MR ASQUITH AND THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 70 (Supplement)

MR ASQUITH AND THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY

NECESSITY FOR STATE INTERVENTION. Replying to the to-apt of his health, proposed by Lord Tweed month at a dinner of the Eighty Club a week or two ago, Mr Asquith said experience had shown that the recognition of the right of free combination had made largely for industrial peace. Whatever were the drawbacks in the working of those combinations, those drawbacks were incident to the abuse and not the use of the right of combination, and he, for big part, was convinced that that right was a right which tho State, in its own interest, ought to safeguard and protect. Some recent decisions in our Courts had raised serious doubts whether that right was not being put into jeopardy. He didn’t suggest those decisions were wrong in point of law, nor when th©3’' called decisions of this kind Judge-made law were they throwing any discredit upon the Judges concerned. He did not entertain a very own ion of the manner, in pojnt of form, in which the Legislature did. its work. Parliament had a vocabulary or its own. but he declared that it was the dnity of the legislators to make their laws in terms that he who ran might read (Applause.) They ought to lav down the law in such a way that would leave no reasonable doubt as to what was prohibitod and what was admitted. BEYOND THE WIT OF LAWYERS. Was there a lawyer present at that dinner who pretended to understand the state of the law of conspiracy? He did not think so. An overwhelming case had arisen for re-defining and re-certifying the whole of our law of conspiracy. That was a task that could be and ought to be undertaken solely by the Legislature. (Applause.) However surprising the decision in the Tuff Vale case was, he saw little prospect of its being set aside by Parliament. The commomsense of the community, which sooner or later found expression in Parliament, will not easily be convinced that an association of persons, whether technically incorporated or not, ’wielding great powers, and controlling considerable funds, should not be legally answerable for the conduct of agents acting under their authority. The real difficulty, from the workman’s point of view, created by that decision lay in the application of the law of agency and! of the law of conspiracy. The central governing body of the great trade combination. however, determined it- might be that its action and the action of those it represented should be kept within legitimate limits, the difficulty was great of directing and controlling, often at great distances, the conduct of every one who could bo said to be the agents of the central authority. THE DUTY OF THE LEGISLATURE. The diiiieuity in the administration of the law ought to be given effect to on grounds of justice, because nocking could be worse for the community than that Trades Unions shotild abandon their authox-ity over trade disputes. The consequence of this would be spasmodic outbursts. ill-judged and ill-controlled, accompanied to* lawlessness —a revival, in short, of the regime of industrial anarchy. As regards tho law of conspiracy, there was no doubt as to the duty of the Legislature to intervene. Ha was far from saying it would be easy to draw up an Act of Parliament which would be perfectly plain to the man in the street, but there

were three small prepositions that ought to govern all legislation in the matter—• tho free power of effective combination which Parliament, after a long and careful inquiry, had deliberately allowed, must not be allow'ed to be destroyed or whittled away; a clear line of demarcation ought to be drawn between legitimate pressure and violence, or any form of violence; and whatetver rule was laid down the same rule must be applied to all trade combinations, wbetner employers or employed. (Applause.)