colonel Torrens, the first to rise in support of the petitions from the Bolton weavers he represented, praying that “something should be done to afford speedy relief to their great distress, or it would come too late” (Hansard 1834, vol. 21, pp. 1144–1145). As a member of Maxwell’s committee, Torrens took an active interest in its inquiries, between June 1834 and April 1835 (Richards Reference Richards1979, p. 100). Maxwell recommended in his report, published on July 1, 1835, that local boards of trade be established to collect average prices every three or six months, and to enforce a list of minimum piece-rates accordingly, in order to “withdraw from the worst paying masters the power which they now possess of regulating wages” (HC 1835, p. xiv). This proposition was immediately opposed by the president of the Board of Trade, Poulett Thomson, who contested “the very principle of the bill, … which had been disavowed even by many Members of the Committee” (Hansard 1835, vol. 29, pp. 1159–1160). His friend John Bowring—one of Bentham’s closest disciples and a member of the committee—declared “he disagreed, in toto, with the report” (Hansard 1835, vol. 29, p. 1164), alongside nine out of twenty-five other members. The case of Bowring is illustrative, as he was also interrogated by the committee on the industrial and commercial inquiries he conducted in France during the preceding years, especially those concerning the Lyon silk industry, where the first conseil des prud’hommes, a kind of industrial tribunal, was introduced in 1806. He presented this tribunal as “an admirable institution,” which “has the power of interfering to enforce the contracts made between masters and weavers” (HC 1835, p. 10), and is further “charged with the publication of tables of prices, not compulsory prices, but such as are generally paid” (Hansard 1835, vol. 29, p. 1177), thus “regulating usefully the price of labour” (Hansard 1835, vol. 29, p. 1177) without authoritatively fixing wages. His proposition to establish something similar in England seemed totally inaudible amidst British political debate, still focused on the relationship between wage fixing and combinations (Hupfel Reference Hupfel and Frobert2014, pp. 42–44).
As a matter of fact, Maxwell and Fielden’s bill was rejected by a large margin of 129 votes to 41. Despite his sympathy with the handloom weavers, Torrens also voted against the bill, and published an essay in 1834, dedicated to his constituents, titled On Wages and Combination. Throughout its 133 pages, Torrens never refers to the establishment of boards of trade as a measure to bring relief to the weavers. The main solutions he deemed useful to consider as a means of increasing their wages were: 1) the setting up of a “national fund … to aid [the weavers] in betaking themselves to other occupations” (Torrens Reference Torrens1834, p. 60); 2) the combinations of workmen; and 3) the lowering of the price of corn through the repeal of the Corn Laws (Torrens Reference Torrens1834, pp. 81–89). Regarding combinations, he questioned different aspects of McCulloch’s theses. Torrens denied that effectual combinations of employers to reduce wages, however profitable in the short run, could be maintained for long (Torrens Reference Torrens1834, pp. 45–56). He also contradicted McCulloch’s argument that a rise in wages and a decrease in profits “do not subject the country to any disadvantage in the foreign market” (p. 61). For this reason he doubted the effectiveness of a combination of workmen to raise wages “in a country depending upon foreign markets” (p. 60). Nevertheless, he described an example, very similar to the British case, where such combinations could reach their objective “in a country possessing superiority in supplying goods for the foreign market” (p. 73). In this case, “a combination, could it be formed and maintained, might effect an advance of wages, within the limits of that superiority, provided the number of hands seeking for employment, did not increase in a greater proportion than the quantity of work to be performed” (p. 80).
Eventually, “Torrens’ conclusion was similar to that of Ricardo and McCulloch” (Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 511). The fundamental determinants of wages were the supply and demand for labor, and combinations could only marginally influence this relationship in specific cases where their effect was not harmful, perhaps even desirable.Footnote 31 Of course, one might argue that Torrens was more moderate than McCulloch. This could be easily explained by the fact that he wrote after the repeal of the Combination Laws, when the growth of trade unions served to heighten political tensions. It is difficult to infer what exactly Torrens thought about combinations, given the very theoretical nature of his text, which gave only few and very general words of advice on economic policy. One must keep in mind, however, that he considered combinations, under certain circumstances, as a credible strategy to raise workers’ wages—a goal he truly hoped to achieve—while not even mentioning the other main political alternative at stake: the establishment of boards of trade to fix wages. As was the case for Ricardo and McCulloch, his stand in the debate seemed very clear.
But this was not the end of discussions on the handloom weavers. Maxwell and Fielden were still bringing multiple petitions to Parliament, whereas the political agitation around the People’s Charter, sustained by enormous working-class meetings, greatly frightened the authorities (Stedman Jones Reference Stedman Jones and Jones1983). To avoid the possibility of a report too favorable to the workers, as in 1834, a royal commission was appointed in 1837 “for inquiring into the condition of unemployed handloom weavers in the United Kingdom” (Thompson Reference Thompson1963, pp. 301–302; Bythell Reference Bythell1969, pp. 164–168; Richards Reference Richards1979, pp. 111–114). The commission was placed under the supervision of Nassau William Senior, whose rigorous positions on the Poor Laws, the Factory Acts, and the Combination Laws were well known. Indeed, Senior was asked by Lord Melbourne in 1830 to make recommendations for reforming the Combination Laws, to check the power of trade unions and their capacity to strike. The measures he proposed were so drastic that “Melbourne and his colleagues decided that these astounding recommendations were politically impossible, and in any case probably undesirable” (Bowley Reference Bowley1937, p. 278; Bowley Reference Bowley and Coats1971, p. 64), consequently discarding Senior’s report.Footnote 32
Senior reintroduced most of these measures in his report on the handloom weavers, dropping only some of the most radical recommendations. He proposed three main measures to “release workpeople from the tyranny of combinations” (HC 1841, pp. 98–118, reprinted in Senior Reference Senior1865, pp. 116–172). The first was to harden the penalties and extend them to “agreements by the workmen to strike for the purpose of forcing a master to discharge a given person, or to disuse a given sort of machinery, or generally to change his mode of managing his business” (HC 1841, p. 116). The second was to authorize any person aggrieved by outrage or intimidation to “seize any persons so offending, without summons or warrant, to carry them before a justice,” and to give “the justices … power to convict and punish without naming the convict, identifying him by description or otherwise” (HC 1841, p. 116). The third measure proposed “that any serious injury inflicted on the persons or property of masters or workmen, in consequence of their resistance to a combination, or of witnesses, be repaid by the hundred” (HC 1841, p. 117).
Although these measures appear extremely severe, an important aspect of Senior’s thought would be neglected by concluding that he was unequivocally opposed to combinations (as did Grampp Reference Grampp1979, p. 511). A central question would remain: If Senior was so strongly opposed to combinations, why did he not simply recommend their prohibition, instead of devising all these legal measures that “would have been a serious infringement upon the constitutional liberties of the country”?Footnote 33 The reason is that Senior admitted from the outset that “the right of the workingman to employ that property [in his strength and skill] in the way which he considers most for his interest, so far as he does not interfere with the exercise of a like free will on the part of another, is a right as sacred as any right for the protection of which laws are maintained” (HC 1841, p. 98). Therefore, combinations could not be condemned per se. This was why Senior, in both of his reports, made very clear his opposition to the “oppressive” character of the old Combination Laws, “that erected into crimes acts in themselves perfectly innocent” (HC 1841, p. 99), as well as his support for their repeal in 1824. He described the “great moral effect” (Webb Reference Webb and Webb1907, p. 92) produced on the workers by this new Act, which rightfully “declared combination innocent, but violence punishable” (HC 1841, p. 113). The problem was that “the workmen do not seem to have understood the difference” (HC 1841, p. 113), and have constantly used illegal means to enforce prices through combinations, however “innocent” and “morally right” (HC 1841, p. 118).
Senior’s efforts were geared to finding ways to punish the use of these illegal means—“violence, intimidation, or molestation” (HC 1841, p. 102)—without condemning the right to combine in itself. This is why he refused the idea of a specific act against combinations, and believed, as did Ricardo and McCulloch, that the use of illegal means should fall within the domain of criminal law, enforced by an efficient local police.Footnote 34
Despite the fact that Senior definitely appears as the most critical of the economists we have studied on the subject of combinations, he also affirmed, just like all the others, his sympathy towards the principle of (peaceful) combination, even as he denounced its use to legitimate illegal actions.Footnote 35 As in the case of Ricardo, McCulloch, and Torrens, this sympathy stands in stark contrast to his firm rejection of the boards of trade, “a remedy that has been frequently proposed by the weavers” (HC 1841, p. 49). He dismissed the idea of the board of trade in a few lines, both for its “impracticability” and “its tendency to aggravate the evil which it aims at removing, to increase instead of diminishing the supply of handloom weavers, and to diminish instead of increasing the demand for their labor” (HC 1841, p. 49).
VI. CONCLUSION
The result of Grampp’s inquiry was to deny any influence to the economists on the repeal of the Combination Laws, claiming that most of them were not even interested in the issue. Indeed, the relative paucity of their contributions on the subject seems reasonable proof that this was not central to their analyses. This does not mean, however, that their position regarding the Combination Laws could not tell us something important about their doctrine. In contrast to the precision of their reasonings on commercial, monetary or financial issues, they were, as shown by Frank Geary and Renee Prendergast (Reference Geary and Prendergast2008) or Simon Hupfel (Reference Hupfel2012), comparatively less interested in the study of the actual organization of manufactures. Similarly, it is surprising to notice how McCulloch, Ricardo, and Malthus paid little attention to the question of what was required to protect individuals from violence as workers would attempt to fix prices once the Combination Laws were repealed. All of them remained wedded to the principle of “voluntary association” (Harris Reference Harris1960) and considered that coercion should be treated by law, but none really addressed the complicated problems raised by the definition of these coercive methods. Hence came the “profound unease and uncertainty” (Robbins Reference Robbins1978, p. 110) that dominates the works of Torrens, Senior, and Mill on combination, and their equally “profound hesitations concerning the way in which the power of the unions was often used” (Robbins Reference Robbins1978, p. 109). In other words, “they never fully considered the problem of power to which combination gives rise” (Harris Reference Harris1960, p. 28), probably because they believed this problem was of secondary importance compared with the forces of supply and demand, which would eventually prevail.
Concerning the question of the economists’ influence on the repeal of the Combination Laws, pointing to the scarcity of their written accounts on the subject seems highly inadequate. More importantly, Grampp’s recourse to this criterion seems to contradict his own methodology, which prescribed not only the reading of the economists’ writings on a specific topic but also interpreting these writings in light of other relevant materials, such as personal letters and papers, political debates, economic history, government papers, and so forth (Grampp Reference Grampp1965, p. 32). In our case, such an approach could help explain how, even though the economists did not intervene systematically on the Combination Laws, their influence on their repeal was still noticeable, to say the least. This becomes clear once one considers the competing political alternatives at stake, embodied in the connected discussions over the repeal of the Combination Laws and the Spitalfields Acts. Ricardo did everything he could to wreck the principle of wage fixing at the root of the Spitalfields Acts, and did not object at any moment to the proposal of doing away with the Combination Laws as a counterpart. All the economists we have studied in this article—McCulloch, Malthus, Torrens, and Senior—were clearly of the same position, and the authority of political economy was accordingly used during the debates.
The power to influence public policy that Grampp attributed to the writings of the economists shows that, despite his own methodological advice, he did not entirely depart from a heroic vision of the history of economic thought, typical of the genealogical approach he criticized (Grampp Reference Grampp1972, p. 542), in which the ideas of economists are innately capable of shaping public policy. In the case of the repeal of the Combination Laws, Grampp argued that politicians acted as pragmatists, and that leaders of political parties, radical reformers, and the working class played a far more important role than economic ideas—as if this could be otherwise. As he himself contended elsewhere (Grampp Reference Grampp1982, p. 13), politicians always act as pragmatists, using all the resources available to reach their objectives. Likewise, economic ideas are never the leading forces governing public policy, independently of actors such as the political parties or the working class.
Rather than a linear relationship, in which economic ideas mechanically inform public policy, these ideas must necessarily be interpreted, adapted, and transformed by the many actors who participate in the policy-making process, possibly in continuing interaction with the economists’ own arguments. This is why one should pay closer attention to the role played in this process by mediating actors like Place, who translated elements of classical political economy into the language of English politics, as shown by Boyd Hilton in the case of the economic policy of the Tory governments from the early nineteenth century (Hilton Reference Hilton1977, Reference Hilton2006). To use the words of Bob Coats, one of the few other historians of economic thought who, together with Grampp, have addressed similar issues: “the study of economic thought and policy is not a field in which we can expect to trace simple causal connections” (Coats Reference Coats and Coats1971, p. 22). From this perspective, to focus solely on the volume of writings produced by economists on a given issue, or even their manifest interest on the matter, seems far from sufficient to grasp “the subtle and complex process by which economic ideas influence public policy” (Coats Reference Coats and Coats1971, p. 20).
The study of this process requires a specific intellectual framework, as already hinted by Coats nearly fifty years ago. Although some progress has been made since then, including research in the fields of history, political science, and the social studies of science, this framework still requires some refining. The contributions of Grampp (Reference Grampp1948, Reference Grampp1965, Reference Grampp1982) may provide some stimulating groundwork for contemporary historians of economic thought to embark upon this undertaking.
