Although lots of books and articles have been written concerning both Masters and Servants Acts (4 Geo. IV, c.34 and 30 & 31 Vict., c.141) and the Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration, almost all scholars have treated both these subjects separately without paying any attention to the connection between them. Putting a stress on the close connection between them, the author thinks, despite the general opinion, that these two Acts, called by D. Simon "the tail-end of the penal labour laws which were essential to the early growth of capitalism", could be maintained even until the second half of the nineteenth century, by the growing activity of the voluntary Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration. From the early part of the nineteenth century, the small masters, being embarrassed by labour disputes and unable to, or unwilling to, prosecute their workers according to these Acts, could come to agreement with them, as a result of the negotiation at the Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration. In spite of their helpfulness and usefulness, the Boards were often overlooked by both historians and specialists of the industrial relations. That was because they were organized not only voluntarily but also temporarily according to the requirement of the case, only to disappear unnoticed after the settlement of the disputes or the solution of the wage-problem. The author thinks that these notorious Acts would have been repealed much earlier than 1875 by the opposition of the working class, if every small master who suffered from labour disputes in the first half of the nineteenth century had to settle them by the oppressive Acts. The Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration were particularly useful to such industries as the framework knitting, the potteries and the silk industries where the relation between masters and operatives was the worst and the latter often went on strike before the Boards were formed. The author elucidates thc growing process of the Boards and their construction by citing those of thc three industries as examples in the third section of the article. He concludes that the Boards must have been much helpful to the economic growth of England at the time when small scale firms were still dominant, for the small masters could solve labour problems much more swiftly and more peacefully at the Boards than at any other places, for instance, a court of justice.
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