HC Deb 18 May 1847 vol 92 cc1056-62
MR. T. DUNCOMBE

rose to call the attention of the House to a petition of several inhabitants of Sheffield as to the conduct of Mr. Overend. This gentleman was a medical man in great and extensive practice at Sheffield; and he hoped, for the sake of his patients, that his prescriptions were better than his law. Whenever this gentleman was called on, in his capacity of magistrate, to adjudicate between employers and employed, it might be by accident, but it was found that he invariably gave his opinion in favour of employers. The working men of Sheffield were extremely attached to what were called trade unions. Mr. Overend took a very different view from them on this subject; and whenever a case of that kind arose, Mr. Overend was always sent for. It happened in the present case that a sword manufacturer and three of his men had a dispute as to the employment of two persons named Poole and Allen. Mr. Newfold admitted that the men conducted themselves with civility, though that gentleman had used some warm expressions on the occasion. Mr. Overend, the magistrate, was sent for to adjudicate. Though other business was going on before the other justices, this gentleman, who was celebrated for his knowledge of the law bearing on those combinations, said, immediately on taking his place, "We'll go on with your case now." When the case concluded, he sentenced the men to three months' imprisonment and hard labour. On an appeal, however, the conviction was set aside. Now, everybody was liable to error; but the fact as regarded Mr. Overend was, that most of his convictions had been quashed. The first design of the artificers was to memoralize the Secretary of State to have him dismissed; but it was afterwards thought better to call the attention of the public to the subject in the present form. They had no complaint against any of the magistrates but Mr. Overend. They did not believe his judgments were impartial, and they prayed the House to protect them from his decisions in future. The best remedy for their complaints was to appoint a stipendiary magistrate for Sheffield, as in all the other large manufacturing towns, and to send there a man removed from all local and trade prejudice. Such was the practice with regard to Liverpool and Manchester; and he thought Sheffield, where there had been and were combinations on both sides, masters and workmen, should be governed by the same rule. If those men had been poor and unfriended, they would have had to suffer this injustice. As it was, he believed it had cost them 50l. to have this appeal, which had fortunately relieved them. The hon. Member concluded by moving for a return of convictions in Sheffield, specifying the date and names of the convicting magistrates, the nature of the sentences, &c, in such case.

SIR G. GREY

had no objection to the Motion of the hon. Member; but he could not help regretting that he had thought proper to accompany it with some observations on the character of the gentleman in question which might not be quite justifiable, for he felt bound to state that the representations which had been made to him differed very widely from those of the hon. Member with respect to the town of Sheffield. He hoped, however, that the opinions he expressed in the House on the subject of trades' unions would go forth on his behalf to the people of that town; for though any person might become a member of those unions, he became liable to the law if he attempted to intimidate others, or to combine with the members of them for illegal purposes. He was assured that a fearful system of intimidation existed in Sheffield, under which the magistrates were obliged to act in circumstances of great difficulty and much peril; and he felt hound to state that no official statement had been addressed to him, or any communication made respecting Mr. Over-end, except in terms of commendation of his character and ability. He was aware, in this particular instance, that the conviction had been quashed; but he was assured that Mr. Overend acted under the best legal advice on the occasion, and took the greatest pains in forming his opinion, and he knew that as soon as notice had been given of the hon. Member's intention to bring this subject before the House, several petitions and memorials were presented in consequence—one very numerously signed by most of the inhabitants. He thought it but right and just that these memorials should also be laid before the House, and would therefore offer no opposition to the Motion for producing them.

MR. E. B. DENISON

said, he knew Mr. Overend, and could safely say he was a very useful and honourable man, who had an exceedingly onerous duty to perform, and performed it ably and fairly. The town of Sheffield was afflicted with a system of combination which brought the employer and employed into a state of constant variance. With respect to the Motion of his hon. Friend opposite, he would, in justice to Mr. Overend, ask the leave of the House to append to his Motion the memorials which had been presented from Sheffield. The hon. Member had been somewhat wrongly informed with respect to Mr. Overend, for he stated that all his convictions had taken place single-handed, or at least conveyed that impression to the House. The fact was, however, that every one of them had been given in company with other magistrates.

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

vindicated the character and conduct of Mr. Overend, and declared him to be a gentleman who had devoted himself to his duty under great difficulties, and had made the most meritorious exertions to discharge it.

MR. J. S. WORTLEY

said, Mr. Overend was one of the most eminent men of his profession in the north of England, and was one of the ablest, best, most conscientious, and most efficient magistrates. Mr. Overend was called upon to act as a magistrate not engaged in trade. The Act under which the convictions took place excluded persons connected with trade from acting in a judicial capacity. One conviction was actually quashed because the colleague of Mr. Overend was a merchant exporting scissors, and therefore disqualified as a magistrate under the Act. Everyone of the convictions quashed had been so on the ground of informality. In such cases it was not the magistrate who was at fault. Mr. Overend had received addreses from all the public bodies in Sheffield of any consequence, including the mayor and corporation, the Master Cutler and the corporation of Cutlers, the clergy, and from 2,000 of the most respectable inhabitants —a fact which showed the high appreciation in which his merits as a magistrate were held in that town. He had no intention of entering into details connected with this subject; but, if he were to do so, he could present a picture of the state of things in Sheffield which was actually frightful, and which would be sufficient to shake the opinion of even the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Duncombe) himself. It would be enough to say, that a peculiar class of offences had reached such a height there—he alluded to the destruction of property by gunpowder—that it was found necessary by the right hon. Gentleman behind him (Sir J. Graham), when Home Secretary, to introduce a specific measure for suppressing the practice. He held in his hand a placard which had been issued on the morning following one of these offences, offering a reward of l,000l. for the detection of the offender; but it produced no effect: it was found impossible to obtain any evidence respecting it. In such circumstances it required a man of vigour and courage to dare to act as a magistrate on such occasions; and Mr. Overend was a man of courage, and, at the same time, a man of moderation. He hoped the hon. Member for Finsbury would repeat the advice which he had given the workmen tonight elsewhere; for he had great influence with the people of Sheffield, and such advice coming from him would do great good. He held in his hand a placard in which that hon. Member's name was mentioned as president of a trades' union society; and the hon. Member could hardly conceive the countenance which his name gave to such a society. He assured the House that the consequence of the state of things which existed in Sheffield between masters and workmen was deplorable in the extreme. He knew a case where a gentleman of extensive capital intended setting up an establishment in Sheffield for the manufacture of engines for railroads; but, from the terrible state of society which he found existing there, he actually left the town and settled elsewhere. It would be doing a great service, therefore, to the workmen, if the hon. Member for Finsbury would use his influence with them, to show them that such conduct as he had referred to was doing not only a great injury to the town, but to the trade by which they lived, and to themselves and families.

MR. HENLEY

knew nothing of the merits of the case, nor any of the parties engaged in it, but could not forbear saying, he was surprised at the course taken by Government upon it. The hon. Member for Finsbury made a short speech, but a very strong one, in which he cast out very serious imputations against a gentleman holding a commission of the peace. He (Mr. Henley) should have thought that a court of law would have been the proper place to investigate this charge, or, if that were too tedious or too distant, that the parties should have applied to the Crown, to which the magistrates constitutionally were wont to look, and to which the people turned for redress in cases of magisterial misconduct. That course was not taken; and when the case was brought before the House, the Secretary of State said there was no wrong done, as far as he knew, and at the same time submitted to a Motion for a list of convictions in Sheffield, which might, after all, only prove that several breaches of a very intricate and difficult Act of Parliament had been committed by the magistrate. There was no conviction so clear that a man might not be found to pick a hole in it; but the Government in this case sat quietly down, and gave the magistrate no protection whatever. This course was a direct premium to tempt persons to make that House the judge in matters with which, according to his opinion, the House had nothing at all to do.

MR. H. G. WARD

remarked, that the hon. Member (Mr. Henley) had somewhat misrepresented the facts of the case; for, although it was true that the hon. Member for Finsbury had made some strong statements respecting Mr. Overend, on the other hand an almost unanimous testimony had been borne in his favour. As one of the Members for Sheffield, he (Mr. Ward) had risen to say that he entirely concurred in many of the observations which had fallen from Gentlemen on both sides of the House. The fact was, that the question of trades' unions was one of the most difficult that the Government or the magistracy could deal with. He knew that in Sheffield there existed a strong feeling on both sides, and that there were faults on both sides. If ever there was a case in which it was the duty of a magistrate to show exemplary patience and freedom from prepossession on either side, it was a case in which trades' unions were concerned. He had risked his seat in his attempts to bring home to the working classes of Sheffield the injury which they did to themselves by the height to which they carried their trades' union proceedings. He admitted that there were cases in which trades' unions were essential to the working classes; but when they overstepped the limits of moderation, and attempted to carry their resolutions, not by moral force, but by influence bordering on threats, which were always followed (although they could not be traced) by acts of violence, they inflicted an injury on the, working classes generally which it was impossible to estimate. When times of bad trade came, the workmen felt this themselves. One of their resolutions, for instance, was, that no employer of labour should be allowed to make choice of his own workmen, and that no workman should be allowed to choose his own employer. When trade was good, they might be able to carry this into effect, but not when trade was bad. He held in his hand an advertisement which had lately been issued by the table-knife grinders of Sheffield, announcing their resolution to abandon this rule in consequence of the present state of trade. He said here, as he had said in Sheffield, that the practice of any system of force or intimidation was destructive of all proper subordination, and fraught with ruin to the trade of the town. He knew the case to which the right hon. and learned Member (Mr. Wortley) had referred, in which a man intended to invest a large capital in the establishment of a new branch of trade in Sheffield, but was compelled to abandon the idea owing to the spirit of combination which prevailed. He believed that nothing but a bitter lesson would bring the workmen to their senses on this subject, and show them the evil which their conduct was calculated to inflict upon themselves. That there were faults on the part of the masters as well as of the men he freely admitted; and he only hoped that both parties would follow out the principle which had been so properly inculcated by the hon. Member for Finsbury, that neither of them had a right to interfere in anything except by moral influence.

MR. PARKER

concurred in lamenting the injury done to trade by the disturbed state of the relations between the employers and the employed, and in expressing a hope that a better feeling would soon prevail.

MR. T. DUNCOMBE

assured the House that the sentiments he had uttered that night with respect to trades' unions, and the conduct of the workmen towards their employers, he invariably inculcated in their presence. The very placard which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Wortley) had exhibited to the House, related, he believed, to the National Association of United Trades, which was no doubt a concentration of trades' unions, acting by means of a central committee, but the object of which was to create a good understanding between workmen and their employers, and to obviate the necessity of strikes; so that if the object of the right hon. Gentleman was to put down strikes, he could not do better than to encourage that association. So far as he was concerned, that association should never have recourse to any such mischievous practices as the right hon. Gentleman had described. He must say that it was not quite right to prejudice the case which he had brought under the notice of the Honse by referring to the explosions and other diabolical outrages which had occurred in Sheffield. The three men to whom he had referred were totally unconnected with proceedings of that sort. He begged to say also that if the House wanted to put down secret conspiracies and dangerous combinations among workmen, they should endeavour to give them confidence in the impartial administration of the law. The very difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman had referred to, of finding magistrates to act in Sheffield, showed the necessity of appointing a stipendiary magistrate for that town. There should, in fact, be a stipendiary magistrate in every town with a population above a certain amount, say 8,000 or 10,000.

Motion agreed to.