Hoping you will give this Memorial your favourable consideration, with a view that the harmony that has hitherto existed may be strengthened, and that we may ever endeavour to merit the same, is the desire of your Memorialists.
We beg to remain your humble servants
Signed by the delegates on behalf of the men.
That abject tone reads very sadly. 1t is still more sad to reflect that the deputation came, some of them very nervously, as if they were going to trial by Assize, and they went empty away. What would you do now, my hearties, in this year 1921, if a reduction of wages and increase of hours were imposed? Would you very humbly petition and most respectfully submit certain things, or would you speak directly to the point and call for a ballot vote? I fancy I know also how the ballot would go, The difference is just that made by the start of the Associated Society in 1880, with its strike emergency and victimisation funds. It began the new trail, and we have not yet completed the journey.
Let us look then at the work being done by the local committee at Leeds in those early years, I have before me the first Minute Book, covering the years 1880 to 1890, and I have read every line with interest. Its first page is inscribed in capital letters:—
Executive Minute
Book Of
Associated Locomotive
Engineers and Firemen's
Trades Union Sick And
Friendly Society,
Established
January 1st, 1881.
The first meeting elected Joseph Brooke as first secretary, called for a levy of 5s. per member to meet present obligations, and
