STRIKES AND THE POOR-LAW. T HE last month has brought us
a large number of judicial decisions on questions concerned with the employment of labour. It has been held that workmen engaged by the day are excluded from benefit under the Workmen's Compensation Act, which puts most dock labourers out of court ; and a barmaid has been considered not to be an employee within the meaning of the Act. But the most important decision of all seems to have passed by without much comment in the Press. In the great coal strike of 1898 the Guardians of the Merthyr Tydvil Union established labour yards and relief works, and by these means and by gifts of food and money. relieved many workmen and their families. Three classes shared in this benefit,—the colliers themselves, their wives and families, and a certain number of workmen, not colliers, who had been thrown out of employment in the general strike. But the colliers had an opportunity of working if they cared at any of the neighbouring collieries, and the ratepayers objected to support able-bodied men in idleness. So an injunction was asked for to restrain the Guardians from giving any further relief to the actual strikers. Lord Justice (then Mr. Justice) Romer held that this was a case of urgent necessity provided for in the Poor-laws, and dismissed the action ; but the Court of Appeal unanimously reversed his judgment, and decided that the Guardians had exceeded their powers.
The judgment of the Master of the Rolls seems to us unimpeachable in point of law, but the law itself is scarcely satisfactory. Poor persons, he held, who are physically unable to work, are entitled to relief out of the rates. Poor persons, who are physically able to work but cannot obtain work, are entitled to have work found for them at the expense of the ratepayers. The law does not go behind the facts of the case, and ask whether a ntan's destitution is his own fault or not. But one question the law does ask :—Is the man, being physically competent, in the position of seeking work and not finding it ? If the honest intention is there, he is entitled to relief from the rates. If not, however good his excuse, the law does not recognise him as a proper recipient. An able-bodied man, who has the means of supporting him- self at his hand, and who refuses to take advantage of them, cannot claim to have work found for him by the parish authorities. In this particular case the Guardians of the Merthyr Tydvil -Union were right in assisting the wives and families, and in providing work for the unemployed who were not strikers. But in the case of the colliers themselves they were wrong. "A man cannot, in our opinion," said the Appeal Court, "lawfully justify refusal on the ground that he cannot obtain work except on terms which, as between him and his employer, he does not con- sider reasonable. What is a reasonable agreement for a man to enter into is one thing ; what is a reasonable justification for a man compelling others to support him is quite another thing ; but it is the latter alone which the Poor-law authorities ought to consider." And in the present state of the law there can be no other opinion possible. But the decision raises a question of public policy which is worth consideration. It seems to us that the spirit of English legislation on the matter of the poor is opposed to the interpretation which the statutes compel us to accept, and some alteration in the present law appears to be desirable. The strike system is a thing of very recent growth, and could in no way have been foreseen by the legislators of fifty years ago. It is right that the workman who is too idle to seek work should have no claim upon the ratepayers, but the striker seems to us morally, if not legally, in an entirely different position. Trade-Unions and combinations among work- men are now recognised factors in our social and industrial life. It is only fair that in strikes which originate at the direction of a Union, the Union should bear the larger part of the burden of maintaining its members. But the system is not so highly organised that every strike can be thus arranged for, and especially among some of the smaller industries any strike entails considerable suffer- ing. Now in such suffering there may come a point when the community, it seems to us, would be justified in bearing its share. The striker can get work for the moment possibly, but only at the expense of his future. The reason which prevents him from taking it is as strong a barrier as any physical incapacity. He is in a position entirely unlike any pauper, and if relief is given to un- willing destitution in any form there should be some provision for this compulsory time of poverty. The reasonableness of such a view depends entirely, of course, on whether or not we grant that strikes may be justifiable. To those who see in them only a form of anarchy any public recognition must seem a kind of mania. To us they seem a bad form of bargaining, but better than nothing, for it would be the greatest pity if all the bargaining were on one side. It is the workman's one method of raising his price, and because men work not alone, but in hordes, it is apt to wear something of the appearance of a riot. It is all very clumsy and waste- ful, but until a new society is created it seems the only alternative to unhampered capitalism. Strikes, indeed, on a great scale are terribly injurious to a country's trade and to the relations of master and workman. The great American railway strike of June and July, 1894, which paralysed commerce and all but disorganised the Executive in the States affected, was little short of a national calamity. But the lesser strikes, which are restricted in area and duration, are very minor ills, and they bring often benefits in their train. If the strike principle is once admitted it should be our aim to reduce the evils, and this can best be done by recognising frankly the interests of both parties. The minimum of State recog- nition involved in providing in certain cases work for the strikers would make the sides better matched in the contest. It would be no unfair advantage, for the pay would be only sufficient to support life ; but it would tend to rob this "violent form of bargaining" of some of its inhumanities.
The two objections that occur to us are that this would be a piece of pure class-legislation, and that it would mean the subsidising from public monies of a form of dis- order. The word " subsidy " has an ugly sound, and nothing could be further from our views. On the occasion of the strike in the mines of Anzin in 1884 it was proposed in the Paris Municipal Council to finance the strike from the public funds, and though this parti- cular proposal was defeated, the custom has come into vogue since, and we are told that a single Council subsidised no less than twenty-two strikes. The thing grew so intolerable that when they proposed to finance certain railway strikes the Council of State was compelled to exercise its veto. But there is all the difference in the world between a partisan subsidy and a grant of the bare means of life. If the impersonal and unbiassed law of the land granted in certain specified cases work and a wage sufficient to prevent starvation, there would be an appreciable decline in the bitterness of such conflicts. A gift of work is different from a money payment,—it is merely the recog- nition by the State of the right of every citizen to live, while he can settle his affairs with his masters as he pleases. As for the talk of class-legislation, it is a cry we have never been able to understand. The great proportion of legislation must be class-legislation. A State can very well leave its prosperous members to look after themselves; indeed, they will rarely thank it for its interference. Its first duty is to those who dwell within sight of the gates of want, " the poor for whom no man elreth."
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