instincts, and are told that their programme for the future shows they have entered into an alliance with the capitalist classes. But if they have entered into an alliance for the maintenance of an industrial peace, and the settlement of disputes by calculation and agreement, no greater gain could have been secured to our industrial life. So far as the improved status of the workmen has rendered the relations of employers and employed smoother,—or at any rate less embittered by the constant sense of possible injustice-it has been a gain of the first order.

At the same time it must be noted that the difficulty urged by Lord Winmarleigh is a real one, and that if the employer could be relieved from the sense of injustice under which he suffers from the difficulty of securing redress, there would be a still greater gain from the removal of existing friction between the two classes. There is only one direction in which we can look for such a result. The funds of trade-unions are very large, and if these societies were rendered liable for damages inflicted by their members for trade objects, the employer would have ample security against cases like that instanced above, for there would be a responsible body from which he could recover his £2000. Nor would such a measure be so prejudicial to the Unions as may appear: the master would prefer to employ members of a Union as he would have no means of recovering damages from non-unionists: the whole weight of the employers' influence would be used to increase the membership of the unions; and they would thus become richer and more powerful, as well as more completely organised institutions than ever. With such a development of trade-unionism it would be once more possible—as well as necessary in their own

interests for the leaders of the Unions to take measures to secure that their members did thoroughly good work, and labour might be once more as completely organised as in the days of the old gilds, but under forms which are suited to modern conditions of life.

78. The Employers and Workmen Bill1 was a necessary corollary to the measure just discussed. It was generally approved on both sides of the House as embodying in a satisfactory manner the somewhat confused report of the recent Commission.2 Little more is necessary here than to indicate the main scope of the measure as expounded by Mr. Cross in introducing it. Having first specified the acts which ought to come under the criminal law as crimes he proceeded, "When we come to consider other breaches of contract, we think they ought to be brought under a different system. We think the time has come when, considering the various attempts to modify the ancient laws, which have been coercive and oppressive, we may in other branches (? breaches) of contract between master and servant do away with all criminality and proclaim once for all, that as between master and servant contracts shall be treated civilly as any other contract case. .. We We propose that this kind of contract shall be dealt with as a civil proceeding, with all the incidents of a civil proceeding. . . Therefore, we propose in this bill that any damages assessed should become a debt to be treated like any other debt and recoverable in the County Court-that Court to have the same power of enforcing payment of the debt as in all other cases."

In conclusion Mr. Cross endeavoured to forestall one

1 38 and 39 Vict. c. 90.

2 Mr. Lowe, 3 Hansard, ccxxv. 658.

objection which might be taken in the matter: he feared that some one might raise the bugbear of foreign competition, but he showed that his measure could only put English employers in the same position in dealing with their workmen as that which was assigned to their rivals under Italian, French, German, and Belgian Law. But indeed unless we regard the relation of employer and employed as a chronic struggle, and not as a co-partnership in the industry of the country, we shall hardly feel inclined to believe that the improved status of the workman is in any sense a disadvantage to his employer.

79. Though the legislation of the preceding session had done much to improve the position of the individual workman there were still defects in the law as it related to his associations. These had first received a legal standing in 1871, when the Commission appointed to inquire into their constitution and objects had made their report. The result of that investigation had been to determine Parliament to relinquish the attempt to suppress these societies, and the second and third clauses of the Act of 1871 explicitly state that trade-unions are neither criminal nor unlawful. But this tardy granting of a legal status to these important bodies was a very insufficient measure, until supplemented by an enactment giving them additional legal powers. The chief object

of the Act of 18761 was to secure the due administration of trade-union funds, and to provide more convenient machinery in connexion with the appointment of trustees. It also gave the societies much greater facility for protecting themselves against fraud, by allowing any tradeunion to institute proceedings in the place where an

1 39 and 40 Vict. c. 22.

offence was committed and not only in the town where the registered office of the Society was situated.

:

The provisions of the Bill met with such general approval that it passed almost without discussion at the same time its passage was not without significance. It was said that the Government had intended in the preceding session to regard trade-unions as mere Friendly Societies to support them in that capacity, but to discountenance them as associations taking an active part in industrial relations. Whether this was the opinion of the Government or not, it was undoubtedly a view which was pretty generally held throughout the country at the time it was said that the workman should be supported when he associated himself with his fellows for benefit or insurance purposes, but that he should contract, and sue and be sued for breach of contract on his own account : and the original bills of 1875 in regard to Friendly Societies1 and the status of the workman appear to have been drawn on this view. But the modifications which the Friendly Societies Bill underwent led to the exclusion of trade-unions: they continued to be recognised as distinct bodies with other, and equally lawful purposes, from those of mere Friendly Societies; and by this measure they received most of the advantages in regard to the security of their funds which had already been given to the mere benefit societies. Their status was thus rendered more assured than ever-a result which cannot be considered unimportant by those who like Professor Thorold Rogers 2 regard them as the main security for the wellbeing of our industrial classes in time to come.

1 Howell, Conflicts of Capital and Labour, 483. See also Lord R. Montagu's speech accusing the Government of aiming at the suppression of trade-unions. 3 Hansard, ccxxv. 652.

2 Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 401.

2

80. The advantage which a labourer receives from possessing a small allotment which he can cultivate after his day's work is done, has been a constant subject of remark during the whole of the present century: if additional evidence had been required it was forthcoming in abundance when Mr. Jesse Collings moved the second reading of the Allotments Bill.1 "The prejudices of the farmers," he said, "against such legislation were disappearing, for it was found that the only way of keeping the best labourers was to give them some interest in land, which they could cultivate for themselves." Mr. Broadhurst 3 added that "labourers in rural districts were hard pushed indeed if they could not supplement their scanty wages by some little cultivation in the shape of garden or allotment ground. . . . Besides, it gave a man something to do in his leisure hours." While Mr. Arthur Arnold 3 adduced evidence of the profitable nature of the cultivation which could be there carried on.

The measure was thus promoted with a view of improving the labourer's status, not of turning him into a small farmer; it sought to provide the labourers with allotments of about "one acre whereon they might make a certain amount of money without endeavouring to live upon it an attempt which must end in starvation." This improved status could also be secured without any loss and with probable gain to landowners who might get as good or better rents, and to farmers who might obtain more vigorous because more prosperous labourers to work for them. It gave improved status to a class, with the probabilities of general advantage as well.

It seems difficult to understand why a mode of letting land which was likely to prove so beneficial in many 1 45 and 46 Vict. c. 80. 23 Hansard, cclxix. 941. 3 Ibid. cclxix. 942.