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be unlawful at common law, and still does not appear to be covered by the words of the statute. Mr. Gladstone in a speech of December 10, 1891, at the opening of the National Liberal Federation Conference, urged the total abolition of the common law against conspiracy and stated: Nothing must be a crime which relates to the prosecution of labor interests, or because it is done by a combination of men, unless it is an offence against the letter and spirit of the law." And this is a correct statement of the tendency of legislation in England. In this country the legislatures have not gone so far. In Maryland alone has the English statute been precisely copied in the following words (Art. 27, § 31): "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 an offence; nothing in this section shall affect the law relating to riot, unlawful assembly, breach of the peace, or any offence against any person or against property."

But in Montana, also Minnesota (6423), the law of criminal conspiracy is strictly limited by statute (see § 58), the common law of the subject repealed, and it is further expressly enacted in Montana that its provisions shall "not apply

to any arrangement, agreement or combination between laborers made with the object of lessening their hours of work or increasing wages, nor to persons engaged in agriculture or horticulture with a view of embracing the price of their products." (Mon. P. C., 325.)

So in Minnesota and Oklahoma, the common law of conspiracy appears to be repealed; and even in the conspiracies still recognized by statute some overt act is necessary. (Minn., 6425; Okla., 1893, 2063.)

The New York statute rather implies that certain strikes may be illegal; 36 and for other similar statutes, see § 58, notes.

36 A person who wilfully and maliciously, either alone or in combination with others, breaks a contract of service or hiring, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequence of his so doing will be to endanger human life, or to cause grievous bodily injury, or to expose valuable property to destruction or serious injury, is guilty of a misdemeanor, ... but nothing in this code contained shall be so construed as to prevent any person from demanding an increase of wages, or from assembling and using all lawful means to induce employers to pay such wages to all persons employed by them, as shall be a just and fair compensation for services rendered." N. Y. P. C., 673, 675.

In Pennsylvania any laborers or employees acting either as individuals or as members of any union may refuse to work for any person whenever in their opinion the wages paid are insufficient or the treatment unjust or offensive, or the continued labor by them would be contrary to the rules of any union, etc., without subjecting such persons to prosecution for criminal conspiracy: Provided that this shall not prevent the

§ 56. Lockouts.-A lockout is the general discharge of his laborers by an employer, and is consequently the opposite of a strike. As lockouts are of rare occurrence, being commonly provoked only by strikes, and as they are not attended with disorder, intimidation or other objectionable and usual consequences, there are very few cases on the subject and no statutes. Of course an employer hiring his laborers for no definite time has an absolute right to discharge them at any time without notice in the same manner that the laborers have a right to leave. (For statutes requiring mutual notice, etc., see § 22 above.) The only point on which the law concerning lockouts needs discussion is whether a combination of employers to lockout, or a sympathetic lockout, having for its object the injury of the employees of one or more of them, would be an unlawful conspiracy. If sympathetic strikes are held to be unlawful, the same rule should doubtless be applied to lockouts. There is no such combination, as a rule, among employers in labor disputes as there is among employees; being in competition with each other, they are commonly ready enough to profit by

prosecution under any law other than conspiracy of any person who shall by the use of force, threats, or menace of harm to person or property hinder persons who desire to labor from so doing, or conspire to commit a felony. Pa. Dig., p.

a strike directed against one of their number. Nevertheless, if it should happen, the same rule must be applied to employers that is applied to employees. Consequently if the sympathetic strike is held unlawful, the sympathetic lockout is to be held unlawful also.

In the last section we have attempted to set forth the reasons for believing that ultimately the courts will refuse to consider even sympathetic strikes unlawful conspiracies, except when the case is complicated by the peculiar provisions of some statutes like the Anti-Trust law or the Interstate Commerce law. And So, under these there is no doubt that if, in the Chicago strike of 1894, the railroads had combined to discharge all their workmen in order to bring the striking employees to terms, and thereby stop the running of their roads, they would have been liable criminally and to process of injunction in the same manner that the striking employees were liable. In fact this was directly set forth in Judges Woods's and Grosscup's charges to the grand jury.1

$57. Boycotting. The subject of unlawful conspiracies has been so far discussed already in the sections upon trades unions and strikes (sections 51, 54, 55), that the ground is largely

1U. S. v. Debs, 64 F. R., 725; 62 F. R., 832.

cleared for a discussion of this difficult subject. The reader will remember the definition of unlawful conspiracies given in § 55, from which it appeared that this is a matter wherein the intent becomes of importance, that a combination primarily to injure a definite person or class of persons is an unlawful conspiracy, though none of the acts committed in carrying it out are unlawful in themselves; still more, of course, when the acts in themselves are unlawful. The prime question in the law of boycott is that of intent. Was the intent primarily to injure another person, to molest him, or to control him in his lawful rights and liberties; or was it a combination, by doing acts which the persons combining had lawful right to do, primarily to better their own condition by getting the employer to alter his conduct in relation to the persons combining themselves? It may be said in the beginning that, just as simple strikes are nearly always lawful, so boycotts are nearly always unlawful. It is difficult to conceive of a boycott conducted solely by lawful acts, and with the sole object of benefiting the persons actually taking part, for the reason that nearly the only lawful act the persons combining can do which has relation to their employers solely, is to refuse to work for him. under the head of strike. ably persuade others not

And this falls at once So, when they peaceto work for him, and