were fortnightly, and the only objection advanced by the owners against weekly pays was the practical inconvenience of the pressure on the pay staff.  In the North of England Iron Trade, weekly pays, the Commissioners found, had just been introduced.  In West Scotland some of the coal-owners were trying to recoup themselves for the loss of their truck-shop by charging poundage on the men’s wages.  But this dodge, like the bigger grievance of truck, was stoutly resisted by the local union.  Indeed, in one coalfield after another the disappearance of truck and kindred evils coincides with the appearance of strong County Unions.

6.  We are given to understand that the miners of South Wales insist on economics written by sound labour men.  We therefore offer them a few suggestions for a history of the currency in the nineteenth century from the worker’s point of view.

i.  In 1800 London relied for small coin on private enterprise.  Every week the Jews’ boys collected from the shopkeepers their bad shillings, buying them at a heavy discount, with serviceable copper coin forged in Birmingham (vide Patrick Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, 1800, Chapter VII).  The resumption of cash payments in 1819 was injurious; for owing to the shortage of small coin, the wage-earners were paid in bulk with large notes, which they had to split at the nearest public-house.  The Truck Act of 1831 prohibited wage-payments in notes on Banks more than 15 miles distant, but said nothing about cheques—­an oversight which the capitalists repeated in their Bank Act of 1844.

ii.  The general dissatisfaction with the state of the currency led to attempts to dispense with coin.  About 1830 Labour Exchanges were opened in London for the exchange of goods against time notes, representing one or more hours of labour.  The originator was Robert Owen, and the failure of the Exchanges was probably due to the fact that Owen was at heart a capitalist.  The National Equitable Labour Exchange at one time was doing a business of over 20,000 hours per week, but very shortly after this, the President (Owen) had to report a serious deficiency of hours, many thousands having been mislaid or stolen.  The Exchange in consequence had to close its doors.

iii.  In the ’forties the centre of interest is the Midlands, and the period may be termed the Staffordshire or beer period.  The currency was very popular and highly liquid, but it was issued to excess and difficult to store.  More solid surrogates were therefore tried.  A Bilston pawnbroker[64] said that he had in pawn numerous batches of flour, which the men’s wives had brought from the Truck Shops and turned into money, in order to pay their house-rents.  Flour, however, was not so hard as a Prescot watch.

     iv.  We come next to the Welsh or Tobacco period, when the
     currency was easily transferable, but liable to deterioration.