Note 415 — Chapter V

A short Act had been passed in 1859 (22 Vic. c. 34) which excluded from the definition of “molestation” or “obstruction” the mere agreement to obtain an alteration of wages or hours, and also the peaceful persuasion of others without threat or intimidation to cease or abstain from work in order to obtain the wages or hours aimed at. The Act was passed without discussion or comment, probably with reference to some recent judicial decisions, but its actual origin is not clear. The Stonemasons’ Society refused to have anything to do with it, and referred sneeringly to its promoters as busybodies. Alexander Macdonald alluded to it in his speech on the Employers and Workmen Bill on June 28, 1875 (Hansard, vol. 225, pp. 66-7), as having been enacted at the instance of himself and others in order to permit men to persuade others to join combinations, and that it had had a most beneficial effect. An obscure pamphlet, entitled Letters to the Trades Unionists and the Working Classes, by Charles Sturgeon, 1868, 8 pp., gives the only account of its origin that we have seen. “Some of the judges had decided that the liberty to combine was only during the period he was not in the employ of any master (i.e. while on tramp). So obvious a misreading, under which the working men were getting imprisoned, while their masters combined at their pleasure, created numerous petitions for relief, which lay as usual on the table; however, the Executive of the National Association of United Trades assembled in my rooms in Abingdon Street, and we drew a little Bill of nine lines in length to explain to the judges how they had failed to explain the views of the legislator.... I introduced our friends to the late Henry Drummond, Thomas Duncombe, and Joseph Hume, two Radicals and an honest Tory, and, strange to say, they worked well together when in pursuit of justice. After fighting hard against the great Liberal Party for four or five years, we passed our little Bill (22 Vic. c. 34), to the great joy of the working classes and chagrin of the Manchester Radicals.” But the decision of the R. v. Druitt and R. v. Bailey in 1867 showed that it did not serve to protect pickets from prosecution.