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Monthly Circular.
No. 6.	October.	1915.
TO THE MEMBERS.

Gentlemen,

The New Hall and Offices of the Durham Miners’ Association were opened on October 23rd.

Unfortunately the weather was not all that could be desired, and this, no doubt, militated against the attendance, which, though thoroughly representative, did not, so far as numbers were concerned, reach anticipations.

I shall not attempt to describe in detail the building itself; but content myself with saying that it is unquestionably one of, if not the finest, buildings erected for Trades Union purposes.

For those who may be interested in architectural details, the following description will be enlightening :—

The buildings have been erected at Red Hill, Durham, on a site facing the North-Eastern Railway, just beyond the southern end of the North Road Viaduct.

The building is in the Georgian style, and is in line with the best traditions of English Classic Architecture. The facing is executed partly in ashlar stone and partly in pressed brick. The front facade is over 160 ft. in length and is finished at eaves with a fine moulded stone cornice with consoles, and surmounted by a parapet with portions panelled and filled in with turned balusters alternately. This front is also relieved by three projecting gables, the centre one being finished with a triangular pediment, and the others, one on either flank near ends of facade by segmental pediments with carved tympanums.

In the centre of the roof is a large dome springing from an octagonal drum. The dome is finished with an octagonal turret, and the whole is covered with copper. Immediately in front of the central portion of the facade and annexed thereto on the ground floor is a semi-circular Portico with steps and circular columns to same. This Portico shields the main entrance doors to the building, and is finished with a domed roof also covered with copper.

On opening the entrance doors we enter a Lobby, and are faced with a finely executed oak screen with swing doors in same leading to the Entrance Hall.

The Entrance Hall is paved with white, black and green marbles worked into panels, and the staircase is executed in white marble and finished with an artistically worked wrought-iron balustrade and oak handrail.

The walls of the Entrance Hall and Staircase are finished with a dado lining of polished Hopton Wood Stone from Derbyshire, with pilasters and columns of same with carved Ionic caps of Bath Stone supporting a refined plaster cornice.

From the Entrance Hall, corridors lead on one flank to the Waiting Room and Committee Room, and on the other flank to the Insurance and Financial Departments.

The Committee Room is ft. long, 24 ft. wide and 14 ft. high; the walls are panelled in oak to a height of 8 ft., and the doorway is effectively treated with an oak pediment with finely carved tympanum. The ceiling is divided into panels by massive plaster beams delicately enriched.

At the rear of the Entrance Hall, and entered by swing doors from Lobbies adjoining same, is the Council Hall, which is 61 ft. long, 49 ft. wide and 30 ft. high, and is flanked on either side by corridors leading to the Speakers’ Ante-Rooms at each end of platform.

The Council Hall is fitted with oak seats and desks, providing accommodation (including the Gallery) for nearly 400 delegates.

The decorative treatment is very refined and effective. The walls are lined to a height of 10 ft. with substantial oak panelling. The semi-elliptical shaped plaster ceiling is divided into bays by moulded ribs with delicate enrichments. The semi-circular headed window openings cut into this ceiling in an ingenious and pleasing manner, forming lunette shaped breaks with enriched ribs, which, in turn, are stopped on to a large enriched plaster cornice running the whole length of the Hall. This cornice is supported immediately under each ceiling rib by plaster pilasters with Ionic capitals, &c., on pedestals from floor.

The windows are glazed with cathedral glass, relieved by finely executed geometrical designs in delicate tinted glass.

Ascending the marble staircase, which is lighted by a large glazed cupola with beautifully enriched plaster work round well of same, we enter the Gallery to Hall from the half-landing. Continuing we arrive at the 1st Floor. One of the rooms here is to he used as a Library and an occasional Committee Room. The rest of the rooms are to be used as offices for the following d partments —General Secretary, Executive Secretary, Joint Committee Secretary, President, Chief Clerk and Treasurer.

Electric lighting has been used throughout.

The Treasurer and Financial Secretary each have a steel lined strong Room connected with their departments.

The Offices are fitted with complete telephone installations.

There are ample Store Rooms, Lavatory accommodation to each floor, Electric Lift, and in the basement the Heating Chamber and a large Store Room.

The Statues have been removed from the front of the old Miners’ Hall, on North Road, and erected on pedestals in the grounds near the entrance.

The work was commenced in February, 1914, and the total cost of the entire scheme, including the site and four houses for the Agents, which have been erected on the same site, will be under £30,000.

The buildings have been carried out from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr. H. T. Gradon, A.R.I.B.A., Architect, of Durham, until incapacitated by ill-health, when the duties devolved upon Mr. E. Rutherford, his assistant. Mr. C. Groves, of Chester-le-Street, has had the sole building contract. Mr. J. Pattison, of Gateshead, has acted as Clerk of Works.

Although it cannot fail to be a source of pride and gratification to every member of our organization to be possessed of a New Miners’ Hall and Offices, more commensurate with the size and importance of our Society, yet, after all, I am fain to confess, that one’s pleasure was to some extent tinged with regret at having to leave the old premises, which not only had been the cradle of the Society in its infancy, but was laden with memories of bye-gone struggles.

It has, however, been obvious to everybody that with the growth of our membership, in conjunction with the necessity of creating new departments arising out of legislate enactments, we were face to face with the problem of either reconstructing the premises, or removing to other and more commodious quarters, inasmuch as the lack of space was not only seriously impairing the efficient performance of the duties of the various Departments, but owing to the congested conditions under which the work had to be performed, it was jeopardising the health of the staff.

Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it is not surprising that when the site on which the present premises are erected became available, our Council Meeting readily recognised that we had outgrown the old quarters, and consented to its purchase for the purpose of building a more up-to-date and suitable establishment.

That purpose has at last been consummated and, so far as I can gather, there has not been a single jarring note in the chorus of unstinted admiration which has been showered upon the work.

There is not the slighest doubt but that it is well worthy of all the admiration and praise lavished upon it; but, after all, to me the fabric of the building, beautiful as it is in every respect, is secondary to the spirit of which it is the embodiment ; and that spirit is, that in the onward march to that fuller and higher share of the happiness of brighter and better conditions of life which is the goal of Trades Unionism, it is essential that our equipment for achieving that aim should not be measured by any sordid question of cost; and I am sanguine that many of us will live to see the clay when our present expenditure has been more than justified.

It is legitimate ground for congratulation that our change in quarters has been made imperative, largely, if not entirely, by the growth of our membership ; and that despite the many vicissitudes which are the unfailing lot of all human institutions, the developement of our Organisation has steadily gone on, keeping pace with the growth of the Industry with which we are linked up. It must always, however, be remembered that this steady progress has not been maintained without endless struggle and difficulty. The earlier career of the Society in particular was one continual source of bitter and uncompromising opposition from the class who had all to gain by strangling the spirit of Trades Unionism. Not only had the pioneers to contend against this not unexpected opposition, but to a con siderable degree, they were up against a good deal of prejudice and misconception among their own class; and of all the elements of opposition I know of none that is more discouraging than that of being misunderstood and misrepresented by those whose best interests you are seeking to further. It is the one influence that tends to make a man or body of men throw up the sponge.

Much of the vindictive spirit that characterised the early struggles has been swept away; and I have no hesitation in saying that a large majority of the owners recognise that the right of the workmen to combine in furtherance and defence of their interests is, after all, but an elementary principle of justice, founded on natural laws; and although this recognition has gone a long way in the direction of eradicating a good deal of the personal persecution which so frequently fell to time lot of those who took an active part in the past, yet the struggle for a more equitable share of the results of labour, though shifted to a higher plane, is still a most strenuous one, and makes the need for a strong and virile organisation of workmen just as urgent now as ever it was, nay, even mnore so, inasmuch as the future looms with a vast amount of uncertainty, as no man can accurately foretell what the industrial and political outlook will be when the civilised nations have ceased to tear at each other’s throats.

I can only hope that when that time, so anxiously looked forward to, does arrive, if industrial trouble should be in store for us, it will find us prepared to meet it.

Heworth Strike.

Nothing but a strong sense of duty would make me refer to the recent decision of Council meeting anent a motion of protest from the Heworth Lodge.

In doing so, I want it to be clearly understood that I am not in any way actuated by any animus to that Lodge, nor am I prompted by any narrow desire to "get my own back," even in the slightest degree; but if, in my opinion, the future consequences of that decision are likely to have a disastrous effect on the welfare of the Association, then, no matter how unpleasant the task may be, duty demands that it should be discharged.

It is useless to attempt to disguise the fact that the decision was not only a vote of censure on the Agents, but carried with it implied instructions that for the future they must either ignore rule and constitution and be subject to the vagaries of a single Lodge, or refuse to accept such responsibility as might bring upon them the unmerited censure of the County.

If this be the condition to which the members desire to reduce their supposed leaders and advisers, then might I suggest that gramophones, and not men, would serve their purpose with equal facility.

Many members who have not given the question that serious consideration it is entitled to, and have not attempted to realise the results which are likely to follow, will no doubt consider that this is a distorted view not justified by the decision, and that it is dictated by a spirit rankling under the bitterness of censure; but I think that the average Trades Union leader will bear me out when I say that they who dare to accept responsibility and endeavour to stem the tide of wrong doing are frequently subject to criticism and censure; and if the criticism be legitimate, then its effect ought to be stimulating; but if ill-considered and unmerited, then the best antidote is the satisfaction of having done what your conscience indicated was right.

Let us review some of the facts, with a view to ascertaining how far the Agents were in the wrong and in what sense the welfare of the Society is likely to be prejudically affected.

In the first place, it should not be overlooked that the agreement originally sought for was only a temporary one; and had the workmen’s opposition to it been based on the preservation of a vital principle, then there is no gainsaying the fact that they would have not only been justified in their attitude, but would have had the support of the Society in that direction. But whatever principle there might be involved, a full meeting of the workmen decided to, at any mate, temporarily relinquish it; and the subsequent illegal stoppage which ensued was not in defence of a principle, but in reality a strike for the right of the workmen to change their mind. I have made use of the word vagaries, and surely this justifies it.

It is quite correct that the original agreement which was signed by four of the workmen’s representatives and myself contained a word that, in some degree, altered the character of the agreement; and a subsequent meeting of the Urgency Committee agreed to strike out the portion to which the workmen objected and substitute a fresh agreement in lieu of the original one. However, a period of some ten weeks had been allowed to elapse, and during that time the Heworth Lodge had changed their mind, and were not only repudiating the original agreement, but had also gone back on the [osition taken up at their full meeting.

Under the circumstances, our side of the Urgency Committee were compelled to either sign the new agreemnent in its altered form, or, if honourable obligations between the two Associations have to be respected, accept the alternative of the original agreement to which the men’s representatives were a party.

For daring to assume that honour was an integral part of our Organisation, we to-day stand censured.

What effect will the decision have, so far as the Urgency Committees of the future are concerned.

It is quite safe to say that fully eighty per cent. of the Urgency Committees in the past have been held at the request of the workmen; and it is easy to understand how this comes about, when it is remembered that the power to withhold payment in case of disputes rests with the employers; and it has become an unwritten law, endorsed by years of procedure, that when a case was relegated to an Urgency Committee it was a recognised obligation for both sides to accept its finding ; and considering that by far the larger number of cases came from our side, it will be readily realised that not only has a good deal of local friction been avoided, but that it has worked to our advantage.

Now, if the decision of the Council Meeting does not result in making future Urgency Committees valueless, then I am at a loss to know what it does mean. It must be palpable to the most irresponsible member that if the workmen claim the right to repudiate the findings, then we cannot consistently refuse the management the same right; and the only logical inference is that, for the future, Urgency Committees are largely innocuous and, for practical purposes, might as well be dispensed with.

Our institution is framed on strictly democratic lines, and there is absolutely no excuse for resorting to lawless or unconstitutional action for the purpose of having either a meal or imaginary grievance rectified; and if this spirit of lawlessness or disregard of constitutional procedure has to be palliated and encouraged, then the outlook for the future can only be viewed with grave misgiving.

History teaches us, and even nature itself provides the lesson, that the essence of true organisation and liberty lies in a strict observance of those laws and regulations which have been framed for the individual and collective guidance and welfare ; and if the doctrine is laid down that moral responsibility and obligation can be shelved with impunity, the first slip has been made that will eventually end in an avalanche of lawless disorder that can only lead to ruin.

Mr. House reports the decisions of the Compensation Committee, held on October 11th :—

Fatal Cases.

Fatal Cases

Lodge	Name	Age	Occupation
Eldon	Joseph, Brown	54	Deputy
Wearmouth	John, Coates	55	Hewer
South Moor (Hedley Pit)	William Henry, Cudlip	33	Hewer
Eden	George, Elliott	57	Shifter
Murton	Robert W., Gray	14	Driver
Heworth	James, Mackin	15	Driver
Usworth	John, Marriner	20	Putter
Marsden	James, Urwin	54	Wasteman

Non-fatal Cases.

Non-fatal Cases

Lodge	Name	Age	Occupation
Kibblesworth	Peter H., Fearnon	48	Hewer
Auckland Park	Herbert, Forbes	21
Ravensworth (Shop Pit)	John Alfred, Gibson	17	Pony Putter
Houghton	James, Glave	14	Belt Boy
Dawdon	Albert, Gray	22	Putter
South Pelaw	Thomas, Hall
Dawdon	Robert, Kelly	46	Hewer
Houghton	William, Naisbet	21	Putter
South Pelaw	Robert K., Nicholson	17	Driver
Ravensworth (Betty Pit)	Andrew J., Palmer	18
Houghton	John, Reynolds	57	Deputy
Marsden	John, Robinson	20	Putter
Usworth	William, Smith		Waiter On
Shildon Lodge	William, Spedding	19

Durham, October 1915. T. H. Cann.

 

Source:

NEEMARC - Ref: NUMDA/1/6/40, D.M.A. Minutes, Circulars etc. for 1915 (two volumes: covers Jan-Jun, Jul-Dec)