Victorian Trade Union Statistics, 1889-1914

Thanks to the diligence of colonial/State and Commonwealth statisticians, quantitative measurement of many socio-economic phenomena is largely a question of turning up the appropriate sections of the Year Books or Statistical Registers, transcribing data therefrom, and then setting about the task of solving the many difficult problems of continuity and comparability. Trade union statistics were not neglected; at least, not by the Commonwealth and the New South Wales statisticians. From the early 1900s, but more completely from the 1910s, these statisticians published much extremely useful information of trade unions registered under various Acts of Parliament. These pro vide historians with statistical evidence helpful in tracing the develop ment and strength of industrial labour for most of the present century. Yet for one of the most interesting periods of labour history, the 1890s and 1900s, there is almost nothing. From 1894 Coghlan published information of a few New South Wales unions, but this is so frag mentary that it is not at all useful when we try to measure the decline and resurgence of trade unionism during the decades. For the 1900s there is some improvement and for New South Wales there are reliable data on which to calculate unions' numerical and financial strength.1 For Victoria, there are no official statistics as the great majority of unions in this colony/State declined to register under the Trade Unions Act of 1890. By 1914, still only eleven unions had done so. Fortunately, from the 1880s onwards, successive secretaries of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council kept careful records of individual unions and sub ventions paid, both in the Accounts Books and, until 1903, in Minutes of the Council's fortnightly meetings. Aggregate figures taken from these sources have already been published.2 Table I lists monies paid by groups of unions affiliated with the Melbourne Trades Hall Council from 1889 to 1914. The amounts

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