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Foundations of Mathematical Analysis 1st Edition S.
Ponnusamy (Auth.) Digital Instant Download
Author(s): S. Ponnusamy (auth.)
ISBN(s): 9780817682927, 0817682929
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 2.98 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english
S. Ponnusamy

Foundations of
Mathematical Analysis
S. Ponnusamy
Department of Mathematics
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Chennai 600 036
India
[email protected]

ISBN 978-0-8176-8291-0 e-ISBN 978-0-8176-8292-7

DOI 10.1007/978-0-8176-8292-7
Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941616

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 26-01, 26Axx

c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written
permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY
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to proprietary rights.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media

(www.birkhauser-science.com)
 To my parents

Saminathan Pillai and Valliammai

Preface

Mathematical analysis is central to mathematics curricula not only because

it is a stepping-stone to the study of advanced analysis, but also because of
its applications to other branches of mathematics, physics, and engineering at
both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Although there are many texts on
this subject under various titles such as “Analysis,” “Advanced Calculus,” and
“Real Analysis,” there seems to be a need for a text that explains fundamental
concepts with motivating examples and with a geometric flavor wherever it
is appropriate. It is hoped that this book will serve that need. This book
provides an introduction to mathematical analysis for students who have some
familiarity with the real number system. Many ideas are explained in more
than one way with accompanying figures in order to help students to think
about concepts and ideas in several ways. It is hoped that through this book,
both student and teacher will enjoy the beauty of some of the arguments that
are often used to prove key theorems—regardless of whether the proofs are
short or long.
The distinguishing features of the book are as follows. It gives a largely
self-contained and rigorous introduction to mathematical analysis that pre-
pares the student for more advanced courses by making the subject matter
interesting and meaningful. The exposition of standard material has been
done with extra care and abundant motivation. Unlike many standard texts,
the emphasis in the present book is on teaching these topics rather than
merely presenting the standard material. The book is developed through pa-
tient explanations, motivating examples, and pictorial illustrations conveying
geometric intuition in a pleasant and informal style to help the reader grasp
difficult concepts easily.
Each section ends with a carefully selected set of “Questions” and “Ex-
ercises.” The questions are intended to stimulate the reader to think, for
example, about the nature of a definition or the fate of a theorem without one
or more of its hypotheses. The exercises cover a broad spectrum of difficulty
and are intended not only for routine problem solving, but also to deepen

VII
VIII Preface

understanding of concepts and techniques of proof. As a whole, the questions

and exercises provide enough material for oral discussions and written assign-
ments, and working through them should lead to a mature knowledge of the
subject presented.
Some of the exercises are routine in nature, while others are interesting,
instructive, and challenging. Hints are provided for selected questions and
exercises. Students are strongly encouraged to work on these questions and
exercises and to discuss them with fellow students and teachers. They are also
urged to prepare short synopses of various proofs that they encounter.

Content and Organization: The book consists of eleven chapters, which are
further divided into sections that have a number of subsections. Each section
includes a careful selection of special topics covered in subsections that will
serve to illustrate the scope and power of various methods in real analysis.
Proofs of even the most elementary facts are detailed with a careful presenta-
tion. Some of the subsections may be ignored based on syllabus requirements,
although keen readers may certainly browse through them to broaden their
horizons and see how this material fits in the general scheme of things. The
main thrust of the book is on convergence of sequences and series, continu-
ity, differentiability, the Riemann integral, power series, uniform convergence
of sequences and series of functions, Fourier series, and various important
applications.
Chapter 1 provides a gentle introduction to the real number system, which
should be more or less familiar to the reader. Chapter 2 begins with the con-
cept of the limit of a sequence and examines various properties of convergent
sequences. We demonstrate the bounded monotone convergence theorem and
continue the discussion with Cauchy sequences. In Chapter 3, we define the
concept of the limit of a function through sequences. We then continue to
define continuity and differentiability of functions and establish properties of
these classes of functions, and briefly explain the uniformly continuity of func-
tions. In Chapter 4, we prove Rolle’s theorem and the mean value theorem
and apply continuity and differentiability in finding maxima and minima. In
Chapter 5, we establish a number of tests for determining whether a given
series is convergent or divergent. Here we introduce the base of the natu-
ral logarithm e and prove that it is irrational. We present Riemann’s rear-
rangement theorem for conditionally convergent series. We end this chapter
with applications of Dirichlet’s test and summability of series. There are two
well-known approaches to Riemann integration, namely Riemann’s approach
through the convergence of arbitrary Riemann sums, and Darboux’s approach
via upper and lower sums. In Chapter 6, we give both of these approaches and
show their equivalence, along with a number of motivating examples. After
presenting standard properties of Riemann integrals, we use them in evaluat-
ing the limits of certain sequences. In this chapter, we meet the fundamental
theorem of calculus, which “connects the integral of a function and its an-
 Preface IX

tiderivative.” In Chapter 7, we discuss the convergence and the divergence

of improper integrals and give interesting examples of improper integrals,
namely, the gamma function and the beta function. Our particular applica-
tion emphasizes the integral test, the convergence of harmonic p-series, and
the Abel–Pringsheim divergence test. We deal with a number of applications
of the Riemann integral, e.g., in finding areas of regions bounded by curves
and arc lengths of plane curves.
Chapter 8 begins with the theory of power series, their convergence prop-
erties, and Abel’s theorem and its relation to the Cauchy product. Finally,
we present some methods of computing the interval of convergence of a given
power series. Chapter 9 contains a systematic discussion of pointwise and uni-
form convergence of sequence of functions. Students generally find it difficult
to understand the difference between pointwise and uniform convergence. We
illustrate this difference with numerous examples. We examine the close re-
lationship between uniform convergence and integration—on the interchange
of the order of integration and summation in the limit process—followed by
a similar relationship between uniform convergence and differentiation. In
Chapter 10, we introduce Fourier series with their convergence properties. In
addition, we present a number of examples to demonstrate the use of Fourier
series, such as how a given function can be represented in terms of a series of
sine and cosine functions. The reader is encouraged to make use of computer
packages such as Mathematica and MapleTM where appropriate. Finally, in
Chapter 11, we introduce a special class of functions, namely functions of
bounded variation, and give a careful exposition of the Riemann–Stieltjes in-
tegral.

Numbering: The various theorems, corollaries, lemmas, propositions, remarks,

examples, questions, and exercises are numbered consecutively within a chap-
ter, without regard to label, and always carry the number of the chapter in
which they reside. The end of the proof of a theorem, corollary, lemma, or
proposition is indicated by a solid square and the end of a worked-out ex-
ample or remark by a bullet •.

Acknowledgments: Special thanks are due to my friend G.P. Youvaraj, who

read the entire first draft of the manuscript with care and made many valu-
able suggestions. It is a great pleasure in offering my warmest thanks to Herb
Silverman, who read the final manuscript and assisted me with numerous
helpful suggestions. My Ph.D. students, especially, S.K. Sahoo, Allu Vasude-
varao, and P. Vasundhra, helped me with the preparation of the LATEX files on
different occasions. Figures were created mainly by S.K. Sahoo. I thank them
all for their help. I am grateful to my wife, Geetha, daughter, Abirami, and
son, Ashwin, for their support and encouragement; their constant reminders
helped me in completing this project on time.
X Preface

The book was written with support from the Golden Jubilee Book Writ-
ing Scheme of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. I thank
IIT Madras for this support. It gives me immense pleasure in thanking the
publisher and the editor, Tom Grasso, for his efficient responses during the
preparation of the manuscript.

IIT Madras, India S. Ponnusamy

Contents

1 The Real Number System 1

1.1 Sets and Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Review of Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 The Rational Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 The Irrational Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.4 Algebraic Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.5 The Field of Real Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.6 An Ordered Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Supremum and Infimum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.1 Least Upper Bounds and Greatest Lower Bounds . . . . . . 11
1.2.2 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.3 Equivalent and Countable Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.2.4 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2 Sequences: Convergence and Divergence 23

2.1 Sequences and Their Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.1 Limits of Sequences of Real Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.2 Operations on Convergent Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1.3 The Squeeze/Sandwich Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1.4 Bounded Monotone Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.5 Subsequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.1.6 Bounded Monotone Convergence Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.1.7 The Bolzano–Weierstrass Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.1.8 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.2 Limit Inferior, Limit Superior, and Cauchy Sequences . . . . . . . . 53
2.2.1 Cauchy Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.2.2 Summability of Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.2.3 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

XI
XII Contents

3 Limits, Continuity, and Differentiability 71

3.1 Limit of a Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.1.1 Limit Point of a Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.1.2 Sequential Characterization of Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.1.3 Properties of Limits of Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.1.4 One-Sided Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.1.5 Infinite Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.1.6 Limits at Infinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.1.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.2 Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.2.1 Basic Properties of Continuous Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.2.2 Squeeze Rule and Examples of Continuous Functions . . 88
3.2.3 Uniform Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.2.4 Piecewise Continuous Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.3 Differentiability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3.3.1 Basic Properties of Differentiable Functions . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.3.2 Smooth and Piecewise Smooth Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.3.3 L’Hôpital’s Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.3.4 Limit of a Sequence from a Continuous Function . . . . . . 108
3.3.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

4 Applications of Differentiability 115

4.1 Basic Concepts of Injectivity and Inverses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.1.1 Basic Issues about Inverses on R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.1.2 Further Understanding of Inverse Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . 119
4.1.3 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.2 Differentiability from the Geometric View Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.2.1 Local Extremum Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.2.2 Rolle’s Theorem and the Mean Value Theorem . . . . . . . . 127
4.2.3 L’Hôpital’s Rule: Another Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.2.4 Second-Derivative Test and Concavity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.2.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

5 Series: Convergence and Divergence 147

5.1 Infinite Series of Real Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.1.1 Geometric Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.1.2 Decimal Representation of Real Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.1.3 The Irrationality of e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.1.4 Telescoping Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.1.5 Operations and Convergence Criteria in Series . . . . . . . . 159
5.1.6 Absolutely and Conditionally Convergent Series . . . . . . . 161
5.1.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.2 Convergence and Divergence Tests for Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
5.2.1 Basic Divergence Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
 Contents XIII

5.2.2 Tests for Series of Nonnegative Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

5.2.3 Abel–Pringsheim Divergence Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.2.4 Direct Comparison Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
5.2.5 Limit Comparison Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
5.2.6 Cauchy’s Condensation Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
5.2.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.3 Alternating Series and Conditional Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.3.1 Alternating Series Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
5.3.2 Rearrangement of Terms in a Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
5.3.3 Riemann’s Theorem on Conditionally Convergent
Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
5.3.4 Dirichlet Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.3.5 Cauchy Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
5.3.6 (C, 1) Summability of Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.3.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

6 Definite and Indefinite Integrals 209

6.1 Definition and Basic Properties of Riemann Integrals . . . . . . . . . 209
6.1.1 Darboux Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
6.1.2 Basic Properties of Upper and Lower Sums . . . . . . . . . . . 216
6.1.3 Criteria for Integrability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
6.1.4 Basic Examples of Integrable Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
6.1.5 Integrability of Monotone/Continuous Functions . . . . . . 230
6.1.6 Basic Properties of Definite Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
6.1.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
6.2 Fundamental Theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
6.2.1 The Fundamental Theorems of Calculus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
6.2.2 The Mean Value Theorem for Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
6.2.3 Average Value of a Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
6.2.4 The Logarithmic and Exponential Functions . . . . . . . . . . 260
6.2.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

7 Improper Integrals and Applications of Riemann

Integrals 271
7.1 Improper Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
7.1.1 Improper Integrals over an Unbounded Interval . . . . . . . 272
7.1.2 Improper Integrals of Unbounded Functions . . . . . . . . . . 280
7.1.3 The Gamma and Beta Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
7.1.4 Wallis’s Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
7.1.5 The Integral Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
7.1.6 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
7.2 Applications of the Riemann Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
7.2.1 Area in Polar Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
7.2.2 Arc Length of a Plane Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
7.2.3 Arc Length for Parameterized Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
XIV Contents

7.2.4 Arc Length of Polar Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

7.2.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

8 Power Series 331

8.1 The Ratio Test and the Root Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
8.1.1 The Ratio Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
8.1.2 The Root Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
8.1.3 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
8.2 Basic Issues around the Ratio and Root Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
8.2.1 Convergence of Power Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
8.2.2 Radius of Convergence of Power Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
8.2.3 Methods for Finding the Radius of Convergence . . . . . . . 347
8.2.4 Uniqueness Theorem for Power Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
8.2.5 Real Analytic Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
8.2.6 The Exponential Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
8.2.7 Taylor’s Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
8.2.8 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

9 Uniform Convergence of Sequences of Functions 371

9.1 Pointwise and Uniform Convergence of Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
9.1.1 Definitions and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
9.1.2 Uniform Convergence and Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
9.1.3 Interchange of Limit and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
9.1.4 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
9.2 Uniform Convergence of Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
9.2.1 Two Tests for Uniform Convergence of Series . . . . . . . . . 396
9.2.2 Interchange of Summation and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
9.2.3 Interchange of Limit and Differentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
9.2.4 The Weierstrass Approximation Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
9.2.5 Abel’s Limit Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
9.2.6 Abel’s Summability of Series and Tauber’s
First Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
9.2.7 (C, α) Summable Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
9.2.8 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

10 Fourier Series and Applications 429

10.1 A Basic Issue in Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
10.1.1 Periodic Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
10.1.2 Trigonometric Polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
10.1.3 The Space E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
10.1.4 Basic Results on Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
10.1.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
10.2 Convergence of Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
10.2.1 Statement of Dirichlet’s Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
10.2.2 Fourier Series of Functions with an Arbitrary Period . . . 448
 Contents XV

10.2.3 Change of Interval and Half-Range Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

10.2.4 Issues Concerning Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
10.2.5 Dirichlet’s Kernel and Its Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
10.2.6 Two Versions of Dirichlet’s Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
10.2.7 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

11 Functions of Bounded Variation and Riemann–Stieltjes

Integrals 469
11.1 Functions of Bounded Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
11.1.1 Sufficient Conditions for Functions of Bounded
Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
11.1.2 Basic Properties of Functions of Bounded Variation . . . . 474
11.1.3 Characterization of Functions of Bounded Variation . . . 479
11.1.4 Bounded Variation and Absolute Continuity . . . . . . . . . . 483
11.1.5 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
11.2 Stieltjes Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
11.2.1 The Darboux–Stieltjes Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
11.2.2 The Riemann–Stieltjes Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
11.2.3 Questions and Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

References for Further Reading 507

Index of Notation 509

Appendix A: Hints for Selected Questions and Exercises 513

Index 565
1
The Real Number System

This chapter consists of reference material with which the reader should be
familiar. We present it here both to refresh the reader’s memory and to have
them available for reference. In Section 1.1, we begin by recalling elementary
properties of sets, in particular the set of rational numbers and their deci-
mal representations. Then we proceed to introduce the irrational numbers. In
Section 1.2, we briefly discuss the notion of supremum and infimum and state
the completeness axiom for the set of real numbers. We introduce the concept
of one-to-one, onto, and bijective mappings, as well as that of equivalent sets.

1.1 Sets and Functions

1.1.1 Review of Sets

The notion of a set is one of the most basic concepts in all of mathemat-
ics. We begin our discussion with some set-theoretic terminology and a few
facts from the algebra of sets. A set is a collection of well-defined objects
(e.g., numbers, vectors, functions) and is usually designated by a capital let-
ter A, B, C, . . . , X, Y, Z. If A is a set, we write a ∈ A to express “a is an
element (or member) of A” or “a belongs to A.” Likewise, the expression
a∈ / A means “a is not an element of A” or “a does not belong to A.” For
instance, A = {a, b} means that A consists of a and b, while the set A = {a}
consists of a alone. We use the symbol “∅” to denote the empty set, that is,
the set with no elements.
If B is also a set and every element of B is also an element of A, then we
say that B is a subset of A or that B is contained in A, and we write B ⊂ A.
We also say that A contains B and write A ⊃ B. That is,1

A ⊃ B ⇐⇒ B ⊂ A ⇐⇒ a ∈ B implies that a ∈ A.

1
The symbol ⇐⇒ and the word “iff” both mean “if and only if.”

S. Ponnusamy, Foundations of Mathematical Analysis, 1

DOI 10.1007/978-0-8176-8292-7 1,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
2 1 The Real Number System

Clearly, every set is a subset of itself, and therefore to distinguish subsets that
do not coincide with the set in question, we say that A is a proper subset of
B if A ⊂ B and in addition, B also contains at least one element that does
not belong to A. We express this by the symbol A  B, a proper subset A of
B. Since A ⊂ A, it follows that for any two sets A and B, we have
A = B ⇐⇒ B ⊂ A and A ⊂ B.
In this case, we say that the two sets A and B are equal. Thus, in order to
prove that the sets A and B are equal, we may show that A ⊂ B and B ⊂ A.
When A is not a subset of B, then we indicate this by the notation
A ⊂ B,
meaning that there is at least one element a ∈ A such that a ∈ / B. For every
A ⊂ X, the complement of A, relative to X, is the set of all x ∈ X such that
x∈/ A. We shall use the notation
Ac = X \A = {x : x ∈ X and x ∈
/ A}.
The complement X c of X itself is the empty set ∅. Also, ∅c = X.
We often use the symbol := to mean that the symbol on the left is defined
by the expression on the right. For instance,
N := {1, 2, . . .}, the set of natural numbers.
A set can be defined by listing its elements or by specifying a property that
determines the elements in the set. For instance,
A = {2n : n ∈ N}.
That is, A = {x : P (x)} represents the set A of all elements x such that “the
property P (x) is true.” Also, B = {x ∈ A : Q(x)} represents the subset of A
for which the “property Q(x)” holds. For instance,
B = {1, 3} or A = {x : x ∈ N, 2x3 − 9x2 + 10x − 3 = 0}.
For a given set A, the power set of A, denoted by P(A), is defined to be
the set of all subsets of A:
P(A) = {B : B ⊂ A}.
If A and B are sets, then their union, denoted by A ∪ B, is the set of all
elements that are elements of either A or B:
A ∪ B = {x : x ∈ A or x ∈ B}.
Clearly A ∪ B = B ∪ A. The intersection of the sets A and B, denoted by
A ∩ B, is the set consisting of elements that belong to both A and B:
A ∩ B = {x : x ∈ A and x ∈ B}.
Note that A \B is also used for A ∩ B c . Two sets are said to be disjoint if
their intersection is the empty set. The notion of intersection and union can
 1.1 Sets and Functions 3

be extended to larger collections of sets. For instance, if Λ is an indexing set

such as N, then 
Ai = {x : x ∈ Ai for some i ∈ Λ}
i∈Λ

and 
Ai = {x : x ∈ Ai for every i ∈ Λ}.
i∈Λ

A collection of sets {Ai : i ∈ Λ} is said to be pairwise disjoint if

Ai ∩ Aj = ∅ for i, j ∈ Λ, i = j.
We do not include here basic set-theoretic properties, since these should be
familiar from high-school mathematics.
We now list Giuseppe Peano’s (1858–1932) five axioms for N:
• 1 ∈ N.
• Each n ∈ N has a successor, namely n + 1 (sometimes designated by n ).
• 1 is not the successor of any n ∈ N.
• If m and n in N have the same successor, then m = n, i.e., two distinct
elements in N cannot have the same successor.
• Suppose A ⊂ N. Then A = N if the following two conditions are satisfied:
(i) 1 ∈ A.
(ii) If n ∈ A, then n + 1 ∈ A.
The last axiom is the basis for the principle of mathematical induction, and
so it is called the induction axiom.
The principle of mathematical induction reads as follows.
Theorem 1.1 (Principle of mathematical induction). Suppose that P (n)
is a statement concerning n ∈ N. If P (1) is true and if P (k + 1) is true when-
ever P (k) is true, then P (n) is true for all n ≥ 1.
As an illustration of this theorem, the following can easily be proved:
n
 n(n + 1)
(a) k = for all n ≥ 1.
2
k=1
n
 n(n + 1)(2n + 1)
(b) k2 = .
6
k=1
n
n2 (n + 1)2
(c) k3 = .
4
k=1
n+1
(d) (n + 2)!
√ >n 2 √ all n ≥ 1.
for
(e) (3 + 5) + (3 − 5)n is an even integer for n ≥ 1 (use the identity
ak+1 + bk+1 = (ak + bk )(a + b) − (ak−1 + bk−1 )ab).
We shall now begin to introduce the set Q of rational numbers and the set
R of real numbers.
4 1 The Real Number System

1.1.2 The Rational Numbers

A quotient of integers m/n (n = 0) is called a rational number. We assume
that readers are familiar with the properties of the following basic sets:
Z := {. . . , −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, . . .} the set of integers,
m 
Q := : m ∈ Z, n ∈ N the set of rational numbers.
n
Clearly, N  Z  Q. We remark that the representation of a rational number
as a ratio of integers is not unique; for instance,
1 2 3
= = = ··· .
2 4 6
However, in the form m/n, if we assume that m and n have no common factor
greater than 1, then the representation is unique. We frequently represent
positive rational numbers in their decimal expansions. By a (positive) decimal
fraction, we mean a number
0 · a1 a2 a3 . . . ,
where each ak , k ≥ 1, is an integer with ak ∈ {0, 1, 2, . . . , 9}. Here the ten
integer values are called digits. When a decimal terminates, it means
n
 ak
0 · a 1 a 2 a 3 . . . an = ,
10k
k=1

which is clearly a positive rational number. Thus, Q contains all terminating

decimals such as
123 789
−0.123 = − , 0.789 = ,....
1000 1000
More generally, a decimal is an expression of the form
c0 · a0 a1 . . . ,
where c0 ∈ Z and ak ∈ {0, 1, 2, . . . , 9}, k = 1, 2, . . ..
Thus, there are two types of decimals, namely terminating (finite) and
nonterminating (infinite). For instance, applying long division to 1/3 and 3/7
gives
1 3
= 0.333 . . . and = 0.428571428 . . .,
3 7
respectively. These nonterminating decimals are repeating and so may be ab-
breviated as
0.333 . . . = 0.3 and 0.428571428 . . . = 0.428571,
respectively. Thus, we formulate the following definition (omitting some tech-
nical details).
Definition 1.2. A rational number is a number whose decimal expansion ei-
ther terminates after a finite number of places or repeats.
 1.1 Sets and Functions 5

y y
y = x2 − 2
(0,1)

1 x x
x such that
x such that x2 = 2
O 1 (1,0) x x2 = 2 (−2, 0)

Fig. 1.1. The unit square. Fig. 1.2. Graph of y = x2 − 2.

1.1.3 The Irrational Numbers

Although the set Q of rational numbers is a nice algebraic system, it is not

adequate for describing many quantities such as lengths, areas, and volumes
that occur in geometry. For example, what is the length of the diagonal in a
square of unit length? (See Figure 1.1.)
What is the side length of a square with area 2? 3? 5? 7? In other words,
is there a rational number x such that

x2 = 2 or x2 = 3 or x2 = 5 or x2 = 7?

What is the area of the closed unit disk x2 + y 2 ≤ 1?

Theorem 1.3. There is no rational number x such that x2 = 2.

Proof. Suppose for a contradiction that x = m/n, where m and n have no

common factors. Then
 m 2
= 2, i.e., m2 = 2n2 ,
n
where m ∈ Z and n ∈ N have no common factors other than 1. This shows
that m2 is even, and so is m (if m were odd, then m2 would be odd). Hence,
there exists k ∈ Z such that m = 2k. This gives

(2k)2 = 2n2 or 2k 2 = n2 ,

and therefore n is also even. The last statement contradicts our assumption
that m and n have no common factor other than 1.
2
√ that the solution of x − 2 = 0 is not a rational number.
It turns out, then,
We denote it by 2 and call it an irrational number.
If we draw the graph of y = x2 − 2 (see Figure 1.2), the value of x at
which the graph crosses the y-axis is thus a “new type” of number x, which
satisfies the equation x2 − 2 = 0. It is called an irrational number (see
Questions 1.11(7)).
6 1 The Real Number System

1.1.4 Algebraic Numbers

A natural number is called a prime number (or a prime) if it is greater than

one and has no divisors other than 1 and itself. For example, 2, 3, 5, 7 are
prime numbers. On the other hand, 4, 6 are not prime (since 4 = 2 × 2 and
6 = 2 × 3). There are infinitely many primes, as demonstrated by Euclid
around 300 BC, and there are various methods to determine whether a given
number n is prime.

Definition 1.4. A number x is called algebraic if there exists an n ∈ N,

a0 , a1 , . . . , an ∈ Z such that

a0 + a1 x + · · · + an xn = 0 (an = 0).

For instance, it follows that

• Every rational is algebraic (x = m/n implies m − nx = 0).
• 71/3 , 31/2 , 21/2 all represent algebraic numbers, since they are the solutions
of
x3 − 7 = 0, x2 − 3 = 0, x2 − 2 = 0,
respectively.
Our next basic result shows that a rational number has a special relationship
to polynomial equations with integer coefficients.
Theorem 1.5 (Rational zeros theorem). Suppose that a rational number
r = p/q (in lowest term) solves the polynomial equation

a0 + a1 x + a2 x2 + · · · + an xn = 0 (a0 = 0, an = 0),

where n ≥ 1 and ak ∈ Z for 0 ≤ k ≤ n. Then

(a) p divides a0 , i.e., a0 = p · k for some integer k.
(b) q divides an , i.e., an = q · m for some integer m.
Proof. By hypothesis,
n
p p
a0 + a1 + · · · + an = 0.
q q
Multiplying by q n gives

a0 q n + a1 pq n−1 + · · · + an−1 pn−1 q + an pn = 0,

or
an pn = −q[a0 q n−1 + a1 pq n−2 + · · · + an−1 pn−1 ].
It follows that q divides an pn . But since p and q have no common factors, q
cannot divide pn , and so q must divide an . Similarly, solving the equation for
a0 q n shows that p must divide a0 .
 1.1 Sets and Functions 7

Example 1.6. Consider x2 − 2 = 0. Then a0 = −2, a1 = 0, and a2 = 1. Thus,

the only possible rational solutions of x2 − 2 = 0 are ±1, ±2 (if x = p/q, then
integer values of p for which p divides 2 are ±1, ±2, and the natural number
q√for which q divides 1 is 1). Substituting these possible solutions shows that
2 cannot be rational. •
1.1.5 The Field of Real Numbers

We have the natural proper inclusions

N  Z  Q  R,

where the set R consists of rational numbers (terminating and repeating dec-
imals) and all √irrational numbers (nonrepeating decimals) such as the alge-
braic number 2. The mathematical system on which we are going to base
our analysis is the set R of all real numbers (see Section 1.2).
A field is a set F that possesses two binary operations, namely addition
( + ) and multiplication ( · ), such that F is closed with respect to these two
operations (meaning that a, b ∈ F implies a+b ∈ F and a·b ∈ F ) and satisfies
the familiar rules of arithmetic:
• Addition is commutative, i.e., a + b = b + a for each a, b ∈ F .
• Addition is associative, i.e., (a + b) + c = a + (b + c) for each a, b, c ∈ F .
• There exists an element 0 ∈ F such that 0 + a = a for all a ∈ F (0 is called
the additive identity).
• To every a ∈ F there corresponds an additive inverse −a ∈ F such that
a + (−a) = 0.
• Multiplication is commutative, i.e., a · b = b · a for each a, b ∈ F .
• Multiplication is associative, i.e., (a · b) · c = a · (b · c) for each a, b, c ∈ F .
• There exists an element 1 ∈ F , 1 = 0, such that 1 · a = a for all a ∈ F
(1 is called the multiplicative identity).
• To every 0 = a ∈ F there corresponds a multiplicative inverse a−1 ∈ F
such that a · a−1 = 1.
• Multiplication is distributive over addition:

a · (b + c) = a · b + a · c for each a, b ∈ F .

We state the following elementary properties, and we leave their proofs as

simple exercises.

Theorem 1.7. In a field F , the following are consequences of the field axioms:
(a) The additive identity and the multiplicative identity are unique.
(b) The additive inverse of an element and the multiplicative inverse of a
nonzero element are unique.
(c) a · 0 = 0 for every a ∈ F .
(d) a · (−b) = (−a) · b = −(a · b) for every a, b ∈ F .
8 1 The Real Number System

(e) −(−a) = a for every a ∈ F .

(f ) (−a)(−b) = ab for every a, b ∈ F .
(g) a + c = b + c implies a = b for each a, b, c ∈ F .
(h) ab = 0 implies either a = 0 or b = 0 for each a, b ∈ F .
(i) ac = bc and c = 0 implies a = b.

1.1.6 An Ordered Field

Definition 1.8. A field F is said to be an ordered field if there is a nonempty

subset P of F , called positive, satisfying the following additional axioms:
(a) if a, b ∈ P , then a + b ∈ P and a · b ∈ P (closed under addition and
multiplication, respectively),
(b) for every a ∈ F , exactly one of the following holds:

a ∈ P, −a ∈ P, a = 0.

Thus, for elements a, b ∈ F , we say that

• a < b (or b > a) if b − a ∈ P ,
• a ≤ b if a < b or a = b,
• b ∈ P ⇐⇒ b > 0,
• −a ∈ P ⇐⇒ a < 0, i.e., a is called negative.
Property (a) in Definition 1.8 may be read as follows:

a, b ∈ P, i.e., a > 0 and b > 0 =⇒ a + b > 0 and ab > 0.

Property (b) implies that for any pair of elements a, b ∈ F , exactly one of the
following holds:
a < b, a = b, a > b.
The most familiar examples of fields are the set Q of rational numbers and
the set R of real numbers.
We may now write down some familiar properties concerning the ordered
relation of R.
• If a, b ∈ R, then exactly one of the following holds:
a < b or a > b or a = b. [Law of trichotomy]
• If a, b, c ∈ R, then we have
(a) a < b and b < c implies a < c. [Law of transitivity]
(b) a < b implies a + c < b + c. [Law of compatibility w.r.t.
addition]
(c) a < b and c > 0 implies ac < bc.
(d) a < b and c < 0 implies bc < ac.
[Law of compatibility w.r.t. multiplication]
(e) a = 0 implies a2 > 0.
• If a ∈ R, then there exists a positive integer n such that n > a.
[Archimedean property]
 1.1 Sets and Functions 9

The field axioms together with an ordered relation make both Q and R
what are called ordered fields. We do not include the details, since that would
defeat the purpose of this book. So, we accept the following.

Theorem 1.9. Q and R are ordered fields.

For a ∈ R, its modulus |a| is defined by

a if a ≥ 0,
|a| =
−a if a < 0.

We call |a| the absolute value of a. It is particularly useful in describing dis-

tances: we interpret |a| as the distance along the real line between 0 and a. In
the same way, for a, b ∈ R, we let |a − b| denote the distance between a and
b, which is same as the distance along the real line from 0 to a − b. Here is a
list of basic properties of the absolute value.

Theorem 1.10. For a, b, c ∈ R,

(a) |a| = 0, with equality iff a = 0.
(b) −|a| ≤ a ≤ |a|.
(c) For r > 0, |a| < r if and only −r < a < r.
(d) |ab| = |a| · |b|.
(e) |a + b| ≤ |a| + |b|.
(f ) |a − b| ≥ | |a| − |b| |.
(g) |a − b| = |b − a|.
(h) |a − c| ≤ |a − b| + |b − c|.

1.1.7 Questions and Exercises

Questions 1.11.

1. For what values of x does x2 ∈ N imply x ∈ Q?

2. For each a, b, c real, does there always exist a real x such that ax2 + bx+
c = 0?
3. If a set A has n elements, how many elements does the power set P(A)
have?
4. Why do we usually express a fraction in lowest terms (i.e., without
common factors)?
5. Is there a√rational number x such that x3 − x − 7 = 0?
6. Is 3 + 2 rational or irrational?
√
7. If p > 1 is a prime number, can p be a rational number?
8. If a and b are two irrational numbers, what can you say about a + b, a − b,
and ab? How about αa, where α is a rational number?
10 1 The Real Number System

Exercises 1.12.
√
1. Show that if m, n ∈ N and xm = n has no integer solution, then m n is
irrational. √ √
2. Show that √ neither 3 6 nor 2 + 2 is a rational number.
3. Show that n is irrational for every natural number n that is not a perfect
square.
4. Show√ that following
√ numbers√are irrational:
(a) 12. (b) n + 1 + n − 1.
5. For a, b ∈ R, using the axioms of an ordered field, show that
(a) 0 < a < b iff 1/a > 1/b.
(b) a < b =⇒ ap < bp whenever 0 < a < b and p > 0.
6. Show that for all a1 , a2 , . . . , an ∈ R,

|a1 + a2 + · · · + an | ≤ |a1 | + |a2 | + · · · + |an |.

7. Prove by the method of induction that

2
 n  n n
n(n + 1)(n + 2)
3
(a) k = k . (b) k(k + 1) = .
3
k=1 k=1 k=1

1.2 Supremum and Infimum

Definition 1.13. Suppose that A is a nonempty subset of R.
(a) If there exists an M such that x ≤ M for every x ∈ A, then we say that
M is an upper bound for A. In this case, we say that A is bounded above
by M . Geometrically, this means that no point of A lies to the right of M
on the real line.
(b) If there exists an m such that x ≥ m for every x ∈ A, then m is called
a lower bound for A. In this case, we say that A is bounded below by m.
Geometrically, this means that no point of A lies to the left of m on the
real line.
(c) The set A is said to be bounded if it is bounded above and bounded below.

We remark that a set A is bounded iff there exist real numbers m and M

such that A ⊂ [m, M ], or equivalently, if there exists a positive number a such
that A ⊂ [−a, a]. A set that is not bounded is said to be unbounded. Thus, a
set S is unbounded if for each R > 0 there is a point x ∈ S such that |x| > R.
For instance, the set A1 = {1/n : n ∈ N} is a bounded set, but A2 = (−∞, 2]
and A3 = {n : n ∈ N} are unbounded.
Any finite set of real numbers obviously has a greatest element and a
smallest element, but this property does not necessarily hold for infinite sets.
For instance, (0, 1] has a greatest element, namely 1, but neither the set N nor
the interval [0, 1) has a greatest element. On the other hand, [0, 1) is bounded
above by 1, and N is not bounded above by any real number.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 11

We have seen that not all sets are bounded above. However, if a nonempty
set of real numbers is bounded, it has a least upper bound. What does
this mean?

1.2.1 Least Upper Bounds and Greatest Lower Bounds

Definition 1.14 (Least upper bound). Let A be a nonempty subset of R.

Then a real number M is said to be the least upper bound (lub) of A in R if:
(a) A is bounded above by M .
(b) For any  > 0, there exists a point y ∈ A such that y > M − . That is,
M is the smallest among all the upper bounds of A.
If A has a least upper bound M , we write M = lub A.

The condition (b) is equivalent to saying that α < M implies that α is not
an upper bound for A. Equivalently, it means that if M  is an upper bound
for A, then M  ≥ M . For instance, every M  ≥ 2 is an upper bound for the set
A = [0, 2), whereas 1.99999 is not. The set N is not bounded above, because
for each M , there is a positive integer n with n > M , by the archimedean
property of R.

Lemma 1.15. If the least upper bound of a set exists, then it is unique.

Proof. Let A ⊆ R, where A is bounded above. Suppose that α and α are

both least upper bounds for A. Then both α and α are upper bounds for A.
Since both α and α are least upper bounds, we must have

α ≤ α and α ≤ α .

Thus, α = α , as required.

Definition 1.16 (Greatest lower bound). A real number m is said to be

the greatest lower bound (glb) of a set A ⊂ R if:
(a) A is bounded below by m.
(b) For any  > 0, there exists a point y ∈ A such that y < m + . That is, m
is the largest among all the lower bounds of A.
If A has a glb m, we write m = glb A.

The condition (b) means that if m > m, then m is not a lower bound
for A.

Lemma 1.17. If a set has a greatest lower bound, then it is unique.

Proof. The proof follows from arguments similar to those of the proof of
Lemma 1.15, and so we omit the details.
12 1 The Real Number System

The completeness properties of the real numbers can be expressed in the

following forms.

Definition 1.18 (Least upper bound property). Every nonempty subset

A of real numbers that has an upper bound has a least upper bound, lub A.

Definition 1.19 (Greatest lower bound property). Every nonempty sub-

set A of real numbers that has a lower bound has a greatest lower bound glb A.

It is this property that distinguishes R from Q. For example, the algebraic

equation
x2 − 2 = 0
is solvable in R but not in Q. There are uncountably many numbers in R,
such as π, that are neither rational nor algebraic.
Both these facts are intuitively obvious. These two theorems—also called
the continuum properties—are fundamental results of analysis. In conclusion,
R is an ordered field that satisfies the continuum properties.
Now we extend the notions of lub A and glb A in a convenient form as
follows. For a nonempty subset A of real numbers, we define the supremum
of A (denoted by sup A) and the infimum of A (denoted by inf A) by

∞ if A has no upper bound,

sup A =
lub A if A is bounded above,

and
−∞ if A has no lower bound,
inf A =
glb A if A is bounded below,
respectively. We remark that the symbols sup A and inf A always make sense
and that inf A ≤ sup A.
For a ≤ b, important subsets of R are intervals:
• (a, b) = {x ∈ R : a < x < b}. [open interval]
• [a, b] = {x ∈ R : a ≤ x ≤ b}. [closed interval]
• (a, b] = {x ∈ R : a < x ≤ b}. [half-open interval]
• [a, b) = {x ∈ R : a ≤ x < b}. [half-open interval]
The two endpoints a and b are points in R. A set consisting of a single point
is sometimes called a degenerate interval. It is sometimes convenient to allow
the symbols a = −∞ and b = +∞, so that

(−∞, b) = {x ∈ R : x < b},

(−∞, b] = {x ∈ R : x ≤ b},
(a, ∞) = {x ∈ R : x > a},
[a, ∞) = {x ∈ R : x ≥ a},
(−∞, ∞) = {x : x ∈ R} = the real line.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 13

More general subsets of R that we often use may be obtained by taking a finite
or infinite union of intervals or a finite or infinite intersection of intervals.
Finally, for δ > 0 and a ∈ R, we call

(a − δ, a + δ) = {x ∈ R : |x − a| < δ}

a δ-neighborhood of a; it consists of all points x that are within distance δ of a.

Example 1.20. If A = [0, 1), then we see that sup A = 1. Indeed, 1 is an

upper bound for A. To show that 1 is the least upper bound, it suffices to
prove that each M  < 1 is not an upper bound of A. In order to do this, we
must find an element x ∈ [0, 1) with x > M  . But we know that for every
M  < 1, there exists an x, say x = (M  + 1)/2, with

M  < x < 1.

This inequality clearly implies that M  cannot be an upper bound for [0, 1),
i.e., M = 1 is the least upper bound. •
Using the same procedure as in the above example, we have the following:
(1) If A = {1, 2, 3}, then inf A = 1 and sup A = 3.
(2) If A = {x : −1 ≤ x < 3}, then inf A = −1 and sup A = 3.
(3) If A = {x : x > 3}, then A has no upper bound, so that sup A = ∞. Also,
inf A = 3.
(4) If A = {x : x < 1}, then A has no lower bound, so that inf A = −∞.
Also, sup A = 1.
(5) The sets Z and Q are neither bounded above nor bounded below. On the
other hand, the set N is bounded below but not bounded above. In fact,
1 is a lower bound for N and so is any number less than 1. Moreover,
inf N = 1.

Definition 1.21. Let A ⊂ R. If the least upper bound M of A belongs to A,

then we say that A has a largest element. The smallest element of A may be
defined similarly.

If a set A has a largest element M , then we call M the maximum element

of the set A, and we write M = max A. Similarly, if A has a smallest element
m, we call m the minimum element of A and write m = min A. In this case,
we have inf A = min A and sup A = max A.
If a, b ∈ Q, then so is its average (a + b)/2, which lies between a and b.
Thus, between any two rational numbers there are infinitely many rational
numbers. This shows that given a rational number, we cannot talk about the
“next largest rational number.” This observation and the above discussion
imply that the rational number system has certain gaps. The real number
system fills those gaps. Moreover, a convenient way of representing rational
numbers is geometrically, as points on a number line (see Figure 1.3).
14 1 The Real Number System

negative positive
a<b
−2 −1 0 1 1 1 a b
3 2

Fig. 1.3. The number line.

This geometric representation of rational numbers shows that the set of

rational numbers has a natural order on the number line. If a lies to the left
of b, then we write
a < b or b > a,
and say that “a is less than b” or “b is greater than a.” For example,
1 2
< < 1.
2 3
The completeness axioms help us to conclude that there are both rational and
irrational numbers between any two distinct real numbers (in fact, there are
infinitely many of each).

1.2.2 Functions
Let X and Y be two nonempty subsets of a universal set, for example, R. A
function or mapping 2 f from X to Y is a rule, or formula, or assignment, or
relation of association that assigns to each x ∈ X a unique element y ∈ Y .
We write
f : X →Y (1.1)
to denote the mapping f from X to Y . To be more precise about the rule of
association, we say that a function from X to Y is a set f of ordered pairs
in X × Y such that for each x ∈ X there exists a unique element y ∈ Y such
that (x, y) ∈ f ; i.e., if (x, y) ∈ f and (x, y  ) ∈ f , then y = y  .
The set X on which the function f is defined is called the domain of f , and
we write dom (f ) for X. We call the set Y the codomain of f . When we define
a map by describing its effect on the individual elements, we use the symbol
→; thus “the mapping x → y of X into Y ” means that f is a mapping of X
into Y taking each element x of X into a unique element y of Y . In practice,
we denote the unique y by f (x) and say that f (x) is the image of x under f ,
or the value of f at x. Thus, when we use the notation (x, y) ∈ f , we write
y = f (x). For instance, if X = {a, b, c, d} and Y = {1, 2, 3}, then the rule
a → 1, b → 1, c → 2, d → 1,
defines a function f : X → Y , because it assigns a unique element of Y to
each element of X.

2
The terms mapping, function, and transformation are frequently used synony-
mously.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 15

In this book we will be concerned mainly with functions for which X ⊂ R

and Y = R, i.e., f is a real-valued function of a real variable x. However, when
we discuss Fourier series, we will be dealing with complex-valued functions
defined on a real variable t, although we shall not pay much attention to
this. If a function is defined without its domain being indicated, then it is
understood to be the largest subset on which the function is well defined. For
example, if functions f, g, h are defined by
1 1
f (x) = , g(x) = , and h(x) = 1 − x2 ,
x 1 + x2
then dom (f ) = R \{0}, dom (g) = R, and dom (h) = [−1, 1]. If f is defined
on X and S ⊂ X, we can have f : S → Y , and we call this new function the
restriction of f in (1.1) to S and denote it by f |S . Moreover,

f (S) := {f (x) : x ∈ S} = {y ∈ Y : there exists an x ∈ S with f (x) = y}

is called the image of the set S under f . Clearly, f (S) is a subset of the
codomain Y , and f (S) may be a proper subset of Y even if X = S. The subset
f (X) is called the range of f . For instance, if X = {a, b, c}, Y = {1, 2, 3, 4},
and f : X → Y is a function defined by the rule

a → 1, b → 4, c → 1,

then dom(f ) = X and f (X) = {1, 4} is the range of f , but f (X) = Y .

Also, we remark that the notation f (p) has two possible meanings, depending
on whether p is an element of X or a subset of X. However, the standard
practice of using lowercase letters for members of X and uppercase letters for
sets makes the situation clear.
If Y1 ⊂ Y , then the inverse image of Y1 under f , denoted by f −1 (Y1 ), is
the subset of X defined by

f −1 (Y1 ) = {x ∈ X : f (x) ∈ Y1 }.

Also,
f (x) ∈ Y1 ⇐⇒ x ∈ f −1 (Y1 ).
Thus, f −1 (Y1 ) ⊂ X for Y1 ⊂ Y . If Y1 = {y} ⊂ Y , then we write f −1 (y)
instead of f −1 ({y}). The notation f −1 is used for two different purposes but
is universally accepted. However, the context of the usage of f −1 will always
be made clear, so there should be no confusion about it.
For two mappings f : X → Y and g : Y → Z for which f (X) ⊂ Y , we can
define the composite mapping g ◦ f : X → Z by

(g ◦ f )(x) = g(f (x)).

Composition is an associative operator, i.e.,

(g ◦ f ) ◦ h = g ◦ (f ◦ h).
16 1 The Real Number System

In general, composition is not commutative. For example, consider f, g : R →

R by
f (x) = x2 − 2x and g(x) = x3 − 2.
Then

f (g(x)) = (x3 − 2)2 − 2(x3 − 2) and g(f (x)) = (x2 − 2x)3 − 2.

Clearly, g ◦ f = f ◦ g, and so composition is not commutative.

The mapping f : X → Y is said to map X onto Y if the codomain and the
range are equal, i.e., f (X) = Y . Therefore, in order to prove that f is onto,
one must start with an arbitrary y ∈ Y and then show that there is at least
one x ∈ X such that f (x) = y.
The mapping f : X → Y is said to be 1-to-1 (one-to-one) if it maps distinct
elements into distinct elements, i.e., f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) for all x1 , x2 ∈ X with
x1 = x2 . More formally, f is one-to-one if for x1 , x2 ∈ X,

f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) =⇒ x1 = x2 .

A mapping that is both one-to-one and onto is called bijective.3

Example 1.22. Consider X = {−2, −1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, Y = {0, 1, 4, 9, 16}, and

the function f : X → Y given by f (x) = x2 . Then f is onto, but is not
one-to-one because, for example, f (−1) = f (1). •
More generally, we have the following.
Example 1.23. Consider the mapping f : A → B, x → x2 , where A and B
are subsets of R. Then

f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) =⇒ (x1 + x2 )(x1 − x2 ) = 0 =⇒ x1 = x2 if x1 + x2 = 0.

Therefore, we have the following results.

(a) Let A = R and B = R+ 0 , the set of all nonnegative real numbers. Since
there exist x1 , x2 ∈ A such that x1 + x2 = 0, f is not one-to-one in this
case. Similarly, if A = B = Z, then f is not one-to-one, which can be
shown by similar reasoning.
(b) Let A = B = R+ , the set of all positive real numbers. Then for each
x1 , x2 ∈ A, we have x1 + x2 = 0, and therefore f is one-to-one in this case.
Similarly, we see that if A = B = N, the set of natural numbers, then f
is one-to-one.
(c) If A = B = R, then f is not onto, because the set of all real numbers is
not the image of R under our mapping. Also, if A = B = N, then f is
not onto. However, if A = R and B = R+ 0 , then f is onto. In fact, when
A = B = R+ , f is bijective. •
3
The terms “one-to-one,” “onto,”, and “one-to-one correspondence” are sometimes
referred as “injective,” “surjective,” and “bijective” mappings, respectively.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 17

If f : X → Y is bijective, then we may define a function g = f −1 by the

rule
f −1 (x) = y ⇐⇒ f (y) = x.
We call f −1 the inverse of the function f . Also, we have

f ◦ f −1 (y) = y for all y ∈ Y and f −1 ◦ f (x) = x for all x ∈ X.

Example 1.24. Consider f (x) = x2 − 2x and g(x) = x3 − 2. The function f

is not one-to-one, because f (0) = f (2) = 0. On the other hand, g is bijective,
because for each y ∈ R, y = x3 − 2 has the unique solution x = (y + 2)1/3 . •

If f : X → Y is a function, then the inverse relation f −1 defined above

is not, in general, a function. More about onto functions and related inverses
will be addressed in Chapter 4.

Definition 1.25. A function f : I → R is said to be

• bounded above if there exists an M ∈ R such that f (x) ≤ M for all x ∈ I,
• bounded below if there exists an m ∈ R such that f (x) ≥ m for all x ∈ I,
• bounded if it is bounded both below and above, that is, if there exists an
R > 0 such that |f (x)| ≤ R for all x ∈ I,
where I is some interval in R or some subset of R.

1.2.3 Equivalent and Countable Sets

Suppose that A and B are two sets. We say that A is equivalent to B, written
A ∼ B, if there is a bijective (i.e., one-to-one and onto) mapping from A to
B. If A ∼ B, then we say that A and B have a one-to-one correspondence
between them. The following theorem is easy to prove.

Theorem 1.26. Given three sets A, B, and C, we have

(a) A ∼ A,
(b) A ∼ B =⇒ B ∼ A, and
(c) A ∼ B, B ∼ C =⇒ A ∼ C.

In view of this theorem, we can now reformulate equivalents in the follow-

ing form.

Definition 1.27. Two sets A and B are said to be equivalent, written A ∼ B,

if there is a bijection from A to B. The sets A and B are then said to have
the same cardinality.

Example 1.28. Define f : [0, 1] → [a, b] (a < b) by f (x) = (1 − x)a + xb. We

see that f is bijective, and therefore [0, 1] and [a, b] are equivalent. •
18 1 The Real Number System

Definition 1.29. A set S is finite if either S = ∅ or S is equivalent to

{1, 2, . . . , n} for some n ∈ N. A set that is not finite is called infinite. A set
S is said to be countable or denumerable if either it is finite or S ∼ N, i.e.,
if there exists a one-to-one correspondence between N and the set S. A set is
said to be uncountable or nondenumerable if it is not countable.

Example 1.30. The set N is countable, since the bijection f (x) = x does the
job. In order to prove that the set Z is countable, we just need to notice that
elements of Z can be written as a list of

0, −1, 1, −2, 2, −3, 3, . . . .

This amounts to defining a bijection f : N → Z by

⎧
⎨ n − 1 if n = 1, 3, 5, . . .,
⎪
f (n) = 2
⎪
⎩−
n
if n = 2, 4, 6, . . ..
2
Therefore, Z is countable. Similarly, the set of all even positive integers is
countable. •
We may now state without proof the following.

Theorem 1.31. (a) Every subset of a countable set is countable.

(b) The set Q of rationals is countable.
(c) A countable union of countable sets is countable.
(d) The Cartesian product A × B of countable sets A and B is countable.
(e) The set R is uncountable.

Since R is uncountable, the set R \Q of all irrational numbers is uncount-

able. In particular, any interval that contains more than one point is uncount-
able. Indeed, the fact that there are uncountably many real numbers in (0, 1)
follows from constructing, for example, the set of all infinite sequences of 0’s
and 1’s, which can be shown to be uncountable. Therefore, we have a natural
question to look at: Are there other familiar sets that are uncountable? We
note that according to the definition, the counting convention is via bijections,
and the set of real numbers actually has in some sense many more numbers
than the set of rational numbers. In general, given a set X, does there exist a
method of constructing another set from X that will contain more elements
than X? If X is countable (finite or infinite), then the answer is trivial, be-
cause if X is finite, then one can obtain a new set simply by adding one more
element that does not belong to X. However, if X is countably infinite, then
a new set obtained by adding a finite number of elements or even a countably
infinite number of elements to X will again be countable. Hence, we have to
think of some other method. Indeed, a method of getting bigger and bigger
sets follows from the definition of power set. Thus, the notion of cardinality
of a set X will play an important role.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 19

If a set S is finite, then the number of elements of X is defined to be

the cardinality of S, denoted by |S| or card S. Thus, two finite sets A and B
have the same size, i.e., card A = card B, if they contain the same number of
elements. An important question is how to carry the notion of equal size over
to infinite sets such as N and Z? We have the following definition. Given two
arbitrary sets A and B (finite or infinite), then we say that card A = card B
if there exists a bijection between them. In particular, the notion of equal size
is an equivalence relation, and we then associate a number called the cardinal
number to every class of equal-sized sets. At this point, it is important to
note that it is often difficult to find the cardinal number of a set, since the
definition requires a function that is both one-to-one and onto. We note that it
is usually easier to find one-to-one functions than onto functions. Therefore,
we may make use of the following theorem, due to Cantor and Bernstein,
which we state without proof.

Theorem 1.32 (Cantor–Bernstein). Let A and B be two sets. If there

exists a one-to-one function f : A → B and another one-to-one function
g : B → A, then card A = card B.

This theorem can be used to show, for example, that

card (R × R) = card R.

Moreover, the fact that Q is countable can also be obtained by showing that
Q and Z × Z have the same cardinality.

1.2.4 Questions and Exercises

Questions 1.33.

1. Should a nonempty bounded set in R have a maximum? minimum?

2. Suppose that A is a nonempty set in R and −A = {−x : x ∈ A}. What
are the relations among inf A, sup A, inf(−A), and sup(−A)?
3. What will happen if we divide an inequality by a negative real number?
4. Let A and B be two nonempty subsets of R such that A ∩ B is nonempty.
How are inf(A ∪ B), min{inf A, inf B}, sup(A ∪ B), max{sup A, sup B},
inf(A ∩ B), and sup(A ∩ B) related?
5. Let A and B be two nonempty bounded sets of positive real numbers and
C = {xy : x ∈ A and y ∈ B}. Must sup C = (sup A)(sup B)? If so, what
if either A or B contains negative real numbers?
6. Does the completeness axiom hold for Q?
7. Does there exist a bijection from the interval (0, 1) to R?
8. Does there exist a bijection from the interval (0, 1) to [0, 1)?
9. Is the composition of one-to-one (respectively onto, bijective) mappings
one-to-one (onto, bijective)?
20 1 The Real Number System

10. Suppose that f and g are functions such that g ◦ f is onto. Must g be
onto? Should f be onto?
11. Suppose that f and g are functions such that g ◦ f is one-to-one. Must f
be one-to-one? Should g be one-to-one?
12. If f : A → B and g : B → C are such that f (A) = B and g(B) = C,
should (g ◦ f )(A) = C?
13. Which one of the following is not true?
(a) f (A ∪ B) = f (A) ∪ f (B). (b) f −1 (A ∪ B) = f −1 (A) ∪ f −1(B).
(c) f (A ∩ B) = f (A) ∩ f (B). (d) f −1 (A ∩ B) = f −1 (A) ∩ f −1(B).
14. Can a finite set be equivalent to a proper subset of itself?
15. Must a set be infinite if it is equivalent to a proper subset of itself?

Exercises 1.34.

1. Let A consist of all positive rational numbers x whose square is less than 2,
and let B consist of all positive rational numbers y such that y 2 > 2. Show
that A contains no largest number and B contains no smallest number.
2. For x, y ∈ R, show that

x + y + |x − y| x + y − |x − y|
max{x, y} = and min{x, y} = .
2 2
3. Let A and B be two nonempty subsets of R such that B ⊂ A is nonempty.
Prove that
inf A ≤ inf B ≤ sup B ≤ sup A.
4. Let A and B be two nonempty bounded sets of positive real numbers.
Set S1 = A ∪ B, S2 = A ∩ B, S3 = {x + y : x ∈ A and y ∈ B},
S4 = {x + a : x ∈ A} for some a > 0, and S5 = {xa : x ∈ A} for some
a > 0. Determine a relationship among
(a) sup A, sup B, and sup S1 . (b) sup A, sup B, and sup S2 .
(c) sup A, sup B, and sup S3 . (d) inf A, inf B, and inf S3 .
(e) sup A and sup S4 . (f ) sup A and sup S5 .
5. Using the completeness properties (see Definitions 1.18 and 1.19), prove
the following version of the archimedean property of R: If a and b are pos-
itive real numbers, then there exists a positive integer n such that na > b.
6. Suppose that x, y ∈ R are such that y > x. Use the previous exercise to
prove that there exist a rational number and an irrational number strictly
between x and y.
7. Determine the domain of each of the following functions: 
2
x x−1
(a) f (x) = x(x − 1). (b) f (x) = . (c) f (x) = .
[x] x−4
8. Prove that (−π/2, π/2) and R are equivalent.
 1.2 Supremum and Infimum 21

9. Explain why the mapping f : N → N, n → 2n − 1, is not a one-to-one

correspondence.
10. Consider the function
ax + b
f (x) = , x ∈ R \{−d/c}.
cx + d
Determine conditions on a, b, c, d such that f is its own inverse.
2
Sequences: Convergence and Divergence

In Section 2.1, we consider (infinite) sequences, limits of sequences, and

bounded and monotonic sequences of real numbers. In addition to certain
basic properties of convergent sequences, we also study divergent sequences
and in particular, sequences that tend to positive or negative infinity. We
present a number of methods to discuss convergent sequences together with
techniques for calculating their limits. Also, we prove the bounded monotone
convergence theorem (BMCT), which asserts that every bounded monotone
sequence is convergent. In Section 2.2, we define the limit superior and the
limit inferior. We continue the discussion with Cauchy sequences and give ex-
amples of sequences of rational numbers converging to irrational numbers. As
applications, a number of examples and exercises are presented.

2.1 Sequences and Their Limits

An infinite (real) sequence (more briefly, a sequence) is a nonterminating
collection of (real) numbers consisting of a first number, a second number,
a third number, and so on:
a1 , a2 , a3 , . . . .
Specifically, if n is a positive integer, then an is called the nth term of the
sequence, and the sequence is denoted by
{a1 , a2 , . . . , an , . . .} or, more simply, {an } .
For example, the expression {2n} denotes the sequence 2, 4, 6, . . .. Thus, a
sequence of real numbers is a special kind of function, one whose domain is
the set of all positive integers or possibly a set of the form {n : n ≥ k} for
some fixed k ∈ Z, and the range is a subset of R. Let us now make this point
precise.
Definition 2.1. A real sequence {an } is a real-valued function f defined on
a set {k, k + 1, k + 2, . . .}. The functional values

S. Ponnusamy, Foundations of Mathematical Analysis, 23

DOI 10.1007/978-0-8176-8292-7 2,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
24 2 Sequences: Convergence and Divergence

f (k), f (k + 1), f (k + 2), . . .

are called the terms of the sequence. It is customary to write f (n) = an for
n ≥ k, so that we can denote the sequence by listing its terms in order; thus
we write a sequence as

{an }n≥k or {an+k−1 }∞ ∞

n=1 or {an }n=k or {ak , ak+1 , . . .}.

The number an is called the general term of the sequence {an } (nth term,
especially for k = 1). The set {an : n ≥ k} is called the range of the sequence
{an }n≥k . Sequences most often begin with n = 0 or n = 1, in which case
the sequence is a function whose domain is the set of nonnegative integers
(respectively positive integers). Simple examples of sequences are the se-
quences of positive integers, i.e., the sequence {an } for which an = n for
n ≥ 1, {1/n}, {(−1)n }, {(−1)n + 1/n}, and the constant sequences for which
an = c for all n. The Fibonacci sequence is given by

a0 , a1 = 1, a2 = 2, an = an−1 + an−2 for n ≥ 3.

The terms of this Fibonacci sequence are called Fibonacci numbers, and the
first few terms are
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21.

2.1.1 Limits of Sequences of Real Numbers

A fundamental question about a sequence {an } concerns the behavior of its

nth term an as n gets larger and larger. For example, consider the sequence
whose general term is
n+1 1
an = =1+ .
n n
It appears that the terms of this sequence are getting closer and closer to the
number 1. In general, if the terms of a sequence can be made as close as we
please to a number a for n sufficiently large, then we say that the sequence
converges to a. Here is a precise definition that describes the behavior of a
sequence.

Definition 2.2 (Limit of a sequence). Let {an } be a sequence of real num-

bers. We say that the sequence {an } converges to the real number a, or tends
to a, and we write

a = lim an or simply a = lim an ,

n→∞

if for every  > 0, there is an integer N such that

|an − a| <  whenever n ≥ N.

 2.1 Sequences and Their Limits 25

In this case, we call the number a a limit of the sequence {an }. We say that
the sequence {an } converges (or is convergent or has limit) if it converges to
some number a. A sequence diverges (or is divergent) if it does not converge
to any number.
For instance, in our example above we would expect
n+1
lim = 1.
n→∞ n
The notions of convergence and limit of a sequence play a fundamental role
in analysis.
If a ∈ R, other notations for the convergence of {an } to a are
lim (an − a) = 0 and an → a as n → ∞.
n→∞

The notation a = lim an means that eventually the terms of the sequence {an }
can be made as close to a as may be desired by taking n sufficiently large.
Note also that
|an − a| <  for n ≥ N ⇐⇒ an ∈ (a − , a + ) for n ≥ N .
That is, a sequence {an } converges to a if and only if every neighborhood of a
contains all but a finite number of terms of the sequence. Since N depends on
, sometimes it is important to emphasize this and write N () instead of N .
Note also that the definition requires some N , but not necessarily the smallest
N that works. In fact, if convergence works for some N then any N1 > N also
works.
To motivate the definition, we again consider an = (n + 1)/n. Given  > 0,
we notice that
 
n + 1  1 1
 
 n − 1 = n <  whenever n >  .
Thus, N should be some natural number larger than 1/. For example, if
 = 1/99, then we may choose N to be any positive integer bigger than 99,
and we conclude that
 
n + 1 
 − 1  <  = 1 whenever n ≥ N = 100.
 n  99
Similarly, if  = 2/999, then 1/ = 499.5, so that
 
n + 1  2
 
 n − 1 <  = 999 whenever n ≥ N = 500.
Thus, N clearly depends on .
The definition of limit makes it clear that changing a finite number of terms
of a given sequence affects neither the convergence nor the divergence of the
sequence. Also, we remark that the number  provides a quantitative measure
of “closeness,” and the number N a quantitative measure of “largeness.”
We now continue our discussion with a fundamental question: Is it possible
for a sequence to converge to more than one limit?
26 2 Sequences: Convergence and Divergence

Theorem 2.3 (Uniqueness of limits). The limit of a convergent sequence

is unique.
Proof. Suppose that a = lim an and a = lim an . Let  > 0. Then there exist
two numbers N1 and N2 such that
|an − a| <  for n ≥ N1 and |an − a | <  for n ≥ N2 .
In particular, these two inequalities must hold for n ≥ N = max{N1 , N2 }. We
conclude that
|a − a | = |a − an − (a − an )| ≤ |an − a| + |an − a | < 2 for n ≥ N .
Since this inequality holds for every  > 0, and |a − a | is independent of , we
must have |a − a | = 0, i.e., a = a .
Also, as a direct consequence of the definition we obtain the following: If
an → a, then an+k → a for any fixed integer k. Indeed, if an → a as n → ∞,
then for a given  > 0 there exists an N ∈ N such that |an − a| <  for all
n ≥ N . That is,
|an+k − a| <  for all n + k ≥ N + k = N1 or |am − a| <  for m ≥ N1 ,
which is same as saying that am → a as m → ∞.
Definition 2.4. A sequence {an} that converges to zero is called a null
sequence.
Examples 2.5. (i) The sequence {n} diverges because no matter what a and
 we choose, the inequality
a −  < n < a + , i.e., |n − a| < ,
can hold only for finitely many n. Similarly, the sequence {2n } diverges.
(ii) The sequence defined by {(−1)n } is {−1, 1, −1, 1, . . .}, and this sequence
diverges by oscillation because the nth term is always either 1 or −1. Thus
an cannot approach any one specific number a as n grows large. Also, we
note that if a is any real number, we can always choose a positive number
 such that at least one of the inequalities
a −  < −1 < a +  or a −  < 1 < a + 
is false. For example, the choice  = |1 − a|/2 if a = 1, and  = |1 + a|/2 if
a = −1, will do. If a = 1 or −1, choose  to be any positive real number
less than 1. Thus the inequality |(−1)n − a| <  will be false for infinitely
many n. Hence {(−1)n } diverges.
(iii) The sequence {sin(nπ/2)}n≥1 diverges because the sequence is
{1, 0, −1, 0, 1, 0, . . .},
and hence it does not converge to any number, by the same reasoning as
above.
(iv) The sequence {(−1)n /n} converges to zero, and so it is a null
sequence. •
 2.1 Sequences and Their Limits 27

Definition 2.6. A sequence {an } is bounded if there exists an R > 0 such

that |an | ≤ R for all n. A sequence is unbounded if it is not bounded.

Since a convergent sequence eventually clusters about its limit, it is fairly

evident that a sequence that is not bounded cannot converge, and hence the
next theorem is not too surprising; it will be used in the proof of Theorem
2.8.

Theorem 2.7. Every convergent sequence is bounded. The converse is not

true.

Proof. Let {an }n≥1 converge to a. Then there exists an N ∈ N such that
|an − a| < 1 =  for n ≥ N . It follows that |an | < 1 + |a| for n ≥ N . Define
M = max{1 + |a|, |a1 |, |a2 |, . . . |aN −1 |}. Then |an | < M for every n ∈ N.
To see that the converse is not true, it suffices to consider the sequence
{(−1)n }n≥1 , which is bounded but not convergent, although the odd terms
and even terms both form convergent sequences with different limits.

2.1.2 Operations on Convergent Sequences

The sum of sequences {an } and {bn } is defined to be the sequence {an + bn }.
We have the following useful consequences of the definition of convergence
that show how limits team up with the basic algebraic operations.

Theorem 2.8 (Algebra of limits for convergent sequences). Suppose

that limn→∞ an = a and limn→∞ bn = b, where a, b ∈ R. Then
• limn→∞ (ran + sbn ) = ra + sb, r, s ∈ R. [Linearity rule for sequences]
• limn→∞ (an bn ) = ab. [Product rule for sequences]
• limn→∞ an /bn = a/b,
√ provided b√= 0. [Quotient rule for √
sequences]
√
• limn→∞ m an = m a, provided m an is defined for all n and m a exists.

Proof. The linearity rule for sequences is easy to prove. The quotient rule for
sequences is easy if we prove the product rule for sequences (see also Questions
2.44(33) and 2.44(34)). We provide a direct proof.
We write
an bn − ab = (an − a)bn + (bn − b)a.
Since every convergent sequence must be bounded, there exists an M > 0
such that |bn | ≤ M (say), for all n. Let  > 0 be given. Again, since bn → b
as n → ∞, there exists an N2 such that

|bn − b| < for n ≥ N2 .
2(|a| + 1)

(We remark that we could not use /2|a| instead of /[2(|a| + 1)] because a
could be zero.)
28 2 Sequences: Convergence and Divergence

Also by the hypothesis that an → a as n → ∞, there exists an N3 such

that

|an − a| < for n ≥ N3 .
2M
Finally, for n ≥ max{N2 , N3 } = N , we have
|an bn − ab| ≤ |an − a| |bn | + |bn − b| |a|
   
< M+ |a| < + = .
2M 2(|a| + 1) 2 2
The product rule clearly follows.
The proof of third part follows from Lemma 2.9. The proof of the final
part is left as a simple exercise (see Questions 2.44(16)).
Lemma 2.9 (Reciprocal rule). If limn→∞ bn = b and b = 0, then the
reciprocal rule holds:
1 1
lim = .
n→∞ bn b
Proof. The proof is easy, and so we leave it as a simple exercise.
Note that if an = (−1)n and bn = (−1)n−1 , then {a2n} and {an + bn } both
converge, although individual sequences {an } and {bn} diverge.
Example 2.10. Find the limit of each of these convergent sequences:
   2   6 
1 n − 2n + 3 n + 3n4 − 2
(a) (p > 0). (b) . (c) .
np 5n3 n6 + 2n + 3
Solution. (a) As n grows arbitrarily large, 1/n (and hence 1/np ) gets smaller
and smaller for p > 0. Thus, limn→∞ 1/np = 0. Also, we note that if  > 0,
then |(1/np ) − 0| <  or n > 1/(1/p ). Thus, if N is any integer greater than
1/(1/p ), then
|(1/np ) − 0| <  for all n ≥ N .
Thus, for each p > 0, n−p → 0 as n → ∞. That is, {1/np } is a null sequence
for each p > 0.
(b) We cannot use the quotient rule of Theorem 2.8 because neither the
limit for the numerator nor that for the denominator exists. On the other
hand, we can divide the numerator and denominator by n3 and then use the
linearity rule and the product rule. We then have
 
n2 − 2n + 3 1 1 2 3
= − + 3 → 0 as n → ∞.
5n3 5 n n2 n
(c) Divide the numerator and denominator by n6 , the highest power of n
that occurs in the expression, to obtain
3 2
n6 + 3n4 − 2 1+ n2 − n6
lim 6
= lim 2 3 = 1.
n→∞ n + 2n + 3 n→∞ 1 + +
n5 n6
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
trade friendly societies was proposed but eventually rejected. A
particularly odious feature of the 1799 Act, under which defendants
were required to give evidence against themselves under severe
penalties for refusal, was left unaltered. A series of interesting
clauses providing for the reference of wage disputes to arbitration—
copied from the contemporary Act relating to the cotton trade[119]—
aroused great opposition, as tending “to fix wages” and as involving
the recognition of the Trade Union representative, but they were
finally adopted; without, so far as we are aware, ever being put in
force. [120]
The general Combination Act of 1800 was not merely the codification
of existing laws, or their extension from particular trades to the
whole field of industry. It represented a new and momentous
departure. Hitherto the central or local authority had acted as a
court of appeal on all questions affecting the work and wages of the
citizen. If the master and journeyman failed to agree as to what
constituted a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, the higgling of the
market was peremptorily superseded by the authoritative
determination, presumably on grounds of social expediency, of the
standard of remuneration. Probably the actual fixing of wages by
justices of the peace fell very rapidly into disuse as regards the
majority of industries, although formal orders are found in the
minutes of Quarter Sessions during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, and deep traces of the practice long survived in
the customary rates of hiring. Towards the end of the eighteenth
century, at any rate, free bargaining between the capitalist and his
workmen became practically the sole method of fixing wages. Then
it was that the gross injustice of prohibiting combinations of
journeymen became apparent. “A single master,” said Lord Jeffrey,
“was at liberty at any time to turn off the whole of his workmen at
once—100 or 1000 in number—if they would not accept of the
wages he chose to offer. But it was made an offence for the whole of
the workmen to leave that master at once if he refused to give the
wages they chose to require.”[121] What was even more oppressive
in practice was the employers’ use of the threat of prosecution to
prevent even the beginnings of resistance among the workmen to
any reduction of wages or worsening of conditions.
It is true that the law forbade combinations of employers as well as
combinations of journeymen. Even if it had been impartially carried
out, there would still have remained the inequality due to the fact
that, in the new system of industry, a single employer was himself
equivalent to a very numerous combination. But the hand of justice
was not impartial. The “tacit, but constant” combination of
employers to depress wages, to which Adam Smith refers, could not
be reached by the law. Nor was there any disposition on the part of
the magistrates or the judges to find the masters guilty, even in
cases of flagrant or avowed combination. No one prosecuted the
master cutlers who, in 1814, openly formed the Sheffield Mercantile
and Manufacturing Union, having for its main rule that no merchant
or manufacturer should pay higher prices for any article of Sheffield
make than were current in the preceding year, with a penalty of
£100 for each contravention of this illegal agreement.[122] During
the whole epoch of repression, whilst thousands of journeymen
suffered for the crime of combination, there is no case on record in
which an employer was punished for the same offence.
To the ordinary politician a combination of employers and a
combination of workmen seemed in no way comparable. The former
was, at most, an industrial misdemeanour: the latter was in all cases
a political crime. Under the shadow of the French Revolution, the
English governing classes regarded all associations of the common
people with the utmost alarm. In this general terror lest
insubordination should develop into rebellion were merged both the
capitalist’s objection to high wages and the politician’s dislike of
Democratic institutions. The Combination Laws, as Francis Place tells
us, “were considered as absolutely necessary to prevent ruinous
extortions of workmen, which, if not thus restrained, would destroy
the whole of the Trade, Manufactures, Commerce, and Agriculture of
the nation.... This led to the conclusion that the workmen were the
most unprincipled of mankind. Hence the continued ill-will,
suspicion, and in almost every possible way the bad conduct of
workmen and their employers towards one another. So thoroughly
was this false notion entertained that whenever men were
prosecuted to conviction for having combined to regulate their
wages or the hours of working, however heavy the sentence passed
on them was, and however rigorously it was inflicted, not the
slightest feeling of compassion was manifested by anybody for the
unfortunate sufferers. Justice was entirely out of the question: they
could seldom obtain a hearing before a magistrate, never without
impatience or insult; and never could they calculate on even an
approximation to a rational conclusion.... Could an accurate account
be given of proceedings, of hearings before magistrates, trials at
sessions and in the Court of King’s Bench, the gross injustice, the
foul invective, and terrible punishments inflicted would not, after a
few years have passed away, be credited on any but the best
evidence.” [123]
It must not, however, be supposed that every combination was
made the subject of prosecution, or that the Trade Union leader of
the period passed his whole life in gaol. Owing to the extremely
inefficient organisation of the English police, and the absence of any
public prosecutor, a combination was usually let alone until some
employer was sufficiently inconvenienced by its operations to be
willing himself to set the law in motion. In many cases we find
employers apparently accepting or conniving at their men’s
combinations.[124] The master printers in London not only
recognised the very ancient institution of the “chapel,” but evidently
found it convenient, at any rate from 1785 onwards, to receive and
consider proposals from the journeymen as an organised body. In
1804 we even hear of a joint committee consisting of an equal
number of masters and journeymen, authorised by their respective
bodies to frame regulations for the future payment of labour, and
resulting in the elaborate “scale” of 1805, signed by both masters
and men.[125] The London coopers had a recognised organisation in
1813, in which year a list of prices was agreed upon by
representatives of the masters and men. This list was revised in
1816 and 1819, without any one thinking of a prosecution.[126] The
Trade Union was openly reformed in 1821 as the Philanthropic
Society of Coopers. The London brushmakers in 1805 had “A List of
Prices agreed upon between the Masters and Journeymen,” which is
still extant. The framework knitters, and also the tailors of the
various villages in Nottinghamshire, were, from 1794 to 1810, in the
habit of freely meeting together, both masters and men, “to consider
of matters relative to the trade,” the conferences being convened by
public advertisement.[127] The minute books of the local Trade Union
of the carpenters of Preston for the years 1807 to 1824 chronicle an
apparently unconcealed and unmolested existence, in
correspondence with other carpenters’ societies throughout
Lancashire. The accounts contain no items for the expense of
defending their officers against prosecutions, whereas there are
several payments for advertisements and public meetings, and, be it
added, a very large expenditure in beer. And there is a lively
tradition among the aged block printers of Glasgow that, in their
fathers’ time, when their very active Trade Union exacted a fee of
seven guineas from each new apprentice, this money was always
straightway drunk by the men of the print-field, the employer taking
his seat at the head of the table, and no work being done by any
one until the fund was exhausted. The calico-printers’ organisation
appears, at the early part of the nineteenth century, to have been
one of the strongest and most complete of the Unions. In an
impressive pamphlet of 1815 the men are thus appealed to by the
employers: “We have by turns conceded what we ought all manfully
to have resisted, and you, elated with success, have been led on
from one extravagant demand to another, till the burden is become
too intolerable to be borne. You fix the number of our apprentices,
and oftentimes even the number of our journeymen. You dismiss
certain proportions of our hands, and will not allow others to come
in their stead. You stop all Surface Machines, and go the length even
to destroy the rollers before our face. You restrict the Cylinder
Machine, and even dictate the kind of pattern it is to print. You
refuse, on urgent occasions, to work by candlelight, and even
compel our apprentices to do the same. You dismiss our overlookers
when they don’t suit you; and force obnoxious servants into our
employ. Lastly, you set all subordination and good order at defiance,
and instead of showing deference and respect to your employers,
treat them with personal insult and contempt.”[128] Notwithstanding
all this, no systematic attempt appears to have been made to put
down the calico-printers’ combination, and only one or two isolated
prosecutions can be traced. In Dublin, too, the cabinetmakers in the
early part of the present century were combined in a strong union
called the Samaritan Society, exclusively for trade purposes; “but
though illegal, the employers do not seem to have looked upon it
with any great aversion; and when on one occasion the chief
constable had the men attending a meeting arrested, the employers
came forward to bail them. Indeed, they professed that their object,
though primarily to defend their own interests against the masters,
was also to defend the interests of the masters against unprincipled
journeymen. Many of the masters on receiving the bill of a
journeyman were in the habit of sending it to the trades’ society
committee to be taxed, after which the word Committee was
stamped upon it. One case was mentioned, when between two and
three pounds were knocked off a bill of about eight pounds by the
trade committee.” [129] And both in London and Edinburgh the
journeymen openly published, without fear of prosecution, elaborate
printed lists of piecework prices, compiled sometimes by a
committee of the men’s Trade Union, sometimes by a joint
committee of employers and employed.[130]“The London
Cabinetmakers’ Union Book of Prices,” of which editions were
published in 1811 and 1824, was a costly and elaborate work, with
many plates, published “by a Committee of Masters and Journeymen
... to prevent those litigations which have too frequently existed in
the trade.” Various supplements and “index keys” to this work were
published; and other similar lists exist. So lax was the administration
of the law that George White, the energetic clerk to Hume’s
Committee, asserted that the Act of 1800 had “been in general a
dead letter upon those artisans upon whom it was intended to have
an effect—namely, the shoemakers, printers, papermakers,
shipbuilders, tailors, etc., who have had their regular societies and
houses of call, as though no such Act was in existence; and in fact it
would be almost impossible for many of those trades to be carried
on without such societies, who are in general sick and travelling
relief societies; and the roads and parishes would be much pestered
with these travelling trades, who travel from want of employment,
were it not for their societies who relieve what they call tramps.”
[131]

But although clubs of journeymen might be allowed to take, like the

London bookbinders, “a social pint of porter together,” and even, in
times of industrial peace, to provide for their tramps and perform all
the functions of a Trade Union, the employers had always the power
of meeting any demands by a prosecution. Even those trades in
which we have discovered evidence of the unmolested existence of
combinations furnish examples of the rigorous application of the law.
In 1819 we read of numerous prosecutions of cabinetmakers,
hatters, ironfounders, and other journeymen, nominally for leaving
their work unfinished, but really for the crime of combination.[132] In
1798 five journeymen printers were indicted at the Old Bailey for
conspiracy. The employers had sent for the men’s leaders to discuss
their proposals, when, as it was complained, “the five defendants
came, clothed as delegates, representing themselves as the head of
a Parliament as we may call it.” The men were in fact members of a
trade friendly society of pressmen “held at the Crown, near St.
Dunstan’s Church, Fleet Street,” which, as the prosecuting counsel
declared, “from its appearance certainly bore no reproachable mark
upon it. It was called a friendly society, but by means of some
wicked men among them this society degenerated into a most
abominable meeting for the purpose of a conspiracy; those of the
trade who did not join their society were summoned, and even the
apprentices, and were told unless they conformed to the practices of
these journeymen, when they came out of their times they should
not be employed.” Notwithstanding the fact that the employers had
themselves recognised and negotiated with the society, the Recorder
sentenced all the defendants to two years’ imprisonment. [133]
Twelve years later it was the brutality of another prosecution of the
compositors that impressed Francis Place with the necessity of an
alteration in the law. “The cruel persecutions,” he writes, “of the
Journeymen Printers employed in The Times newspaper in 1810
were carried to an almost incredible extent. The judge who tried and
sentenced some of them was the Common Sergeant of London, Sir
John Sylvester, commonly known by the cognomen of ‘Bloody Black
Jack.’... No judge took more pains than did this judge on the
unfortunate printers, to make it appear that their offence was one of
great enormity, to beat down and alarm the really respectable men
who had fallen into his clutches, and on whom he inflicted
scandalously severe sentences.”[134] Nor did prosecution always
depend on the caprice of an employer. In December 1817 the Bolton
constables, accidentally getting to know that ten delegates of the
calico-printers from the various districts of the kingdom were to
meet on New Year’s Day, arranged to arrest the whole body and
seize all their papers. The ten delegates suffered three months’
imprisonment, although no dispute with their employers was in
progress.[135] But the main use of the law to the employers was to
checkmate strikes, and ward off demands for better conditions of
labour. Already, in 1786, the law of conspiracy had been strained to
convict, and punish with two years’ imprisonment, the five London
bookbinders who were leading a strike to reduce hours from twelve
to eleven.[136] When, at the Aberdeen Master Tailors’ Gild, in 1797,
“it was represented to the trade that their journeymen had entered
into an illegal combination for the purpose of raising their wages,”
the masters unanimously “agreed not to give any additional wages
to their servants,” and backed up this resolution of their own
combination by getting twelve journeymen prosecuted and fined for
the crime of combining.[137] In 1799 the success of the London
shoemakers in picketing obnoxious employers led to the prosecution
of two of them, which was made the means of inducing the men to
consent to dissolve their society, then seven years old, and return to
work at once.[138] Two other shoemakers of York were convicted in
the same year for the crime of “combining to raise the price of their
labour in making shoes, and refusing to make shoes under a certain
price,” and counsel said that “in every great town in the North
combinations of this sort existed.”[139] The coach-makers’ strike of
1819 was similarly stopped, and the “Benevolent Society of
Coachmakers” broken up by the conviction of the general secretary
and twenty other members, who were, upon this condition, released
on their own recognisances.[140] In 1819 some calico-engravers in
the service of a Manchester firm protested against the undue
multiplication of apprentices by their employers, and enforced their
protest by declining to work. For this “conspiracy” they were fined
and imprisoned.[141] And though the master cutlers were allowed,
with impunity, to subscribe to the Sheffield Mercantile and
Manufacturing Union, which fixed the rates of wages, and brought
pressure to bear on recalcitrant employers, the numerous trade
clubs of the operatives were not left unmolested. In 1816 seven
scissor-grinders were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for
belonging to what they called the “Misfortune Club,” which paid out-
of-work benefit, and sought to maintain the customary rates. [142]
But it was in the new textile industries that the weight of the
Combination Laws was chiefly felt. White and Henson describe the
Act of 1800 as being in these trades “a tremendous millstone round
the neck of the local artisan, which has depressed and debased him
to the earth: every act which he has attempted, every measure that
he has devised to keep up or raise his wages, he has been told was
illegal: the whole force of the civil power and influence of the district
has been exerted against him because he was acting illegally: the
magistrates, acting, as they believed, in unison with the views of the
legislature, to check and keep down wages and combination,
regarded, in almost every instance, every attempt on the part of the
artisan to ameliorate his situation or support his station in society as
a species of sedition and resistance of the Government: every
committee or active man among them was regarded as a turbulent,
dangerous instigator, whom it was necessary to watch and crush if
possible.”[143] To cite one only of the instances, it was given in
evidence before Hume’s Committee that in 1818 certain Bolton
millowners suggested to the operative weavers that they should
concert together to leave the employment of those who paid below
the current rate. Acting on this hint a meeting of forty delegates
took place, at which it was resolved to ask for the advance agreed to
by the good employers. A fortnight later the president and the two
secretaries were arrested, convicted of conspiracy, and imprisoned
for one and two years respectively, although their employers gave
evidence on the prisoners’ behalf to the effect that they had
themselves requested the men to attend the meeting, and had
approved the resolutions passed.[144] In the following year fifteen
cotton-spinners of Manchester, who had met “to receive
contributions to bury their dead,” under “Articles” sanctioned by
Quarter Sessions in 1795, were seized in the committee-room by the
police, and committed to trial for conspiracy, bail being refused. After
three or four months’ imprisonment they were brought to trial, the
whole local bar—seven in number—being briefed against them.
Collections were made in London and elsewhere (including the town
of Lynn in Norfolk) for their defence. The enrolment of their club as
a friendly society availed little. It was urged in court that “all
societies, whether benefit societies or otherwise, were only cloaks
for the people of England to conspire against the State,” and most of
the defendants were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.
[145]

But the Scottish Weavers’ Strike of 1812, described in the preceding

chapter, is the most striking case of all. In the previous year certain
cotton-spinners had been convicted of combination and imprisoned,
the judge observing that there was a clear remedy in law, as the
magistrates had full power and authority to fix rates of wages or
settle disputes. In 1812 many of the employers refused to accept the
rates which the justices had declared as fair for weaving; and all the
weavers at the forty thousand looms between Aberdeen and Carlisle
struck to enforce the justices’ rates. The employers had already
made overtures through the sheriff of the county for a satisfactory
settlement when the Government arrested the central committee of
five, who were directing the proceedings. These men were
sentenced to periods of imprisonment varying from four to eighteen
months; the strike failed, and the association broke up.[146] The
student of the newspapers between 1800 and 1824 will find
abundant record of judicial barbarities, of which the cases cited
above may be taken as samples. No statistics exist as to the
frequency of the prosecutions or the severity of the sentences; but it
is easy to understand, from such reports as are available, the sullen
resentment which the working class suffered under these laws. Their
repeal was a necessary preliminary to the growth among the most
oppressed sections of the workers of any real power of protecting
themselves, by Trade Union effort, against the degradation of their
Standard of Life.
The failure of the Combination Laws to suppress the somewhat
dictatorial Trade Unionism of the skilled handicraftsmen, and their
efficacy in preventing the growth of permanent Unions among other
sections of the workers, is explained by class distinctions, now
passed away or greatly modified, which prevailed at the beginning of
the present century. To-day, when we speak of “the aristocracy of
labour” we include under that heading the organised miners and
factory operatives of the North on the same superior footing as the
skilled handicraftsman. In 1800 they were at opposite extremes of
the social scale in the wage-earning class, the weaver and the miner
being then further removed from the handicraftsman than the
docker or general labourer is from the Lancashire cotton-spinner or
Northumberland hewer of to-day. The skilled artisans formed, at any
rate in London, an intermediate class between the shopkeeper and
the great mass of unorganised labourers or operatives in the new
machine industries. The substantial fees demanded all through the
eighteenth century for apprenticeship to the “crafts” had secured to
the members and their eldest sons a virtual monopoly.[147] Even
after the repeal of the laws requiring a formal apprenticeship some
time had to elapse before the supply of this class of handicraftsmen
overtook the growing demand. Thus we gather from the surviving
records that these trades have never been more completely
organised in London than between 1800 and 1820.[148] We find the
London hatters, coopers, curriers, compositors, millwrights, and
shipwrights maintaining earnings which, upon their own showing,
amounted to the comparatively large sum of thirty to fifty shillings
per week. At the same period the Lancashire weaver or the Leicester
hosier, in full competition with steam-power and its accompaniment
of female and child labour, could, even when fully employed, earn
barely ten shillings. We see this difference in the Standard of Life
reflected in the characters of the combinations formed by the two
classes.
In the skilled handicrafts, long accustomed to corporate government,
we find, even under repressive laws, no unlawful oaths, seditious
emblems, or other common paraphernalia of secret societies. The
London Brushmakers, whose Union apparently dates from the early
part of the eighteenth century, expressly insisted “that no person
shall be admitted a member who is not well affected to his present
Majesty and the Protestant Succession, and in good health and of a
respectable character.” But this loyalty was not inconsistent with their
subscribing to the funds of the 1831 agitation for the Reform Bill.
[149] The prevailing tone of the superior workmen down to 1848
was, in fact, strongly Radical; and their leaders took a prominent
part in all the working-class politics of the time. From their ranks
came such organisers as Place, Lovett, and Gast.[150] But wherever
we have been able to gain any idea of their proceedings, their trade
clubs were free from anything that could now be conceived as
political sedition. It was these clubs of handicraftsmen that formed
the backbone of the various “central committees” which dealt with
the main topics of Trade Unionism during the next thirty years. They
it was who furnished such assistance as was given by working men
to the movement for the repeal of the Combination Laws. And their
influence gave a certain dignity and stability to the Trade Union
Movement, without which, under hostile governments, it could never
have emerged from the petulant rebellions of hunger-strikes and
machine-breaking.
The principal effect of the Combination Laws on these well-organised
handicrafts in London, Liverpool, Dublin, and perhaps other towns,
was to make the internal discipline more rigid and the treatment of
non-unionists more arbitrary. Place describes how “in these societies
there are some few individuals who possess the confidence of their
fellows, and when any matter relating to the trade has been talked
over, either at the club or in a separate room, or in a workshop or a
yard, and the matter has become notorious, these men are expected
to direct what shall be done, and they do direct—simply by a hint.
On this the men act; and one and all support those who may be
thrown out of work or otherwise inconvenienced. If matters were to
be discussed as gentlemen seem to suppose they must be, no
resolution would ever be come to. The influence of the men alluded
to would soon cease if the law were repealed. It is the law and the
law alone which causes the confidence of the men to be given to
their leaders. Those who direct are not known to the body, and not
one man in twenty, perhaps, knows the person of any one who
directs. It is a rule among them to ask no questions, and another
rule among them who know most, either to give no answer if
questioned, or an answer to mislead.” [151]
In the new machine industries, on the other hand, the repeated
reductions of wages, the rapid alterations of processes, and the
substitution of women and children for adult male workers, had
gradually reduced the workers to a condition of miserable poverty.
The reports of Parliamentary committees, from 1800 onward,
contain a dreary record of the steady degradation of the Standard of
Life in the textile industries. “The sufferings of persons employed in
the cotton manufacture,” Place writes of this period, “were beyond
credibility: they were drawn into combinations, betrayed,
prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and monstrously severe
punishments inflicted on them: they were reduced to and kept in the
most wretched state of existence.”[152] Their employers, instead of
being, as in the older handicrafts, little more than master workmen,
recognising the customary Standard of Life of their journeymen,
were often capitalist entrepreneurs, devoting their whole energies to
the commercial side of the business, and leaving their managers to
buy labour in the market at the cheapest possible rate. This labour
was recruited from all localities and many different occupations. It
was brigaded and controlled by despotic laws, enforced by
numerous fines and disciplinary deductions. Cases of gross tyranny
and heartless cruelty are not wanting. Without a common standard,
a common tradition, or mutual confidence, the workers in the new
mills were helpless against their masters. Their ephemeral
combinations and frequent strikes were, as a rule, only passionate
struggles to maintain a bare subsistence wage. In place of the
steady organised resistance to encroachments maintained by the
handicraftsmen, we watch, in the machine industries, the alternation
of outbursts of machine-breaking and outrages, with intervals of
abject submission and reckless competition with each other for
employment. In the conduct of such organisation as there was,
repressive laws had, with the operatives as with the London artisans,
the effect of throwing great power into the hands of a few men.
These leaders were implicitly obeyed in times of industrial conflict,
but the repeated defeats which they were unable to avert prevented
that growth of confidence which is indispensable for permanent
organisation.[153] Both leaders and rank and file, too, were largely
implicated in political seditions, and were the victims of spies and
Ministerial emissaries of all sorts. All these circumstances led to the
prevalence among them of fearful oaths, mystic initiation rites, and
other manifestations of a sensationalism which was sometimes
puerile and sometimes criminal.
The most notorious of these “seditions,” about which little is really
known, was the “Luddite” upheaval of 1811-12, when riotous mobs
of manual workers, acting under some sort of organisation, went
about destroying textile machinery and sometimes wrecking
factories. To what extent this had any direct connection with the
Trade Union Movement seems to us, pending more penetrating
investigation of the unpublished evidence, somewhat uncertain. That
the operatives very generally sympathised with the most violent
protest against the displacement of hand labour by machinery, and
the extreme distress which it was causing, is clear. The Luddite
movement apparently began among the Framework-knitters, who
had long been organised in local clubs, with some rudimentary
federal bond; and the whole direction of the Luddites was often
ascribed, as by the Mayor of Leicester in 1812, to “the Committee of
Framework-knitters, who have as complete an organisation of the
whole body as you could have of a regiment.”[154] But money was
collected from men of other trades, notably bricklayers, masons,
spinners, weavers, and colliers, as well as from the soldiers in some
of the regiments stationed at provincial centres; and such evidence
as we have found points rather to a widespread secret oath-bound
conspiracy, not of the men of any one trade, but of wage-earners of
all kinds. We find an informer stating (June 22, 1812), with what
truth we know not, “that the Union extends from London to
Nottingham, and from thence to Manchester and Carlisle. Small
towns lying between the principal places are not yet organised, such
as Garstang and Burton. Only some of the trades have taken the
first oath. He says there is a second oath taken by suspicious
persons.”[155] On the other hand, it looks as if the various local
Trade Clubs were made use of, in some cases informally, as agents
or branches of the conspiracy.
General Maitland, writing from Buxton (June 22, 1812) to the Home
Secretary, says that, in his opinion, “the whole of this business ...
originated in those constant efforts made by these associations for
many years past to keep up the price of the manufacturers’ wages;
that finding their efforts for this unavailing, both from the
circumstances of the trade and the high price of provisions, they in a
moment of irritation, for which it is but just to say they had
considerable ground from the real state of distress in which they
were placed ... began to think of effecting that by force which they
had ever been trying to do by other means; and that in this state the
oath was introduced.... I believe the whole to be, certainly a most
mischievous, but undefined and indistinct attempt to be in a state of
preparation to do that by force which they had not succeeded in
carrying into effect as they usually did by other means.” The whole
episode has been too much ignored, even by social historians; and
“Byron’s famous speech and Charlotte Brontë’s more famous novel
give to most people their idea of the misery of the time, and of its
cause, the displacement of hand labour by machinery.” [156]
The coal-miners were in many respects even worse off than the
hosiery workers and the cotton weavers. In Scotland they had been
but lately freed from actual serfdom, the final act of emancipation
not having been passed until 1799. In Monmouthshire and South
Wales the oppression of the “tommy shops” of the small employers
was extreme. In the North of England the “yearly bond,” the truck
system, and the arbitrary fines kept the underground workers in
complete subjection. The result is seen in the turbulence of their
frequent “sticks” or strikes, during which troops were often required
to quell their violence. The great strike of 1810 was carried on by an
oath-bound confederacy recruited by the practice of “brothering,” “so
named because the members of the union bound themselves by a
most solemn oath to obey the orders of the brotherhood, under the
penalty of being stabbed through the heart or of having their bowels
ripped up.”[157]
Notwithstanding these differences between various classes of
workers, the growing sense of solidarity among the whole body of
wage-earners rises into special prominence during this period of
tyranny and repression. The trades in which it was usual for men to
tramp from place to place in search of employment had long
possessed, as we have seen, some kind of loose federal organisation
extending throughout the country. In spite of the law of 1797
forbidding the existence of “corresponding societies,” the various
federal organisations of Curriers, Hatters, Calico-printers,
Woolcombers, Woolstaplers, and other handicraftsmen kept up
constant correspondence on trade matters, and raised money for
common trade purposes. In some cases there existed an elaborate
national organisation, with geographical districts and annual
delegate meetings; like that of the Calico-printers who were arrested
by the Bolton constables in 1818. The rules of the Papermakers,[158]
which certainly date from 1803, provide for the division of England
into five districts, with detailed arrangements for representation and
collective action. This national organisation was, notwithstanding
repressive laws, occasionally very effective. We need cite only one
instance, furnished by the Liverpool Ropemakers in 1823. When a
certain firm attempted to put labourers to the work, the local society
of ropespinners informed it that this was “contrary to the regulations
of the trade,” and withdrew all their members. The employers, failing
to get men in Liverpool, sent to Hull and Newcastle, but found that
the Ropespinners’ Society had already apprised the local trade clubs
at those towns. The firm then imported “blacklegs” from Glasgow,
who were met on arrival by the local unionists, inveigled to a “trade
club-house,” and alternately threatened and cajoled out of their
engagements. Finally the head of the firm went to London to
purchase yarn; but the London workmen, finding that the yarn was
for a “struck shop,” refused to complete the order. The last resource
of the employers was an indictment at the Sessions for combination,
but a Liverpool jury, in the teeth of the evidence and the judge’s
summing up, gave a verdict of acquittal. [159]
This solidarity was not confined to the members of a particular
trade. The masters are always complaining that one trade supports
another, and old account books of Trade Unions for this period
abound with entries of sums contributed in aid of disputes in other
trades, either in the same town or elsewhere. Thus the small society
of London Goldbeaters, during the three years 1810-12, lent or gave
substantial sums, amounting in all to £200, to fourteen other trades.
[160] The Home Secretary was informed in 1823 that a combination
of cotton-spinners at Bolton, whose books had been seized, had
received donations, not only from twenty-eight cotton-spinners’
committees in as many Lancashire towns, but also from fourteen
other trades, from coal-miners to butchers.[161] A picturesque
illustration of this brotherly help in need occurs in the account of an
appeal to the Pontefract Quarter Sessions by certain Sheffield cutlers
against their conviction for combination: “The appellants were in
court, but hour after hour passed, and no counsel moved the case.
The reason was a want of funds for the purpose. At last, whilst in
court, a remittance from the clubs in Manchester, to the amount of
one hundred pounds, arrived, and then the counsel was fee’d, and
the case, which, but for the arrival of the money from this town,
must have dropped in that stage, was proceeded with.”[162] And
although the day of Trades Councils had not yet come, it was a
common thing for the various trade societies of a particular town to
unite in sending witnesses to Parliamentary Committees, preparing
petitions to the House of Commons and paying counsel to support
their case, engaging solicitors to prosecute offending employers, and
collecting subscriptions for strikes.[163] This tendency to form joint
committees of local trades was, as we shall see, greatly
strengthened in the agitation against the Combination Laws from
1823-25. With the final abandonment of all legislative protection of
the Standard of Life, and the complete divorce of the worker from
the instruments of production, the wage-earners in the various
industrial centres became indeed ever more conscious of the
widening of the old separate trade disputes into “the class war”
which has characterised the past century.
It is difficult to-day to realise the naïve surprise with which the
employers of that time regarded the practical development of
working-class solidarity. The master witnesses before Parliamentary
Committees, and the judges in sentencing workmen for combination,
are constantly found reciting instances of mutual help to prove the
existence of a widespread “conspiracy” against the dominant classes.
That the London Tailors should send money to the Glasgow
Weavers, or the Goldbeaters to the Ropespinners, seemed to the
middle and upper classes little short of a crime.
The movement for a repeal of the Combination Laws began in a
period of industrial dislocation and severe political repression. The
economic results of the long war, culminating in the comparatively
low prices of the peace for most manufactured products, though not
for wheat, led in 1816 to an almost universal reduction of wages
throughout the country. In open defiance of the law the masters, in
many instances, deliberately combined in agreements to pay lower
rates. This agreement was not confined to the employers in a
particular trade, who may have been confronted by organised bodies
of journeymen, but extended, in some cases, to all employers of
labour in a particular locality. The landowners and farmers of
Tiverton, for instance, at a “numerous and respectable meeting at
the Town Hall” in 1816, resolved “that, in consequence of the low
price of provisions,” not more than certain specified wages should be
given to smiths, carpenters, masons, thatchers, or masons’
labourers.[164] The Compositors, Coopers, Shoemakers, Carpenters,
and many other trades record serious reductions of wages at this
period. In these cases the masters justified their action on the
ground that, owing to the fall of prices, the Standard of Life of the
journeymen would not be depressed. But in the great staple
industries there ensued a cutting competition between employers to
secure orders in a falling market, their method being to undersell
each other by beating down wages below subsistence level—an
operation often aided by the practice, then common, of
supplementing insufficient earnings out of the Poor Rate. This
produced such ruinous results that local protests were soon made.
At Leicester the authorities decided to maintain the men’s
“Statement Price” by agreeing to wholly support out of a voluntary
fund those who could not get work at the full rates. This was bitterly
resented by the neighbouring employers, who seriously
contemplated indicting the lord-lieutenant, mayor, alder-men, clergy,
and other subscribers for criminal conspiracy to keep up wages.[165]
And in 1820 a public meeting of the ratepayers of Sheffield protested
against the “evil of parish pay to supplement earnings,” and
recommended employers to revert to the uniform price list which the
men had gained in 1810.[166] Finally we have the employers
themselves publicly denouncing the ruinous extent to which the
cutting of wages had been carried. A declaration dated June 16,
1819, and signed by fourteen Lancashire manufacturers, regrets that
they have been compelled by the action of a few competitors to
lower wages to the present rates, and strongly condemns any
further reduction; whilst twenty-five of the most eminent calico-
printing firms append an emphatic approval of the protest, and state
“that the system of paying such extremely low wages for
manufacturing labour is injurious to the trade at large.”[167] At
Coventry the ribbon manufacturers combined with the Weavers’
Provident Union to maintain a general adherence to the agreed list
of prices, and in 1819 subscribed together no less than £16,000 to
cover the cost of proceedings with this object. This combination
formed the subject of an indictment at Warwick Assizes, which put
an end to the association, the remaining funds being handed over to
the local “Streets Commissioners” for paving the city. These protests
and struggles of the better employers were in vain. Rates were
reduced and strikes occurred all over the country, and were met, not
by redress or sympathy, but by an outburst of prosecutions and
sentences of more than the usual ferocity. The common law and
ancient statutes were ruthlessly used to supplement the
Combination Acts, often by strained constructions. The Scotch
judges in particular, as an eminent Scotch jurist declared to the
Parliamentary Committee in 1824, applied the criminal procedure of
Scotland to cases of simple combination, from 1813-19, in a way
that he, on becoming Lord Advocate, refused to countenance.[168]
The workers, on attempting some spasmodic preparations for
organised political agitation, were further coerced, in 1819, by the
infamous “Six Acts,” which at one blow suppressed practically all
public meetings, enabled the magistrate to search for arms,
subjected all working-class publications to the crushing stamp duty,
and rendered more stringent the law relating to seditious libels. The
whole system of repression which had characterised the
statesmanship of the Regency culminated at this period in a tyranny
not exceeded by any of the monarchs of the “Holy Alliance.” The
effect of this tyranny was actually to shield the Combination Laws by
turning the more energetic and enlightened working-class leaders
away from all specific reforms to a thorough revolution of the whole
system of Parliamentary representation. Hence there was no popular
movement whatever for the repeal of the Combination Laws. If we
were writing the history of the English working class instead of that
of the Trade Union Movement, we should find in William Cobbett or
“Orator” Hunt, in Samuel Bamford or William Lovett, a truer
representative of the current aspirations of the English artisan at this
time than in the man who now came unexpectedly on the scene to
devise and carry into effect the Trade Union Emancipation of 1824.
Francis Place was a master tailor who had created a successful
business in a shop at Charing Cross. Before setting up for himself he
had worked as a journeyman breeches-maker, and had organised
combinations in his own and other trades. After 1818 he left the
conduct of the business to his son, and devoted his keenly practical
intellect and extraordinary persistency first to the repeal of the
Combination Laws, and next to the Reform Movement. In social
theory he was a pupil of Bentham and James Mill, and his ideal may
be summed up as political Democracy with industrial liberty, or, as
we should now say, thoroughgoing Radical Individualism. No one
who has closely studied his life and work will doubt that, within the
narrow sphere to which his unswerving practicality confined him, he
was the most remarkable politician of his age. His chief merit lay in
his thorough understanding of the art of getting things done. In
agitation, permeation, wire-pulling, Parliamentary lobbying, the
drafting of resolutions, petitions, and bills—in short, of all those
artifices by which a popular movement is first created and then
made effective on the Parliamentary system—he was an inventor
and tactician of the first order. Above all, he possessed in perfection
the rare quality of permitting other people to carry off the credit of
his work, and thus secured for his proposals willing promoters and
supporters, some of the leading Parliamentary figures of the time
owing all their knowledge on his questions to the briefs with which
he supplied them. The invaluable collection of manuscript records
left by him, now in the British Museum, prove that modesty had
nothing to do with his contemptuous readiness to leave the trophies
of victory to his pawns provided his end was attained. He was
thoroughly appreciative of the fact that in every progressive
movement his shop at Charing Cross was the real centre of power
when the Parliamentary stage of a progressive movement was
reached. It remained, from 1807 down to about 1834, the
recognised meeting-place of all the agitators of the time. [169]
It was in watching the effect of the Combination Laws in his own
trade that Place became converted to their repeal. The special laws
of 1720 and 1767, fixing the wages of journeymen tailors, as well as
the general law of 1800 against all combinations, had failed to
regulate wages, to prevent strikes, or to hinder those masters who
wished in times of pressure to engage skilled men, from offering the
bribe of high piecework rates, or even time wages in excess of the
legal limit. Place gave evidence as a master tailor before the Select
Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the subject
in 1810; and it was chiefly his weighty testimony in favour of
freedom of contract that averted the fresh legal restrictions which a
combination of employers was then openly promoting.[170] This
experience of the practical freedom of employers to combine
intensified Place’s sense of the injustice of denying a like freedom to
the journeymen, whilst the brutal prosecution of the compositors of
the Times in the same year brought home to his mind the severity of
the law. Four years later (1814), as he himself tells us, he “began to
work seriously to procure a repeal of the laws against combinations
of workmen, but for a long time made no visible progress.” The
employers were firmly convinced that combinations of wage-earners
would succeed in securing a great rise of wages, to the serious
detriment of profits. Far from contemplating a repeal of the Act of
1800, they were in 1814 and 1816 pestering the Home Secretary for
legislation of greater stringency as the only safeguard for their
“freedom of enterprise.”[171] The politicians were equally certain that
Trade Union action would raise prices, and thus undermine the
foreign trade upon which the prosperity and international influence
of England depended. The working men themselves afforded in the
first instance no assistance. Those who had suffered legal
prosecution were hopeless of redress from an unreformed
Parliament, and offered no support. One trade, the Spitalfields silk-
weavers, supported the Government because they enjoyed what
they deemed to be the advantage of legal protection from the
lowering of wages by competition.[172] Others were suspicious of the
intervention of one who was himself an employer, and who had not
yet gained recognition as a friend to labour. But Place was
undismayed by hostility and indifference. Knowing that with an
English public the strength of his cause would lie, not in any abstract
reasoning or appeal to natural rights, but in an enumeration of
actual cases of injustice, he made a point of obtaining the particulars
of every trade dispute. He intervened, as he says, in every strike,
sometimes as a mediator, sometimes as an ally of the journeymen.
He opened up a voluminous correspondence with Trade Unions
throughout the kingdom, and wrote innumerable letters to the
newspapers. In 1818 he secured a useful medium in the Gorgon,
[173] a little working-class political newspaper, started by one Wade,
a woolcomber, and subsidised by Bentham and Place himself. This
gained him his two most important disciples, eventually the chief
instruments of his work, J. R. McCulloch and Joseph Hume.
McCulloch, afterwards to gain fame as an economist, was at that
time the editor of the Scotsman, perhaps the most important of the
provincial newspapers. A powerful article based on Place’s facts
which he contributed to the Edinburgh Review in 1823 secured many
converts; and his constant advocacy gave Place’s idea a weight and
notoriety which it had hitherto lacked. Joseph Hume was an even
more important ally. His acknowledged position in the House of
Commons as one of the leaders of the growing party of Philosophic
Radicalism gained for the repeal movement a steadily increasing
support with advanced members of Parliament. Among a certain
section in the House the desirability of freedom of combination
began to be discussed; presently it was considered practicable; and
soon many came to regard it as an inevitable outcome of their
political creed. In 1822 Place thought the time ripe for action; and
Hume accordingly gave notice of his intention to bring in a Bill to
repeal all the laws against combinations.
Place’s manuscripts and letters contain a graphic account of the
wire-pullings and manipulations of the next two years.[174] In these
contemporary pictures of the inner workings of the Parliamentary
system we watch Hume cajoling Huskisson and Peel into granting
him a Select Committee, staving off the less tactful proposals of a
rival M.P.,[175] and finally, in February 1824, packing the Committee
of Inquiry at length appointed. Hume, with some art, had included in
his motion three distinct subjects—the emigration of artisans, the
exportation of machinery and combinations of workmen, all of which
were forbidden by law. To Place and Hume the repeal of the
Combination Laws was the main object; but Huskisson and his
colleagues regarded the Committee as primarily charged with an
inquiry into the possibility of encouraging the rising manufacture of
machinery, which was seriously hampered by the prohibition of sales
to foreign countries. Huskisson tried to induce Hume to omit from
the Committee’s reference all mention of the Combination Laws,
evidently regarding them as only a minor and unimportant part of
the inquiry. But Place and Hume were now masters of the situation;
and for the next few months they devoted their whole time to the
management of the Committee. At first no one seems to have had
any idea that its proceedings were going to be of any moment; and
no trouble was taken by the Ministry with regard to its composition.
“It was with difficulty,” writes Place, “that Mr. Hume could obtain the
names of twenty-one members to compose the Committee; but
when it had sat three days, and had become both popular and
amusing, members contrived to be put upon it; and at length it
consisted of forty-eight members.”[176] Hume, who was appointed
chairman, appears to have taken into his own hands the entire
management of the proceedings. A circular explaining the objects of
the inquiry was sent to the mayor or other public officer of forty
provincial towns, and appeared in the principal local newspapers.
Public meetings were held at Stockport and other towns to depute
witnesses to attend the Committee.[177] Meanwhile Place, who had
by this time acquired the confidence of the chief leaders of the
working class, secured the attendance of artisan witnesses from all
parts of the kingdom. Read in the light of Place’s private records and
daily correspondence with Hume, the proceedings of this
“Committee on Artisans and Machinery” reveal an almost perfect
example of political manipulation. Although no hostile witness was
denied a hearing, it was evidently arranged that the employers who
were favourable to repeal should be examined first, and that the
preponderance of evidence should be on their side. And whilst those
interests which would have been antagonistic to the repeal were
neither professionally represented nor deliberately organised, the
men’s case was marshalled with admirable skill by Place, and fully
brought out by Hume’s examination. Thus the one acted as the
Trade Unionists’ Parliamentary solicitor, and the other as their unpaid
counsel. [178]
Place himself tells us how he proceeded: “The delegates from the
working people had reference to me, and I opened my house to
them. Thus I had all the town and country delegates under my care.
I heard the story which every one of these men had to tell, I
examined and cross-examined them, took down the leading
particulars of each case, and then arranged the matter as briefs for
Mr. Hume, and as a rule, for the guidance of the witnesses, a copy
was given to each.... Each brief contained the principal questions
and answers.... That for Mr. Hume was generally accompanied by an
appendix of documents arranged in order, with a short account of
such proceedings as were necessary to put Mr. Hume in possession
of the whole case. Thus he was enabled to go on with considerable
ease, and to anticipate or rebut objections.” [179]
The Committee sat in private; but Hume’s numerous letters to Place
show how carefully the latter was kept posted up in all the
proceedings: “As the proceedings of the Committee were printed
from day to day for the use of the members, I had a copy sent to
me by Mr. Hume, which I indexed on paper ruled in many columns,
each column having an appropriate head or number. I also wrote
remarks on the margins of the printed evidence; this was copied
daily by Mr. Hume’s secretary, and then returned to me. This
consumed much time, but enabled Mr. Hume to have the whole
mass constantly under his view; and I am very certain that less
pains and care would not have been sufficient to have carried the
business through.” [180]
From Westminster Hall we are transported, by these private notes
for Hume’s use, all now preserved in the British Museum, into the
back parlour of the Charing Cross shop, where the London and
provincial artisan witnesses came for their instructions. “The
workmen,” as Place tells us, “were not easily managed. It required
great care and pains not to shock their prejudices so as to prevent
them doing their duty before the Committee. They were filled with
false notions, all attributing their distresses to wrong causes, which
I, in this state of the business, dared not attempt to remove. Taxes,
machinery, laws against combinations, the will of the masters, the
conduct of magistrates—these were the fundamental causes of all
their sorrows and privations.... I had to discuss everything with them
most carefully, to arrange and prepare everything, and so completely
did these things occupy my time that for more than three months I
had hardly any rest.” [181]
The result of the inquiry was as Hume and Place had ordained. A
series of resolutions in favour of complete freedom of combination
and liberty of emigration was adopted by the Committee, apparently
without dissent. A Bill to repeal all the Combination Laws and to
legalise trade societies was passed through both Houses, within less
than a week, at the close of the session, without either debate or
division. Place and Hume contrived privately to talk over and to
silence the few members who were alive to the situation; and the
measure passed, as Place remarks, “almost without the notice of
members within or newspapers without.”[182] So quietly was the Bill
smuggled through Parliament that the magistrates at a Lancashire
town unwittingly sentenced certain cotton-weavers to imprisonment
for combination some weeks after the laws against that crime had
been repealed. [183]
Place and Hume had, however, been rather too clever. Whilst the
governing classes were quite unconscious that any important
alteration of law or policy had taken place, the unlooked-for success
of Place’s agitation produced, as Nassau Senior describes, “a great
moral effect” in all the industrial centres. “It confirmed in the minds
of the operatives the conviction of the justice of their cause, tardily
and reluctantly, but at last fully, conceded by the Legislature. That
which was morally right in 1824 must have been so, they would
reason, for fifty years before.... They conceived that they had
extorted from the Legislature an admission that their masters must
always be their rivals, and had hitherto been their oppressors, and
that combinations to raise wages, and shorten the time or diminish
the severity of labour, were not only innocent, but meritorious.”[184]
Trade Societies accordingly sprang into existence or emerged into
aggressive publicity on all sides. A period of trade inflation, together
with a rapid rise in the price of provisions, favoured a general
increase of wages. For the next six months the newspapers are full
of strikes and rumours of strikes. Serious disturbances occurred at
Glasgow, where the employers had been exceptionally oppressive,
where the cotton operatives committed several outrages, and where
a general lock-out took place. The cotton-spinners were once more
striking in the Manchester district. The shipping trade of the North-
East Coast was temporarily paralysed by a strong combination of the
seamen on the Tyne and Wear, who refused to sail except with
Unionist seamen and Unionist officers. The Dublin trades, then the
best organised in the kingdom, ruthlessly enforced their bye-laws for
the regulation of their respective industries, and formed a joint
committee, the so-called “Board of Green Cloth,” whose dictates
became the terror of the employers. The Sheffield operatives have to
be warned that, if they persist in demanding double the former
wages for only three days a week work, the whole industry of the
town will be ruined.[185] The London shipwrights insisted on what
their employers considered the preposterous demand for a “book of
rates” for piecework. The London coopers demanded a revision of
their wages, which led to a long-sustained conflict. In fact, as a
provincial newspaper remarked a little later, “it is no longer a
particular class of journeymen at some single point that have been
induced to commence a strike for an advance of wages, but almost
the whole body of the mechanics in the kingdom are combined in
the general resolution to impose terms on their employers.” [186]
The opening of the session of 1825 found the employers throughout
the country thoroughly aroused. Hume and Place had in vain
preached moderation, and warned the Unions of the danger of a
reaction. The great shipowning and shipbuilding interest, which had
throughout the century preserved intact its reputation for
unswerving hostility to Trade Unionism, had possession of the ear of
Huskisson, then President of the Board of Trade and member for
Liverpool. Early in the session he moved for a committee of inquiry
into the conduct of the workmen and the effect of the recent Act,
which, he complained, had been smuggled through the House
without his attention having been called to the fact that it went far
beyond the mere repeal of the special statutes against combinations.
[187] This time the composition of the committee was not left to
chance, or to Hume’s manipulation. The members were, as Place
complains, selected almost exclusively from the Ministerial benches,
twelve out of the thirty being placemen, and many being
representatives of rotten boroughs. Huskisson, [188] Peel, and the
Attorney-General themselves took part in its proceedings; Wallace,
the Master of the Mint, was made chairman, and Hume alone
represented the workmen. Huskisson regarded the Committee as
merely a formal preliminary to the introduction of the Bill which the
shipping interest had drafted,[189] under which Trade Unions, and
even Friendly Societies, would have been impossible. For the inner
history of this Committee we have to rely on Place’s voluminous
memoranda, and Hume’s brief notes to him. According to these, the
original intention was to call only a few employers as witnesses, to
exclude all testimony on the other side, and promptly to report in
favour of the repressive measure already prepared. Place, himself an
expert in such tactics, met them by again supplying Hume daily with
detailed information which enabled him to cross-examine the
masters and expose their exaggerations. And, if Place’s account of
the animus of the Committee and the Ministers against himself be
somewhat highly coloured, we have ample evidence of the success
with which he guided the alarmed Trade Unions to take effectual
action in their own defence. His friend John Gast, secretary to the
London Shipwrights, called for two delegates from each trade in the
metropolis, and formed a committee which kept up a persistent
agitation against any re-enactment of the Combination Laws. Similar
committees were formed at Manchester and Glasgow by the cotton
operatives, at Sheffield by the cutlers, and at Newcastle by the
seamen and shipwrights. Petitions, the draft of which appears in
Place’s manuscripts, poured in to the Select Committee and to both
Houses. If we are to believe Place, the passages leading to the
committee-room were carefully kept thronged by crowds of
workmen insisting on being examined to rebut the accusations of the
employers, and waylaying individual members to whom they
explained their grievances. All this energy on the part of the Unions
was, as Place observes, in marked contrast with their apathy the
year before. The workmen, though they had done nothing to gain
their freedom of association, were determined to maintain it.
Doherty, the leader of the Lancashire Cotton-spinners, writing to
Place in the heat of the agitation, declared that any attempt at a re-
enactment of the Combination Laws would result in a widespread
revolutionary movement. [190] The net result of the inquiry was, on
the whole, satisfactory. The Select Committee found themselves
compelled to hear a certain number of workmen witnesses, who
testified to the good results of the Act of the previous year. The ship-
owners’ Bill was abandoned, and the House of Commons was
recommended to pass a measure which nominally re-established the
general common-law prohibition of combinations, but specifically
excepted from prosecution associations for the purpose of regulating
wages or hours of labour. The master shipbuilders were furious at
this virtual defeat. The handbill is still extant which they distributed
at the doors of the House of Commons on the day of the second
reading of the emasculated Bill.[191] They declared that its
provisions were quite insufficient to save their industry from
destruction. If Trade Unions were to be allowed to exist at all, they
demanded that these bodies should be compelled to render full
accounts of their expenditure to the justices in Quarter Sessions, and
that any diversion of monies raised for friendly society purposes
should be severely punished. They pleaded, moreover, that at any
rate all federal or combined action among trade clubs should be
prohibited. Place and Hume, on the other hand, were afraid, and
subsequent events proved with what good grounds, that the narrow
limits of the trade combinations allowed by the Bill, and still more
the vague terms “molest” and “obstruct,” which it contained, would
be used as weapons against Trade Unionism. The Government,
however, held to the draft of the Committee. The shipbuilders
secured nothing. Hume induced Ministers to give way on some
verbal points, and took three divisions in vain protest against the
measure. Place carried on the agitation to the House of Lords, where
Lord Rosslyn extracted the concession of a right of appeal to Quarter
Sessions, which was afterwards to prove of some practical value.
The Act of 1825 (6 Geo. IV. c. 129)[192]—which became known
among the manufacturers as “Peel’s Act”—though it fell short of the
measure which Place and Hume had so skilfully piloted through
Parliament the year before, effected a real emancipation. The right
of collective bargaining, involving the power to withhold labour from
the market by concerted action, was for the first time expressly
established. And although many struggles remained to be fought
before the legal freedom of Trade Unionism was fully secured, no
overt attempt has since been made to render illegal this first
condition of Trade Union action. [193]
It is a suggestive feature of this, as of other great reforms, that the
men whose faith in its principle, and whose indefatigable industry
and resolution carried it through, were the only ones who proved
altogether mistaken as to its practical consequences. If we read the
lesson of the century aright, the manufacturer was not wholly wrong
when he protested that liberty of combination must make the
workers the ultimate authority in industry, although his narrow fear
as to the driving away of capital and commercial skill and the
reduction of the nation to a dead level of anarchic pauperism were
entirely contradicted by subsequent developments. And the
workman, to whom liberty to combine opened up vistas of indefinite
advancement of his class at the expense of his oppressors, was, we
now see, looking rightly forward, though he, too, greatly
miscalculated the distance before him, and overlooked many
arduous stages of the journey. But what is to be said of the forecasts
of Place and the Philosophic Radicals? “Combinations,” writes Place
to Sir Francis Burdett in 1825, “will soon cease to exist. Men have
been kept together for long periods only by the oppressions of the
laws; these being repealed, combinations will lose the matter which
cements them into masses, and they will fall to pieces. All will be as
orderly as even a Quaker could desire.... He knows nothing of the
working people who can suppose that, when left at liberty to act for
themselves without being driven into permanent associations by the
oppression of the laws, they will continue to contribute money for
distant and doubtful experiments, for uncertain and precarious
benefits. If let alone, combinations—excepting now and then, and
for particular purposes under peculiar circumstances—will cease to
exist.” [194]
It is pleasant to feel that Place was right in regarding the repeal as
beneficial and worthy of his best efforts in its support; but in every
less general respect he and his allies were as wrong as it was
possible for them to be. The first disappointment, however, came to