THE DEMANDS OF GOOD FAITH

Western Star, 20 July 1926, Page 4

THE DEMANDS OF GOOD FAITH

‘ln human nature there is an imperative sense of obedience to the demands of good faith. Men have nob a right to cease work who have made a bargain a collective bargain, not to cease work except on certain conditions which under the illegal orders of the Trades Union Council could not arise,’ says the Times in discussing Mr Justice Astbury’s judgment that the general strike is illegal. ‘The men who struck without notice had not only broken the law, had not only created a sense of. distrust that threatened to undo the social labours of a whole century but had also disclaimed that principle of good faith on which all that is most hopeful in every devlopment of the English people is based.’ The Times recalls the slow and painful process by which the trade union principle of collective bargaining was established, as an essential element ofi social and industrial life and adds: — ‘But all progress depended upon, good faith between man and main, 'between group and group; upon the effective working of collective bargaining upon the sacred character of contracts. The general strike—the wilful and illegal threat by a eomparitivelv small minority' of the people against the constitutional government of the country, the attempted obstruction of the essential services—threatened complete disaster to the whole movement.’