THE TRADES' UNION BILL.
MR. BRUCE appears determined to make up for his com- pulsory inertness during last Session by bringing forward his principal measures at as early a date as possible. He has postponed the most necessary measure of all, the reorganiza- tion of London ; but his licensing Bill, which will create, we fancy, an unexpected amount of resistance, is to come on in a few days ; and his Bill for relieving Trades' Unions from their disabilities has been already introduced. It is a good sensible Bill, wonderfully devoid of originality, and will, we suspect, satisfy neither party, but will greatly improve the law. It removes one, and only one, of the two great sets of grievances of which the Unionists complain ; gives the Unions all their rights as against their officers and the public, but not all their rights as against their own constituents. Under an interpretation of the law in which we are still unable to believe, but which is, of course, binding upon all Courts, the workmen's Societies are declared to be outside the law, and outside it in a sense in which no other society can by possi- bility be. They cannot get redress even against theft. If a secretary, for instance, embezzles their funds, and they prose- cute, they are declared to be societies in restraint of trade, and deprived of their locus standi before a magistrate. That disability,
-it is clear, amounts to an oppression of the gravest kind, an op- pression the more galling because it is not applied to any of the 'professional Societies whose rules are much more distinctly in 'restraint of trade. Apothecaries' Hall can prosecute, though its first object is to insist on obedience to certain rules tending to prohibit unlicensed drug-dealing, while a bricklaying society which establishes the same rules is deprived of the most .ordinary civil rights. The Bill ends this injustice at once and completely, and the Trades' Unions when registered are elevated to the dignity of civil corporations. Their officers can sue for them as readily as the Governors of the Bank of England for the Bank, or the Secretary of any commercial company on behalf of his shareholders, and in the same method, can hold property on their behalf, and are responsible for all moneys actually coming into their hands. The Unions, in fact, are placed completely within the law, so far as the law is intended to protect corporations. Moreover, the special liability of all Unionists to the criminal law has been abolished, and the fact that the organization of any Union is in restraint of trade is not of itself a reason for indicting its members for conspiracy. The " restraint-of-trade " idea, in fact, may be said to be abandoned, and Unions, even if they approve of strikes, are declared to be legal or innocent associations. All this is excellent, and will, we doubt not, be accepted by Unionists throughout the country as an adequate concession -to their claims. On the other hand, however, Mr. Bruce, mindful perhaps that he has to pass his Bill through a House filled with employers, leaves two forms of what seems to us injustice unredressed. He will not concede the right of levy- ing a subscription promised by a member of a Trades' Union through process of law. Why not ? The Home Secretary replies that Mr. Frederic Harrison, the extreme advocate of Trades' Unions, himself declines to propose any such measure, and it is evident from Mr. Harrison's evidence before the Commission that this was the case. He is all for regulating such matters by consent, an excellent method if all Unionists were angels, or at all events men who regarded every debt as a debt of honour. But we very much doubt whether the Unions will be satisfied with that assumption, whether it would not have been wiser to let a Union sue for a subscription, just as Mudie's Library could sue, .or the Athenaeum Club, or an insurance office. We recognize the difficulties in the way of that provision. Too many of the pecuniary claims enforced by Trades' Unions are in reality disciplinary fines, while the obstacles to the enforce-
ment of justice in the converse way against a Union are per- fectly appalling. If we give the Union a legal right to its subscription, we must give the members a legal right to secure the " benefits " for which the subscriptions are paid, and that would perplex the strongest Court in Great Britain. How are annuities, for example, for terms of years to be levied from bodies whose members are perpetually changing, who can dis- solve at will, who are often culpably reckless of Actuary lore, and who very seldom resist a claim except by the final plea of
"no effects"? Still, considering that a bankrupt Society ought to be dissolved, that without a right to enforce sub- scriptions every Society must be potentially bankrupt, and that the absence of legal right is the excuse of the violent Societies for resorting to crime, we cannot but think that a states- man would have declined to evade the question, would have given the Unions their full rights and thrown on them their full responsibilities. For, after all, they are just rights and just responsibilities. Why should a workman who has pro- mised to pay a shilling a week to his guild, and has enjoyed the help of that guild—for instance, in early information as to localities where work is wanted—refuse to pay, or fail to pay, up to the time of his resignation f He can resign at will. Or why should a Union take the man's shilling for twenty years, and then refuse the sick-relief in the hope of which the man has stinted himself to pay it ? The defect may be un- avoidable, for the ignorance not merely of Actuary lore, but of elementary statistical facts, among our population is astounding ; but Mr. Bruce should acknowledge that it is a defect, and not put it forward as a quasi-merit, a concession to the extreme side. This is clearly the next point to which legislation must be directed, and we regret that it should have been left untouched now, that the Unions should still be able to plead defect of legal right as an excuse for punching members' heads.
The counter-provisions of the Bill intended to prohibit intimidation seem sensible enough in the main, but we should greatly have liked to see one addition made to them. The new law, to begin with, is very definite. All the dubious definitions of intimidation, such as refusing to work with a man, are, as we understand the Bill, swept away, and the remaining forms are all described in the law. Violence, or such forms of threatening as would authorize a Justice of the Peace in taking securities, are of course forbidden, under penalty of three months' imprisonment without option of fine ; and so is " molestation " or obstruction by " dogging," " rattening," or " picketing," whether the sufferer be master or man, all of them just provisions, to which the better Unionists will not object. But they fail, as we conceive, to meet fully the case of the violent Unions, which neither " dog," nor "ratten," nor "picket," but threaten life or limb ; and they do not completely meet the danger of the employment of hired persons to molest. For any such persons not members of the Union the penalty should be at least quadrupled, they having no excuse of irritation or self-interest, while a clause should be introduced declaring that the costs of any crime committed by a Unionist, and clearly for the benefit of the Union, should fall upon the Union itself. This would make it the interest of the officebearers to forbid intimidation, whereas it is their present interest to show themselves "energetic." Formerly such a provision would have been most unjust, but now that the civil rights of the Unions are conceded, there can be no objection to enforce also their civil liabilities, while such legis- lation would be in exact accord with that which makes a county or borough responsible for the damage done in riot.
We are a little curious to know why the odd little para- graph in Clause 8 forbidding Trades' Unions to hold land was introduced into the Bill. A Trades' Union is not a charitable society, but an insurance office, and the Equitable can hold all the land it likes. Was it perchance introduced to prevent the formation of Labourers' Unions, perhaps the most needed form of all such Associations? Perhaps before the Bill passes Com- mittee, Mr. Hughes or Mr. Mundella will ask that question, which, in Ireland at all events, may be one of the last im- portance. That Unions should not hold property we can understand, but why they should be permitted to own Consols and not permitted to own farms seems to require some passing explanation.
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