being nearly 9 hours. In the Gun Factory the overtime was pretty regular, at about 5 hours. In the Small Arms Factory, overtime varied from 3'1 to 10.32 hours, the average being nearly 8 hours per week. In all the Departments the overtime worked was 8 hours per man in 1886-7; in the next year 20 hours per man, in the following year 26 hours per man, and last year 29 hours per man weekly. In the year 1884-5 and 1885-6, every four men displaced, by the overtime they worked, one man from full employment all the time; in the last four years the average overtime worked weekly per man was 21 hours, so that every five men displaced two men from full employment during the whole period.

$ 52. The question arises, who are responsible for this practice of systematically working overtime in Government establishments? The authorities at the War Office assert that the workmen are chiefly responsible for the system of overtime; some of the men allege that the pressure so to work comes from the foremen. The point is not very material, as the foremen are not far removed from the workmen in social position, or even in wages. Possibly both parties are to blame, and each, therefore, should share the responsibility for the systematic prolongation of the working hours beyond the normal limit of the recognised ordinary working day. Whoever may be in fault, it is a practice to be checked, and discontinued wherever practical; for excessive working hours are now being almost universally condemned by all classes of the community. If the workmen are pressed to work overtime, they may plead some excuse, as a refusal to do so might be used to their disadvantage. If, however, the pressure comes from the workmen, or they willingly concur in the practice, then they deserve more severe condemnation, because it tends to show insincerity with respect to the eight hours as the normal limit of the day's work. It is their duty to discourage overtime, and some of the unions recognise that duty by insisting upon extra payment for all time so worked. The concession of extra payment per hour ought not to operate as an incentive to any extension of the practice, but should operate in the contrary direction-as a means of contracting it, and even prevent

ing it, wherever possible without inflicting injury upon employers or trade.

§ 53. The preceding facts and figures refer solely to, and the remarks are also confined to, systematic overtime. In the foregoing observations occasional overtime is altogether excluded from consideration, because it occupies a totally different position. A workman would be a churl if, in case of necessity or urgency, he refused to work an extra hour, and particularly when he is rewarded by extra pay for the time so worked over and above the ordinary rate of wages. It would appear that the unions have great difficulty in checking the practice of systematic overtime, even where the rules endeavour to prevent it. In the May report, 1890, of the Boiler-makers and Ironshipbuilders' Society, a case is reported of a member who worked all day upon one vessel for one employer, and all night upon another vessel for a different employer, thus putting in twelve days in the week, instead of six. Whether the labour performed was satisfactory to the employer, or beneficial to the man, is not here the question. This might be an extreme case; it shows, however, not only a willingness, but a greedy desire, to put in all possible time on the part of some workmen. The reports of the last two years indicate that sy stematic overtime has been general and continuous in most trades where industrial activity has been the rule. The obvious conclusion is that workmen like it, and will work overtime whenever they can, the rules of the union to the contrary notwithstanding. Nevertheless, the practice is a bad one, and ought to be discouraged. Looking at it from every standpoint, the conclusion is that systematic overtime is not advantageous to the employer, is not permanently beneficial to the workman, and is injurious, in its ultimate effects, to the general community, especially to the working class. If an eight-hour day were ever enacted for grown men, stringent provisions would have to be added to prevent overtime, except in cases of absolute necessity.

CHAPTER VII.

TWO PHASES OF TRADE UNIONISM: I. COERCION, INTIMIDATION, AND RATTENING. II. PICKETING, CONSIDERED IN ITS LEGAL, POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND PERSONAL ASPECTS.

I. INTIMIDATION.

§ 1. WHEN this work was first published scarcely a week passed without some allusion in the press, or by public speakers, to cases of alleged intimidation, in one form or another, of nonunion workmen, by trade unionists.* Under these circumstances a clear statement of the facts with regard to the whole class of "offences against the liberty of the subject," with especial reference to the personal freedom of workmen to work where and for whom they please, may be of some service both to employers and workmen, and not altogether without interest to the general public. In order to do this fairly we must draw a line between acts which are positively unlawful in themselves, and which must be put down by the strong arm of the law by whomsoever committed; and "picketing," which may or may not involve undue influence or coercion, either in itself, or by attendant circumstances, and which, therefore, must be treated independently as separate and apart from actual intimidation. The first part of the subject will first be dealt with.

§ 2. A good deal of misapprehension has existed, and even still exists, with regard to the alleged coercion of non-unionist workmen, by trade unionists. This was intensified by the

* As these phases of unionism have not entirely disappeared, this chapter is retained. The bitter attacks formerly levelled at the unions have, however, ceased.

Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, by reason of the malinterpretation of the word "coerce " in section 1 by the magistrates and judges before whom the several cases were tried. This was clearly pointed out to the Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), at a deputation to the Home Office, on March 21, 1872, by the then Parliamentary Secretary of the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee, in the following words: "The other term 'coerce,' as used by the Act, appears to mean 'induce,' and not what it is ordinarily supposed to mean, 'compel.' Surely this was never intended by the Government when draughting the Bill." The Home Secretary nodded assent.

§ 3. Coerce, as defined in the dictionaries, means "to restrain by force, to compel;" it involves compulsion, or force of some kind, other than moral suasion. Had the term been so construed by our courts of law, the objections urged against the use of that term would not have been valid on the part of trade unionists. This was stated over and over again in public meetings, in deputations, in memorials to Ministers of State, and in petitions to parliament. Notwithstanding these constant iterations and reiterations, a certain section of the press, and many public men who were opposed to every kind of concession, repeatedly accused the unionist workmen of seeking, by Act of parliament, for the power and the means by which to coerce their fellows by compulsion or force. The accusation is even now repeated sometimes in journals of a special class. It is satisfactory to be able to add that, in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1874, section 7, the word "compel" has been substituted for "coerce," so as to prevent as far as possible any further misconstruction in courts of law of a word that has been so variously and technically interpreted. After this emphatic recognition by the legislature of the justice of the demands made by the workmen, it surely ought to be no longer necessary to protest against continual misrepresentation of the views of trade unionists even by a section of the press and of the public; the repetition of these allegations is, however, too frequent to be passed over without some definite disclaimer on the part of workmen.

§ 4. It may serve as a caution to those who persistently misrepresent working men, by reminding them that the safest way in all such matters is first to ascertain precisely what the demands of the workmen are; and, secondly, the reasons for those demands, before attempting to denounce the men who are deputed to seek for a modification or repeal of statutes, which, for centuries, were enacted in the interest of a class, and that class not those who get their living by daily labour, but employers, by whom also those laws were too frequently interpreted, and administered.

§ 5. The fundamental objection against the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, as stated in a memorial to the Home Office in March, 1872, was, that it was "founded upon the presupposition of criminal intentions on the part of that large section of Her Majesty's subjects known as trade unionists," who, it affirmed, "were as peaceably disposed as any other portion of Her Majesty's subjects, and were as opposed to any violation of the letter or the spirit of the laws of the land, either openly or secretly." It further stated that this wrongful supposition of the legislature "was in itself an act of injustice to members of trade unions, caused by imperfect knowledge as to the aims, objects, and working of these societies." It was urged that every species of intimidation, whether by individuals or in combination, was fully provided for by the general statute and common law, which dealt with ordinary cases of assault; and specially by the Offences against the Person Act, 24 and 25 Victoria, c. 100. These representations did not stop here; in a letter addressed to Mr. Gladstone, on July 12, 1873, it was stated that if it were found that those laws were insufficient to prevent molestation or intimidation, either by individuals or in combination, the general statute law should be so strengthened as to reach all offences and offenders, in any and every such case.

§ 6. This view was ultimately adopted by the legislature in 1875, by the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, which was a special enactment against a class; and by the substitution of a law general in its character and its application, not levelled at unionists as a body, but directed against the person or persons who perpetrated the offence. The legis