GENERAL STRIKE ILLEGAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 35

GENERAL STRIKE ILLEGAL.

GREAT LAWYER’S DECLARATION. SIR JOHN SIMON’S WARNINC DAMAGES MAY BE CLAIMED. (F.bqu (Job Own Cobbespondent.) LONDON, May 18. Of the speeches delivered in the House of Commons during the general strike, the important and authoritative utterance by Sir John Simon has a permanent character, for it will probably be a matter for consideration after the strike U called off. Even though no prosecutions may take place on this occasion, it seems probable that the illegal position of those who order or take part in a revolutionary action like the present one will be clearly defined for the protection of the community in the future. Sir John Simon, one of the most eminent lawyers in the House, who was speaking on the motion that the regulations made under the Emergency Powers Act be agreed to, said that there was one feature of the situation that had not been appreciated as widely as it ought to have been. The present disaster was spoken of as “a general strike,” but when the disturbance was over and Parliament recovered its normal functions it would be very necessary to appreciate that this “general strike” was not a strike at all; it was something very different. A strike, properly understood, was perfectly lawful. The right to strike was the right that workmen in combination had by prearrangement of giving due notice to their employers to terminate their engagements and to withhold their labour when those notices had expired. When that happened neither the workmen nor the trade union leaders were breaking any law, and it was an essential part of the right of the British wage-earner that he should have the right to strike, and that right ought never to be taken away from him. Nor would any of those who really appreciated the character of British institutions really wish to take It away. The only circumstances in which that right might be taken away would be under a Socialist State, because in a completely Socialist State the right to strike would be a claim of mutiny. He wished to point out that the regulation which was arrived at by the Trade Union Executive to call out everybody regardless of the contracts which th«* workmen had made r.s not a lawful act at all. Every workman who was bound by a contract to give notice before he left work, and who, in view of that decision, had either chosen of his own freewill, or had been compelled to leave his employment without proper notice had broken the law, just as much as the coal-owners would have broken the law if they had failed to give due notice to terminate the existing engagements with their men and attempted to turn them off on the Ist of May without any warning. It would be lamentable if the working classes of the country were 1 go on with this business without understanding that they were taking part in a novel and utterly illegal proceeding. LIABLE TO THE UTMOST FARTHING. A general strike proclaimed by leaders of organised labour which disregarded all the contracts of employment was wholly different from other strikes. Most of tbe railway servants of this country served under contracts which required notice to be given on either side. Every railwayman in that position who had come out in disregard of the contract in his employment was personally liable to be sued in the County Court for damages. Every trade union leader who had advised and prompted that course of action was liable in damages to the utter: most farthing of his personal possessions. Sir John was not saying those things with the least desire to secure cheers from one side or protests from the other; but he felt it to be his duty, whatever the cost might be, to make what he had said as plain as he could. A PERFECTLY DOGMATIC STATEMENT. The fact that these proceedings could be taken against these tens of thousands of decent workmen—-trade union leaders of great authority and position in the House and outside —Bhowed what a world of difference there was between a strike as hitherto understood and the general strike now proclaimed. There were two illustrations which could be given from his professional experience of trade union work. Many trade unions had a rule to the effect that if a member did not obey the orders of tbe executive of his union, he forfeited his benefit. Sir John made the perfectly dogmatic statement that any such rule, laying down that a trade unionist forfeited his benefit if he did not obey the orders of bis executive meant, and only meant, that he might so forfeit those benefits If the order were lawful. It would be an Intolerable position if any man forfeited his benefit because he declined to obey an unlawful order. At this time, when many men were deeply concerned to think that this demand had been made on them, and that they had to choose between obeying It and losing their benefit, It could uot bo too widely and plainly known that there was no oourt in this country which would ever construe such a rule as meaning that a man would forfeit his benefit if he were asked to do that which was wrong and illegal. A TRAGIC SITUATION FOR TRADE UNIONS. “I am deeply interested in the protection, the development, and the securing of trade union rights. I firmly believe that the free, fair use, by organised labour of all Its proper powers of combination is essential to the fair working of modern industry. But I really cannot conceal from anyone who is good enough to pay the smallest attention to my view, that this proclamation of a general strike, from the point of view of the future of trade unionism, is a tragic situation. What Is the first thing It has done? At a blow It has deprived the miners of this country, decent men, faced with a dreadful difficulty, in which they were entitled to receive, and did receive the widespread sympathy of ordinary citizens—of a great deal of the tympatliy that they thoroughly deaerve. It has thrown the claim and the appeal for the case which they had into tbe background, because we are faced with a perfectly new and moat dangerous attack on the community itself. It has put in jeopardy rights of organised Labour which I want to do my utmost to protect. The day will come, when this struggle it ended, in the only way m which it can be ended, when irritated, resentful, suffering opinion will proclaim that you ought to make an immense-invasion and reduction of the legitimate rights of organised Labour, and the people who are re-' sponsible for creating that situation are the very people whose duty it was, at all costs, to have told the workinc claases of this country that a general strike waa a very different thing from an ordinary strike." MUST END IN FAILURE. He begged those in authority in the Labour movement to realise that they were abusing

the power the ©ommunity gave them and that unless they were careful there would be a terrible reaction. He begged them tc realiee that they were jeopardising the sacreclest possession of wage earners and making it very difficult to preserve those rights to which Labour was justly entitled. ‘‘l would beg them to realise that they who have this responsibility have committed hundreds and thousands of decent labouring men to something which must end in failure, and which is in danger of setting back the useful and peaceful progress of the working classes of this country for a generation.' During Six John Simon’s speech the Socialist benches were almost and at one point Mr Buchanan and Mr Kirkwood deliberately walked out. LABOUR COUNSEL’S VIEWS. Referring to this question in the House of Commons, Sir H. Slesser, Solicitor-General in the Labour Government and Standing Counsel to the Labour Party, said that Sir J. Simon had lately seemed to suggest that the general strike which existed was necessarily illegal because it was in breach of contract. Under Section 3of the existing Trades Disputes Act, however, an express immunity was conferred on anybody who procured a breach of contract in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. Whether such an Act were a legal wrong would depend on the question whether it were done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute and whether a trade dispute existed in any particular case was a question of fact to be decided at the trial. The matter was one on which it was impossible to express any general opinion in advance. The size of the extension of a dispute would not in itsel* make illegal that which was not illegal in a smaller dispute. He did not know whether trade union benefits would or would not be withheld, but under the existing law in the case of every trade union no member could recover in an action for benefits at the present time. ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S STATEMENT. Sir D. Hogg, Attorney-general, said that Sir H Slesser seemed to have misunderstood the whole basis on which Sir John Simon's opinion proceeded. Sir H. Slesser dealt with it as if Sir John Simon were discussing only the question of how far the fact that breaches of contract were Involved rendered the general strike illegal. No doubt the fact that the strike did involve in many cases breaches of contract might have a relevant bearing in considering the legality of the action taken, but it was not on that ground that Sir John Simon merely proceeded. He expressed it as his deliberate opinion that a general strike which was not and could not be regarded as an industrial weapon, but as a conspiracy against the State, stood wholly outside the protection of the Trades Disputes Act, and that therefore the section of that Act to which Sir H. S’esser called atention could have no application to what in his view was a wholly illegal act. The basis on which Sir John Simon proceeded was that there was a wide gulf fixed between the ordinary industrial dispute and the general strike—a weapon which was being used to put coercion on the community at large. FATAL STEP MUST BE RETRACED. “There can be no longer any doubt,” says The Times, “that a false and deplorably wrong step was taken —a step calculated to do immeasurable harm to the men in whose behalf it was ostensibly taken, as well as to the allied unions misled into dangerous and unconstitutional ways. Faith has been broken. Agreements, that were safeguards to Individual workmen and individual employers, to the industries in which they worked, and to the larger Industrial and commercial life of the nation, have become as unstable as water. A desperate Injury has been done to the honour of trade unionism. What bond can be trusted ; what faith will hold? The Prime Minister spoke of the shattering of high purposes and hopes in the catastrophe of the strike, and of hia resolve even then to begin over again his self-appointed task of fostering goodwill between employers and employed. Goodwill and good faith are Inseparable, and the breaking of the one is the death of the other. Both have to be recreated: and the first act of that recreation must be the retracing by the trade unions of the fatal step of last weekend. The wrong of the general strike must be undone that men of faith and courage may again unite to promote in industry the common good.”