“Picketing has other uses and effects. It enables those on strike to know whether the employers are getting men, and what probability there is of the strike being successful, to check any fraudulent claims for strike pay. Besides this, the publicity which the system of picketing gives does, doubtless, exercise a considerable influence upon men’s conduct. Those on strike naturally regard any one acting contrary to the general interests of the trade with disfavour, just as an unpatriotic man is condemned by those imbued with a higher sense of national duty. Picketing is justified on these grounds by the workmen, but all physical molestation or intimidation is condemned. The workmen have never urged that such proceedings should not be repressed by penal law.” (See The Labour Law Commission, by Henry Crompton, adopted and published by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress.)
[417]Baron Bramwell’s view of the law excited much animadversion even among lawyers. See Stephen’s History of the Criminal Law, vol. iii. pp. 221-2. R. v. Druitt is reported in 10 Cox, 600.
[418]R. v. Hewitt, 5 Cox, 162 (1851). Compare also the observations of Mr. Justice Hannam as to the mere act of striking being in itself sometimes criminal, in Farrer v. Close, 4 L.R.Q.B. 612 (1869).
[419]R. v. Hewitt, 5 Cox, C.C. 163 (1851).
[420]See Walsby v. Anley, 30 L.J.M.C. 121 (1861); Skinner v. Kitch, 10 Cox, 493 (1867); O’Neil v. Kruger, 4 Best and Smith, 389 (1863); Wood v. Bowron, 2 Law Report, Q.B. 21 (1866); R. v. Rowlands, 5 Cox, C.C. 493 (1851).
Compare on the whole subject the Appendix to our Industrial Democracy, 1897; The Law of Criminal Conspiracies and Agreements, by R. S. (afterwards Mr. Justice) Wright (1873); Sir William Erle’s Law Relating to Trade Unions(1873); and Stephen’s History of the Criminal Law, vol. iii. chap. xxx.
[421]Whilst the constant meetings of the Junta, the informal cabinet of the movement, grew out of the great Amalgamated Societies, the Trades Union Congress, or “Parliament of Labour,” took its rise in the Trades Councils. We have already described the special Conference held in London in 1864, on the Master and Servant Law, which was convened by the Glasgow Trades Council, and its successor, summoned by the Sheffield Trades Council in 1867 to concert measures of defence against lock-outs. But the credit of initiating the idea of an Annual Conference to deal with all subjects of interest to the Trade Union world belongs to the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, who issued in April 1868 a circular (fortunately preserved in the Ironworkers’ Journal for May 1868, and printed at the end of this volume) convening a Congress to be held in Manchester during Whit-week, 1868. This Congress was attended by thirty-four delegates, who claimed to represent about 118,000 Trade Unionists. The place of meeting of the next Congress was fixed at Birmingham, and the delegates were in due course convened by the Birmingham Trades Council. This second Congress, which met in August 1869, included forty-eight delegates from forty separate societies, having, it was said, 250,000 members. But although these general congresses were attended by some of the most prominent of the provincial Trade Unionists, they were rather frowned on by the London Junta. The thirty-four delegates at the Manchester Congress included indeed hardly any Metropolitan delegates other than George Potter. Half a dozen representatives from London societies went to the Birmingham Congress, including Odger and George Howell, but when a Parliamentary Committee was appointed Odger refused to serve upon it, regarding it apparently as an unnecessary rival of the Conference of Amalgamated Trades. The next Congress was appointed for London in 1870, but the London leaders took no steps to convene it, until it became necessary, as we have seen, to call up all forces to oppose the projected legislation of 1871. The London Congress of March 1871 was, in fact, the first in which the real leaders of the movement took part, and the Parliamentary Committee which it appointed, acting at first in conjunction with Applegarth’s Conference, naturally took the place of this on its dissolution. The 1872 Congress at Nottingham was attended by seventy-seven delegates, representing 375,000 members. Reports of the earliest four congresses must be sought in the Beehive and (as regards those of Manchester, Birmingham, and Nottingham) in the contemporary local newspapers. From 1873 onward the Congress has issued an authorised report of its proceedings. A useful chronological record has now been published by W. J. Davis, entitled A History of the British Trades Union Congress, vol. i. 1910; vol. ii. 1916.
[422]34 and 35 Vic. c. 31 (Trade Union Act), and 34 and 35 Vic. c. 32 (Criminal Law Amendment Act).
[423]See, for instance, the article by Henry Crompton in the Beehive, September 2, 1871.
[424]The Operative Bricklayers’ Society (London), of which Coulson was general secretary, stands No. 1 on the Register.