The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1910. THE.OSBORNE JUDGMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 981, 23 November 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1910. THE.OSBORNE JUDGMENT.

Although a close perusal of the British newspapers arriving during tho past few weeks has shown that some of the leading Liberal papers have failed to condemn the idea that the "Osborne judgment" should.be reversed, few people can have doubted that Mr. Asquith would set him.self against a proposal that is utterly tyrannical and' obviously contrary to tho public interest. Yet the London Times, which is usually very well informed upon the intentions of the Government, has stated that the Prime . Minister intends to introduce legislation to confer upon trade unions the right to use their funds to pay persons with whose political views they may be in complete disagreement to represent them in Parliament. . Mr. Asquith is to make an announcement for himself this week, and until lie confirms the limes's forecast we cannot but regard as infcorrect any report that the Government has decided upon a courso of action which runs counter'! not only to public policy and ■ the laws of liberty, but to tho opinion 1 of all Conservatives and of a very groat number of Liberals. Tho principal misapprehension of the situation created by the decision in the Osborne case is the notion that the Courts topk away from the unions a right which they have enjoyed for many years. This i 3 quite contrary to fact. It was never legal for' trade unions to spend their funds sub-'; scribed (i'or trade-union purposes upon the payment of members of Parliament, pledged or unpledged, or upon the granting of aid to any political party. That no protest was made against the practice of the unions long ago is due to tho fact that nobody felt the practice oppressive. So soonj however, as it became oppressive, protest wjis;made, and the' Courts did no more'than check an illegal .procedure that never was legal. What the Courts did was not to take away an existing right, but to refuse to sanction as legal an existing illegal praetico. The point involved is exactly the same as the point raised by the recent proposal of the Australian Government to make "preference to unionists" compulsory in all awards under the Arbitration Act, and at the same time to abolish the existing restrictions upon the manner in which trado unions may employ their funds. The Melbourne Age, which is the strongest Radical paper in' Australasia,' and perhaps ' the most 'influential Radical organ in the world, measured by ■ its effect upon its community, attacked this proposal as a ' piece'of inhuman tyranny. Its article, which we reproduced some 1 weeks ago, was the most., powerful indictment of trade-union tyranny of which wo have any knowledge, and the effect of it, and of the public opinion aroused by it and by the criticisms of other journals, was to force the Government to withdraw its proposal, and to leave workmen free to join trade unions without being compelled to assist political ideas to which they may be - opposed. . In Australia the choice in many trades is betweon union membership and starvation. In many trades in Britain, as the Webbs have shown, the same position obtains. It' will be a strange and regrettable thing if the British Government should push ahead with a proposal that, even in Radical and adventurous Australia, has been condemned by public option as an inhuman and outrageous violation of personal liberty. If the choice in Great Britain lay between the payment of members of Parliament and the reversal of the Osborne judgment, the former evil is infinitely the lesser of the two. But -Mr. Asquith is not in the position of a- man faced with that choice. The trade unions claim, and quite rightly, that the payment of members will not in tho least compensate for the effect of the Osborne judgment. What tho Socialist party wants is tho perfection of tradeunion tyranny over individual, liberty—the conversion of trade unionism into a machine for compelling workmen to support tho Socialist movement under penalty, not only of unemployment and boycotting, but of the loss of tho benefits they have earned.

Should the British Government act as is predicted.by the.Times, it will be patent that Ministers have dccided to purchase at any cost the support of Labour. Mr. Keir Hardie threatens that .if the Osborne judgment is not reversed by statute Labour will contest 78 seats against the Government. Until last September the more moderate Liberal journals recognised that the judgment could not justly bo reversed, but a change came with the sharpening of the agitation in the riocialisfc ranks. The •Westminster Gazette began tohedge, and the Daily Chronicle did the snme. The latter journal informed its readers at last, on September 21, that "there never was in.ofiice in-this country a Government more friendly to Labour than that of Mr. Asquitu, and fx Labour makes out its ca.sc for the reversal of the OsnonxE judgment it may count confidently on the sympathies of the Cabinet. Wo do not think it has yet made out- such a case."- The Mornina. Post comment-

Ed as follows upon this significant passage: • •

"But all the arguments possible both for and against tho reversal liavo by now been fully'canvassed. Tho only method left to tho trado unions, to make out their case is a demonstration of their powef to influence the electorate. Should the agitation prove so formidable that it imperils ministerial seats the public will presumably be informed that tho sympathetic minds of tho Cabinet ljavo been so worked on tlint they consider a case has been mado out by arguments that appeal not to the intellect but to the emotions."

It will be deplorable, from any point of view, if Mr. Asquith makes the predicted surrender. He, surely, as a colleague of Gladstone, and as a statesman nurtured on the writings of the early Liberals, should know that in buying Socialist support at such a price he is placing himself and the hopes of true Liberalism in the hands of a party that will wreck him and without mercy destroy every principle that he holds dear. He may think he is hiring a servant; in reality he is selling Liberalism into bondage.