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proceeded to pass unanimous resolutions affecting the only law which can protect the community from conspiracies of violent strikers. The English law is as lenient as possible to combinations of workmen. They are no longer regarded as coalitions which, as dangerous to the public, thereby become conspiracies; they are not unlawful by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade; their members may attend at, or near, a place of business in order thereby to obtain or communicate information. They become illegal conspiracies only when they proceed to coercion. Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act regards as a criminal every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, uses violence to him, or intimidates him, or persistently follows him, or watches the house where he resides or works, &c. Before the congress trade unionists were aware of the lenity with which the law draws the line between peaceful and violent picketing. A Trade Unionist,' writing_in_your columns about the approaching congress (The Times, August 30), said: 'Peaceable persuasion at the gates of the yard or the shops of the factory is all that is desired, and the adoption of any other means is contrary to law and justice, and should be condemned by all trade unionists.' What then did the congress do?

On the first day of the congress the report of the retiring Parliamentary Committee was read, and contained a statement of the law, and of its sufficiency, in the following words:

'The law is, however, perfectly clear and cannot be mistaken in the permission it gives to peaceful picketing. If those 'engaged in trade disputes necessitating this means of protection would obtain the information, which they could easily get, before undertaking the work, there is no reason 'why they might not conduct picketing successfully, and ' without any liability to prosecution.'

In these circumstances any body of men who wished to retain a reputation for justice would have let well alone. Yet on September 4-the eight hours day- Mr. J. Cronin (London) moved an instruction to the Parliamentary Committee to introduce into Parliament a Bill repealing Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, and other clauses dangerous to picketing and watching premises. This was adopted' (The Times, September 5). Again, on September 6, Mr. Ben Tillett, in a motion directed against 'commodities made by blackleg labour', pledged the congress' to influence their constituents to boycott all goods made under unfair conditions', with the addendum' that a trade union mark be placed on manufactured goods in transit'; and the resolution was passed unanimously' (The Times, September 8).

Those resolutions, read in the light of recent events, mark a step in the downward progress of trade unionism from practising to preaching violence. Before the congress sat various strikers had committed violent acts, in the heat of the moment; violence was becoming habitual by a sort of unconscious infection. But now the congress, by deliberately resolving to repeal the law against such acts of violence done by combinations of workmen, has expressed its approval of the growing habit of violence and its wish to see legalized a conspiracy of violence, intimidation, and persecution, to compel the unemployed to abstain from their legal right to be employed. Nor is this all; by unanimously resolving to influence trade unions to boycott' commodities made by blackleg' labour, the congress has committed itself to the unfortunately common practice of breaking the law before it is repealed, for boycotting has been defined by the Judges as a system of intimidation which is illegal. The real point of the Trade Union Congress is the double

resolve to get combined intimidation legalized and to practise it while it is still illegal.

It is a significant fact that the deliberate recognition of violence by the Trade Union Congress in one week is followed by a strike of unexampled violence in the next, for the mere purpose of getting unionism recognized. I do not for a moment suggest that the resolutions of the congress are the sole cause of the violence of the strike at Southampton, which is perhaps rather a manifestation of the same animus. But the violent strikers at Southampton must feel immensely strengthened by the knowledge that the congress unanimously passed resolutions to procure subscriptions in aid of a similar strike in Australia, to press the repeal of the law against criminal conspiracies of workmen, and to practise the illegal intimidation of the boycott. The trade unionists as a body have rashly incurred a grave responsibility for this and for all future violent strikes. One cannot preach violence and expect men not to put it into practice.

A kind of fatalism seems to have seized this country. Many who condemn the use of violence nevertheless believe that it is positively necessary to develop the trade unions into larger organizations until all labour is organized. They had better have said disorganized. This method, in present circumstances, is a consecration of violence, which should be contemplated only in the very last resort. Really, it is quite unnecessary, and for a very simple reason. The number of workmen in unions are, according to Mr. John Burns himself, in a very great minority. Speaking on the eight-hours day at the congress, he said that the unionists are one million and a half, while the non-unionist workmen are seven millions. It is true that one million and a half unionists are a great temptation to the politician, and especially to the very rich man, who can afford to exchange a

good deal of commercial for an equivalent in political capital. But, in the name of common sense, why is it necessary for England to submit to the violence of one million and a half workmen in the hope that, when the other seven millions are organized, the so-called war of labour against capital will end in peace? The truth is the word labour is as misleading as the word the people. As the people often means a few in a noisy crowd, so 'labour' is usurped to mean that minority of the labourers which is organized in unions. This minority is at war with capital, but it is equally at war with the great majority of labourers. There is no war between capital and labour as a whole.

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It is true, however, that organization is wanted. It is the organization of the State. Is it to be said that the colonial Governments of Australia can be summoned to grapple with a violent strike of trade unionists, and that the Imperial Government of Great Britain is powerless? Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act is so clear that there can be no difficulty in giving the police a general direction to act upon it. If this is insufficient, England can imitate Australia at this moment by organizing special constables. But it is not merely the administration of law which needs more effective working. Statesmen should remember that there is a larger question than Home Rule, on the solution of which, indeed, this smaller question mainly depends. That larger question is the maintenance of freedom against force. But, again, the administration of law and the measures of statesmanship require the loyalty of citizens. Who can doubt, however, that now, if ever, is the moment when the liberty of the subject from unjust violence would command the vast majority in these islands? The capitalists, and especially the shareholders of companies, who are not as a class wealthy, are in

danger of losing their profits. Skilled workmen are in danger of having their wages levelled down to those of the unskilled. The majority of workmen are in danger of being left out of close unions, and the unemployed are to be thrown on the rates. All, as consumers, are threatened with high prices, and, as citizens, with acts of violence. The real method of stopping the attack, not of labour against capital, but of a minority of labourers against the majority of labourers as well as capitalists, is a patriotic alliance of all, in every class, who love justice and legality, to maintain freedom against force, within the organization of the State. September 10.

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE LABOUR

QUESTION

The Trade Union Congress met on September 7, 1891, at Newcastle under the chairmanship of Thomas Burt, Member of Parliament for Morpeth. Burt was the first Labour Member of Parliament in 1874. In 1892 he entered the Liberal Ministry as Parliamentary Secretary for the Board of Trade. He died in 1922.

FROM The Times, SEPTEMBER 24, 1891.

On September 15 last year you did me the honour of publishing a letter, in which I argued that the real point of the Trade Union Congress at Liverpool was its animosity to the Conspiracy Act, which, so far as it protects workmen from the combined violence, intimidation, and persecution of trade unions, may be fitly called the charter of free labour. This year I submit that the self-same animosity to the Conspiracy Act was the real point of the Trade Union Congress at Newcastle. The report of the Parliamentary Committee, read on the first day of the congress, devoted more attention to this than to any other subject, favouring a Conspiracy Law Amendment Bill to enact that, in all except a few cases, no combination be punishable as conspiracy

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