LIBERALS AND THE LABOUR PARTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12190, 9 February 1903, Page 5

LIBERALS AND THE LABOUR PARTY.

SPEECH BY MB. ASQUITH. By Telegraph.—Press Association.—

(Received February 8, 4.40 p.m.) London, February 7. Mr. Asquith, M.P., and Mr. Wise, Attorney-General of New South Wales, were the guests of the Ejghty Club last night. Lord Tweedraouth, in the course of a speech, urged the Liberals to make greater concessions to the Labour wing. Mr. Asquith made out an overwhelming case for the Legislature redefining and codifying the law with regard to combination. There was no prospect, he said, of Parliament setting aside the Taff Vale decision. The workmen's real difficulty lay in the application of Jaws dealing with agency and conspiracy to trades unions. He suggested the maintenance of free power of combination, drawing a clear line of demarcation between legitimate pressure and every form of violence and incitement, . The same rule, he added, must apply to combinations of employers and employed.

Mr. Wise defended and explained recent industrial legislation in New South "Wales.

The decision in the case brought by the Taff Vale Railway Company against Mr. Bell, If.P., the general secretary, and other officials of the Amalgamated Society of Railway (Servants, and also against the society itself, which was recently tried before Mr. Justice Wills and a special jury, is one more legal blow directed at the position and policy of trade anions. The House of Lords in 1901 decided against the contention that a, trade union is not a " legal entity" which can be sued for the illegal actions of its officials and whose funds can be arrested to answer for damages. The first mentioned action now decides that in the case of the Taff Vale strike the union and its officials were guilty of various illegalities, and that their funds must be held answerable for the damages which are to be assessed next term. The strike arose out of the removal of Ewington, a signalman, on the ground that he made use of his signal-box for the purposes of his duties as local secretary of the union. No fewer than 75 cases of annoyance and intimidation were alleged to have taken place during the strike at the instance of the defendants. The result of the proceedings is that all the funds of the nnion, whether designed for benefit or strike purposes, are liable. The decision is based on the dictum of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords: "If the Legislature has created a thine which can own property, which can employ servants, which can inflict injury, it must, he taken to have implicitly givnn the power to make it suable in a court of law for injuries purposely done by its authority and procurement."

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