THE TRADE UNIONS.

AN APPEAL TO THE WORKING CLASSES

AND THEIR FRIENDS.

BY ROBERT SOMERS.

"A book, not a small one, might be made up of the strange doings of Trade Unions.
Monopoly is hard to teach, and I fear the working men will only learn through suffering,
and may do mischief which cannot be afterwards repaired."-RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT,
June 3, 1875."

LONDON:

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,

BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

THE Author has taken the liberty to place on the Title-Page a sentence or two from a published letter of Mr. Bright, expressing with eminent authority much the same idea and aim as had suggested the composition of this Book; and he may here add a few words from the speech of Lord Derby, on receiving the freedom of the city of Edinburgh in December last, pointing as directly to the main sources from which he deemed that the materials of such a work, if the discussion was to be preserved within recognised bounds, should be derived. Lord Derby, without reference to this subject in particular, said :—

"Look at the number of Royal Commissions that have been appointed, and of Committees in Parliament that have sat in the last twenty years to report upon various administrative matters. How many of these Reports have been acted upon?"