“BAITING OF TRADE UNIONS.”

Dunstan Times, Issue 3380, 27 June 1927, Page 7

“BAITING OF TRADE UNIONS.”

DENIAL OF CIVIL FREEDOM. One need not turn only to Liberal or Labour papers to find condemnation of the proposed Trade Unions Bill and one staunch Tory organ sees no good whatsoever in it. Even so typical a' Diehard as the Earl of Halsbury, K.C., son of the former famous Lord Chancellor, while regarding the Bill as necessary, considers the section which deals with intimidation "far from satisfactory.” No one, he says, who is in favour of law and order can doubt that the law needs strengthening. I do not desire to go beyond the object of the section, but as it at present stands, I do not think the section will attain its object. From a considerable personal experience in prosecuting for riot and intimidation in South Wales during 1925, 1926, and in the present year, I do not think it deals with the practical difficulties which obtain. To begin with, referring to another Act of Parliament is a very easy matter for the draftsmen of a Bill, but it is hardly fair on the men. They ought to have one Act where they can see and read what they may or may not do. In actual fact every one of the South Wales rioters knew the section of the Trades Disputes Act, 1906, declaring peaceful persuasion to be egal. Not one in twenty had heard of Section 7 of the 1875 Act, which makes intimidation and besetting illegal, and it was with genuine surprise that they learned that what they had done was an offence.” Lord Halsbury, too, considers the clause giving powers to the Attorney-General to act "on his own” as a departure from all previous English practice. But "Truth,” which weekly publishes an article by a Tory member of the House, calls this measure one for "baiting the Trade Unions.” This Tory member declares that from the party standpoint the result will be sensational. This, he says, is not the time

nor the way to deal with the General Strike. It would have been wiser*to accept the contrition of Labour after that catastrophe with silent satisfaction. The retort which the Bill makes, “If you do it again you’ll go to gaol and serve you right,” doesn’t agree with the cry of peace in our time. Nor, he goes on to say, is it easy to see even if thumbscrew and rack were added to large fines or imprisonment, Kow large bodies of men are to be prevented from striking if they want to strike ! A most unjust section is the deprivation of the workman’s right right to strike. “It is,” he says, “a flat denial of civil freedom to declare, as the Bill does, that workmen who hold jobs on the most precarious of tenures are liable to be locked out by the employers individually or in a body if they decide to withhold their labour .... Faced with this challenge the best type of British workman can have no choice but resistance,” he concludes. The fuller realisation of this aspect of the Bill is becoming marked. Yesterday, in the calm language of the “Times’s” political correspondent, it is remarked: — “The movement, initiated by Conservative back bench members, to secure that the committee, when it considers the Trade Unions Bill, shall have power to ensure that in any legislation affecting the rights of organised workers care ,shall be taken to see that such legislation equally applies to organised employers is growing.” As for the difference between contracting out and contracting in for political purposes, there is a good deal of eyewash in this. It may appeal to the unthinking voter outside Labour ranks as a check to the wild Communists, but one imagines its! effect will be apt to annoy moderate Labour and stir it up to more active anti-Tory tactics. But perhaps the gravest defect of the Bill is that it runs completely counter to an accepted principle of Constitutional practice that Governments do not, except in the rarest cases, alter the legislation of their predecessors. The opinion is widespread that the Bill goes too far in that direction.

Lord Grey has uttered a warning against the policy outlined in this Bill, which he describes’ as a shattering blow to the Trade Unions. Why, he asks, press this Bill, since the General Strike is now held to be illegal by high authorities. If such a disaster, he says has to be fought again, it will be beaten by the direct action of the community.