CABRIOLET, originally, a name given by the English to a two-wheel, horse-drawn vehicle with a hood, for gentleman's driv ing. In America, a name given to a horse-drawn vehicle with a coachman's seat over a panel framework (in distinction from a victoria which is similar, but of iron skeleton construction). It had a seat behind at a lower level with a collapsible leather hood and was a fashionable vehicle for ladies. See CAB.
CA' CANNY. Ca' canny (or "Go canny") is by origin a Scottish phrase meaning to go cautiously, or warily, or, by a slight change of meaning, to go slow. Thus, in John Galt's The Provost, we read "We maun ca' canny many a day yet before we think of dignities," and, in the same writer's The Entail, "But, Charlie and Bill, ca' canny." In modern times, the phrase has acquired a special meaning in relation to industrial strife. To "ca' canny" is to work slowly, in order to draw attention to a workshop grievance, or bring pressure to bear upon an employer. It appears to have been first used in this sense in a dispute at the Glasgow docks in 1889, when the dockers had struck for a rise in wages. Agricultural labourers were introduced as blacklegs, and the employers expressed themselves as highly satisfied with their work. When the dockers had to go back on the old terms, their leader adjured them, since the blacklegs had given satisfaction, to work like them, to ca' canny. During the following years the phrase caught on, and a pamphlet recommending it as a policy to trade unionists was published in 1895. Later, the phrase was taken up by the French Syndicalists, and identified by them with the less violent forms of sabotage (q.v.). (See E. Pouget, Le Sabotage [n.d] . ) Ca' canny, as the term is used in Great Britain, is essentially an occasional practice. It is not authorized by any important trade union, but is sometimes adopted spontaneously by a group of workers in some particular factory as a means of securing redress for a felt grievance. Thus, if the men think the management is unduly speeding up the pace of work, they may make a concerted effort to "speed down" ; if they think piecework prices are too low they may deliberately restrict production in order to draw attention to their grievance, or they may ca' canny temporarily because of some dispute about the arrangement of work, work shop discipline, or the like. The more deliberate kind of ca' canny is sometimes known by the name of the "stay-in strike," in which the men, by a concerted arrangement, remain at work, but do as little as possible. A variant of this is the "working to rule" policy, found especially on the railways, where the men sometimes, in furtherance of a grievance, tangle up the traffic by strict obedience to all the rules laid down for them, well knowing that these are not literally workable without entire disorganization.
The term ca' canny is also known in the United States, where it has much the same sense as in Great Britain. It appears, how ever, to be used more often in order to describe a systematic policy, whereas the occasional practice of "go slow" methods is, in America, commonly known as "striking on the job." As an organized practice, ca' canny is not very common. It occurs, apart from short-lived and purely spontaneous move ments arising out of a particular workshop grievance, mainly where there is a long-standing bad relationship between employers and workers. It appears to have been far commoner in France, during the Syndicalist activity before the World War, and to have been also widespread in Italy. In Germany there is little sign of it. Save as an occasional method of expressing a local grievance, it is important mainly as a part of the deliberate policy of revo lutionary Syndicalism in France and Italy, and industrial unionism in the English-speaking countries.
Apart from industrial disputes, the name "ca' canny" is some times applied to a deliberate and systematic slowing down of the pace of production, either in order to make the work last longer, or to create additional employment, or to express a general dis satisfaction with the economic system. While "going slow" may be justified as a purely temporary expedient for calling attention to a particular grievance, its systematic use is obviously more likely, by increasing the cost of production, to create unemploy ment than employment. (G. D. H. C.)