legislation in force in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in regard to compensation for such accidents, supplemented as specified in Article 5.

ARTICLE 2

Nevertheless, the present Convention shall not apply to the case of a person engaged in a business having its headquarters in one of the two Contracting States, but temporarily detached for employment in the other Contracting State, and meeting with an accident in the course of that employment, if at the time of the accident the said employment has lasted less than six months. In this case the persons interested shall only be entitled to the compensation and guarantees provided by the law of the former State.

The same rule shall apply in the case of persons engaged in transport services and employed at intervals, whether regular or not, in the country other than that in which the headquarters of the business are established.

ARTICLE 3

The British and French authorities will reciprocally lend their good offices to facilitate the administration of their respective laws as aforesaid.

ARTICLE 4

The present Convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Paris, as soon as possible.

It shall be applicable in France and in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to all accidents happening after one month from the time of its publication in the two countries in the manner prescribed by their respective laws, and it shall remain. binding until the expiration of one year from the date on which it shall have been denounced by one or other of the two Contracting Parties.

ARTICLE 5

Nevertheless, the ratification mentioned in the preceding Article shall not take place till the legislation at present in force in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in regard to workmen's compensation has been supplemented, so far as concerns accidents to French citizens arising out of their employment as workmen, by arrangements to the following effect:

(a) That the compensation payable shall in every case be fixed by an award of the County Court:

(b) That in any case of redemption of weekly payments the total sum payable shall, provided it exceeds a sum equivalent to the capital value of an annuity of 47. (100 fr.), be paid into Court, to be employed in the purchase of an annuity for the benefit of the person entitled thereto :

(c) That in those cases in which a lump sum representing the compensation payable shall have been paid by the employer into the County Court, if the injured workman returns to reside in France, or if the dependants resided in France at the time of his death or subsequently return to reside in France, the total sum due to the injured workman or to his dependants shall be paid over through the County Court to the Caisse Nationale Française des Retraites pour la Vieillesse, who shall employ it in the purchase of an annuity according to its tariff at the time of the payment; and further, that, in the case in which a lump sum shall not have been paid into Court, and the injured workman returns to reside in France, the compensation shall be remitted to him through the County Court at such intervals and in such way as may be agreed upon by the competent authorities of the two countries: (d) That in respect of all the acts done by the County Court in pursuance of the legislation in regard to workmen's compensation, as well as in the execution of the present

Convention, French citizens shall be exempt from all expenses and fees:

(e) That at the beginning of each year His Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Home Department will send to the Département du Travail et de la Prévoyance sociale a record of all judicial decisions given in the course of the preceding year under the legislation in regard to workmen's compensation in the case of French citizens injured by accident in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

CHAPTER II

TRADE UNIONISM

[In 1906 there were 1200 unions in Great Britain with a total membership of 2,113,806. They were recognised as legal associations by virtue of statutes enacted between 1871 and 1876, but the Taff Vale judgment had recently decided that they were corporations which could be sued with costs and damages for the action of any of their agents whenever such action had caused loss to other persons. How Mr. Balfour's Government failed in 1905 to pass into law a bill to protect the funds of the trade unions, which had been placed in jeopardy by that celebrated decision, has already been noted.1 The judgment seriously threatened the future welfare of trade unionism because, with the financial danger ever before them, many workmen lost confidence in it.

One of the first steps taken, therefore, by the new Liberal Government was to present a measure intended to reverse the Taff Vale judgment and to allow reasonable liberty to the unions in the matter of "picketing." The bill was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 1906, by Sir John Walton, the AttorneyGeneral (Extract 12), and was read a first time after a short debate, in which several Labour members expressed a strong preference for a solution of their own; and Sir Edward Carson, Lord Robert Cecil, and other staunch Conservatives protested against provisions tending to convert trade unions into what they described as a privileged class.

The Government proposed to limit the liability of trade union. funds for damages to cases where the act complained of was that

1 Cf. supra, p. 13.

of the executive committee of a union or of its authorised agent acting in accordance with its express or implied orders, or, at least, not contravening them. The Labour members, however, preferred that trade unions should not in any case be actionable for damages sustained through the conduct of their members, and a Bill embodying this provision was brought forward for second reading by Mr. W. Hudson, one of their number, representing Newcastle-onTyne. It was strongly opposed by Mr. F. E. Smith, who denied that trade unions had ever enjoyed the immunity now claimed for them and protested vigorously against the Bill as creating a class privilege. Mr. Keir Hardie, supporting the Labour Bill, put the difference between the Labour and the Ministerial measures neatly by declaring that trade unionists would not be satisfied with mere barbed-wire entanglements for the protection of their funds, but would insist upon their removal out of the range of the enemies' guns. The Prime Minister, after declaring that the suspicion formerly entertained of trade unions had given place to a general recognition that they were beneficial institutions, said that he had voted two or three times previously for Bills on the lines of that now under discussion, and he proposed to vote for the Labour Bill. This announcement was loudly cheered by the Labour members, and the Prime Minister proceeded to argue that the difference between the two bills was one of method rather than of principle. Subsequently, after application of the closure, the second reading of the Labour measure was passed by 416 to 66, several Ministers and some sixty or seventy other Liberals not voting.

The original Government Bill was read a second time on April 25. During the Committee Stage, the Attorney-General moved, on August 3, the addition of the special clause which had characterised the Labour Bill,, prohibiting actions against unions, whether of workmen or masters, for the recovery of damages in respect of tortious acts. On the new clause Sir Edward Carson suggested that it might have run: "The king can do no wrong; neither can trades unions." The Attorney-General defended the change at