4. Breach of Contract by Persons employed in Supply of Gas or Water Where a person employed by a municipal authority or by any company or contractor upon whom is imposed by Act of Parliament the duty, or who have otherwise assumed the duty of supplying any city, borough, town, or place, or any part thereof, with gas or water, wilfully and maliciously breaks a contract of service with that authority or company or contractor, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequences of his so doing, either alone or in combination with others, will be to deprive the inhabitants of that city, borough, town, place, or part, wholly or to a great extent of their supply of gas or water, he shall on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as herein-after mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. Every such municipal authority, company, or contractor as is mentioned in this section shall cause to be posted up, at the gasworks or waterworks, as the case may be, belonging to such authority or company or contractor, a printed copy of this section in some conspicuous place where the same may be conveniently read by the persons employed, and as often as such copy becomes defaced, obliterated, or destroyed, shall cause it to be renewed with all reasonable despatch. If any municipal authority or company or contractor make default in complying with the provisions of this section in relation to such notice as aforesaid, they or he shall incur on summary conviction a penalty not exceeding five pounds for every day during which such default continues, and every person who unlawfully injures, defaces, or covers up any notice so posted up as aforesaid in pursuance of this Act, shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings. 5. Breach of Contract involving Injury to Persons or Property Where any person wilfully and maliciously breaks a contract of service or of hiring, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequences of his so doing, either alone or in combination with others, will be to endanger human life, or cause serious bodily injury, or to expose valuable property whether real or personal to destruction or serious injury, he shall on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as herein-after mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. 6. Penalty for Neglect by Master Where a master, being legally liable to provide for his servant or apprentice necessary food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging, wilfully and without lawful excuse refuses or neglects to provide the same, whereby the health of the servant or apprentice is or is likely to be seriously or permanently injured, he shall on summary conviction be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding six months, with or without hard labour. 7. Penalty for Intimidation or Annoyance Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority 1. Uses violence to or intimidates such other person or his wife or children, or injures his property; or, 2. Persistently follows such other person about from place to place; or, 3. Hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by such other person, or deprives him of or hinders him in the use thereof; or, 4. Watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens. to be, or the approach to such house or place; or, 5. Follows such other person with two or more other persons in a disorderly manner in or through any street or road, shall, on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as herein-after mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. Attending at or near the house or place where a person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, in order merely to obtain or communicate information, shall not be deemed a watching or besetting within the meaning of this section. 8. Reduction of Penalties Where in any Act relating to employers or workmen a pecuniary penalty is imposed in respect of any offence under such Act, and no power is given to reduce such penalty, the justices or court having jurisdiction in respect of such offence may, if they think it just so to do, impose by way of penalty in respect of such offence any sum not less than one fourth of the penalty imposed by such Act. . . . 16. Saving Clause Nothing in this Act shall apply to seamen or to apprentices to the sea service. . . Extract 17 LABOUR AND THE PAYMENT OF MEMBERS OF (Mr. Arthur Lee and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Commons, Motion moved by Mr. David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, That, in the opinion of this House, provision should be made for the payment of a salary at the rate of four hundred pounds a year to every Member of this House, excluding any Member who is for the time being in receipt of a salary as an officer of the House, or as a Minister, or as an officer of His Majesty's Household. MR. LEE1: I claim, and that is my argument, that the representatives of the people are entirely in a different category from servants of the State; they are not servants even of their constituencies. They are free representatives of their constituencies; at any rate, they have been in the past and I hope they will so remain. It is further not essential they should give their whole time to the business of Parliament. It is well known many of the most useful and influential Members of this House have not given their whole time. If a change of this kind is desired I maintain the people ought to be consulted with regard to it, because at least it is they who have to pay. I feel strongly it is not fair, at any rate it is highly undesirable, to hold out this bait to men who have in their hands the power to confer this pecuniary benefit upon themselves. It is a temptation which may warp their judgment. It is a temptation, not to poor men only, but even to well-to-do and to rich men as well, because, whatever a man's income may be, whether it is £100 or £10,000 a year, his commitments and responsibilities are probably in proportion. And I 1 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, vol. 29, col. 1366 sqq. venture to say there is no man, even well-to-do or rich, to whom an additional £400 would not be a real convenience. It certainly would be in my case. I say it is asking too much of human nature to bring a motion of this kind before the House and to expect a majority of Members will seriously resist the proposal when it means an injury to their financial interests. It is so very much easier to welcome an inflow of money than its outflow. Therefore I recognise this proposal is bound to have a fatal popularity within the walls of Parliament, but I also venture to think it will be justly and greatly unpopular outside. Above all, I object to it because I believe it will sound the deathknell of that system of voluntary service which has been the chief and unique glory of British public life. I have spoken strongly because I feel more strongly on this particular subject than on almost any other in the whole range of politics. In every election address I have issued, and in the numberless speeches I have made to my constituents, I have expressed my repugnance to the proposal that Members of Parliament should be paid for their work as representatives of the constituencies, and the objections I felt to it when the proposal was only in an academic form have been deepened and confirmed by the effect which the near realisation in a concrete form of this proposal has already had upon the House of Commons. I have, in the eleven years I have been in this House, seen many regrettable incidents, but I cannot recall any more repellent or humiliating spectacle than the House of Commons, the very day after it has taken into its own hands by force supreme and exclusive control over the nation's finances,1 hungrily seizing without even a decent interval upon the first opportunity after the Bill is passed to help themselves out of the pockets of the taxpayers. The Government in this matter appears to be insatiable. Not content in this week with dragging the Crown through the mire of party politics, not content with destroying the legislative authority of the other House of Parliament, they are now proposing to 1 Cf. infra, ch. ix. |