Whatever may be the justification for the momentous change in the law which the Six Judges (namely, the three members of the Court of Appeal, and three out of the five Law Lords, all of whom agreed in the series of propositions that we have cited) suddenly, without Parliamentary authority, of their own motion effected, it created an intolerable situation. There was, in the first place, the application of the doctrine of ultra vires to corporate entities quite unaware of its existence. It was all very well, in order to fit the law to the facts, to throw over the old legal doctrine that the persona ficta of a corporation could only come into existence by some formal act of incorporation by an external authority. But then it plainly would not do to retain, as the Six Judges quite calmly retained, the severe limitations on the action of statutory corporate entities which is involved in the doctrine of ultra vires, and which, as Lord Halsbury put it, was to prohibit them from doing what they liked. The argument for that principle is that such a corporate entity owes its existence entirely to the statutory authority by which it is created; that the legislature has brought it into being for certain definite purposes; that for those purposes and no others the exceptional powers of a corporation have been conferred upon it; that as such it is, in a sense, the agent whom the community has entrusted with the execution of these functions, and who cannot therefore (even if all the constituent members of its body so agree and desire) assume any other purposes or functions. But any such doctrine of ultra vires can have no rational application to the corporate entity formed by the twenty old ladies in the workhouse for their private pot of tea. If we are going, in effect, to treat as corporate entities all sorts of spontaneously arising associations, such as an unregistered Trade Union (and some of the wealthiest and most powerful Trade Unions were still unregistered), or such as an Employers’ Association (which was hardly ever a registered body)—corporate entities which were, in fact, lawfully in existence long before the Act of 1876—we must give up the fiction that the purposes of these associations have been authoritatively fixed and defined in advance by Parliament in such a way that the members themselves, even when they are unanimous and when they are acting in strict accord with their constitution and rules, cannot add to or alter the objects or methods of their organisation. What was logically required, in fact, was not the arbitrary identification of spontaneously arising associative entities with legally created corporations, but the formulation of a new conception as to the functions and legal rights that such spontaneously arising associative entities—to which the limitations of legally created corporations could not be simply assumed to apply—should, as a class, be permitted to exercise.
The Miscarriage of Justice
We come now to the second cardinal feature of the decision of the Six Judges in 1909, in which they showed both prejudice and ignorance. Having found that the Trade Unions were, in fact, corporate entities, and that they had been, in various clumsy ways, dealt with by Parliament very much as if they were legally corporate entities—though Parliament had advisedly abstained from incorporating them, and had, indeed, always referred to them as being what in fact they were, namely already existing and spontaneously arising associations, not created by its will—the Six Judges took the view that some authoritative specification of the objects and purposes of a Trade Union had to be discovered by hook or by crook. It seems to have been by them inconceivable (though Lord James of Hereford, one of their own number, who had personally taken part in all the legislation, expressly told them it was in fact so) that no such specification should exist. They accordingly found it in an enumeration which Parliament had given in the Act of 1876 of all the various bodies which were to be entitled to the privileges conferred by the Act—a definition introduced, so a well-informed writer mentioned in 1878, for the special advantage of Trade Unions[665]—principally to enable them to be registered by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies. The Law Lords now held that this definition must be deemed to be an exhaustive enumeration, not merely of the kinds of societies to be eligible for registration, but also of all the objects and purposes that Parliament intended any of those bodies, whether registered or unregistered, to be free at any time to pursue. The result was that all Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations, and, indeed, all informal groups of workmen or employers falling within this definition, suddenly found themselves (to the complete amazement of every one concerned, including the lawyers) rigidly confined in their action, even if all their members otherwise wished and agreed, to matters which were specified in an enumerating clause of an Act of Parliament of a generation before, which had never before been supposed to have that meaning, or to have any restrictive effect at all. We ought to speak with proper respect of the judges, though sometimes, by their curious ignorance of life outside the Law Courts, and especially of “what everybody knows,” they try us hard. But it is necessary to state plainly, with regard to this part of the Osborne Judgement, that to the present writers, as to the whole British working class and many other people, including lawyers, it seemed an astounding aberration, amounting to a grave miscarriage of justice. Again, let it be noted that Lord James of Hereford, who knew what Parliament had intended, and what Trade Unions actually were, expressly dissented from his colleagues on this point, saying that the enumeration clause in the Act of 1876 was never intended to be “a clause of limitation or exhaustive definition” of objects and purposes; and arguing that it did not prevent a Trade Union from having other purposes, or pursuing other methods, not in themselves unlawful, even though these were not enumerated in the definition clause and were not even incidental to the purposes therein enumerated. But what is the history of this definition clause? As it stands in the Act of 1876 it runs as follows:
The term “Trade Union” means any combination, whether temporary or permanent, for regulating the relations between workmen and masters, or between workmen and workmen, or between masters and masters, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business, whether such combination would or would not, if the principal Act had not been passed, have been deemed to have been an unlawful combination by reason of some one or more of its purposes being in restraint of trade.
Now, to the lay mind, this extremely loose enumeration[666] of kinds of societies seems plainly intended to bring within its net, and therefore to admit to the advantages of the Act, a wide range of existing or possible associations of different kinds. It was to include all sorts of Employers’ Associations as well as Trade Unions. It was to include bodies already in existence as well as those to be formed in the future. It was to include bodies seeking to impose restrictive conditions “in restraint of trade,” as well as those having no such unlawful objects. It was to include, therefore, bodies already enjoying a full measure of lawful existence and legal recognition, as well as those for the first time fully legalised by the legislation of 1871-76. To the logician it will be clear that we have here a case of classification by type, not by delimitation. “It is determined,” says Whewell and J. S. Mill, “not by a boundary line without, but by a central point within; not by what it strictly excludes, but by what it eminently includes; by an example, not by a precept.”[667] Accordingly the clause names specifically one by one the various attributes, any one of which is to be typical of the class. It sufficed for the purpose to name only one attribute belonging to each body which it was desired to include. What its other attributes might be was irrelevant. It does not occur to the ordinary reader, any more than to the logician, that the effect of the clause is, not merely to include associations of different kinds, but also to limit the legal freedom of all those associations, with all their varied functions, exclusively to the purposes specified in the definition, which were merely recited in order to bring a number of heterogeneous bodies into one class. On the construction put upon this clause by the Six Judges, the Act of 1876 was a measure which deprived Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations, many of which had been for years lawfully in existence, without any unlawful objects or methods, of a freedom that they had up to then enjoyed; it was an Act rigidly confining their operations to a limited field, and for ever prohibiting them (as Lord Halsbury expressly declared) from doing anything not included in the list of functions incidentally then and there given. It is safe to say that, to any historical student who knows anything of the circumstances of the case, such a supposition is preposterous. No Trade Union and no Employers’ Association was aware in 1876 that its freedom was being thus restricted. Thomas Burt, M.P., and Lord James of Hereford (then Sir Henry James, M.P.), who took part in passing the Act, certainly never dreamed that they were doing anything of the sort. The Home Office officials who prepared it, and Lord Cross (then Home Secretary) who introduced it, quite plainly had not the remotest notion that they were taking away from Trade Unions (which they were anxious to legalise) any of the functions which these Unions were in fact exercising, and which such Trade Unions as were lawful associations were already lawfully exercising; or that they were prohibiting these Trade Unions from doing anything not specified in the incidental enumeration of attributes that was then, merely for the purpose of including various kinds of associations, statutorily enacted. As a matter of fact, the definition clause in the Act of 1876 was enacted merely to correct in one small particular the definition clause in the Act of 1871. That clause had defined a Trade Union as meaning “such combination ... as would, if this Act had not passed, been deemed to have been an unlawful combination by reason of some one or more of the purposes being in restraint of trade.” This was found in practice inconvenient, because it had inadvertently excluded from registration and all the benefits of the Act those Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations which were already lawful associations, free from any unlawful purpose. A Trade Union had to prove that it was (but for the Act) an unlawful body before it could be admitted to the advantages of the Act. It was also inexpedient, because it actually offered an inducement to Trade Unions to have purposes or methods “in restraint of trade,” in order to obtain these advantages. Now, supposing that the Act of 1876 had not been passed, and that the definition clause had remained in the terms of that of the Act of 1871, would the Six Judges have equally construed it as offering a complete and exhaustive enumeration of the permissible activities of a Trade Union, making it actually illegal for the future for any association of workmen or employers to deal with the conditions of employment, except in ways that would (but for the 1871 Act) have been unlawful? And if the definition clause in the 1871 Act cannot be construed as (to use Lord James of Hereford’s words) “a clause of limitation or exhaustive definition” of Trade Union activities, with what consistency can the definition clause of the 1876 Act (which follows the same wording, and merely extends the definition so as to take in lawful as well as unlawful societies) be so construed? Successive Chief Registrars of Friendly Societies, like every one else, had always understood the definition clause to be an enabling clause, not a restricting one; and they had accordingly for a whole generation willingly registered rules presented to them by Trade Unions, including in their objects and purposes all sorts of things not enumerated in the definition, and not even incidental to any of the purposes therein enumerated. It was, in 1909, not at first realised—certainly the Six Judges did not realise—how extensive and how varied were the actually existing operations of Trade Unions that they were rendering illegal. Not political action alone, not municipal action alone, but any work of general education of their members or others; the formation of a library; the establishment or management of “University Extension” or “Workers’ Educational Association” classes; the subscription to circulating book-boxes; the provision of public lectures; the establishment of scholarships at Ruskin College, Oxford, or any other College—all of which things were at the time actually being done by Trade Unions—were all henceforth to be ultra vires and illegal. The two hundred Trades Councils, local federations of different Trade Unions for the purpose of dealing with matters of general interest to workmen, which took no part in the collective bargaining of any particular Trade Union, were probably thereby equally made illegal; though they were in 1876 already a quarter of a century old, and in 1909 numbered nearly a million members. The annual Trade Union Congress itself, then in its fortieth year, and dealing almost exclusively with Parliamentary projects, came under the same ban. The active participation which Trade Unions had here and there taken in technical education, and their co-operation with the Local Education Authorities, which had sometimes been found so useful, were certainly ultra vires. One would suppose, strictly speaking, that a similar illegality was to attach to all the vast “friendly society” side of Trade Unionism, with its sick and accident and out-of-work benefits—not one of them being referred to in the definition which the Six Judges declared to contain an exhaustive enumeration of the purposes and objects that Parliament intended to permit Trade Unions to pursue. But here the Six Judges saved themselves—though in a way logically destructive of their claim that the definition clause itself was one of “exhaustive” enumeration of permissible Trade Union purposes—by holding that these friendly benefits, though not mentioned in the definition clause, were referred to elsewhere in the Act, and might be regarded as incidental to the purpose of regulating the conditions of employment. This, indeed, so far as benefits paid to the workman himself are concerned, was a plausible view. Strike Benefit, in particular, is plainly incidental to striking, and sick benefit might conceivably be held to protect the worker from industrial oppression whilst sick. But the same cannot be said of the most widely spread of all Trade Union benefits, the provision of funeral money on a member’s death. In some cases the Trade Unions were actually paying for the funerals of their deceased members’ widows and orphan children. This was a mere act of humanity to the deceased member’s widow and orphans; and it could not, by any stretch of imagination, be supposed to improve the workers’ bargaining power, or to be in any way incidental to the regulation or restriction of the conditions of employment. Yet Funeral Benefit was in 1909 (as it was in 1876) the one among the so-called “friendly” benefits most universally adopted by Trade Unions. More than a million Trade Unionists were thus effecting through their societies a humble life insurance. This extensive life insurance business of Trade Unions could not be said to be in any way included in the definition clause of the 1876 Act, even if the sick and unemployment benefits were. If the judgements in the Osborne Case were correct, the whole of this life insurance business of Trade Unions (as distinguished from the sick and unemployment benefits), or at least the whole of that relating to widows and orphans, must be held to have been inadvertently prohibited by Parliament in 1871 and 1876, and to have been ever since ultra vires and illegal. It is impossible for the plain man to avoid the conclusion, even though the six other authorities take a contrary view, that Lord James of Hereford was right in declaring that the definition in the Act of 1876 was not meant by Parliament to be “a clause of limitation or exhaustive definition” of the permissible purposes of a Trade Union; and, accordingly, that the Six Judges had—presumably following quite accurately the narrow technical rules of their profession—put upon the statute a construction which Parliament had in no way intended.
What then did Parliament intend to fix and define as the permissible objects and functions of a Trade Union? The answer of the historical student is clear and unhesitating. Parliament quite certainly intended, in 1871 and 1876, to fix and define nothing of the sort; but meant, whether wisely or not, to leave Trade Unions as they then were—as such of them, indeed, as had no unlawful purpose or method had long legally been—namely, as free as any other unincorporated groups of persons to take whatever action they might choose, subject only to their own contractual agreements, and to the general law of the land. From this position we venture, as historians, to say that Parliament did not, in 1871 or 1876, intentionally depart.
Finally, we have the argument of the Six Judges that, seeing that the sole lawful purposes of a Trade Union are “regulating the relations between workmen and masters, or between workmen and workmen, or between masters and masters,” and “imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business,” no action of a Parliamentary or political kind is within the definition, or even incidental to anything therein. This view, to put it bluntly, showed an ignorance of Trade Unionism, British industrial history, and the circumstances not only of 1871-76, but also of 1908-9, which was as remarkable as it was deplorable. On the face of it, to take first the words of the statute, the most usual and the most natural way of “regulating” the relations between people, and the most obvious expedient for “imposing” restrictive conditions on industry, is an Act of Parliament. It was to Acts of Parliament, as we have abundantly shown in Industrial Democracy, that the Trade Unions had for a century been looking, and were in 1871-76, many of them, looking, for a very large part of the “regulating” of industrial conditions, and of the “restrictive conditions” that they existed to promote. What the judges apparently forgot is that conditions of employment include not merely wages, but also hours of labour, sanitary conditions, precautions against accident, compensation for injuries, and what not. If the Six Judges had remembered how, in fact, in Great Britain the great majority of industrial relations were regulated, and how the great mass of restrictive conditions were, in fact, imposed on industry; or if they had had recalled to them the long and persistent struggle of the Trade Unions to get adopted the Factory Acts, the Mines Regulation Acts, the Truck Acts, the Shop Hours Acts, and so many more, they could hardly have argued that such actions as engaging in Parliamentary business, supporting or opposing Parliamentary candidates, and helping members of Parliament favourable to “regulating,” and “imposing restrictive conditions”—actions characteristic of Trade Unions for generations—were not incidental to these legitimate purposes. As a matter of fact, the getting and enforcing of legislation is, historically, as much a part of Trade Union function as maintaining a strike.[668] One Trade Union at least, which no one ever dreamt to be illegal, the United Textile Factory Workers’ Association, has existed exclusively for political action, and had no other functions.[669] This kind of Trade Union action is even antecedent in date to any corporate dealing with employers. During the whole two centuries of Trade Union history, as in Industrial Democracy we have described, the Unions have had at their disposal, and have simultaneously adopted, three different methods of imposing and enforcing the Common Rules which they sought to get adopted in the conditions of employment. From 1700 downwards they have used the Method of Mutual Insurance; from the very beginning of the eighteenth century down to the present day the records show them to have been continuously employing the Method of Legal Enactment; whilst only intermittently during the eighteenth century, and not openly and avowedly until 1824, could they rely on the Method of Collective Bargaining. The Miners’ Unions, and the Agricultural Labourers’ Unions, in particular, had been particularly active in support of the extension of the franchise between 1863 and 1884. Even the expenditure of Trade Union funds on Parliamentary candidatures was practised by Trade Unions at any rate as early as 1868, as soon, in fact, as the town artisans were enfranchised; and the payment of Trade Union Members of Parliament was begun as early as 1874, and had lasted continuously from that date. Yet the Six Judges assumed, apparently without adequate consideration, and certainly on inaccurate information, that Parliament in 1876 intended to authorise Trade Unions to pursue their first and third methods, but intended to prohibit them, from that time forth, from using the Method of Legal Enactment, just at the moment when this latter was being most effectively employed. It is, indeed, almost comic to remember that the Bill which is supposed to have effected this revolution in the Trade Union position was brought in by Lord Cross, then Sir R. A. Cross, M.P., fresh from his election by a constituency in which the Trade Unionists had been, politically, the dominant factor; that it was debated in a House of Commons in which the direct influence of the Trade Unions was at the highest point that it had hitherto reached; that at the General Election of 1874, from which the members had lately come, the Trade Unions, as we have described in the present volume, had worked with might and main for the rejection of candidates opposed to their political claims, and had had a much larger share than political historians usually recognise in the Gladstonian defeat; that two Trade Union members were actually then sitting in the House, one, at least (Thomas Burt), being openly maintained as a salaried representative of his Union, by a salary avowedly fixed on a scale to enable him to sit in Parliament;[670] that the Conservative Government promptly introduced the particular legal enactments to obtain which the Trade Unions had spent their money, namely, the Nine Hours Bill, the Employer and Workman Bill, and the Trade Union Bill; and that the Six Judges ask us to believe that the latter Bill, which the Trade Union members themselves helped to pass, was designed and intended to prevent Thomas Burt from drawing a salary from the Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident Society whilst sitting in the House of Commons; to prohibit the Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident Society, just because it was a Trade Union, from taking any part in future elections in the Morpeth Division, and to make the action of this and all other Trade Unions in paying for political work and Parliamentary candidatures, even with the unanimous consent of their members, from that time forth illegal.
We have thought it worth while to place on record this analysis of the legally authoritative part of the Osborne Judgement, which, though partly modified by a subsequent statute, has not been overruled, and is still legally authoritative, because it is of historical importance. It is significant as showing how far the Courts of Justice were, as lately as 1909, still out of touch, so far as Trade Unionism is concerned, either with Parliament or with the political economists. The case was, however, of even greater import. The bias and prejudice, the animus and partiality—doubtless unconscious to the judges themselves—which were displayed by those who ought to have been free from such intellectual influences; the undisguised glee with which this grave miscarriage of justice was received by the governing class, and the prolonged delay of a professedly Liberal and Radical Cabinet, and a professedly Liberal and Radical House of Commons in remedying it, had a great effect on the minds of the wage-earners, and contributed notably to the increasing bitterness of feeling against the “governing class,” and against a State organisation in which such a miscarriage of justice could take place. We must, indeed, look behind the legal technicalities of the Six Judges, and consider what was the animus behind their extraordinary judgement. The “subservience” of Parliament to the Trade Unions in passing the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 had excited the deepest resentment of the lawyers. The progress of the Labour Party was causing a quite exaggerated alarm among members of the governing class. What lay behind the Osborne Judgement was a determination to exclude the influence of the workmen’s combinations from the political field. This is really what the Osborne Judgement prohibited. One irreverent legal critic, indeed, went so far as to remark that the Law Lords were so anxious to make it clear that Trade Unions were not to be entitled to pay for Members of Parliament, that they failed to heed how much law they were severally demolishing in the process! It is instructive to examine the arguments adduced by the Law Lords and the judges on this point, apart from their decision as to Trade Union status. These opinions could hardly be deemed to be law, as they all differed one from another, and none of them obtained the support of a majority of the Law Lords. Such as they are, however, they seem not to have been connected with Trade Unionism at all, but with the nature of the House of Commons. One of the Law Lords (Lord James of Hereford) merely objected to Trade Unions paying a Member of Parliament who was (as was quite incorrectly assumed) bound by a rule of the paying body requiring him to vote in a particular way, not on labour questions only, but on all issues that might come before Parliament. Another Law Lord (Lord Shaw), with whom Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton seemed to agree, held that what was illegal was not the payment of Members of Parliament, but their subjection, by whomsoever paid, to a “pledge-bound” party organisation (as the Labour Party was alleged to be). Another judge (Farwell, L.J.) took a different line, and held that it was illegal for a corporate body to require its own members to subscribe collectively towards the support of a Member of Parliament with whose views they might individually not agree. What the historian and the student of political science will say is that these were matters for legislation, not for the sudden intervention of the judiciary. The House of Commons is prompt enough to defend its own honour and its own “privilege”; and the function of the judges will begin when any of the acts referred to has been made an illegal practice. In 1909, as now, the practices complained of, whether or not they were correctly described, and however objectionable to these particular gentlemen they might be, were all lawful; and the judges and Law Lords were abusing the privileges of their office by importing them to prejudice the legal issue.
The Osborne Judgement received the support, not only of the great mass of property owners and professional men, but also, though tacitly, of the Liberal and Conservative Parties. A distinct challenge was thereby thrown down to the Trade Union world. Not only were the activities of their Unions to be crippled, not only was their freedom to combine for whatever purposes they chose to be abrogated, they were to be expressly forbidden to aspire to protect their interests or promote their objects by Parliamentary representation, or in any way to engage in politics. It was this challenge to Organised Labour that absorbed the whole interest of the Trade Union world for the next three or four years.
The experienced Trade Union leaders did not forget that it might well be a matter for Trade Union consideration how far it is wise and prudent for a Trade Union to engage in general politics. We have elsewhere pointed out[671] with some elaboration how dangerous it may become to the strength and authority of a Trade Union if any large section of the persons in the trade are driven out of its ranks, or deterred from joining, because they find their convictions outraged by part of its action. Nothing could be more unwise for a Trade Union than to offend its Roman Catholic members by espousing the cause of secular education.[672] But this is a point which each Trade Union must decide for itself. It is not a matter in which outsiders can offer more than counsel. It is clearly not a matter in which the discretion of the Trade Union, any more than that of an individual employer, can properly be limited by law. For no Trade Union can nowadays abstain altogether from political action. Without co-operating with other Trade Unions in taking Parliamentary action of a very energetic and very watchful kind, it cannot (as long experience has demonstrated to practically all Trade Unionists) protect the interests of its members. Without taking a vigorous part in promoting, enforcing, and resisting all sorts of legislation affecting education, sanitation, the Poor Law, the whole range of the Factories, Mines, Railways, and Merchant Shipping Acts, the Shop Hours, Truck, Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation, and now even the Trade Boards’ Act, the Trade Union cannot properly fulfil its function of looking after the regulation of the conditions of employment. But this is not all. The interests of its members require the most watchful scrutiny of the administration of every public department. There is not a day passes but something in Parliament demands its attention. On this point Trade Union opinion is unanimous. We have never met any member of a Trade Union—and Osborne himself is no exception—who has any contrary view. To suggest that there is anything improper, or against public policy, for a Trade Union to give an annual retaining fee to a Member of Parliament whom its members trust, or to take the necessary steps to get that member elected, in order to ensure that what the Trade Union conceives to be its own interests shall be protected, was to take up a position of extraordinary unfairness. When more than a quarter of the whole House of Commons habitually consists, not merely of individual employers, but actually of persons drawing salaries or stipends from capitalist corporations of one kind or another—when, in fact, the number of companies of shareholders in railways, banks, insurance companies, breweries, ocean telegraphs, shipbuilding yards, shipping companies, steamship lines, iron and steel works, coal mines, and joint stock enterprises of all sorts actually represented in the House of Commons by their own salaried chairmen, directors, trustees, managers, secretaries, or solicitors is beyond all computation—the claim that there is something improper, something inconsistent with our electoral system, something at variance with the honourable nature of the House of Commons, for the workmen’s organisations to retain a few dozen of the Members whom the constituencies (knowing of this payment) deliberately elect, or to help such Members to provide their election expenses, is an argument so extraordinary in its unfairness that it drives the active-minded workman frantic with rage. It is no answer to say that these representatives of capitalist corporations are not expressly paid to sit in Parliament. They are at any rate desired by their employers to sit, and permitted by the law to receive their salaries notwithstanding that they do sit. This was forbidden to representatives of Trade Unions. That it should be illegal for the salaried President or Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to sit in Parliament, when it is perfectly legal for the much more generously salaried Chairman or Director of a Railway Company to sit there, is an anomaly hard for any candid man to defend; and the anomaly is all the greater in that the interests of the railway company come, almost every year, into conflict with those of the community at large, and the railway chairman is, on these occasions, quite frankly there to promote his own company’s Bill, and to defend the interests of the shareholders by whom he is paid. To say that the workmen’s organisations shall not pay their representatives in the way that suits working-class conditions, whilst railway shareholders may pay their representatives in the way that suits capitalist conditions—to assume a great concern for the wounded conscience of a Liberal or Conservative Trade Unionist who finds his Union paying its Secretary or its President to sit as a Radical or Labour Member of Parliament, and no concern at all for the Socialist or Radical shareholder in a railway company who finds his company paying its Conservative Chairman M.P.—is to be guilty of an amazing degree of class bias, if not of hypocrisy. After all, it is not the Trade Union but the constituency that elects the Member of Parliament. The Trade Union payment only enables him to stand. Whatever may be thought of the policy of the Labour Party, or the particular form of its organisation, if we regard the Trade Union payment as a retaining fee for looking after what the Trade Union members as a whole conceive to be their own interest; if the Trade Union members have the opportunity of choosing, by a majority, which among competing persons (or, for that matter, which among competing groups of persons) they will entrust with this Trade Union task; if the Trade Union assumes no responsibility for and exercises no coercion upon its Parliamentary representative with regard to issues on which it has not voted, no Trade Unionist’s political conscience need be wounded by the fact that, outside the range of the task that the Trade Union has confided to him, the Union’s Parliamentary agent (who must have views of one sort or another) expresses opinions in accord with those of the constituency that elected him, or joins together with other members of like opinions to form a political party. When, three-quarters of a century ago, J. A. Roebuck was the salaried agent in the House of Commons for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, no one complained that it was against the dignity of Parliament for him to be thus retained and paid; and so long as he attended faithfully to Canadian business it was never contended that the tender conscience of any Canadian Conservative was offended by the ultra-Radical utterances or extremely independent political alliances of the Member for Bath.