THE TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
[To THE EDITOR. OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—Your article in the issue of November 3rd entitled "The Rule of Tooth and Claw" indicates some of the fatal objections against Clause IV. of the Trade Disputes Bill, which places Trade-Unions, whether of workmen or masters, above the law in respect of damages for tortious acts committed. But the 1nost deadly effect of such a law has perhaps still to be marked after noticing the ways of capitalist bodies in America; and the fact that the latter may be corporations will not vitiate a comparison of the powers for evil of those bodies and our Trade-Unions under the new law. We are told that in America local authorities, Courts of Justice, and Legislatures have been corrupted by the machinations of capitalist bodies; and the Times of November 3rd tells us of the maleficent power of the Press, as directed a few years ago by an unscrupulous capitalist, in hounding the head of the State to his death, which has called forth the execration of President Roosevelt. The evils of the Standard Oil Trust have provoked at last prosecution by the American Government, and it remains to be seen how far the law in America (which, I believe, no Government has dared to tamper with, and which has begun by condemning the Trust in damages) will succeed in controlling the tyranny of wealth in that country. Is it to be supposed, because we have hitherto escaped the evils of the unscrupulous handling of vast wealth, that such methods would not flourish in our soil under any conceivable conditions P Our present immunity may be said to lie largely in the traditions of our commercial world, which have been created by those captains of industry many of whose names have been honoured for generations. Among them to be recklessly unscrupulous in public life would have meant social ostracism, for which fact we have to thank the public conscience which reposes on the principle of the equity of our laws. But what of the intentions of the Government to allow associations of capitalists the free use of all the means which are at the disposal of vast wealth for corrupting society in accordance with the most advanced American methods, without liability for tortious acts ? and how long would the temptation to tortious acts for the accumulation of wealth and increase of power be resisted ? While America, led by President Roosevelt, conscious of the tyranny of its plutocracy, is courageously struggling to shake off its fetters, our Government is busy forging them for
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