' stores were small, transit difficult and famine near if supply were delayed,' and at those of a modern judge born in the atmosphere of free trade and steeped from his youth up in the doctrines of the Ricardian economists. The scope of this paper does not permit any historical discussion of this topic. Some recent decisions of the Courts have, however, defined the present law affecting trade combinations in certain difficult and obscure regions, and it may be of use, in view of the great importance of the subject, to ascertain if possible the positions definitely established by their authority. The decisions relate both to the Criminal and the Civil Law, to Statute and to Common Law. In this paper I propose to discuss in the first place the Criminal and then the Civil Law in the light of those decisions. The Criminal Law will fall conveniently into two divisions: (a) The Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875; (b) The Common Law Crime of Conspiracy.

I. (a) The Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875. This Act of Parliament, which hereafter will be referred to as the Statute of 1875, exempts from the operation of the Common Law of Conspiracy all agreements to do any act in contemplation or furtherance of trade disputes between combined employers or combined workmen, which, if committed by individuals, would not be indictable under the common law. So far the Statute gives special privileges to trade disputants which are not enjoyed by any other class;—on the other hand, as it were to redress the balance, it imposes special burdens upon them by making criminal certain acts. which may be committed by any citizen but which are in fact peculiarly characteristic of trade combinations. will be observed that while all subjects of the Queen are affected by the new penalties, trade disputants alone are affected by the new exemptions. I append the actual words of the two sections whose effect I have summarized above.

It

3. 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 between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy if such act

committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime.

'Nothing in this section shall exempt from punishment any persons guilty of a conspiracy for which a punishment is awarded by any Act of Parliament.

'Nothing in this section shall affect the law relating to riot, unlawful assembly, breach of the peace, or sedition, or any offence against the State or the Sovereign.

'A crime for the purposes of this section means an offence punishable on indictment, or an offence which is punishable on summary conviction, and for the commission of which the offender is liable under the statute making the offence punishable to be imprisoned either absolutely or at the discretion of the court as an alternative for some other punishment.'

7. Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority,—

'(1) Uses violence to or intimidates such other person or his wife or children, or injures his property; or,

'(2) Persistently follows such other person about from place to place; or,

'(3) Hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by such other person, or deprives him of or hinders him in the use thereof; or,

'(4) Watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place; or,

'(5) Follows such other person with two or more other persons in a disorderly manner in or through any street or road,

shall, on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as hereinafter mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour.

'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 house or place, in order merely to obtain or communicate information, shall not be deemed a watching or besetting within the meaning of this section.'

Section 7, it will be seen, enumerates the various methods of coercion which from time to time have been employed by trade organizations, and may perhaps be said to comprehend the totality of such methods by the word 'intimidate.' It has been objected to this word that it is too vague, and if it be true, as many wise men think, that the criminal law should in all cases be rigidly precise in its definitions, it is a charge which we think is made out; but there is more perhaps to be said in favour of a criminal statute that leaves something to the intelligence of the tribunal which administers its decrees than would at first be supposed. When for instance the word 'intimidate' was limited as in a previous statute to actions which would justify a magistrate in binding over the intimidator to keep the peace, it was only human nature for men to ascertain precisely those actions which would cause the maximum of fear, without giving a magistrate such a jurisdiction.

One of the most effectual penal statutes of modern times is the Corrupt Practices Act, 1883, which imposes fine and imprisonment on persons doing certain acts in and about the conduct and management of the election.' Now there is no definition in the statute of the time when an election commences, and during ten years no judge has laid down with precision this fatal hour. The result is that numerous offences subject to severe penalty are left vague. But the objectors to this vagueness are not purists in legal codification but old election hacks, who if the election period had been rigidly ascertained would only have ceased corrupt expenditure at midnight of the day before.

A long stride in the clear definition of the word 'intimidation' has now been made, so that the vice of vagueness, if it be a vice, is largely mitigated. As early as 1880 Mr. Justice Cave ruled that to constitute intimidation within the meaning of the section under consideration personal violence must be

threatened; and in 1891 the scope of the section, and in particular the meaning of the word 'intimidation,' were considered and determined by five judges in two cases the importance of which justify a somewhat detailed reference.

GIBSON V. LAWSON.

In this case, in Dec. 1890, a workman named Gibson, a member of a trade union called the National Society of Engineers, was employed as a fitter by Messrs. Palmer & Co. shipbuilders in Northumberland. Another workman, by name Lawson, a shop delegate and a member of another trade union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, was employed in a like capacity at Messrs. Palmers. On Dec. 3 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers met and resolved not to work at Messrs. Palmer's after Dec. 6 unless Gibson joined their union. Lawson communicated this resolution to Messrs. Palmer's foreman, who repeated it to Gibson. Gibson thereupon refused to leave his trade union or to join the other, and in consequence, and in order to avoid the threatened strike, Messrs. Palmer's foreman dismissed Gibson from his employment. No violence or threats of violence either to person or to property were used to Gibson, but he swore that he was afraid, in consequence of what Lawson said, that he would lose his work and get no more at any place where the Amalgamated Society predominated numerically over his own society.

Lawson was afterwards prosecuted for having wrongfully and without legal authority intimidated Gibson, under section 7, sub-section (1) of the Statute of 1875. On these facts it was held by a court consisting of five judges that the action of Lawson implied no threat whatever of personal violence, and was not 'intimidation.' It was also observed that the Statute of 1875 expressly legalized strikes, and that a conspiracy, by means of a strike thus legalized, to coerce another's will, notwithstanding certain decisions of Lord Bramwell and Lord Esher, could not be indictable.

Regarding this decision from a purely legal point of view,

it is to be observed that in the repealed Act of 1871, which dealt with the same subject as the Statute of 1875, the word 'intimidation' was limited to such intimidation as would justify a magistrate in binding over the intimidator to keep the peace towards the person intimidated. In the Statute of 1875 Parliament enacted the seventh section containing the word 'intimidation' without any such limitation. It has been a matter of surprise to many lawyers that the word 'intimidation' was construed in face of this contrast as if the limitation of the Act of 1871 were still in force. Two reasons only are given in the report for this decision: (1) The changing temper of the times on the subject; (2) That the Statute of 1875 was preceded by a Royal Commission which recommended a relaxation of the law in favour of trade unions. As to (1), it is submitted that though it is quite sound to permit 'the changing opinion of the times' to modify a common law rule, for such a rule is founded on custom, it is quite unsound to extend such reasoning to a statute. For a statute is to be construed according to the intention of those who passed it, and to construe it, not according to that intention as gathered from its tenor, but according to the fluctuating opinions of its readers, seems obviously to introduce confusion and uncertainty.

As to (2), it is not legally permissible to read or even refer in argument to the debates preceding the passage of an Act, still less to the report of a Royal Commission on which it is supposed to be based. It is moreover inaccurate to say that the Royal Commissioners recommended a relaxation of the law as regards intimidation, on the contrary, they advised that no relaxation should here be made.

CURRAN V. TRELEAVEN.

In this case the Secretaries of certain trade unions had been convicted before the Recorder of Plymouth of wrongful intimidation under the section above referred to. The Recorder stated the following case for the consideration of the Court of Queen's Bench before giving effect to the conviction.