service, with a view to its amendment or repeal. In 1865 a select committee was appointed to inquire into the law as regards contracts of service between master and servant, and as to the expediency of amending the same. The committee was reappointed in 1866. A large amount of evidence was taken, from which it appeared that the average number of prosecutions in England and Scotland alone exceeded 11,000 cases annually. The result of the inquiry was the Master and Servants Act, 1867, which practically repealed 20 Geo. II. c. 19, passed in the year 1747; 6 Geo. III. c. 25, passed in the year 1766; and 4 Geo. IV. c. 34, passed in the year 1823. The Act of 1867, however, never became a permanent statute, for it had to be renewed from year to year by the Expiring Laws Continuance Acts, until its final repeal, together with all the previously mentioned Acts, by the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875, the latter being substituted therefor.

§ 132. Another and still more important inquiry was mooted in 1866, having reference to outrages said to have been committed in Sheffield, Nottingham, and Manchester. In 1867 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into these alleged outrages, and also into the organisation, rules, operations, and conduct of trade societies, and the laws under which they were governed. The investigation was searching and complete; the result is embodied in sixteen volumes of reports; the ordeal was a severe one, but the unions, as a whole, came out of it without a stain.

§ 133. Instead of a law to suppress the unions, as many had hoped, the inquiry into their organisation and rules eventuated first of all in a Temporary Act, protecting their funds, in 1869, and then in the Trade Union Act, 1871, which sanctioned their objects, and legalised their action. The extraordinary activity of the unions during the past twenty-five years has had the effect of extending their influence, consolidating their power, perfecting their organisation, increasing their numbers, and augmenting their wealth, to a degree which is surprising even to their friends, and must be astounding to their opponents. And, withal, it means a stricter discipline, if there be more centralisation and concentration; with a sense of power, there is also a

growing feeling of responsibility; the educational influence alone has been vastly beneficial in its effects, and widespread in its operation. Some details with regard to their development in later years are given in other chapters of this work; these need not be here recapitulated, suffice it to say, that after the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, the agitation for the total repeal of all the penal laws affecting labour became more and more intensified and persistent; the action for securing this end was constitutional and methodical; the public mind was educated by meetings, lectures, publications, annual congresses, deputations to ministers, and interviews with members of Parliament, and by debates, bills, and petitions, until at last a Conservative Government, in 1875, after a slight show of resistance, with the excuse and help afforded by the report of another Royal Commission, granted the workmen's demands.

§ 134. The history of the struggles to secure this great victory is not so well known as it might and should be; it conveys an object lesson replete with interest to workmen, employers, the legislature, and the general public; above all, it ought to teach the law-makers that repressive laws are ineffectual, as well as dangerous and oppressive; that their effect is demoralising on the mind; and that men's ideas of right and wrong become confounded, until a sense of injustice brings about the worst evils of violence, even to ferocity. "Men who know that they are criminals, by the mere reason of the object which they have in view, care little for the additional criminality involved in the means they adopt." The value of the lesson to workmen is not a whit less important than to others; if they study the labour question aright, they will perceive and understand the wisdom of moderation in all their demands; that the duty which they owe to the State, of which they are component members, is to pursue their objects peaceably, and in a constitutional manner; and furthermore, that sooner or later, if the claims put forward are reasonable and just, they will be granted by the legislature. With their present political power, if it be wisely used and directed, no demand, if based on justice, can long be refused; but those who denounce the injustice of others,

must be careful not to incur a like condemnation, by reason of their own departure from the principles of equity. Moreover, in this case, as indeed it might be said to be in all cases, it is politic to be just. Retribution, in some form or another, is sure to follow any departure from the principles of truth and justice; sometimes it is swift and sudden, at other times slow and deferred, but it is certain, sure, and inevitable.

CHAPTER III.

THE OBJECTS, AIMS, CONSTITUTION, AND GOVERNMENT OF TRADE UNIONS.

§ 1. IN their essence, trade unions are voluntary associations of workmen for mutual protection and assistance in securing generally the most favourable conditions of labour. This is their primary and fundamental object, and includes all efforts to raise wages or prevent a reduction in wages; to diminish the hours of labour or resist attempts to increase the working hours; and to regulate all matters pertaining to methods of employment or discharge, and modes of working. They have other aims also, some of them not less important than those embraced in the foregoing definition. The sphere of their action extends to almost every detail connected with the labour of the workman, and the well-being of his every-day life. Many of the objects were at one time known under the legal definition of being in restraint of trade, a doctrine rendered obsolete under the legislation embodied in the "Labour Laws," 1875. That some of the aims of trade unions in days gone by were quite within this description' can scarcely be denied; that there is a remnant of the old spirit still left in some of the unions cannot be gainsaid, but in general the description does not now apply, in the sense in which the expression was formerly used.

§ 2. The legislature, as shown in the preceding chapter, was slow to recognise the right of workmen to combine; and even after the nominal right was conceded, the means by which they endeavoured to carry out their objects were condemned as being unlawful. Both the objects and the means are now lawful, so

long as the members of the unions do not attempt to interfere with the personal freedom of others to make for themselves what terms they please in the disposal of their labour.

§ 3. The first essential principle of the existence of a trade union is that it shall be purely voluntary-upon no other basis could it legally or possibly exist. A man must have perfect liberty either to join or refrain from joining such society, according to his taste or inclination, and no justification can be offered for any attempt to violate this first condition of membership. Instances frequently occur in which a certain amount of social pressure is used in order to bring men into the union, but they are rather exceptional; and usually they are not effective, for workmen like others resent any kind of personal dictation, and if they do yield to its influence it is only for a time, until an opportunity for repudiation occurs.* Coercion is not only a violation of law, but it is also contrary to morals; the law is jealous of any interference with the personal liberty of the subject, and rightly so, for absolute freedom is the right of every citizen in a free State. It is equally wrong for an employer to attempt to interfere with the freedom of the workmen, with the intention of preventing them from joining a union if they think fit to do so. Neither the employer nor the workman has the right to fetter the free action of any other person in this matter, or to force him to do, or abstain from doing, that which he thinks best for himself.

§ 4. That which is now conceded by law as a right, should not be interfered with under any pretence whatever. As a matter of personal freedom, it is of the utmost importance that this voluntary principle should be maintained in its entirety and fulness, for it forms the basis of our political liberties, it is guaranteed to us by the Constitution, it has been won for us by the blood, and treasure, and suffering of our forefathers, and this freedom should be especially dear to all trade union workmen, in consequence of their own struggles to secure the right of

*Recent events in connection with some of the labourers' strikes, would seem to justify a modification of the first part of this sentence, and to confirm the last portion of it. But, as compared with the past, the general statement in the text is not invalidated.

K