TRADES UNION BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20101, 18 May 1927, Page 9

TRADES UNION BILL

THE GUILLOTINE APPLIED. STRONG LABOUR PROTEST. FRONT BENCHERS WALK OUT. (Free? Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON. May 16. Mr Baldwin, in moving the guillotine resolution on the Trades Union Bill, said if the present rate of progress was maintained, and the House sat continuously, and no other business was transacted, they might hope to pass clause 1 by the beginning of August. The Government’s action was in accord with precedent. Mr J. R. Glyne.s (Lab.), who was greeted with a storm of Labour cheers, said that Mr Baldwin's speech was one of unexampled audacity, which could not bo beaten. The Government was going' even further than ho had thought likely ( in the destruction of constitutional practices. “Whatever the class we draw from,” ho said, ‘‘wo are at least his Majesty’s Opposition, and claim for that Opposition parliamentary traditional rights, which until recently have teen observed.” Mr Clynes added heatedly: “It is a grave abuse of the power of the Government’s numbers. It will reduce parliamentary business to a mockery. We shall not be a party to it. We shall rot sit here to participate in a parliamentary farce.”

He then resumed his seat, and instantly the entire Labour front bench rose, and, amid hubbub, walked out. When the Labourites were out of the Chamber, Mr Lloyd George said that he deeply regretted the scene. He had witnessed many scenes in the House of Commons, but they seldom did any good. He hoped that sooner or later they would find a less barbarous way of dealing with a situation than by the guillotine. ■

The motion was then carried bv 259 votes to 14, and the House rose.—A. and N.Z. and Sun Cable.

Clause One of the Trades Disputes and Trades Unions Bill declares that any siiike is illegal if the following- conditions are fulfilled: (1) That the strike has any object in addition to the furtherance of a trade dispute within the trade concerned, and (2) That it is calculated to coerce the Government or to intimidate the commuuity or any substantial portion of it. The penalty for declaring, instigating, furthering or taking part in such an Ulegal strike is, on summary conviction, a line not exceeding £lO or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thrqe months, or, on indictment, imprisonment not exceeding two years. Anybody taking part in such a strike will be deprived of the benefits of the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, which gave relief from actions for damages for conspiracy, allowed peaceful persuasion, gave immunity from an action for inducing a person to break h.s contract of employment, and relieved of rials of a trade union from any liability for any tort committed on its behalf. The Labour Party considers that the first clause is the most obnoxious in the Bill, in that it may make practically any sympathetic strike illegal in view of the vague definition of an act of intimidation against a "substantial portion of the community.’’