terms as he thinks fit. On the other hand, public opinion has become uneasy about the capacity of English manufacturers to hold their own against foreign competition, and therefore resents as a crime against the community any attempt to restrict output or obstruct machinery of which the trade unions may be accused. And thus we have a growing public opinion in favor of some authoritative tribunal of conciliation or arbitration, and an intense dislike of any organized interruption of industry by a lockout or strike, especially when this is promoted by a trade union which is believed-often on the strength of the wildest accusations in the newspapers-to be unfriendly to the utmost possible improvement of processes in its trade.

Labor, naturally, bitterly, denounced the decision and regarded it as another scandalous illustration of "judge-made law;" of the perversion of the intent of the legislature by hostile judicial interpretation. Labor at once began a campaign to secure the amendment of the Trade Union Acts, by which the legislature should affirmatively declare that the funds of trade unions were not liable for any act of a trade union that was not in itself criminal, even if its purpose was to cause injury; and further that the union should not be held civilly liable for the acts of its individual members if such acts had not been sanctioned, or had been repudiated, by the duly authorized executive body.

Mr. Bell, who, in addition to being secretary of his union, is a member of Parliament, introduced a bill "to legalize the conduct of trade disputes." Mr. Bell's bill provided that:

Where an act is done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, the person doing the act shall not be liable to an action on the ground that by that act he interfered, or intended to interfere, either with the exercise by another person of his right to carry on his business, or with the establishment of contractual relations between other persons: Provided, That nothing in this section shall exempt such persons from liability on any other ground.

An agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be ground for an action, if such act when done by one person is not a ground for an action.

An action shall not be brought against a trade union, or against any person or persons representing the members of a trade union in his or their respective capacity, for any act done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute.

Attending at or near the house or place where a person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such a house or place, in order merely to persuade such person peaceably to do or abstain from doing that which he has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, shall not be deemed as watching or besetting within the meaning of section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875.

TRADE DISPUTES ACT, 1906.

The bill, however, did not become a law, but the Government of the day admitted that an inquiry was necessary, and a royal commission was appointed. In March, 1906, the Government brought in a bill amendatory of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, to meet the demands of labor, which was finally passed, December 21, 1906, as the Trade Disputes Act 1906. This act contains the following provisions:

An act done in pursuance of an agreement or combination by two or more persons shall, if done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, not be actionable unless the act, if done without any such agreement or combination, would be actionable.

It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working. An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labor as he wills.

An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by any court.

Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided for by the Trades Union Act, 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute.

It will be seen that this act gives to trade unions, whether of workmen or masters, immunity from being sued "in respect of any tortious act." If it had been a law at the time of the Taff Vale Railway strike that company could not have recovered damages from the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.

It has been made manifest that at the beginning of the last century society had no recognition of the duty it owed to the manual worker. There was no conception of what in latter days has been termed "paternalism," usually employed as a term of reproach and disapprobation; of the ethical relations between employer and employee; of the obligations capital owes to the means by which it is producedthat is, the men whose labor creates wealth. It has already been observed that all the legislation which has here been considered is

class legislation; legislation for the protection and the moral and material advancement of a class-the so-called "working class," to use a generic term-that required the protection of society to save it from the depredations of society. It was the frank recognition of weakness; it was an acknowledgment that in the complex organization of society the worker and the producer, born to a lower intellectual plane, unable to advance themselves by means of their own unaided efforts, and yet the agency whereby society advanced, were entitled to at least a share of their contribution to society's welfare. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the legislator who would have proposed that the workingman should be compensated by his employer for an injury received in the course of his employment, not caused by his own negligence or violation of rules, would have been regarded as mad or an enemy to society. We have seen how the manufacturers opposed regulations for the proper protection of machinery. We have seen the callous disregard manufacturers had for the lives and health of their employees. We have seen all this, and to-day we find on the statute books of England a law by which men injured in the course of their employment are compensated by their employers. It is the fitting end to legislation that, beginning with an attempt to save mere babies from the lash of industrial slavery, now seeks to give to men a just proportion of their labor.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS.

On August 6, 1897, the royal assent was given to the Workmen's Compensation Act (60 and 61 Vict., c. 37), which came into operation on July 1, 1898. This act provides, in brief, that a workman killed or injured in the course of his duty, whose death or injury was not due to his own negligence or the willful violation of any rule or regulation made by the proper authorities or his employers for his protection or safety, shall be compensated according to a fixed schedule. The law was important for more than one reason. It was, in the first place, a great advance in social legislation; in the second place, this act had the effect practically, even if not statutorily, to destroy the old doctrine of "common employment." The common law of England recognized the liability of an employer to compensate an employee for an injury received by the employee in his service, subject to certain conditions, but it relieved the employer of liability where the injury was caused by a fellow-employee, their employment being common. Thus, to quote from the Report of the Departmental Committee of 1903 Appointed to Inquire into the Law on Workmen's Compensation, "the representatives of a deceased sailor who has lost his life through the negligence of the captain of the ship have no remedy against the owners, who are the common employers both of the captain and of the injured man." The new law fastened the

liability upon the employer irrespective of the joint agency of employer and fellow-employee. The purpose sought to be attained was concisely set forth by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M. P., who moved an amendment to the bill of 1893, which failed to become a law, in these words: "That no amendment of the law relating to employers' liability will be final or satisfactory which does not provide compensation to workmen for all injuries sustained in the ordinary course of their employment, and not caused by their own acts or default."

To quote again from the departmental report already cited:

In 1897 the measure which is now law was introduced. It is diffi- ' cult to overrate the boldness or the importance of the step then taken by the legislature. * * * The proposal was somewhat startling, for hitherto the law had never recognized a personal liability, except as a consequence of breach of contract or some wrongful act or omission. It is true that our law and the law of the United States of America, which was derived from it, had gone very far in recognizing a personal liability in the employer for the wrongful act or omission of persons employed by him, even without any personal default on the part of the employer himself. Vicarious responsibility of this kind is in some form an element of all systems of European law and of those derived from it; but, as already stated, the English law carried the idea further than that of most other countries. But it was a departure from legal principle to enact that a personal responsibility should exist, although there had been no breach of contract or wrongdoing on the part either of the employer or of anyone for whom he was responsible. However, the step was taken, and this anomaly has been established as part of our law. Other European countries and British colonies have followed the example of the legislature of the United Kingdom. In effect, upon the coming into force of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, the legislature attached to every contract of employment in the industries to which the act related the term that for industrial accidents arising out of the occupation under the specified conditions compensation should be paid by the employer to the amount and in the manner provided for by the act. There are no means of escaping or limiting this liability, except under conditions (to be noticed hereafter) by which equal or greater benefits are secured to the workmen.

This legislation was stated by the ministers responsible for its introduction to be of an experimental character. But it is obvious. that as soon as it was passed the contractual relations of employers and employed who fell within its scope underwent a vast change. Whatever the true economic view may be as to the ultimate incidence of the cost of compensation, a burden of greater or less weight was, in the first instance, at all events, thrown upon the employers and a benefit conferred on the workmen. This change has been too farreaching to admit of any recurrence to the former state of things. The questions for the future must be, not whether the workman should continue to have a legal right to be relieved from some portion of the loss caused by industrial accidents, but what amendments are required in the law providing for that relief as regards the general method and detailed means of affording it, whether any and what

changes are required in the extent or limits of that relief, or in the security for its provision and maintenance, and whether similar privileges should be extended to classes of work people not now within the law. The former controversies as to "common employment," "volenti non fit injuria," "contributory negligence," so far as the scope of the Workmen's Compensation Act is concerned, have practically passed away.

The history of the law is the history of all similar legislation. It has become a proverb that history repeats itself, and certainly it is true that the evolution of society is circumgyratory, that society in its progressive movement does not ascend perpendicularly, but reaches a higher plane only by working around and touching in its path the circumference of prejudice and preconceived error. This law encountered the same opposition that the early factory acts did. It met the resistance of capital, which saw in it another attack on its rights; it was antagonized by workingmen, for whose benefit it was sought to be enacted, because they believed the burden of its cost would be laid upon them. We have here a dramatic illustration of this circular evolution of society to which reference has been made. The opposition to the Workmen's Compensation Act was parallel to that which made both employers and employees league against the acts in the earlier years of the last century, restricting the hours of labor of adults in factories. The employers believed that any reduction would affect their profits; the workingmen believed that the reduction of hours, and consequently a reduction of output, would enhance the cost of production and diminish their wages, and that they would suffer by the proposed legislation.

The lapse of three-quarters of a century found prejudice and ignorance as firmly intrenched as ever, and despite the advancement in the science of economics men were still unenlightened by its teachings. Prior to the passage of the bill Mr. John Wilson, a member of Parliament and the secretary of the Durham Coal Miner's Association, who had previously declared that "there is not a question within the probabilities of legislation which so vitally affects our interests," thus commented on the bill in a circular sent to his association:

But suppose a universal scheme of compensation for all accidents established, and as easily as water flowing down a hill we received the amount arranged by the State for the class of accident we had received. Whence comes the money? The ready but incorrect answer will be, no doubt, from the employer. It will come no more from him than the water we drink comes from the tap or pipe it runs out of. It may run out of the tap, but it must first come from the spring or other source. So the money paid will come from the spring of the employer's wealth-the labor of the workman. The employers are alive to that simple truth of political economy. In conversation with one large employer he admitted that, and it can not be successfully controverted. It may be denied, but not refuted.