Why not have a Congress of our own

The First Trades Union ¢ Congress

Alexander McDonald ...

The moving spirit behind the mine
unions — who believed that
‘A man’s a man, for a’ that!’

S

IN 1856, Alexander McDonald can
south from Scotland to England, as tl
envoy of the Scottish Miners’ Associ
tion; and, travelling from lodge to lodg
he in due course brought into being tf
National Miners’ Association—a loos
knit body into which he infused his ov
fervent belief in the efficacy of bringit
pressure upon governments as a meal
of getting things done.

- ' Thus McDonald, and the conferent
which he organised, played a decis
part in the campaign for the Coal Mit
Act of 1872—as he had already doi
the Glasgow Trades Council’s ca

for the repeal of the Master and Se |
Law in 1867. a

G. D. H. Cole wrote of him:
craftsmen who laid down regulati
for the conduct of their trade
affirming the dignity of their calling,
well as seeking to get a good price
their labour-power. To regard th
tules simply as so many restrictions ¢
the employer’s right to turn their labo
to such uses as he might please
assume that the labourer could prop
be treated as no more than an in oF
ment of production, devoid of hun
Se

Alexander McDonald, Scottish miners’ leader.