Thomas Dunning

For example, Dunning advocated non-involvement during the 1863 Polish rebellion crisis and supported the independence of the South in the American Civil War; like some other ex-Chartists, i.e., John Bedford Leno and Patrick Matthew, he distrusted centralization of the federal government in America and compared Abraham Lincoln to Xerxes.

[8][9] Dunning viewed laws regulating relations between employers and employees, such as Master and Servant Acts, as putting industrial labour under "the old feudal notion of serfdom".

[10] In his writing, he called for industrial harmony but also justified the right of British workingmen, both urban and rural, to strike and unionize in order to raise the price of labour during the ongoing mid-Victorian economic upswing.

However, he cautioned against falling into radicalism and anarchy and emphasized that capital and labour "are each, notwithstanding these occasional disagreements, the truest friends of the other, and neither can inflict an injury on the other without its recoiling on himself.

[13] Liberal political economist John Stuart Mill commended Dunning for writing an "able tract" containing "many sound arguments.

"[14] Socialist economists Sydney and Beatrice Webb characterized Dunning as "one of the ablest Trade Unionists of his time.

will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.

[17]British labour historian Royden Harrison called Dunning, "the authoritative voice of the Trades Union oligarchy".