111.11 NEW PRIVILEGED CIA RS.
TIETpublic is slowly waking up to the full importance f the Trade Disputes A,ct, as recently revealed by the judgment of the House of Lords in the case of Vacher and Son v. The London Society of Compoaitors. The essential point of this judgment is that it declares that the immunity given to trade unions under the Trade Dis- putes Act extends beyond the area of a trade dispute. The case in question arose from a quarrel between the London Society of Compositors and Messrs. Vacher and Son, the well-known firm of printers. There was no strike, but the Society of Compositors published various allega- tions reflecting upon the character of the firm. When legal proceedings were taken for libel, the Society replied by claiming immunity, and the House of Lords has now finally confirmed this claim, and established that in no circumstances can a trade union be brought into court for tort. Looking at the matter from a layman's point of view, we do not see how the courts could have come to any other decision. Here are the words of the clause :-
"4. (1) An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by any court.
(2) Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided for by
the Trades Union Act 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contempla- tion or in furtherance of a trade dispute."
It was argued on behalf of Messrs. Vacher that the saving words, "in furtherance of a trade dispute," in the second sub-section, applied also by implication to the first sub-section, but the Court of Appeal by a majority, and the House of Lords unanimously, declared that the first sub-section must be construed as standing by itself. If the Legislature had otherwise intended it ought to have said so. Looking at the first sub-section quoted above as it stands, one can only feel appalled at the carelessness— we had almost said the immorality—of members of Par- liament and of Peers in. permitting such a law to be added to the Statute Book.
It will be remembered that when the Liberal Govern- ment in. 1906 first essayed to deal with the highly controversial question raised by the Taff Vale Judgment of 1901, they introduced a fairly moderate measure which followed lines laid down by Liberal speakers, notably by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Haldane, during the election campaign. The Bill was introduced by Sir Lawson Walton who said with great emphasis that the Govern- ment could not possibly accept the extreme proposals put forward by the Labour Party. Scarcely had this emphatic declaration been made before the then Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, threw over his principal law officer and surrendered absolutely to the Labour Party. Later in the session Sir Lawson Walton had to undergo the humiliation of introducing a Bill to carry out principles which he had previously denounced as intolerable. But the Bill, though criticized by many Unionist speakers in the House of Commons, passed by an overwhelming majority, and was sent up to the House of Lords in practically the form dictated by the Labour Party. In the House a dramatic protest against the iniquity of the clause above quoted and of other clauses in the Bill was made by Lord Halsbury, but the veteran ex-Lord Chan- cellor was overruled by the Unionist leaders and the House of Lords, terrorized by the threats of the Liberals, permitted the Bill to pass. That the man in the street should not understand the full effect of such a measure as the Trade Disputes Act is intelligible enough, but in. both Houses of Parliament there are a large number of lawyers and men of affairs who did fully understand what this measure meant, and on them lies the responsibility of having accepted a measure which violates all principles of equity between man and man.
It now appears that in no circumstances can a trade union, whether of masters or men, be made legally responsible for any tortious act. A tortious act may perhaps best be described for the layman's purpose as an injury to an individual which falls short of being criminal, but admits of a civil remedy. Libel, slander, malicious injury to property, boycotting, malicious prosecution, and so on, are torts for which the.mdividual is properly entitled to obtain redress in the courts of law. Any one of these torts can be committed by a trade union in any cir- cumstances and without any provocation. Nor does this immunity apply only to a trade union in its capacity as a union of men or of masters engaged in defending their pecuniary interests. A trade union is permitted by law to engage in many activities. It may become an employer of labour, and in. that capacity, as was recently seen at Unity House, it may have heated disputes with its employees. Or again, trade unions may be, and are, owners of freehold property, owners and managers of newspapers and other businesses. While, if we take the legal definition of a trade union, there is nothing to prevent a body of shipowners forming a ring and con- stituting themselves a trade union. Any one of these bodies is now by law immune from the consequences of wrongful action to which all the rest of the community are subject.
That is bad enough, but the outlook is made even worse by the progress of the Trade Union (No. 2) Bill through the House of Commons. This Bill, like the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, has been introduced into Parliament by a Liberal Government at the dictation of the Labour Party. Its purpose is to reverse the famous Osborne Judgment. Here, again, as in the former case, the Liberals have begun by trying to keep the Bill on somewhat moderato lines, but they have given way point by point to the exigencies of their Labour masters. As the Bill now stands, a trade union may undertake any kind of political work, and in the conduct of such work will have all the immunities which the Trade Disputes Act confers upon trade unions. We shall thus have the gross anomaly that if a Liberal candidate, supported by a Liberal Association, says anything derogatory to a Labour candidate he can be sued for libel, whereas a. trade union which is running a Labour candidate may libel in the most scurrilous manner possible its Liberal opponent without any fear of legal consequences.
If this holds good, the probability will be that all political organizations will by some means or another contrive so to construct their organization as to bring it within the legal definition of a. trade union. We shall then have the spectacle of all our elections conducted without fear of the law of libel. Contested elections are not a very wholesome feature of our national life at the present moment. What they will be under the new regime it is difficult to imagine. The same consideration applies to newspapers. A trade union owning a newspaper can now libel anybody without fear of being brought to book. It will certainly be difficult for other newspaper proprietors to organize themselves as trade unions, and at the moment we do not see how this difficulty is to be got over. Thus there will be two classes of newspapers in this country—tho one class run by trade unions, which will be free to libel everybody, and the other class properly subject to a fairly strict law of libel. It will be interesting to see what view is taken of this distinction by those papers which cater for working class readers and make a feature of their criticisms of prominent persons, for the trade-union news- papers which can publish such criticisms without fear of the law of libel will obviously have an advantage in the matter of circulation over papers which are bound by that law.
The question which the ordinary citizen will ask himself is, How is he to escape from the tyranny of the new privileged class which the House of Commons has created and now seeks to enlarge ? A good many Unionist members of the House of Commons made in 1906 a very honourable stand against the Trade Disputes Bill, and others are now making equally honourable efforts to prevent the passage of the worst features of the Trade Union (No. 2) Bill. But the practical question is whether the Unionist Party will use the influence which it still com- mands in the House of Lords to prevent the passage of this Bill. We hope it may be so, and we are con- vinced that though the immediate effect of such resolute action may be injurious to the party here and there in particular constituencies where the trade unions are dominant, in the long run the party can only gain by showing that it is resolute to uphold those principles of equity which every Englishman in his heart knows to be sound.
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