property and to act by agents, has, without incorporating it, given it two of the essential qualities of a corporation."

The Trade Union Act of 1871 has been subsequently amended by the Trade Union Acts of 1876, 1913 and 1917. The 1913 Act has created a third type of union, as well as the registered and unregistered one, namely a trade union which, though unregistered, holds a certificate from the Registrar. that it is a trade union, but the Courts have not yet had occasion to consider what are the effects of this certification on the general legal status of the society.

Finally, therefore, in beginning our study of the existing law, we have to have regard in particular to six Acts of Parliament; the four Trade Union Acts of 1871, 1876, 1913 and 1917 on the civil side, and the Acts of 1875 and 1906 on the tortious and criminal. As regards the common law, a trade union raises all those legal problems which are to be expected in a voluntary unincorporated society, together with those to be met in a body acting for the most part in restraint of trade, and almost necessarily committed to activities which may prove tortious at common law. Both the legislation and the case law have been intermittent, often inconsistent and quite unsystematic. From these observations it will appear that the study of trade union law is not an easy matter.

LECTURE II.-TORTIOUS & CRIMINAL.

SI. CRIMINAL.

In a former lecture I have endeavoured to trace the development of the criminal law as it affects trade unions down to the passing of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, and, as I have already indicated, that statute now forms the principal Act from which the liabilities of trade unions may be gathered, and I shall not further discuss any authorities or cases prior to that Act.

Section 3 of the Conspiracy Act provides that an agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or to 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.

It will be noticed that the second limb of the definition of a trade dispute, now contained in the Trades Disputes Act, 1906, namely a dispute between workmen and workmen, is missing in the 1875 Act, but the Act of 1906 is retrospective in this respect, and therefore the definition in the 1875 Act is now the same as the definition which we shall discuss when we consider the law of tort.'

The mischief to which this section is directed will become clear when we recall the history of liability for criminal combination. By section 17 of the Act of 1875, the Molestation of Workmen Act, 1859, is repealed, and it will be remembered how the Combination of Workmen Acts, 1824 1 Infra, pp. 61, 62.

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and 1825, had, before that time, repealed the remaining statutes dealing with illegal combinations of workmen, so that section 1 of the 1875 Act can only have reference to the common law liability of combinations in restraint of trade if any such ever existed. It will be noticed that section 3 is limited to cases of a trade dispute, and, therefore, if there be any type of industrial action which does not fall within that definition, there is nothing in the section to protect it from such legal consequences as may exist at common law with regard to conspiracy. We may note in addition a curious proviso that "nothing in this section shall affect the latter relating to any offence against the State or the Sovereign." The provision against the State does not, I think, mean offences in the sense in which the recent Emergency Powers Act uses the word, but has reference to something more definitely hostile to the State in the nature of treason, or felony, and, if the view is correct that there is at common law no such offence as a criminal combination in restraint of trade, the proviso concerning the State in section 3 of the 1875 Act is really nugatory and leaves the law in very much the same state as it would have been had the section never been passed. Section 4 contains a specific exception to the right of persons to be immune from criminal prosecution if they break contracts, in cases where such persons are employed by municipal corporations or authorities, companies or contractors upon whom is cast the duties of supplying any city or other place with gas and water. If anyone maliciously breaks his

contract of service knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the consequences of his so doing either alone or in combination with others will deprive the inhabitants of their supplies, they are criminally liable, and section 5 attaches a similar liability to persons breaking contracts with a similar knowledge that they will endanger human life or cause serious bodily injury or expose valuable property to destruction or serious injury. The Electrical Undertakings Act, 1919, extends the liability to electrical works.

This section is in part a survival of the old Master and Servants Acts which made all breaches of contract of service criminal, and in part of the gas workers strike of 1873 which resulted in the decision of Lord Esher in Rex v. Bunn,' which, in its turn, according to Sir James Stephen, produced the 1875 Act.

I have been unable to find any case which turns upon either of these sections, and, no doubt, to-day their place would be adequately taken by the recent Emergency Powers Act and the regulations made thereunder.

The most important section of the 1875 Act is section 7, which is as follows:

"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 his children, or injures property; or,

1 (1872) 12 Cox C.C. 316.

2. Persistently follows such 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 be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to three months' hard labour. Save on a first offence, the penalty if imposed cannot be reduced to less than £5.

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It will be convenient to consider this section point by point. The penalty for the offence is twenty pounds or imprisonment not exceeding three months. The information may be laid by a police officer and not necessarily by the person intimidated.' The defendant is entitled to a jury. The compulsion on another need not be effective,' for the offence is "with a view to compel." There are several decisions as to the technical accuracy of the charge or conviction, for they must be stated with accuracy; thus it is not proper in a conviction. to use the words "with a view to compel him to abstain from doing acts which he has a legal right to do," but, according to Mr. Justice Bruce, if the conviction had followed the words of the statute

4 R.

1 Young v. Peck (1912) 77 J.P. 49. 2 R. v. Mitchell (1913) 1 K.B. 561. 8 Agnew v. Munroe (1891) 28 S.L.R. 335. v. McKenzie [1892] 2 Q.B.D. 519.