"The concommitant statute, passed on the same day, was an Act to amend the criminal law relating to violence, threats, and intimidation, commonly called the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, being the Act as to the working of which we are directed by the present Commission to report.

"The majority of the Commissioners of 1867 had reported in favour of maintaining the law as established by the Act of 6 Geo. 4, c. 129, and Parliament, after the experience of the previous ten years, was not disposed to do away with a law passed for the purpose of keeping these associations from abusing their power in coercing others to submit to their dictation. But complaints having been made of the vagueness and uncertainty of the terms 'intimidation,' 'molestation,' and obstruction,' used in the previous Act, and of the latitude which was thereby afforded in administering the law under it, care was now taken to make the law clear by a full definition of what was meant by these terms.

"The law, as established by the Act, may be stated thus :— "Any person who, with a view to coerce another

"1. Being a master, to dismiss or to cease to employ any workman, or being a workman to quit any employment or to return work before it is finished; or,

"2. Being a master, not to offer, or being a workman not to accept, any employment or work; or,

"3. Being a master or workman, to belong or not to belong to any temporary or permanent association or combination; or,

"4. Being a master or workman, to pay any fine or penalty imposed by any temporary or permanent association or combination; or,

"5. Being a master, to alter the mode of carrying on his business, or the number or description of any persons employed by him,—

"Shall do any one or more of the following Acts, viz.:

"1. Use violence to any person or any property; or, "2. Threaten or intimidate any person in such manner as would justify a justice of the peace, on complaint made to him, to bind over the person so threatening or intimidating to keep the peace; or,

"3. Molest or obstruct any person in manner defined by the section, that is to say :

66

a. By persistently following such person about from place to place;

"b. By hiding any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by such person, or depriving him of, or hindering him in the use thereof.

"c. By watching or besetting the house or other place where such person resides or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, or if with two or more other persons to follow such person in a disorderly manner in or through any street or roadshall be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding three months.

"To these enactments were added two important provisions :

"That nothing in this section shall prevent any person from being liable under any other Act, or otherwise, to any other or higher punishment than is provided for any offence by this section, so that no person be punished twice for the same offence:

"That no person shall be liable to any punishment for doing or conspiring to do any act on the ground that such act restrains or tends to restrain the free course of trade, unless such act is one of the acts herein before specified in this section, and is done with the object of coercing as herein before mentioned."

The Commissioners then summarised the evidence that had been given on behalf of the employed against the Criminal Law Amendment Act, as follows :

"The evidence of all these witnesses was very clear as to the desire on the part of the trades which they represented for a repeal of the Act, and that the offences dealt with by it should be left to the common or ordinary criminal law of the land. The first ground upon which this repeal was insisted upon was that the Act was 'vague'; that it was a 'moral wrong,' as against the working man, because it dealt only with acts committed by one class of the community, and with offences which should be dealt with by the ordinary criminal law; that it was one-sided, in that under the Act it was impossible to convict masters, in consequence of the impossibility of obtaining evidence against them, though these witnesses were convinced that crimes similar in result to those for which the men were punished were constantly committed by the masters; that black lists were analogous in effect to coercion and intimidation as practised by the men. Complaint was also made that the law was vague, in that 'intimidation' and 'molestation' were so insufficiently defined that means of punishing a workman were put into the hands of a judge by the Act which the common law of the

66

land could hardly furnish him with; and it was stated, that

many acts were improperly held to be picketing,' while they amounted to little more than the communication to union men of the existence of a strike. It appeared that, in fact, that part of the first section of the Act which deals with picketing 'was, to the objectors, the most objectionable part of it.' It was said that that part of the section was ' overdrawn,' and that what were really no offences were often made such under the Act. Another complaint was that the word 'coerce' was interpreted to mean nothing more than to 'induce' or 'persuade.' And it was further said that objection existed to the tribunal before which offences under the Act were tried on the ground of prejudice on the part of the judge. Lastly, it was said that the option of being tried by a jury or by a stipendiary magistrate, should the Act still be retained, would be a more satisfactory mode of trial.

And the evidence on behalf of the employers was summarized thus:

"The evidence of these witnesses proved that the Act was looked upon by all the trades and manufactures represented by them as a very useful Act. To its effect they attributed the if not entire cessation of the practice of picketing, yet the alteration in its character which had rendered the relation existing between master and men much more satisfactory, and the adjustment of trade disputes (a) much more easy.

"All their evidence was rather in the nature of an induction from their former experience of the intimidating and coercive effects of picketing that its present altered character was entirely to be attributed to the operation of the Act.

(a) Vide post, p. 79 (Ed.).

"Some part of the evidence given by the witnesses who objected to the Act was in reply to that part of the evidence of the employers of labour, in which they had expressed their conviction that the better feeling which existed between labour and capital was very much to be attributed to the existence of this Act, and explained the more peaceable relations, which they admitted now existed, to a better and daily growing understanding of the relation between labour and capital, to the introduction of the principle of arbitration, to the continued prosperous state of trade, and predicted that if the Act should remain in force and trade become worse, the Act would have to be more frequently put in operation."

The Report then proceeds

66

Having thus called attention to the evidence brought before us with reference to the statute in question, we proceed to deal with it on its merits, and to consider whether its repeal or any modification of its provisions is desirable.

"We may begin by observing at the outset that it does not appear to have occurred to any one to say that any of the acts made penal by this statute should be permitted. It seems impossible to deny that, while freedom should be given to men willing to enter into such a confederacy as a trade union, and to be bound by its rules and to submit their individual will and freedom of action to the direction of the whole, the object of the law should be equally to secure perfect freedom of action to those who do not think proper to join such a confederacy, who choose to act for themselves, and who are desirous of accepting employment

D