Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/193

 Rh in former years; but, strangely enough, the statistical tables show an increase in the number of cases. The total number is given as 250. Details were given in 242 cases, and of these 101 were said to be successful, 36 were not successful, and 105 were pending. These varied in duration from two days to a whole year.

By 1889, however, it was becoming quite clear that the boycott was not being so extensively used as before. The workmen themselves, besides being convinced by repeated experience that the game must be played very carefully to avoid penal consequences, were discovering that it was a two-edged weapon, often as dangerous to the user as to the intended victim, as in the case of the cigar-makers above referred to. Thus the statistical table for 1889 shows that inquiry was made as to boycotts of 1,374 establishments which had disputes with their workpeople. From these a total of 177 cases of boycott were made up. Of these not less than 50 were bakers, barbers following with 24, painters with 14, and framers with 12. These are the only trades in which double figures are recorded, and it will be seen that these four comparatively small trades account for 56½ per cent. of the total, the duration again being from one week to two and a half years. 41 are entered as successful, 19 unsuccessful, and 117 still pending. In the case of the barbers, all the cases were due to the employment of nonunion men. 24 cases in which the bakers were involved were due to the same cause, which was indeed during the year the most prolific subject of boycott. During the strike of bakers a secondary boycott was declared against grocers selling the bread made by boycotted firms, of which 37 were successful, 30 unsuccessful, and 14 remained undecided. The report states that while one firm admitted a loss of $1 per day, and another $5, the cost of the boycott to the labour organization was $1,000.

The report, in summarising the boycotts for the four years 1886-1889, remarks that:—'The boycott has lost the charm of novelty, and by repetitions under trivial conditions has lost the force it formerly possessed. The number of boycotts declared during these four years is returned as 894, the durations being indefinite, but ranging from a few days to many months.' 'The effect of the boycott,' says the report, 'is unknowable, associated as it often is with some other form of labour protest, which, being settld, the boycott dies out.'

If the decrease in the number of boycotts observed in the 1889 report is not considerable, it would appear that the old extreme