SCHEDULE.

HC Deb 31 January 1913 vol 47 cc1675-739

Form of Exemption Notice.

Name of Trade Union

Political Fund (Exemption Notice).

I hereby give notice that I object to contribute to the Political Fund of the

Union, and am in consequence exempt, in manner provided by the Trade Union Act, 1912, from contributing to that fund.

A.B.

Address

day of 19.

Amendment made: Leave out "1912" ["Trade Union Act, 1912"], and insert instead thereof "1913."—[Sir Rufus Isaacs.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Viscount WOLMER

On a point of Order. May I call the attention of the Government to the fact that in Clause 3, Sub-section (1), paragraph (b), the addition which was inserted on the Report stage has been printed as part of the rule? I do not think that was the intention of the Government.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I have already taken notice of that, and it was not the intention of the Government. I notice the same thing again at the end of Sub-section (2), Clause 3, and I have already taken steps to see that the Bill is properly printed with both as separate paragraphs.

Mr. PETO

I am very glad to hear what the Attorney-General has just said. There are one or two other matters in the Bill as printed to which I should like to call the attention of the House. The Attorney-General will remember that one of the Amendments on the Report stage was that any resolution to take political action may be rescinded in the same way as any other rule of a trade union. I cannot find in the Bill any provision as to what is to take place with regard to the political fund, which is to be a separate fund under Clause 3, if any such rescinding of the resolution were to take place. It would obviously have to be disposed of in some way. It is not very material whether it forms part of the benefit funds or general funds of the union, but as a matter of accuracy, and to avoid any possible litigation, which I think is one of the main purposes of the Bill, it would be very desirable to state clearly what is to happen to the political fund which is created by the Bill in the event of any union deciding to rescind the resolution to take political action. I fancy this is clearly an oversight in the Bill. In the second place, I would refer to the Amendment which was discussed before the Report stage was completed, and which was in the name of the hon. Member for South Glamorgan (Mr. Brace), and which now appears in paragraph (b) of Clause 3 of the Bill, and about the wording of which there was some doubt. With regard to that, I take it that the purpose of the Amendment is to avoid the taking of many ballots, and to enable one ballot to be taken by a combination or amalgamation of trade unions, known as a federation. In the Debate on the Report stage the Attorney-General made very clear what was the real purpose. If you are going to take one ballot of all these combined unions and at the same time secure the secrecy of the ballot, which is absolutely essential, I cannot see how you are going to ascertain what proportion of members in each union vote in favour of or against the proposal to take political action. If the votes are to be aggregated in the first instance and taken as the votes of the federation, it would appear to me that instead of the words in the Bill, that "nothing in this Act shall prevent any such component union from collecting from any of their members," you ought to use the words "nothing in this Act shall prevent any component union from taking a ballot of their members in order to ascertain whether that particular component union desires to take political action, local or national." Alternatively, if the provision read that ballots were to be taken of the component unions and when those ballots had been taken, the votes were to be aggregated for the purpose of finding out whether or not the federation as a whole was in favour; that would be perfectly clear. But I do not see how you can avoid having separate ballots and maintain the secrecy of the ballot by the simple method here suggested. The words are not clear, the procedure will not be effective for the purpose of ascertaining the views of the federation as a whole, and there will be scope for litigation as to whether the Act has been properly interpreted or not.

With regard to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle), to which reference has already been made, it clearly effects a material alteration of Section 4 of the Trade Union Act, 1871. It is intended to provide a simpler means of securing a decision than could be provided by ordinary litigation, and incidentally to obviate that of which trade unions have a great dislike, and from which they have suffered in the past, namely, very costly actions taken ostensibly by individual members of trade unions, but really intended to fight out those principles of law which are undoubtedly not clear. If that is so, and if it is desirable not to make this an alternative procedure, but to make it perfectly clear that any such order of the Registrar shall be binding and conclusive on all parties without appeal, as set forth in the Clause, I suggest that it would be much more effective if the provision referred to Section 4 of the Act of 1871, and made it perfectly clear that this method of procedure is to be substituted for the method there provided. This new procedure is in many ways a great improvement, and will work to the advantage both of individual members of trade unions and of trade unions in their corporate capacity; but my attitude towards the Third Reading of the Bill largely depends on the extent to which it carries out the pledge given to me in 1911 by the First Lord of the Admiralty, who was then Home Secretary and in charge of the Bill of that year. On the 31st May, 1911, I asked the Home Secretary— Whether the rules referred to in Clause 3 of the Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill, by which a member who is exempt from the obligation to contribute to the political fund of a union shall not be excluded from benefits, is intended to alter the existing law which prevents a member of a trade union suing for benefits; and, if so, will he be willing to introduce words on the Committee stage making it clear that Section 4 of the Trade Union Act, 1871, could not be pleaded against a member who might be excluded from benefits on account of his refusal to contribute to the political fund of his union? The Home Secretary replied:— It is intended by the Bill that a member of a trade union shall have a right of action against the trade union if it acts in contravention of the part of Clause 3 referred to in the question. If in the Committee stage it appears that there is any doubt as to whether the Bill carries out this intention, I shall be quite ready to insert words to place the meaning beyond dispute."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1911, col. 1073, Vol. XXVI.] The Amendment of the hon. Member for Stockport, coupled with the earlier Amendment of the Attorney-General, which practically did away with Rule (a) altogether, making the carrying out of a ballot in accordance with the Act a part of the Act itself, and not a question of a rule to be adopted by the various trade unions, effects a very material change, and I want it to be made as clear as possible, by a reference to the Act of 1871, that this is a substituted, and not an alternative, method of procedure. Up till now, and apparently it still exists, there has been considerable doubt as to what is the precise right of action of an aggrieved member of a trade union. One thing was made clear on the Second Reading Debate. Everyone agreed that there was no direct right of action for the recovery of benefit. The Attorney-General made it quite clear to the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. A. Lyttelton) that he considered at that time that there was a possible right of action by proceeding by injunction to restrain a trade union from not doing what it ought to do. I remember the Attorney-General's words perfectly. He said that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, might think that there was a very fine distinction between proceeding by injunction and proceeding by direct action to enforce for the right to benefit; in fact, he said he thought so himself when he argued the case in Court. Later I introduced a deputation to the Attorney-General practically on this very point, on the question of the alternative Amendments that had been proposed. He then appeared to me to have abandoned the idea of proceeding by injunction, and he made it clear in the Debate on the Report stage what his view was at the present time in regard to this somewhat shadowy right of the enforcement of benefits. He said:— I said in Committee—and I venture to repeat it— and I am sure the hon. and learned Member will agree with me—that if an injunction was granted in certain circumstances—that is, against expulsion— and that that member was readmitted, and that the union ever did such a thing to refuse benefits. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that, the Courts would find a means of compelling the union to carry out the judgment of the Court, and would not allow itself to be treated with contempt."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 29th January, 1913, cols. 1436 and 1437.]

Therefore I take it the Attorney-General says that there would be no means of enforcement without this provision which is now inserted. What does that really mean? I said, both from the point of view of the trade union and of the individual trade union member, it was an exceedingly undesirable state of affairs. There was clearly to be no right of action whatever unless the individual member was first expelled. We do not anticipate that trade unions would proceed to put themselves or their funds to risk for the restitution of membership. Obviously it will follow that without expelling a member in such a case, if his benefits were withheld, there would absolutely be no possibility of recovery. I hope the Attorney-General will agree with me when I suggest that in the withholding of benefits it would be only possible to succeed if there had first been expulsion, and possible contempt of Court.

Instead of that, which was very unsatisfactory from a trade union point of view, and very inefficient and unsatisfactory from the point of view of the individual member, we have got a simple method of procedure in the Bill, which I think has made an enormous advance in removing the position of trade unions outside this sort of misty Alsatia, where in some cases the law would run and in some cases it would not run—getting to a perfectly definite and simple state of affairs where any difference that may arise between the individual member and his trade union can be settled in a simple, inexpensive, and direct method. I think the Labour party were exceedingly well advised in putting this forward, because after all it will go a very long way to satisfy public opinion that they do not wish, or intend, to treat any of their members, whether they agree with them politically or not, in an unfair manner. No great movement can succeed unless it has popular sympathy behind it. Therefore from that point of view a great advance has been made by introducing the procedure proposed in the Bill. It is also of enormous importance if we consider not only the growing tendency of wage-earners freely and voluntarily to enter trade unions for protection, but the other tendency which is increasing—there are fewer and fewer outside—and it is no use denying the tendency—there is very grave pressure brought to bear in certain cases to force persons to join the unions. The last thing I would wish to do would be to introduce a note of discord on this occasion, but what I have said is not disputed. Perhaps we had better not quote cases, though I could show the point with perfect clearness. The trade union leaders may be perfectly right. It is a question of industrial action or of corporate action for industrial purposes. If there is that pressure—I think it will be generally admitted—there is a tendency also for a larger and larger percentage of the wage-earning classes in the skilled trades to join their unions. It is of vital importance that if political action is to be taken there should be some means of rendering really effective the safeguards which the Attorney-General said on the Second Reading they regarded as being absolutely essential to the individual workman who might not agree with the majority of his fellows. From that point of view also we have very greatly improved this Bill on the Report stage. I should just like to say, as one of the small minority of eighteen Members that voted against the Bill on the Second Reading, that I consider, taking the alterations as a whole, that a sufficient change has been made in the Bill to make it sufficiently watertight to be effective; and that, therefore, personally I see no necessity to vote against the Third Reading.

Mr. BONAR LAW

I should like to say a few words about the Bill before it leaves the House. As regards its general principle there has not been from the first any dispute. I think everyone in all quarters of the House recognises that the Osborne Judgment left trade unions in an invidious and, I think, an unfair position. They ought to have been able, if they wished, to carry on political action under fair conditions. On that point I do not think there has ever been any difference of opinion. There is another subject not less important on which, though I cannot say that the whole House was unanimous, there was no difference of opinion between the Government and those of us on these benches. That point was that as a fact many persons joined trade unions, sometimes from the necessity of getting the best employment possible in the district, as they joined apart altogether from political considerations, it would be obviously unfair—and, indeed, intolerable—that because such were members of a trade union they should be compelled to contribute to the funds of a party of which they disapproved. As a matter of fact, if at the time an election was going on, such a trade unionist, in another capacity, might be actually fighting the party. I think there was never any difference of opinion between the Government and us on that point. But it was in regard to this last subject that all the controversy has taken place. We held that while the Government maintained as strongly as we did that a man in that position ought to be protected, they did not give effective protection. We held that, with regard to the Bill as first introduced, and after the Government had taken about a year to think about it, we were still of the same opinion when the Bill was introduced the second time. We did not believe it gave effective protection. A strong fight took place in the Committee upon this point, but I am glad to say now, when we came to the Report stage, Amendments were introduced which, in my opinion, entirely modify the position.

These Amendments were really very important. The first was an Amendment of the Government, and it seems to me that in the Debates upon that Amendment it was not generally recognised how important it was. That Amendment had to do with the first steps enabling a trade union to take political action. We all thought, I, as well as my Friends who took part in these discussions, that owing to the special position of a trade union, which is not like an ordinary body, it was essential that this step should be taken under fair conditions. It seemed to me and to my Friends that the Amendment the Government has made has this result, that if a ballot is not taken under fair conditions anyone who feels aggrieved has the right to bring his grievance before a Court of Law. The trade union in these circum- stances will not be allowed to take political action. In my view that is an immense improvement in the Bill.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

Will the right hon. Gentleman forgive me for a moment? I do not quite follow what he is referring to in the last remark he made. To which particular Amendment is he directing attention? Is he referring to the refusal of the Registrar?

Mr. BONAR LAW

No, taking it out of the rules and putting it into the Statute.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I follow now what the right hon. Gentleman means. There has been no controversy with regard to that. The point agreed upon by everybody was I think, that it would be better to have the ballot first and the rules after. Instead of first of all saying, "You must make your rules and take your ballot after."

Mr. BONAR LAW

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the effect is, that it is taken out of the rules and put into the Statute. If the Statute is not carried out anyone aggrieved has a right to appeal to the Courts of Law. The second point which was fought out in Committee which was even more important, was in regard to the rights of the minority not to suffer anything on account of their refusal to contribute to the political fund. We always contended that as the Bill was first introduced there was no real protection, and that those who had control of trade unions could, by depriving a man of his benefits, effectually penalise him. That objection has been removed. It was promised, as the House remembers, by the present First Lord of the Admiralty when he was Home Secretary, but I am personally pleased to know that the Amendment has been introduced by the Labour party itself, and I think good protection is given there. I do not profess that the Bill is going to leave the House in the form in which I should have liked to see it. I voted for two Amendments, and I think they ought to have been inserted in the Bill. The first was the position as regards trade unions in regard to the law. Under the Bill of 1906 the trade unions were in some respects put absolutely above the law. I do not want to introduce controversial matters, but that was done against the judgment of the very Government that passed the Bill. I will not discuss that now—we have nothing to do with it now—but as you are making political action one of the functions of the trade unions, the result is that in theory at any rate, when trade unions are taking part in political activity they are in a position entirely different from any other political body. I do not think that is right. I do not see how that can be justified.

I was surprised that the Labour party should insist upon that; it seems to me there is no justification for it whatever; and I was surprised that the Government did not see that it was obviously wrong, that in politics one party in an election should be in a different position from the other party. That was one of the Amendments I should like to have seen inserted. The other is in regard to the declaration itself. That was discussed in the House so recently, I am not going to argue it again. Until this Bill is passed the legal position and equitable position I think is this: that political activity is not one of the functions of a trade union; therefore, it seems to me perfectly obviously clear that if a change is made, the burden of making the declaration ought to rest upon those who desire the change, and not upon those who desire that things should remain as they are. These are the two Amendments I should have been glad to see in the Bill, but I quite recognise it is disadvantageous to trade unions and to the community that these grievances, for there were grievances, to which I referred, should continue. I think it is desirable they should have been got out of the way, and in view of the fact that Amendments on Report stage had been made in the Bill, which have, in my opinion, gone a long way to make the protection real to enable the minority to protect itself, I do not intend to vote against the Third Reading.

I should like before I sit down to make one or two general observations suggested by the Bill and which are, I am sure perfectly relevant. I notice that the hon. Member below the Gangway who is presiding over the Labour Conference (Mr. George Roberts) is reported in yesterday's newspapers to have said, that we on this side of the House were openly and avowedly hostile to trade unions. That is a statement which is constantly made, and it is accepted as an axiom by hon. Gentlemen on the Labour Benches. I would point out to them that there is a distinct difference between politicians being opposed to politicians who are always opposed to us, and being opposed to trade unions. Why should we be opposed to trade unions? There are, I am sure, on our side of the House many Members—I do not know how many, but there must be a good many—who would not be here now but for the support given them by members of trade unions, and more than that, I cannot admit the claims constantly made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite, to be the sole representatives of trade unions. What justification have they for that? Whenever an election takes place in an industrial constituency, where the majority of the electors are members of trade unions, if there are three candidates, the candidate who gets the smallest number of votes is generally the candidate who claims to be the sole representative of trade unionism. That was admitted by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) the other day. In these circumstances I cannot see what justification there is for the idea that we are opposed to trade unions. On the contrary, I have said before, quite sincerely, and speaking for the great majority of my Friends, we are not hostile to trade unions.

The last thing I should personally desire would be a return to the position before the first Trade Unions Act, when the individual workman would have to make his bargain with the individual employer. I think that is too unfair and unequal, and I thoroughly approve of a combination for workmen to improve the conditions, of their labour, and, what is more, to whatever extent they could succeed in doing it without destroying industry itself, to take their share of the profits. I am in favour of trade unions for that purpose. In my opinion just in proportion as trade unions have become identified with political activities their influence in their proper sphere of improving the condition of the members of trade unions has been a lamentable failure. I consider that the Member of the Labour party, whoever he was who succeeded in capturing the machinery of trade unions for Socialism did something which may have been a very good stroke of work for Socialism, but it was a very bad day's work for trade unionism. Even if I were not a politician at all I should hold that view. It seems to me obvious that if political activity is the main work of trade unions they must be in the other sphere less successful. If a combination of work men is to be successful the men who guide that combination ought to understand the position of trade as well as the employers themselves, and they ought to know what is the right time to make demands. [An HON. MEMBER: "They do."] I do not agree with the hon. Member. They choose the wrong time and that is why they so often fail. They ought to know the conditions as well as the employers, and that is not so. This work requires the whole energies of members of trade unions, and how can those energies be given to that purpose if the main object of those connected with trade unions is to secure political success and come to this House with the idea that the first day they enter it they are going to introduce the millenium by an Act of Parliament. How can they perform their proper function if that is their main object. There is another reason which must interfere with the success of trade unions in these circumstances. A combination can only be successful if the men act as a solid unit. How is any such cohesion possible if it is admitted that political views are varied and do not all proceed on the same lines. How is it possible if the main work of a trade union is something—

Mr. CROOKS

What about a lawyer who comes to this House? Is he any the worse?

Mr. BONAR LAW

I do not follow the hon. Member.

Mr. CROOKS

A lawyer who is a Member of Parliament devotes himself to his business; he is not a worse man for being a Member of Parliament, and he is none the less a lawyer.

Mr. BONAR LAW

There may be differences of opinion about that. If I had to choose between two lawyers of equal ability, I should select the one who was not devoting himself to Parliament. I think it is obvious that if the members of trade unions are divided on politics, and they are made one of the chief functions of trade unions you cannot yet that cohesion in industrial matters without which the activity of trade unions are sure to be unsuccessful. It is my real belief that because if the last twelve years the work of the most active members has been political for that reason they have entirely failed during that period to get any material improvement in the conditions of the men as regards labour and industry. Whether I am right or wrong in my view that political action is a bad thing I am perfectly certain that that evil cannot be cured by pressure from outside. On the contrary, I am convinced that the more political parties or the House of Commons interfere with the internal work of trade unions the more they will strengthen those who desire political influence. That is my view. Members of trade unions, like other people, must work out their own salvation, and that cannot be done from outside. A cure can only come from the common consent of trade unions. I am glad that I do see signs of a reaction against the political activities of trade unions, which are being discredited for very different reasons. It is being discredited from the point of view of extreme Socialists themselves. After all, Socialism means a complete revolution in the whole basis of society, and, to my mind, nothing can be more futile or more grotesque than that the party which aims at such a revolution should for six years have been the most decile followers of another political party, and of a party which at by-elections has been described as a capitalist party. It is obvious that anyone who is a sincere Socialist cannot accept such a situation, and I am sure it is being discredited for that reason, and also for another reason. I have tried my best to get information about this, and there are unmistakable signs that moderate men in trade unions, influenced by the very considerations which I have tried to put before the House, are perceiving that they cannot get the best out of trade unions for social and industrial purposes unless they are divorced from political action. Whether I am right or wrong in this view, I am sure that the change I desire can only be made from the inside. We cannot help it by attacking trade unions and attempting to thwart things which are legitimate in their own sphere. We cannot do it in that way, and it is my belief that in time they themselves will recognise that, so long as there is a difference of political view among members of trade unions it is not in their interest to identify themselves with any political party.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I was glad to hear the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he did not intend to oppose the Third Reading of this Bill, and I am glad that we shall not have to divide as we did on the Second Reading and on the Report stage. I do not propose to travel over all the ground which the right hon. Gentleman has covered, but he made one observation which struck me as singularly infelicitous. Much to my surprise, he said that during the last twelve years the trade union leaders have not been able to improve materially upon the conditions of labour. I confess that statement came to me as a great surprise.

Mr. BONAR LAW

Wages have not risen.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

When we look back from 1906 to the present time, during which period trade unions have had a Government ready to give full effect to their views as to improving the conditions of labour, it is a startling thing to announce to this House, as the right hon. Gentleman has done, that my hon. Friends belonging to the Labour party have not been able to do anything in this House to improve the conditions of labour. My mind travels back to such incidents as the coal strike, the railway strike, and the various strikes which have taken place during that period. I am leaving out of consideration the various social measures that have been passed, such as the Amendment of the Workmen's Compensation Act, the Insurance Act, and measures of that description. I leave those out of consideration for the moment altogether, because I agree that travels over very controversial ground, and I do not want to introduce it here; but I do think my hon. Friends are entitled to claim that their presence in this House and the views of the leaders of the trade unions had a very marked effect upon the steps taken by this House with regard to both the great strikes to which I have referred. I repeat, nothing could have been more amazing than the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, cheered, as I understand, by the party sitting opposite, that no improvement had been obtained in the conditions of labour by the leaders of the trade unions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That seems to find favour with hon. Members opposite. I am content to leave that statement, because those who are best able to judge, those whose conditions have been improved, will be best able to answer anyone who suggests there has been no progress. The right hon. Gentleman said trade unions must work out their own salvation, and that he is content to leave these matters to their own common sense. So am I. We are in thorough agreement in that matter. I propose to occupy the time of the House for a few minutes in examining how the Bill stands after its passage through Committee.

Sir F. BANBURY

Through Report.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

No, through Committee. The House well knows what happened on Report; I am speaking of what happened in Committee. There is no report of what occurred there except such reports as appeared in the daily papers. I am sure I regret it, I think rather more than the Noble Lord (Viscount Wolmer). We had fourteen days in Committee of very strenuous work, sitting till close upon Four o'clock on all days except the first two in order to get the Bill through. I do not propose to discuss what took place, but I think I should not be exaggerating if I said the Bill had a very stormy and protracted passage through Committee. There were certain adverse winds blowing, not always from the same quarter. There were crosscurrents, and the Government had very often a somewhat difficult course to steer owing to pressure on one side and pressure on the other; but I am glad to say, notwithstanding the hurricane that blew on one day from the direction of East Glamorgan and which threatened in my humble judgment as a navigator to take the Bill on to the rocks, we managed to get it not to harbour at least within sight of harbour, and when we came down to this House on the Report stage we certainly-found much quiter and smoother waters. I do not profess to judge what it was that brought about the change.

Mr. A. LYTTELTON

made an observation which was inaudible.

1.0 P.M.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

No, I cannot admit that; and I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why. I remember when we got to some difficult points of the Bill on the last day there was for some strange reason a complete metamorphosis in the attitude taken up by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I do not profess to say what was the cause, but I do say there was a very great change, and those who were present at the Committee and the Members of the right hon. Gentleman's party will be the last to deny it. The consequence was that on the last day we did manage to get through a great deal of work. I am not complaining of it, but I am certainly justified in the observation that on the Report stage there has been a very different atmosphere, and I think the Bill has been met in a very different way by the party opposite. Hon. Members opposite are entitled to make the observation that one or two Amendments were made on the Report stage. There was one Amendment which I think makes a difference of some importance. It was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle). None of the Government Amendments, however, made any material difference in the Bill. There seems to be a very complete misapprehension about this, and, if the Leader of the Opposition will forgive me, I think he is under some misapprehension. The Amendments made at the beginning of Clause I—the Noble Lord (Viscount Wolmer), who took a leading part in the opposition, was present in Committee and will recollect—simply carries out a pledge given in Committee because of what was pointed out by one of my hon. Friends, I think the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). The Bill as originally drafted provided that rules should be made, and that one of the rules should be the taking of a ballot. It was pointed out, and I think very forcibly, that it was unwise to do that—because, first of all, you put upon the trade unions the trouble and expense of passing the rules and of taking a ballot. We thought it would be better to take the ballot first in order to determine whether the unions were in favour of extending their activities to political objects, and then, if that were so, they could proceed to pass their rules. That was agreed in Committee. Everybody thought it would be an improvement, and what we have done here is nothing more than to carry out the arrangement. It does not introduce any new element at all, but even if it did I am not going to quarrel about it, because I think what we have done is a distinct improvement. The only other Amendment which it is suggested made a material difference is one which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle).

I would like to call attention to the principles upon which the Bill is framed, principles from which we havenot departed, and principles to which we have adhered right through the Committee, notwithstanding the very strong and persistent pressure brought to bear upon the Government, represented at the moment by myself, and which I felt very acutely on various occasions, in favour of the extension of those principles to what was called the complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. The Labour party's claim, put very forcibly, was that you should not only say the majority should rule, but that there should be no question of exempting the minority. I am bound to say that this-is not the view taken by the Government. The view we took was the one I had announced on behalf of the Government at an earlier stage, and which was embodied in the Bill. To that we intended to adhere, and in reference to it I was; bound to make a very definite statement to my hon. Friends that pressure could have no effect in regard to this Bill, for the Government had declared that they could not go one step further than they had gone in regard to this vital principle. Once my hon. Friends had come to the conclusion that no pressure on their part could succeed in making me depart from the determination of the Government they set to work to make the best of the Bill for those they represented, and, speaking on behalf of the Government, I am very grateful to them for the assistance they have given in the practical working out of the details of the Bill. I am sure all those who have been present in Committee will take the same view. They speak with an internal knowledge which none of us can possess. Even though, in some professional capacity or otherwise, we may have had to examine into the details of the working of the trade unions, we cannot have that intimate domestic knowledge of their affairs that the Labour party have themselves. I do say, on behalf of the Government, that they rendered us great assistance in helping us on those points, and whenever I found it at all possible to give way to their views on details, without in the slightest degree infringing on the principle of the Bill, I quite candidly admit that I most willingly responded to their attempts to alter the Bill. What we have done in Committee has been to alter some of the details, but not in any way the principle. I think the right hon. Gentleman opposite takes that view, although I know that in Clause 3 he says a very important alteration has been made.

There are three principles underlying the construction of the Bill. The first is that all trade unions shall be free, if the majority wish, to collect funds for political purposes. The second is that members shall be free to express their views by ballot properly taken for that purpose, and the third is that those who object shall be free to obtain exemption from their obligation to contribute to political funds. Is one of these principles are in dispute. The only question is as to the method in which it should be carried out. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square Mr. Lyttelton), asserted that we did not give effect to the arguments put forward in favour of greater protection to the minority, and therefore he and his Friends opposed the Second Reading of the Bill. The view we have held is that we could not take away from the trade unions the right of exemption for action which they possess under the Trade Unions Acts. They were subject to the Law Courts, provided a right of action lays in respect of that particular Act of Parliament. Everyone knows that of late years the Courts have interfered by way of injunctions in numbers of cases, and it is a little difficult to say at what precise point they would stop interfering again. Under this Clause 3 the protection which is given to minorities is very effective. If a man chooses to take the trouble to claim exemption from contributing, he will get it. If he says—and I dare say a great many will—that it is not worth doing so, for the reason he is content to leave it to the judgment of those he has put at the head of affairs, and if those at the head of affairs think it right that the contribution should be made, and if the majority of the union are in favour of political purposes as one of the objects of the union, he will not take the trouble to claim exemption—he will be perfectly content to pay.

Mr. S. WALSH

The majority of those voting.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

The ballot as to political objects will, of course, be determined by the majority of those voting, and if they are in favour of the resolution for extending the activities of the union to political objects it will take effect. But the members are not bound by it, as a minority they have adequate protection, and if they really object to pay they can say so, and they have a perfect right to refuse to pay the contribution demanded. We think this properly maintains the balance between those in favour and those against payments for political purposes. I know perfectly well it is very difficult to define when a thing ceases to be industrial and becomes political. It is always difficult to say at what precise point the transition takes place from good to bad in man. I do not think that anybody has ever been able to say the exact moment at which the frontier is crossed. It is a question which has baffled metaphysicians, sociologists, and all those who have chosen to study the psychology of the human mind. Therefore, the same difficulty will occur to anybody who sets himself to the task of defining when a think ceases to be industrial and when it begins to be political. You must have, as we have here, a very clear definition of what is a "political purpose." The definition may be stated quite broadly in these terms. Trade unions under this Bill will of course be entitled to engage in all industrial activities; they will be entitled to engage in industrial activities which are also partly industrial and partly political, but which nevertheless are not connected with the candidature of any person for either Parliament or any public office, or which are not connected with public meetings held in the main for political purposes. That substantially is the line of demarcation very clearly laid down in the Bill.

The Amendment introduced into Clauses is, of course, a very important one, but I say unhesitatingly that not only do I think the Labour party acted with great wisdom and judgment in coming to the conclusion that the Amendment should be introduced, but also that they are entitled to claim it as a triumphant vindication of their view that there never was the slightest fear of men being victimised on account of claiming exemption from political contribution. I do not think there has ever been any fear of it any more than there is amongst all orders of human beings. I do think that is an advantage. First, I think it is wise for the reason that it makes it quite plain now that in respect of these new rules, which they will have to submit to the Registrar, which will have to be approved by him, and which will have to form part of their whole rules, there can be no action for a breach of those rules, and if there is any question that arises in regard to them, the only way in which it can be settled is by going before the Registrar, who will dispose of it, and I think he will act quite reasonably and in a simple and brief way. That seems to me an enormous advantage to the trade unions. It is of great benefit to them. They secure this, that they will not be taken into Court in respect of these matters by an individual who may have nothing to do, and who finds, as I have known happen in such cases, a solicitor who is willing to take up the case for him and take his chance of what money he will be able to get in the future. They will not have that to fear. The second thing they will not have to fear is the subsidising of members of a union by an employer as a means of warfare between an employer and the employed to bring actions which harass and vex the trade union.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why he takes that view?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I thought I had explained it at some length before, but as my hon. and learned Friend asks me, I tell him because you have the remedy prescribed in the Clause for a breach of the rules under that Clause. There is a well-known principle of law, which no lawyer will dispute, that when the remedy is given by the State in a particular Section that remedy, and none other, can be applied.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

How does that prevent an employer subsidising a complainant in order to induce him to go before the Registrar and make a complaint?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I did not think my hon. and learned Friend meant that, but if that is what he means, I will tell him at once. There is nothing to present the employer doing that, but it will never be worth his while to do it. Take the case I referred to the other day, which was a case within my own personal knowledge, that of a man who was paid £4 a week by an employer for seven months at least—how long after that he was paid I do not know, because my knowledge of it ceased at the expiration of the seven months. My hon. and learned Friend knows the case. That man was paid £4 a week to do nothing but enjoy himself, living in London, and allow his name to be used as a member of a trade union, in order to bring an action against a trade union, which was taken twice to the House of Lords through all its stages, and which cost an enormous sum of money. I am not complaining of the employer in the state of warfare then existing. He was entitled to do that, but I say that for the trade unions to take away that weapon from the employers is a very wise action on the part of the Labour party.

Mr. H.TERRELL

What case is that?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

Howden's case against the Yorkshire Miners' Federation. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who said just now that in his view it was an advantage to have that introduced into the Bill, both for the reasons he stated and for the reason I have just stated. The other alterations made in the Bill which, perhaps, may be worth passing attention, are with regard to the ballot. The ballot, as provided originally in the Bill, with slight alterations, will be taken in accordance with the rules. The union will not have to make new rules if they already have rules which have been in existence of which the Registrar has approved.

Mr. PRINGLE

Then the ballot will be taken not under the rules under this Clause, consequently a breach of the rules in relation to the ballot will not be a matter which can be brought before the Registrar?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

That is not so. I understood from what the right hon. Gentleman said that his point was that we have now said there must be a ballot. Of course we have. He is entitled to say that before you can have a resolution which will be effective you must have a ballot. The conditions of the ballot are prescribed by rules which come under another Clause, and have nothing to do with that point. Under Clause 4 the ballot must be secret. Everyone is to have the right to vote, and there must be a fair opportunity accorded to those entitled to vote to register their votes. I ought to point out that this has never been opposed by the Labour party, who have always been willing that a fair, proper, and secret ballot should be taken, and they have given me personally every assistance in enabling me to know how to provide it by this Bill. The only other Clause to which I need pay any reference is Clause 5, which provides for the exemptions. An alteration was made there, one merely of detail, and I think an alteration which was approved by the Committee when it was explained. I do not enter upon it in any controversial spirits but merely in order that those who were not present in the Committee and who do not appreciate what took place may approve of what was done. Originally under the Bill we provided that a notice should be sent by circular to every member of a union that the resolution had been passed on a ballot. The trade unions pointed out that it was extraordinarily difficult for them to do that, because very often they do not know the addresses of every member of a union. As one of my hon. Friends pointed out, in some cases, especially that of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union, it is an aboslute impossibility to do it, consequently a mass of difficulties might arise.

During the discussion it became apparent to me that it would not be so effective as the alternative proposed by the Labour party, which was that they should give their notice in accordance with rules which should be approved by the Registrar, having regard to the existing practice and character of the trade union, so that their notice might be given as they gave their usual notices, always subject, of course, to the approval of the Registrar. I am quite sure that is an advantage. In order to meet the point raised that some members of the union might have to apply to the head office or perhaps to the branch office, and that men disliked to go into the office, it was provided, as it stands in the Bill at present, that the application can be made by post, and need not be made to the union or to the branch. It will be made to the Registrar of Trade Unions, who will then send a form of the notice by post by return to the person who applies. It is all perfectly clear and simple for anyone who chooses to apply for exemption. I think that by these alterations we have improved the Bill. I agree with the observation made by the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill as it comes before the House on Third Reading is a better Bill than it was on the Second Reading. In conclusion, I will state that in my view the effect of this Bill will be very much to strengthen the hands of trade unions. I think it is going to make them a stronger body. I delight in that, and I am not in the slightest degree frightened by it. It strikes me, I do not know whether I have the right hon. Gentleman's assent to this, but I think he will agree that authorised labour is the best labour.

Mr. BONAR LAW

indicated assent.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I do not think anyone who knows anything of the conditions of labour in this country will dispute that in the trade unions you find your best class of working men, and the more support and strength you give to the bodies which unite those men, the better it is for the stability of the industries of this country. The more power you give in that way to these organised men, the stronger you will make the hands of those who are elected upon a democratic basis to be leaders of those men and who are leaders of the trade unions. The stronger, therefore, you make their hands, to my mind, the less danger there will be of strikes, and the better will be the conditions of labour, which will be an advantage to the country, although it may not be to the advantage of a particular manufacturer. It is because I am convinced that in that way we are passing a measure, at any rate in this House, which will work for the prosperity of the country that I commend the Third Reading of the Bill to the House.

Mr. PETO

What is to be done with the political fund if the resolution is rescinded?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

If there is any doubt the resolution would have to provide for it.

Mr. H. TERRELL

I feel, and I think many hon. Members below the Gangway opposite will realise, that the operation of this Bill will in the near future be to consolidate and enforce and enhance the power of the Socialist group in the Labour party, and to destroy to a very great extent the power of the purely trade union group in the Labour party. The existence of those two groups was manifested only yesterday. The report I read of their conference yesterday showed that division in the Labour party exists very strongly, and I am sure there is a certain section of the Labour party to-day who are avowedly Socialist, and a certain section who are avowedly trade unionist and not Socialist. I also think that the Leader of the party is in the Socialist group. I hope I am mistaken, but I believe the result of this Bill will very much strengthen the Socialist section. It must do so, and if you only look back for a few years at the history of the Socialist movement in trade unionism, you will realise that that is so. It is only since about 1903 that the Socialist party did that which has been so often referred to as the capture of the trade union organisation. Before the formation of the Labour Representation Committee the Independent Labour party, which was a Socialist organisation, was not successful. It had existed for, I think, ten years. Its membership was very small, and its funds insignificant. It was in 1899 that the resolution was passed at the Trade Union Congress for the creation of the Labour Representation Committee, and in February, 1900, the Labour Representation Committee was formed. At that time the question alone was as to whether the members of the Representation Committee should have a majority of Socialists or a majority of trade unionists, and it was only n few years after that that the Socialists got a majority. I think it was in 1903 that the Socialist party got a majority on the Labour Representation Committee.

An HON. MEMBER

Not at all. They never had.

Mr. TERRELL

Let me read what was said by the hon. Member (Mr. Keir Hardie) on this subject, and it has been repeated by other Members of the Socialist section of the trade union party. This will be familiar to hon. Members opposite. He spoke at Swansea in 1903, and he said:— Labour representation means more than returning men to the House of Commons. It is a means to an end, and that end is not Socialism but Trade Unionism. That is the view he took, the view he has expressed since over and over again, and which other Members of the Labour party who are in the Socialist section have endorsed over and over again. [An HON. MEMBER: "That does not make it a majority."] We are all familiar with the struggle which then took place, and with the fact, be they in a majority to-day or not, that the struggle has continued, and it may be continuing still, as to which section shall hold the power in trade unionism. This Bill will give enormous additional power to the Socialist section. I hope I am wrong in saying that. I am only expressing my view as to the future. I hope we shall find, on the contrary, that it may increase the power of the trade union section and decrease the power of the Socialist section. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why decrease the power of Socialism?"] Because I am opposed to Socialism, and I advocate trade unionism. I do not desire to see the power and organisation of trade unionism being captured by the Socialist section. You saw the conflict yesterday, judging from the short report I read of what took place at the conference. This Act will operate in the first instance to enable a trade union to conduct any political activity it chooses. Before it does that you are to have a ballot.

It has been said over and over again in the discussion on the Bill that you will only engage in political activities if the majority of the members of the union desire it. It is clear that is not so, because it often happens that for the purposes of the ballot you cannot get at the majority of the members of the union. You have only to take a ballot of the minority of the members of the union. So that, in the first place, the political activity may be engaged in not by the will of the majority of the members of the union, but even without the majority of the members of the union being consulted on the matter at all, and then those activities are to be engaged in if a majority of those who vote in the ballot say that in their opinion it should be so. So that you may, and you do have in this matter a very small proportion of the members of the union who determine such a great question as to whether you should engage in political activities or not, and you have this position under the Bill that in the circumstances which were stated by the hon. Member (Mr. Barnes) you may have the majority of the members of the union compelled to subscribe to the political funds of the union although they have not had a voice in determining whether the union shall engage in political activities or not. I think we shall find that that really will operate to give a great deal of power, not to the individual members of the union, but to those who control the organisation. It is they who will really be able to determine these matters. I believe you will find that in many unions as in the past—not in all I agree—the men who will control the organisations will be the men who are struggling to make trade unionism merely a means to an end, and not using trade unionism for purely trade unionist purposes, and the advancing of the interests of trade unionists as such. If I am right in that, a good many hon. Members opposite will regret the passage of this Bill in the near future. I do think it is a matter that should be considered very carefully from that point of view. However, it is now too late to deal with that aspect of the question. I believe hon. Members in years to come will know whether my view or theirs is right. I hope it will turn out that theirs is right.

There is another matter to which I wish to call attention. It is said that one object—and in this I agree with hon. Members that it is very desirable—would be to prevent litigation in regard to trade unionism. Again, I venture to think they will find more litigation under this Bill than they anticipate. As a lawyer I can read the Bill, and I can foresee many serious questions which will arise in the construction of the various Clauses of the Bill—Clauses which will affect very considerably the question whether certain things are intraor ultra vires I think they will find, as they have found before in regard to trade union legislation, that it will give rise constantly to a great deal of litigation. Let me take, for instance, the Clause that was settled on Wednesday night. I am perfectly certain that Clause will be construed not in the way hon. Members think, but in a very different, sense, when you come to the legal construction. That alone will give rise to litigation which may very seriously affect trade unions. These are matters of very vital and grave interest for all those who believe in trade unionism. I am a trade unionist, and have always supported trade unionists. I am a trade unionist of the school of Mr. Richard Bell, believing in the association of working men to protect and advance their interests; but I express my disagreement with and disapproval of this measure, because I sincerely believe the result of it will be to injure trade unionism, which cannot derive any benefit from it.

Mr. GILL

I am glad this Bill has now reached its final stage. I think it was absolutely necessary that some Bill should be brought in, because the present position is simply intolerable for all trade unionists. It has been stated that Labour representation is not essential, but I think, if we go into historical matters, we will realise that even at the first Trade Union Congress in 1868 it was considered that labour representation was then necessary. It was not long after when it became an accomplished fact. In 1874 a number of candidates were brought before the constituencies, and we have at the present time that grand old man of the trade union movement, the father of this House, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), whom, I think, everybody respects and admires. He was elected in 1874, and has held his seat con- tinuously in this House ever since. Without criticising the decisions of the judges in any way, I think it must have been a great surprise to the right hon. Gentleman when the first decision was given which practically told him that he had been acting illegally ever since 1874. I do not think that affected his conscience very much. I think he was quite clear on that point, because he was a Member of the House in 1886 when the Trade Union Act was passed. At that time this question was never dealt with in any way whatever, and I know that, so far as he is concerned, he was quite clearly of opinion it was not the intention of Parliament to make labour representation in connection with trade unions illegal. But these decisions have been given, and, of course, it becomes absolutely necessary that something should be done to relieve us from this intolerable position.

It has been suggested on more than one occasion that labour representation, so far as officialism is concerned, means the weakening of trade unionism, and that it is not necessary, so far as the movement is concerned, that we should have labour representatives in this House. I venture to say that there never was a statement made more contrary to fact. We cannot afford to rely purely on the industrial position. We must have two strings to our bow, and in view of the number of industrial questions which are brought before the House from time to time it is absolutely necessary that there should be some Members here who from their own intimate knowledge, through having to deal with these questions day by day, are able to say what should be done. It is difficult to say where industrial questions end and where political action begins, because Parliament has to deal more and more with industrial matters which affect, not only trade unions, but the social and industrial life of the people. Factory legislation and administration repeatedly come under review in this House, and who are more affected by that legislation and administration than the persons who are employed in industrial concerns? Who can know more about these matters than trade union representatives, who have to deal with them constantly in the factories? Then we have the question of workmen's compensation. The statement was made a short time ago that Labour Members had not been able to do anything to improve the condition of the workers. In 1906, when we came here first—I mean in large numbers; I think there were twenty-nine at that time representing this particular section—we found a considerable number who had been here a long time previously, and with them we worked hand in hand in dealing with the question of workmen's compensation.

That particular Act was passed by the Conservatives, and for that I think they are entitled to credit. But there was a large number of anomalies which required to be redressed, and it was stated by hon. Members in their speeches that the Labour Members contributed knowledge which enabled them to arrive at decisions they could not possibly have arrived at through want of knowledge, however anxious they might have been to do so. When it is said that we have done nothing to improve the condition of the workers, I would point to one Amendment which was supported by the Labour party against the Government on that particular question. In the Bill, as brought in, it was provided that compensation was not to begin until the second week. We moved that it should be three days. Of course, we had not sufficient numbers ourselves to carry that Amendment, but by the arguments we put forward we convinced other hon. Members that it was necessary that that Amendment should be made. What happened? Afterwards we entered into negotiations with the Home Secretary, and the result was it was arranged that where a workman was off his work fourteen days, as the result of an accident, he should be paid from the first day. The compensation in wages, got as the result of that Amendment, will be seen, if the statistics issued a few weeks ago are gone into carefully, to be no less than £200,000 a year for the working classes who are injured. I need not mention many other Amendments which were advocated by the Labour Members in that particular Act, but they were numerous. I give that one instance to show what we know as far as pounds, shillings and pence are concerned. Then we have in this House questions relating to wages; we have had the question of the miners; we have questions of the limitation of hours constantly before the House. Even wages have been fixed in connection with the Trade Boards in the low-paid industries. We have the Fair-Wages Clause which has to be dealt with and is the subject of repeated questions. We have questions of the Insurance Act which vitally affect the working classes. I do not know whether old age pensions may be considered a political or an industrial question.

I should like to know where industrialism begins in regard to that particular question and where it ends. It certainly affects few except those who have been industrial workers, and it affects them at a time of their lives when they need help most. So far as the necessity for Labour representation in this House and the necessity for this Bill to enable us to engage in it are concerned it is absurd for hon. Gentlemen to deny such necessity. This Bill has been brought in now in two Seasions. We were disappointed it was not taken in the Session previously. At any rate it is being taken now, and it has had a most strenuous passage. I have been a Member of this House for over seven years, and have sat on several Grand Committees dealing with different Bills, and I never remember on any Committee a Bill being so strenuously opposed by hon. Members opposite as this has been. We have had Amendments introduced by the Opposition which, if carried, would have made this Bill of no effect whatever, and it seems to mc, at any rate, that that was the intention. The minority man has been the pet of the Opposition. The majority does not seem to have been cared for all along. It does not seem to have been taken into account as being of any importance.

We have had an Amendment which would have advertised the whole thing in most of the newspapers of the land. Evidently they did not know what they would be doing when they put down this Amendment, as it had a much wider scope than what they thought. At any rate that was the effect of the Amendment. Then there was an Amendment for dividing the funds for creating a number of political parties, and even the request was made to force committees to take ballots and to see that the funds were properly divided in accordance with the result of the ballot. More ridiculous proposals were never made. Even the trade union officials, the committee men who have been chosen largely for their ability—because many of them have to go through very severe tests, especially in the textile industries—were not thought fit to be trusted to conduct the ballots, and it was proposed by the Noble Lord opposite that the Registrar should be brought in to conduct the ballots. Not only that, but they were not even to be trusted to count the votes, and an Amendment was introduced to see that an accurate counting took place. The whole position has been from beginning to end to distrust trade unions, however much lip service we may have had from time to time from hon. Gentlemen in opposition, more so at the eleventh hour. There is an old axiom which says, "Actions speak louder than words," and we prefer to take the actions which have been indulged in rather than the professions which have been made. The trade union movement, as is well known, claims the reversal of the Osborne Judgment. We have not got that yet. We have been perfectly consistent in that matter, because we forced it to a Division, and the Government were only saved by the Tories on that occasion.

Sir F. BANBURY

It shows the honesty of the Tories.

Mr. GILL

It does not show their love for trade unionism. The Bill was very unsatisfactory when introduced, and if it had not undergone considerable amendment in Committee the trade union movement would not have accepted it In regard to the particular form we had to send out to the members to claim exemption, one to be sent to each member, that was a very objectionable thing, and was shown by the Members of the Labour party on the Committee to be absolutely unworkable. Consequently it was altered. The Bill has been improved considerably. Certainly it gives the members, if they desire, by their votes in the ballot, if they get a majority, the right to engage in political action. That is a great gain. As it is now we have no such right according to the decision of the judges. It also removes the present deadlocks regarding injunctions. Although the Bill even yet is not as satisfactory as we would like it, we hope it will work well and that there will be no need to come to this House in regard to it. Still, on behalf of the whole trade union movement I have to say definitely that we cannot accept this Bill as the final settlement, but only as an instalment in regard to complete reversal. I want to pay a tribute to the Attorney-General for the very painstaking way in which he has dealt with the Bill from beginning to end. We have met him on many occasions both in and out of Committee. He has treated us with every courtesy, and has been absolutely fair from beginning to end. His courage and his energy have been unmistakable. I think I ought to pay this tribute to him on behalf of my own members, and I do so quite ungrudgingly. In regard to the love that is expressed by the Opposition for trade unions, have they noticed the Bill that is prepared by the hon. Member for the City of London to repeal the Trades Disputes Act, and another by the hon. Member for Hitchin, and another by the hon. Member for Kensington? It is said that if we are here the trade union business is being neglected. Is employer's business neglected by the employers being here? It is absolutely necessary, if a large number of employers are here, that we also must be here to look after the industrial interests of the workers. Reference is made to Socialism and our party is spoken of as though this was a Socialist party. This party is not a Socialist party. It is a Labour party. There are Socialists in it and there are those who are not Socialists.

Viscount WOLMER

Your leader is.

Mr. GILL

The leader is not the party. I am speaking of a party of forty members, a Labour party pure and simple, who agree to work together for the purpose of obtaining practical measures which will benefit the working classes. I repeat that I hope this Bill will work well. We accept it as an instalment, and we shall do our best to make it work well and fairly for everybody concerned.

2.0 P.M.

Viscount WOLMER

I should certainly like to echo everything the hon. Member said with regard to the Attorney-General's conduct of this Bill through all its stages. I am sure that no one could have conducted it more pleasantly or more efficiently than he has done. He has treated the House this afternoon to some reminiscences of what occurred during the Committee stage, but I do not think the learned Attorney-General told everything that did occur during the Committee stage. May I remind the House of what happened, during the early stages on the Bill, in Standing Committee (C). The Attorney-General said that our proceedings in that Committee were somewhat stormy, but I would point out that they were not so at the beginning. I think he will remember that we started our proceedings most amicably, as was shown on more than one occasion. What happened was that on one occasion the learned Attorney-General first accepted the proposal which we made, and then when he found that it was not acceptable to his supporters he withdrew it. On another occasion he actually voted with us on a proposal which was only defeated by the casting vote of the Chairman, and after that experience and another one, which I will also mention, we did not get the same support from him that we obtained before. I think there was more in the action of the learned Attorney-General than met the eye. But there was another occasion, which was also referred to by the hon. Member for Bolton, and that was when the Labour party moved an Amendment, the effect of which would have been a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. On that occasion the Government were only saved from defeat by the vote of Conservative Members of the Committee when the Division took place at the end of a long Debate, in which practically every Liberal present bad expressed his concurrence with the view of the Labour party, and his intention of voting against the Government. I should like to remind hon. Members opposite that if the Conservative party had desired to put the Government in a minority it would have been perfectly easy to do so, and thereby wreck the Bill, because the Attorney-General had made it plain that if the Amendment were carried he would drop the Bill. But, by consistently supporting the Government and keeping all our Members present to support it on that critical Division, we saved the Bill on the original basis on which the Government introduced it. That action was resented by hon. Members opposite, who were clamouring for a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. I do think, therefore, that we are entitled to some measure of thanks from the Treasury Bench and the Attorney-General in preserving the Government from a disastrous defeat. My attitude towards this Bill has been the same from the beginning. I said, when it was first introduced, that I. thought some alteration in the Osborne Judgment was necessary. I recognised that the Osborne Judgment went further than was legitimate, and I had no desire to interfere with trade unions taking part in politics^ provided that no member of a trade union was coerced to pay to a levy in support of political opinions with which he did not agree. That is the standpoint from which I have, invariably regarded this measure, and though to my mind it is sound in principle, though I agree with the three ^cardinal principles laid down by the Attorney-General this afternoon, yet I think the Bill might have been considerably improved. I think it is not as fair to the minority even now, with all the changes that have been made on the Report stage, as it might be. I think it gives to the leaders of trade unions every possible facility to carry out their objects, and I would remark that if they fail to get adequate financial support by means of this Bill, they will have been guilty of a most lamentable failure.

In the first place, I do not think the Bill is really sufficiently cautious in providing that the true opinion of the union should be ascertained. I think it would be better and much more satisfactory if there was provision in the measure that the majority of the members of the union should be in favour of political action before it is taken. I also think that the assumption, which this Bill makes, that every trade unionist is a supporter of the Labour party in the House of Commons, is a quite unwarrantable assumption, justified neither in fact nor in theory, Hon. Members opposite tell us that they are not a Socialist party but a Labour party. The constitution of the Labour party, as I understand it, is distinctly Socialist But that is not the point. The point is that, being industrial, they consistently vote on all sorts of matters which have got no relation to industry at all. They vote on Home Rule, on Welsh Disestablishment, on Free Trade, on a small Navy, on a high tea tax, and on other questions which are very much objected to by a vast number of trade unionists in this country. Therefore, to assume that every trade unionist is of necessity, unless he has an objection, a supporter of the Labour party, is making an unwarrantable assumption. The whole crux of the Bill and the whole point at issue is really this: Whether the minority, those who do disagree with the policy of the Labour party in the House of Commons, can really avail themselves of the liberty they are nominally given in this Bill of refusing to pay the political levy. That, to my mind, from beginning to end, has been the crux of the whole situation. As the Bill was introduced, I believed, and I believe now, that the safeguards contained in the Bill were not worth the paper they were written upon, because there was absolutely no method of enforcing those safeguards if any member of the trade union felt that they had been violated. It was for those reasons that we moved the Amendments that we did, and to which exception has been taken by hon. Members opposite. It was for those reasons that we moved the Amendments providing that the minority, if they chose, should be allowed to form a separate political fund and allocate it in whatever direction they chose. Hon. Members opposite have always refused to treat that proposal as in any way a possible solution. I believe as a matter of fact, although there are technical difficulties in the way, it might have been a very real solution, because it is based upon the principle for which we stand and that is that every trade unionist has got the right to choose his own political party for himself.

If you assume that every trade unionist is of necessity a supporter of the Labour party, you deny that right to him, the right to think for himself as a free Englishman and to choose his own political party. We demand that every trade unionist should have the opportunity of supporting freely whatever political party he chooses. That right is denied by hon. Members opposite and trade unionists are called upon by them to support Labour candidates, although they may conscientiously disapprove of the policy which is supported by the Labour party. That is the issue between us. As I said before, we accepted the principle of the Government's Bill and our only object was to see that the minority of trade unionists who disapproved of the policy of the Labour party should have the power to withhold their political contribution without incurring any enemity at all. Has that been secured? I must say that in my opinion it has now been largely secured by the two Amendments which have been alluded to by the Leader of the Opposition. The first. Amendment is, of course, not so important as the second. The first is that which has been inserted by the Government, as the Attorney-General explained, at the request of the Labour party, in order that the ballot may take place before the rules are approved of. That, I know, is the object of the Amendments, but it has another effect. Amendments passed on a Bill often have different effects from those which those who moved them intended. One of the effects which I am assured by lawyers in this House that that Amendment has is that it enables any member of a minority in a trade union who is not satisfied that the ballot has been properly taken to challenge the question in the Law Courts.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS indicated assent.

Viscount WOLMER

The hon. Member for East Glamorgan agrees with me. Therefore that Amendment and alteration which has been inserted by the Government is really a very important one. It has given the minority, if the rights of the ballot are refused, the opportunity to take the union into the Courts and to see that justice is done. That is the principle for which we have contended. Personally, I have got no particular love of the Law Courts. I can quite understand hon. Members opposite saying that in their opinion the Law Courts are very expensive tribunals, and they think, I know, that they have not been just to trade unions in the past. Of course, I will not admit that, because I think it is a very dangerous thing in this House to question the impartiality of judges, and I am perfectly certain that the judges have decided what they really thought. But, if hon. Members say to us, "We prefer another tribunal, one which is equally impartial—or more impartial, if you like—but which in our opinion is more economical and more expeditious," then I am perfectly ready to meet hon. Members half-way, provided that that tribunal has got authority to carry out its decisions. Therefore, to my mind, the Government Amendment goes further than would have satisfied me. The Government Amendment enables the aggrieved member in the case of balloting to take his union into the Law Courts. That is further than I would have desired, but I am perfectly certain that to that extent it gives a real safeguard to the minority, and therefore I will not object.

The other important Amendment is, of course, the Amendment which was proposed by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle), whom, I think, I can now almost call my colleague, and seconded by myself. I refer to the Amendment which appoints the Registrar of Friendly Societies as the tribunal, and it gives him all the powers of the County Court. That Amendment gives the right to the minority man to sue his union before the Registrar of Friendly Societies, who has got the powers of the County Court to enforce his decision. I think that that is a satisfactory solution. Of course we cannot tell until we sec. Hon. Members opposite attach great importance to the fact that there is no appeal from the Registrar. Personally, I do not want any. I should like the decision to be final. As long as the tribunal is competent and impartial, let there be as few appeals as possible. Therefore that Amendment, I think, goes a very long way indeed to place the minority man in a position of complete security. I should like to point out that the Registrar of Friendly Societies is not only an impartial tribunal, but is an independent tribunal. He has been spoken of outside this House and in this Debate as a Government official. He is nothing of the sort. The Registrar of Friendly Societies is not responsible to this House, and his actions cannot be questioned in this House. This Amendment which has now been carried puts him in the independent position of a County Court Judge. Ho is as independent as a County Court Judge, and has all the powers of a County Court Judge, and I believe is perfectly impartial. Therefore I believe he is competent to protect the minority man if he is ever aggrieved. I should like to say what the Attorney-General said this morning, and that is that the Labour party, in giving this concession, have strengthened their case enormously. They told us frequently upstairs that in their opinion no case of intimidation or victimisation of Conservative trade unionists would ever arise. We replied to that, "If that is so, why do you object to this Amendment?" They have answered us by inserting the Amendment; they have proved the sincerity of their belief, and in doing so they have very much strengthened their case. In the Committee we proposed an Amendment to the following effect:— Any person who has been a member of a trade union shall have a right to recover by law the benefits to which lie may be entitled under the rules of such trade union. That was the principle of a member being able to sue his union for benefits if he was intimidated. That Amendment was rejected with scorn by the Labour party. I have been much interested and amused in reading a pamphlet by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), entitled "Trade Unions in Danger." In regard to this Amendment, I find these comments:— Thus every discontented member who has a grievance against; his branch or executive, if he alleges that he has been penalised because he has not subscribed to the Parliamentary fund, can bring his union into Court, and compel them to prove that the allegation is not true. To produce such proof is the most difficult thing in the world, as every trade union official knows. I submit that the Amendment which is now being inserted exactly secures that object.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

Hear, hear.

Viscount WOLMER

The hon. Member for East Glamorgan sees that what I am saying is perfectly true. [An HON. MEMBER: "We do not agree."] The provision is open to the very same words of criticism which the hon. Member for Leicester passed upon the proposal which we made in Standing Committee C. If our proposal was unreasonable and designed to put a spoke in the wheel of trade unions—which it was not—then also every discontented member of a trade union will equally under this Amendment be able to bring his union into Court if he alleges that he is being penalised because he has not subscribed to the Parliamentary fund. It is because the hon. Member for Stockport and I do not believe that such a result would follow, and because we have faith in the minority as well as in the majority, that we have supported the insertion of that Amendment. To my mind, the change in the Bill is fundamental; it alters the whole position from which the Bill can be considered. The Attorney-General referred to the "stormy proceedings" in Standing Committee C. Those proceedings were stormy simply for two reasons. The first was the claim put forward by the Labour party, which we resented vehemently, and which has been very candidly and straightforwardly urged by the hon. Member for South Glamorgan (Mr. Brace), that the trade unions were, to use the hon. Member's words, a state within a state, that there should be no interference by this House on behalf of the minority, and that no minority man should have a right to sue his union at any price at all. That position seemed to us fundamentally unjust. We thought it fundamentally wrong that any citizen of this country should be deprived of the right of obtaining redress for a grievance. That led to a good deal of stormy controversy in Standing Committee C. That claim, in spite of what the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Gill) has said, has now been abandoned by the Labour party. The Attorney-General said that the proceedings on the Report stage were more peaceful than those on the Committee stage. Naturally, because the Labour party abandoned their two cardinal principles. They did not put down an Amendment for a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. That was defeated in Committee by the votes of the Conservative party, who thereby saved the Bill, and the Labour party did not make the proposal again. We, on the other hand, did not abandon our proposals; we made them again on the Report stage. The Labour party, however, abandoned their claims, and the natural result was more peaceful proceedings on the Report stage.

There was another claim put forward in Committee which seemed to me to be monstrously unjust. I refer to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Leicester, which would have had the effect of declaring that no man should be allowed to become a trade unionist unless he was willing first to subscribe to the funds of the Labour party. That, to our mind, was a violation of all the elementary principles of justice and liberty. That claim has been dropped by the Labour party; they did not repeat it on the Report stage. Not only have they dropped the two most outrageous claims put forward in Committee, but they have come forward and inserted in the Bill the very principle for which we were contending, namely, the right of the minority man to sue his union for benefits before the Registrar of Friendly Societies. In my opinion the Labour party are to be heartily congratulated on their change of attitude, by which their claim in regard to this Bill has been enormously strengthened, and it would be unreasonable of us if we did not go part way to meet them in that claim. I believe that the attitude which we took up in Standing Committee C will be endorsed by the opinion of the overwhelming majority of trade unionists. In Lancashire where there are a great number of Conservative trade unionists, I can assure hon. Members opposite there is no enthusiasm for a reversal of the Osborne Judgment. In fact, I think the hon. Member for the Barnard Castle Division (Mr. A. Henderson) said so himself at a trade union conference recently. When hon. Members opposite went to the country in December, 1910, and demanded a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment, as they did in a perfectly straightforward manner, they did not get the mandate which they sought; they came back in a very much weaker condition than they were in before. Their majorities were smaller and they were actually weaker in number. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is not so."] If I am wrong I apologise; I was speaking from my experience in Lancashire, which is the only part in regard to which I have any direct knowledge of the matter.

Mr. GOLDSTONE

The Labour party was the only party which showed an increase in number at the election.

Viscount WOLMER

It is a small increase. I made a mistake, and I withdraw the remark. As far as Lancashire is con- cerned the Labour party came back in a much weaker condition than they were in before the Election. They lost three seats, and their majorities were very much smaller than before for the seats which they retained. I would like to tell hon. Members opposite that I believe the Osborne Judgment more responsible for that than anything else. I put it in the forefront of my election address that I would not on any account support any reversal of the Osborne Judgment. I dealt with the question at length at every meeting of my Constituents throughout the election. I believe where there was an increase of Conservative votes in the constituency that I was contesting it was in those parts where the trade unionists are most numerous. It would be impossible for anybody to sit for the Newton Division unless he got a large number of trade unionist votes. I am perfectly certain if the Labour party opposite think they can generate enthusiasm among trade unionists by appealing for a reversal of the Osborne Judgment, they are making a very big mistake indeed. The trade unionists of this country do not mean to waive their rights of choosing their own political parties for themselves. They are not prepared to sell their political souls to any body of people, however eminent they are or however sincere they may be. They are determined to maintain the right, as I believe, of every free Englishman, to choose for himself his own political party.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS

While the Noble Lord was speaking I could not help recalling those lines from the "Biglow Papers":— Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude. The Noble Lord has to-day spoken as gently as a cooing dove, where he was a roaring hon against trade unions and all that had to do with them in the Committee upstairs—

Viscount WOLMER

I should like to say that the only occasion in which I think I really did use strong language in the Committee was when I had to refer to the lies which the hon. Member himself spread about me during the Bolton election.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Maclean)

The Noble Lord knows that that expression is an un-Parliamentary one, and I am sure he will withdraw it.

Viscount WOLMER

Certainly, draw anything un-Parliamentary.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I was not talking about the particular kind of language that the Noble Lord used. I was speaking of him as a roaring hon. I can quite understand that the Noble Lord himself is obsessed as to what happened in Bolton—as to which the whole Conservative party has become obsessed. I have noticed—probably the Noble Lord did not notice—that so largely has the party held him responsible for what happened against trade unionists in the Committee upstairs that with one or two exceptions the whole of his party deserted him while he was speaking. However, I congratulate the Noble Lord on his courage, although I think his views mistaken. I commiserate with him that he should have been deserted at this moment when he is seeking to wind himself in the white cloth of repentance. I also congratulate the Noble Lord upon trying to retrieve some semblance of the reputation that the Conservative party are not opposed to trade unionism by the strange nimbleness and agility with which he jumped to his feet on Wednesday to second the Amendment put forward by one of my hon. Friends. I think he might have done something indeed to retrieve that reputation did I take the view that that Amendment is other than of a most dangerous, damaging, and reactionary character. I shall have something to say about that in a moment or so. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is not in his place. In general terms he has said that the suggestion that the Conservative party are opposed to trade unionism is not true.

Mr. O'GRADY

What about the trans port workers' strike?

Mr. C. EDWARDS

Particular instances will occur to most minds. I need not trouble about particular instances. What I should have liked to do was to have asked the Leader of the Opposition certain quite specific questions for the purpose of testing the extent and accuracy of his claim that his party is not opposed to trade unionism. Perhaps the hon. Member, the only Front Bench representative present, will be able to answer the questions I put? Do the leaders of the Conservative party approve of the Amendments that were moved by the Noble Lord and some of his colleagues in Committee in favour of repealing the Picketing Clause of the Act of 1906? Do the leaders of that party approve of the proposal that was made by the representatives upstairs in favour of restoring the rights of third party actions as against trade unions? Do the leaders of that party approve of such pronouncements in the Press as that made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool—claiming to speak on behalf of the social reform section of the Conservative party—that if trade unionists were to have ex tended to them political power by means of this Bill they must be prepared to forego a number of their legal industrial rights under the Act of 1906? Do the leaders of the party opposite approve of the Bill which has been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London, for the express purpose of re pealing the Trades Disputes Act of 1906? Do the leaders of that party approve of the Bill introduced by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) for the purpose of so amending the Trades Disputes Act of 1906, as to revive the right of action against a trade union for damages when a wrongful act has been committed by officers and agents?—

Lord ROBERT CECIL

No; the hon. Member, as usual, wholly mistakes the thing.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

The Bill, according to the Memorandum of the Noble Lord, says:— The Bill proposes to restore the civil liability of" Trade Unions in respect of tortious acts committed under their express sanction or recognition. Do the leaders of the Conservative party approve that Bill? Do they also further approve the proposals in it to make peaceful persuasion illegal?

Mr. SPEAKER

That all may be very interesting, but this is a Debate on the Third reading of this Bill. The proper time to make those observations is when the other Bills come on.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

With all respect, Mr. Speaker, may I say that the claim was supported in some detail by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that the party which he leads is not hostile to trade unions. I was only seeking to show that the claim, if tested in detail, might not be quite accurate.

Mr. SPEAKER

If we reach the consideration of these particular Bills to which the hon. Gentleman refers, of course that would be the proper time to bring the Opposition to book.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I bow, Sir, with great respect to your ruling, and shall not further pursue that question. I ask whether the leaders of the Opposition are prepared in express terms to repudiate the responsibility of their party for, and the sympathy of their party with, these Amendments which appeared on the Notice Paper of the Committee upstairs in the name of the representatives of the Conservative party in favour of cutting down many of the industrial powers of the Act of 1906 as a condition of extending to trade unions the political rights in the Bill now before the House.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

That is quite untrue.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

The Noble Lord has a very glib way of saying "Quite untrue," but an Amendment was given notice of by the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham {Earl Winterton) in terms precisely identical with the terms of the Bill of the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin, in which it was proposed to repeal the whole of the picketing Clauses of the Bill of of 1906.

Viscount WOLMER

That is quite untrue.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I am sorry the Noble Lord should say that.

Viscount WOLMER

The hon. Member knows perfectly well, as I pointed out in the correspondence I had with him, that the only Amendment so far as I know put down upon the Paper by the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham was to limit peaceful picketing to two persons.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

That repeals the picketing Clauses.

Viscount WOLMER

No, no.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

Then I am sorry I must deal with the point in detail, because the Noble Lord not only proposed to limit the number of the picket, but he also expressly provided that peaceful picketing was to be illegal.

Viscount WOLMER

Certainly not.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I will give the Noble Lord the reference. The Amend- ment in the name of Earl Winterton was—unlawful picketing and penalty:—

1. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person not being either an official of a trade union, whether of masters or workmen, directly affected by such strike or lockout, or a person whose trade, business, or employment has been wholly or partially stopped in consequence of such strike or lock-out, to attend at or near any house or place where any other person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, with the object of obtaining or communicating information for the purposes of such strike or lock-out, or of persuading any person to work or carry on business or abstain from working or carrying on business;
2. (b) It shall be unlawful for more than two persons at the same time to be present at or near any house or place where any other person works or carries on business or happens to be with the object of obtaining or communicating information for the purpose of such strike or lock-out, or of persuading any person to work or carry on business, or abstain from working or carrying on business;
3. (c) It shall be unlawful for any person to attend at or near the house or place where any other person resides with the object of persuading such other person to work or carry on business, or to abstain from working or carrying on business.

Viscount WOLMER

That does not take away the right of peaceful picketing; it limits peaceful picketing to two persons actually picketing a man's house. You said it made picketing illegal.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

If the Noble Lord thinks that by declaring a thing to be un-lawul it is not declaring it to be illegal, I am rather surprised. If it is not making peaceful picketing illegal to prohibit a man from persuading another from working because he happens to be in his own house or elsewhere, all I can say is that I do not understand the meaning of the English language. I have read the Clause to the House, and the House will be able to judge for itself. With regard to the main purpose of this Bill, I am in entire agreement with the views expressed, that it is a Bill that very fairly meets the perfectly just claim which was made for dealing with the unfortunate Osborne Judgment. I think for the trade unions to have been deprived of political action was disastrous, I not only from the point of those unions themselves, but was also hurtful to the general interests of the community. I take the view, and the strong view, that the minority should not be in a position of being compelled to subscribe to the propagation of doctrines with which they do not agree, and I congratulate the Noble Lord and his associates upon the way in which they treat that principle as sacrosanct, because it is precisely the same principle which some of us have advocated in connection with another measure to which the Noble Lord is so strongly opposed. We do not think it is any more right in the realm of politics that you should absolutely tax one section of the community for the propagation of the political views of another section any more than in the realm of religion you should tax one denomination for the propagation of the doctrine of other denominations.

Viscount WOLMER

Who wants to?

Mr. C. EDWARDS

Therefore I think that this is a measure very rightly for the protection of the minority. There is another thing I want to say. My view with regard to this Bill on Wednesday was a great deal more favourable than the view I hold at this moment. I say it with all respect and without any anger, that hon. Members of the Labour party upon these benches have unwittingly betrayed the permanent interests of trade unions. It is not the first time that has happened. Fortunately, when it happened before, it was on the Committee stage of a Bill, and there was time on Report stage for the decision to be reversed. In regard to the particular Amendment which they moved, it creates a new legal right and sots up a new tribunal. They have had their minds so concentrated upon the simplicity of the tribunal that they have failed to see the extent and breadth and area of the new rights which have been imported, and I feel perfectly confident— I have had an oportunity of looking at the Amendment in conjunction with certain very-experienced lawyers—the result will be that the door has been forced open for the admission of proceedings against the trade union which was closed, and as we thought banged and barred, by the fourth Section of the Trade Union Act of 1871. I entirely agree with what the Noble Lord has said, in regard to the quotation which he read from the pamphlet written by the hon. Member for Leicester to the effect that if you substitute for Courts a Registrar there is not a single word of criticism which was used by the hon. Member for Leicester in regard to the proposals of the Noble Lord opposite and his Friend with regard to the repeal of the fourth Section that could not be used with regard to this particular Clause.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

There need not be solicitor or counsel.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I am not so certain about that; but if the Attorney-General is right, I will tell the House what in my view is the consequence that is going to follow.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I am not saying that they could not have a solicitor or counsel, because I can conceive a case where the Registrar might think it advisable to have them; but what I say is that in the ordinary case it is not necessary to employ either solicitor or counsel.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

To the extent that solicitor and counsel are kept out of these cases, which are of a domestic character, the better it is for the community as well as the trade unions. If this Clause is going to be strictly construed, I believe a fatal result will follow. It provides "if any member disagrees the Registrar may, after giving the complainant and any representative of the union an opportunity," and so on. If that is strictly construed, it means that the Registrar is only entitled to hear the complainant and a representative in the singular number. The Attorney-General, in a very eloquent passage this morning, recalled to the mind of the House how very difficult it is to tell where industrialism ends and where the political side begins. That difficulty, which applies generally, applies with added force and degree when you come to differentiate between an industrial motive and a political motive for depriving a workman of his benefits in connection with which he would be unable to invoke the aid of this section by going before the Registrar. Let me put a concrete case. If this construction be the right one, it is that a workman may have been expelled from his branch who does not belong to the political side of the union for some purely industrial reason, and upon purely industrial grounds. He then goes before the Registrar and makes his complaint. He states that he has been deprived of his industrial benefit because of animus against him due to the fact that he is not a member of the political section. The representative, presumably the general secretary, is called, and he says to the Registrar, "Nothing of the sort, the resolution expelling a member would be a resolution in which a number of persons would play a part. There would be the mover and the seconder and some supporters." A single representative of the union would be unable to tell the Registrar what was in the composite mind of the branch which was excluding this member, and for all effective purposes he will not be able to rebut the case made by a complainant that he has been expelled for political reasons.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I must ask the hon. Member to explain his contention, because that is certainly not the meaning of the words, and I am at a loss to understand how he construes them in that way. He is putting before the House an astonishing proposition to say, that when you declare there shall be an opportunity for both sides being heard, that that restricts the proposition to a number of witnesses on one side only.

Mr. C. EDWARDS

If it means what is suggested, will the right hon. Gentleman say why, instead of using the term, "complainant and any representative of a union," those terms are not used. I suggest the fact that those words are used instead of the phrase which is usually used, will lead to trouble in that direction. It has been said that this measure creates a perfectly simple procedure. This statement was made with a sort of implication that procedure by injunction cannot be utilised. By the other Amendment, which has been accepted from the Labour Benches a very absurd position has been created. An aggrieved member who has been deprived, or alleges that he has been deprived, of benefits by mason of a breach of the rules made under this Bill, can take his alternative of either the injunction to secure mere restoration of membership or the simple procedure of going before the Registrar and getting a positive order from him for the enforcement of his benefit. But if a member is aggrieved by reason of the way in which the ballot has been or has not been taken, the ballot does not come within these rules, and any breach of the Statute with regard to the taking of the ballot is not within the purview or the jurisdiction of the Registrar under this Bill. In that case the remedy opened to the aggrieved member will be to proceed by injunction in the Courts of Law. You are in that direction creating a far-reaching additional legal right on the part of an aggrieved minority member. With the pressure that has come from the benches opposite with regard to this question, and with the formal, official, and collective demand that has been put forward by the Labour party that the right hon. Gentleman should accept this Amendment, I think, probably, it was exceedingly difficult for him to resist such pressure. From the trade union point of view, I regard it as exceedingly disastrous, and I venture to say here and now that before many months have passed the Labour party will find they have made a huge blunder. The hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Gill) said this morning the Labour party had done very useful work in regard to industrial legislation. Of course, the purpose of the Labour party, if I may say so, is to cultivate the Parliamentary field with rich crops of labour legislation. I venture to say with regard to this Amendment that they have been ploughing with dynamite, and that it will do more to destroy and to split up and to weaken the Labour party than they will gain by the remainder of the Bill. We, of course, know the Labour party is not in conviction or in political principle a united party. They exist for certain common purposes, but they represent within their ranks doctrines of a very different type. They are a combination of "polygamousisms," which are mutually destructive. You have in the Labour party professors of Socialism practising physicalism in the temple of trade unionism to the hurt of labour. That is what has happened in regard to this Amendment. I really do not envy what I foresee to be the reputation of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle). I am quite sure in the years to come we shall have this process of an aggrieved member going before the Registrar spoken of with alliterative effect as the "Wardle-cum-Wolmer Writ." I am quite certain it is going to do serious hurt and damage to trade unionism. The Labour party had better even now endeavour to utilise any remnant of power there may be in the other House to get such an Amendment of this Bill as to secure the destruction of this exceedingly damaging and injurious Amendment. Apart, of course, from this Amendment, I think the Bill a good one, and I join with those who have already spoken in very respectfully expressing my congratulation to the Attorney-General for the great skill and patience he has shown in bringing this Bill into port.

3.0 P.M.

Mr. BRACE

We have listened to an extraordinary speech by my right hon. Friend (Mr. C. Edwards). I am not quite sure whether he was most anxious to disturb the legal mind of the Attorney-General or to disturb the relationships of the Labour party with their constituents in the country in connection with the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle). Because the Noble Lord (Viscount Wolmer) seconded the Amendment is no sufficient reason why it ought not to be what the Labour party believes it to be. It would not have surprised me in these later days to see the Noble Lord, as a matter of fact, seconding, if he had the opportunity, almost any Amendment, because he has been engaged most enthusiastically upon the Report stage and Third Reading of the Bill in what I call a "policy of scuttle." I have been living in a kind of wonderland. I have sat here and marvelled whether it is the same Member who delivered such an onslaught upon us in Grand Committee upstairs that is now cooing so gently and kindly in the Chamber of the House of Commons. We accepted the Amendment, and I should like to make it very clear to the House that although it stood in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport it is really and truly the Amendment of the Labour party, and, if my hon. Friend has been guilty of an indiscretion in placing upon the Order Paper the Amendment under which the Registrar of Friendly Societies is to be the tribunal for settling any disputes between a trade unionist and his society in respect of the administration of the political fund, then there is a responsibility upon the Labour party as a whole. We accepted this Amendment and, if the legal construction of it is what my hon. Friend the Member for East Glamorgan says it is, then the responsibility for that cannot be placed upon the Labour party, and we must look for protection to the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General. If we find in practice that the Amendment does open the gate which my hon. Friend says it is certain to open, then we shall have a very good claim on the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General and the Government to give us such an Amendment as will give to trade unionists, who desire to engage in political activity, that protec- tion of a short and inexpensive Court which we think is contained in the Amendment of my hon. Friend. I listened with a good deal of amazement to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bonar Law). It seemed to me the right hon. Gentleman must have been speaking to the country rather than to this House. He left me with a kind of feeling that after all everybody has been making a profound blunder in thinking there was any opposition to trade unionism on the part of the Conservative party in this House.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

Hear, hear.

Mr. BRACE

All I can say is that it seems to me to amount largely to lip service. When we want any assistance to carry any measure of advantage to the labour classes of this country, we look in vain for that assistance. I would much rather have less declaration of sympathy and a bit more of real practical help in the effort we are making to place upon the Statute Book measures of law which will advantage the people we claim to represent. I listened to the amazing declaration that the labouring classes, since we have been engaged in political activity, have not made their position at all what it ought to be. Had a trade union leader made a statement such as that he would have been discharged at once, without any notice whatever. It is because of the enormous advance we have made during the last decade—an enormous advance, largely dependent on the power we had been able to use in the House of Commons, that I have been startled by the declaration that political activity is of no value to the labouring classes of this country. May I explain how we do our business? Take my own particular society, the largest trade union in the world. We deal with individual men at their particular colliery, by arranging price lists for them, and that price list contains a figure for every item, whatever he does, whether it be by piece or day. Having arranged that price list, it is known as the standard rate. Then we arrange through the Conciliation Board an instrument under which the percentage will work up or down upon that standing rate, with a minimum below which it shall not go. The right hon. Gentleman talked to us about relying wholly or solely upon the trade union effort for the emancipation of the people. Really he does not understand the problem which he is attempting to solve.

Having arranged the price lists and the general wage agreement, our industrial action then depends upon administrative action for individual workmen. If we are to improve our position, then we must remove our power and influence from there to the House of Commons. I am a representative of the mining industry. How do we work the mining industry? By regulations made by agreement between employers and ourselves? Not at all; it is done by regulations made by the House of Commons. How are we to secure fair regulations for the men? How are we to have a fair, reasonable, and practical charter for their daily occupations, which shall protect their lives and limbs, unless miners are sent here to help in moulding that charter, and making it a real protection to their lives and limbs? I think I am entitled to say that when such a Bill as the Mines Bill comes before this House to be dealt with, that Bill never could be representative of what it ought to be unless some of the men are here who from their own experience know exactly what is required, and when the Leader of the Opposition tells us we are guilty of a wrong and that the members of our trade union are short-sighted in finding money to send us here, I must ask him how we are to solve the very problems we have to face. Whether we like it or not, trade unions in this country must be dual in their character. A union must have the power to make its price list and to form its Conciliation Board, it must have the power to protect the individual man, and it must use its power in winning economic emancipation from this House. The Mines Act was intended to protect the lives and limbs of the men. Suppose it fails in that object; suppose a man gets killed or hurt, who is it that deals with the position then? Is it by agreement made between employers and the trade union? Not at all; it is done by the Compensation Act, and in the moulding of that Act of Parliament assuredly workers have something to gain by having their representatives here. You start with this position therefore, that to some extent Parliament is even more important than an isolated union so long as Parliament is the authority to determine the regulations, which must have an enormous influence, whether men are to be kept alive in their occupations or whether they are to be maimed. There can be nothing greater or more sacred than human life, and to that extent this House of Commons is important. How can the right hon. Gentleman argue that trade unions are guilty of a wrong—

Sir HILDRED CARLILE

He did not say that.

Mr. BRACE

I am speaking within the recollection of the House and certainly the impression left on my mind, not only by his speech, but by his action, is that he thinks we are in the wrong. I believe the right hon. Gentleman at Ashton suggested we were not wise people in attempting to come to this House of Commons. I think he made what is supposed to be a very complimentary reference to the Labour party, but it is a kind of reference that we do not appreciate. I want to show that whether we like it or not, we are bound to add political activity to our trade union movement. There is the Insurance Act; more than that, we have an Act of Parliament that deals with our wages as well. I noticed that some hon. Members rather smiled when the Attorney-General was speaking about the coal strike of last year. I can tell them that this was not a smiling matter to us; it was not a smiling matter either for the House or for the country; it was a very serious matter indeed. The House of Commons came to the conclusion that if there were any employers about who did not recognise the fact that they had responsibilities as well as privileges, the House must make them recognise it, and by a Minimum Wage Act of Parliament it was made an obligation that every underground workman should have a minimum wage. How then can he suggest that it is not desirable for us to have Parliamentary representation in face of the fact we have to come here to secure these things? We have to come here for safety, we have to come here for compensation, we have to come here for Insurance, and we have to come here for wages. This Bill is not our Bill; it is not the Bill I would like. It is too weak altogether, but as far as trade unions are concerned, it supports the argument that the trade unions are bound to have political activities. We are bound to have a Bill and if we cannot get it to-day we must try for it to-morrow, and that Bill must provide for a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment.

The labouring classes in their trade union are a state within a state. We have come to this House, have been engaged in moulding the Mines Act, the Insurance Act, the Compensation Act, and the Minimum Wage Act. Would the House of Commons have allowed us to put in a caveat against a man because he had not paid his Parliamentary levy? We should at once have been told that this House conducts its business on the principle of government by majority for the whole of the nation. By what right, I ask, is this House of Commons to use us, our knowledge and our information, when we are here through the money spent by our union—we could not be here without that money? It has been more than complimentary to the service that we do here, but I do urge that it is the duty of the House to compel those who accept the privileges of legislation to to fulfil their responsibilities as well. If I go to a colliery office to negotiate an agreement, and tell the manager that I can only make a settlement for the union men, he would say, "Oh, no, we cannot make an arrangement on that basis. We must settle for the whole of the men concerned." If I from one side of the table at a meeting of the Conciliation Board told the colliery owners' chairman that I could only make a Conciliation Board agreement and a wage regulator for the men in the union, he would say, "We cannot make a deal upon that basis." Of course we could not. I recognise frankly that you must take the whole of the industry together, and it is because the employers recognise that that is the only sound basis of collective bargaining that they say to us, in the first sentence, in opening negotiations, "I presume that you represent the whole of the men in the industry?" By what right in equity, by what principle of justice, are men to make use of the trade union political machine and the trade union industrial machine to secure benefits for themselves without voluntarily or compulsorily accepting the responsibility as well as enjoying the benefits?

This Bill gives a protection to a minority, and to that degree the Bill is very weak indeed. We moved the reversal of the Osborne Judgment. We were defeated. My hon. Friend said something about the Bill being hardly worth having with the Amendment which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle). To say that is to misread the situation. We are absolutely paralysed at this moment. I dare say some hon. Members would like to see a General Election in the country with the Labour party shackled. We should not like to see that. There are worse positions than those of Members of Parliament. We want to have a fighting chance for our political opinions. What is the use of sending us into the fighting line against hon. Gentlemen with plenty of money to conduct their campaign? It is loading the dice against us, and it is because the dice have been loaded against us that the Government came to the conclusion to give us this Bill. One man has been able to tie up the trade union. One man will only be able to get his own individual protection after the Bill is passed. This Bill, with all its imperfections, is worth having, and we welcome the changed attitude of the Opposition in giving the Third Reading of the Bill without a Division. I should not be true to myself if I did not place on public record my appreciation of the services rendered to the Labour party and to the industrial workers of the country by my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General in all the stages of this Bill. It is not his fault that we have not a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. But I am certain that while we accept this Bill as an instalment of what is our elementary right, it must not be taken that the Labour party are going to rest satisfied with it. Immediately this Bill becomes law we will endeavour to administer the new law fairly and properly, but it is because we feel that the new law will be inadequate that we now give notice to the House of Commons that we shall be here upon another occasion asking for a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment. In face of the fact that industrially and politically we have to represent and work for all the workmen in our trade and in our industry, the House of Commons ought to say that inasmuch as that is the foundation principle upon which trade unions conduct their political and their industrial work, Parliament will be well advised to allow trade unions to have full power to deal in their own way with their own minority, and by their own strength to work out their own salvation and emancipation.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I have listened with great interest to the speeches of hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, as we always do to any expression of opinion coming from the Labour benches upon these subjects, with which they are necessarily so much more intimately acquainted than anybody in the House of Commons can be. So far as I am concerned, I am not much terrified by the conclusion of the hon. Member's speech. He says this is only to be an instalment, and that he is going to ask later on for the complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment, When he makes that demand I shall be quite prepared to consider it and deal with it. At present it appears to me to be an unjustifiable demand. I am not to be deterred from voting—as there is to be no Division, I suppose I shall not be able to vote—I am not to be deterred from not opposing the Third Reading of this Bill because some day or another it will be made the foundation of a demand which I do not think is justifiable. That is my old friend the thin-end-of-the-wedge argument, which I have come very much to regard as a political bogey. I do not myself think there is any other course for any hon. Member in this House to pursue except to deal with each Bill on its merits, and to give his vote upon them and nothing else. The hon. Member (Mr. Brace) has made an attack on this Bill because, as he put it with absolute frankness and explicitness, it grants a protection to the minority. He said it grants a protection to the minority and therefore it is weak. I do ask hon. Members opposite to consider very carefully whether they mean that to be the line of their policy. If they will only look at it, they will see that the whole doctrine of liberty and freedom in this country rests on two principles, and two principles only. One is the supremacy of the law, and the other is the protection of the weak. I stated them as two, but they are really different aspects of the same thing. I am not going into it on the present occasion, but if they will do me the favour—I have no right to ask them to do me a favour—but if they will do me the honour of considering the history of individual liberty in this country and in other countries, they will find that the principle of the supremacy of the law, which results in the protection of the weak, is the great distinction, which has been pointed out by much greater authorities than myself, between this country and other countries in Europe where freedom and individual liberty is not so great. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is based on majority rule."]

That is not so. The great principles of liberty in this country were established long before majority rule was ever heard of. If you will look at the history of this country, I am sure the hon. Member is much too fair-minded not to acknowledge that that is the case. I speak as a lawyer, and I do claim, incidentally, a very large share in the glory of that achievement for the profession to which I have the honour to belong. I agree with the Attorney- General that there is a very large measure of agreement, which he stated, I think, quite fairly, between all parts of the House as to what ought to be done in this matter. None of us wish, although hon. Members may choose for political purposes to disbelieve it, to exclude working men from this House. I believe it has been as often recognised from this side of the House as from that that the presence of members of the working class is very valuable and, indeed, in some respects an almost essential addition to the deliberative power of the House. The hon. Member (Mr. Brace) offered a quite legitimate criticism from the party point of view of my right hon. Friend. I am sure he did not mean to be unfair, but he wholly misunderstood what my right hon. Friend said about political action. My right hon. Friend never suggested for a moment that members of the working class ought not to be Members of the House, but he protested against the conversion of trade unions into political organisations—political organisations in a full sense, dealing not only with industrial questions but with the political questions of the day. That is an entirely different proposition. Hon. Members know quite well that their votes have been largely instrumental in passing through this House such a measure as the Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment Bill. That has no direct bearing on labour questions at all, and I am perfectly convinced that, considered on its merits, a very large proportion of hon. Members below the Gangway would probably be opposed to many provisions in the Bill, but they voted for it, quite legitimately from their point of view, because they were part of a political coalition engaged in keeping in office a Ministry of a particular political complexion.

Mr. PARKER

Does the Noble Lord suggest that Members of this party, taken as a whole, with one or two exceptions, are not committed to the principle of Disestablishment both in Wales and England?

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I am not concerned with the principle of Disestablishment or Disendowment. I said there are many provisions in that Bill which many Members of the Labour party do not approve. I do not know whether the hon. Member desires to deny that?

Mr. PARKER

Speaking for myself, I have given no vote on that Bill which was not given from conviction.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I am quite sure the hon. Member voted from conscientious motives—I hope we all would—but the moment you enter politics you become part of a political combination, and one of the things you have to consider is what effect your vote will have upon the Government which you support. That is perfectly obvious. That is the question which trade unionists throughout the country have to consider, whether it really is desirable in the interests of the industrial work of trade unions that they should continue to be a political organisation with the object of keeping in this House a political party pledged to political action in the full sense of the word. That is the point. When the hon. Member (Mr. Brace) says that we on this side are habitually hostile to trade unions he is speaking entirely without justification. If you look at the whole history of the Conservative party and compare it with the whole history of the Liberal party you will find that we on this side have no cause whatever to fear such a comparison as that. Everyone knows that some of those acts which hon. Members opposite are accustomed to refer to as of the greatest value, particularly in the early stage of trade unionism, emanated from the Conservative side of the House, and even quite recently it is not always the case that we have been less Labour, so to speak, than the Labour party. Not so very long ago hon. Members here supported an Amendment moved from the Labour benches to equalise the terms given in Government employment with those paid elsewhere, and the Amendment was voted against by the whole body of the Labour party, and not very long ago my hon. Friend (Mr. Worthington-Evans) and myself tried to support the hon. Member (Mr. Crooks) in getting an Amendment to the Superannuation Bill. When it came to the point of doing anything effective the hon. Member was found in the opposite Lobby.

Mr. CROOKS

There never was a vote on it.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

There was a vote which would have have compelled the Government to do what we wished and the hon. Member ran away.

Mr. CROOKS

The Noble Lord seems to forget that you may have a Free Trader in a Protectionist party.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I do not know s whether the hon. Member refers to himself as a Protectionist party or what the particular reference to the hon. Member (Mr. Worthington-Evans) and myself may be. I do not know in which class he would place us or what his interruption has to do with the discussion of the attitude of the Unionist party on Labour questions generally. If he means to say that my hon. Friend and I are exceptions to the general wickedness of the Unionist party, and are special friends of the working classes, I am very grateful for his testimony. As to the particular Amendment around which most of this discussion has raged, and as to the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Clement Edwards), I wish to ask hon. Members opposite this question. They are in favour, at least they never said they were against, the provision in the Bill which provides that; a member of a trade union is not to be excluded from benefits if he claims not to subscribe to political funds. Are they in favour of that or are they against it?

Mr. PARKER

We accept it under protest.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

You really wish to have the power of excluding a trade unionist from benefits if he differs from you in political opinion?

Mr. PARKER

We wish for majority rule.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

Then majority rule means that a man who has subscribed all the years of his life in order to obtain benefits is to be excluded from those benefits because he will not support a political union. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Then what does it mean? I ask expressly, are you in favour—and I am sure the hon. Member (Mr. Wardle) would be in favour—of not excluding a man from benefits because he will not subscribe to political funds?

Mr. WARDLE

If the Noble Lord asks my opinion, certainly we are not in favour of excluding him from his benefits because of his political views, but we say that no such thing has ever arisen or could arise in a trade union, and that if it did arise he has a tribunal in his own trade which would settle it without any injustice.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I quite understand that proposition, and, as far as I am concerned, I am ready to accept it; but if you go as far as the hon. Member does—and I should have thought every Member of the Labour party would agree with him—all that the Amendment that has been put in at his instance does is to give security that that shall be the case. The violent language of the hon. Member (Mr. C. Edwards), to some extent assented to by the hon. Member (Mr. Brace), seems to me an absolutely grotesque exhibition. It is not for me to defend the Attorney-General, who is well able to defend himself, but when the hon. Member suggests that because you have words in this Amendment which give to a complainant and to any representative of the union an opportunity of being heard thereby everyone else is excluded from being heard, I really think the hon. Member must be in very great want of a reasonable argument to support his contention. But, of course, we all know quite well that the hon. Member is really indignant at the acceptance of the Amendment. It is perfectly well known that he wished to use this Bill as a political weapon against the Tory party. [An HON. MKMBER: "The Labour party."] He now wishes to turn round and use it as a political weapon against the Labour party. He wanted, if possible, to embroil the Tory party with the Labour party—not with the Labour party, because that is not a matter of very great importance, but with the working men of this country, which is, of course, a matter of great importance. He wished to represent us as being definitely hostile, because he said Members on this side will never consent to accept this Bill without some such security being put in it. "If I can keep that security out of it they will vote against it, they can be represented as being opposed to trade unionism, and, of course, I shall be able to disseminate literature"—I think that is what they call it—"of a certain kind at by-elections." That, of course, is the object, and even in this House the hon. Member was not ashamed to use his talent for the misrepresentation of the opinions and views of his political opponents.

You, Sir, have told us that any discussion of other Bills not before the House would not be in order. Perhaps you will allow me, as I have been attacked, and as the attack may be used outside, to say I absolutely and totally repudiate the account the hon. Member gave of a Bill which I introduced into the House. When I challenged him just now to support some of the statements he was utterly unable to do so. I say his statement about the Amendment moved by my Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) was equally without foundation, as everybody in the House must have known when he read out the Amendment. I say that it is this kind of tactics and conduct which make politicians stink in the nostrils of the honest men of this country. It is not the first time the hon. Member has been guilty of it. I have had to read some of his speeches, not only on this subject, but on others, and I say that no prudent man will accept any statement made by that hon. Member without previously verifying the source from which it is supposed to be drawn.

Mr. BOOTH

If the. Noble Lord was referring to the general political record of my hon. Friend the Member for East Glamorgan, I would say that I think it is quite as good as that of anyone sitting on the Opposition side.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I think the hon. Member is totally ignorant either of our record or that of his hon. Friend.

Mr. BOOTH

I know them both.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

Then I think the hon. Member's idea of fact is very different from mine.

Mr. BOOTH

I do not agree with that.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

It is because politicians of that typo do exist, and because if trade unions devote themselves—it is not a case of entering into politics—to political work they have to associate with politicians like that, and become art and part in political manœuvres of that description, that I myself entirely believe they will seriously injure their power for good in this country. Hon. Members are quite at liberty to believe I say this because there is on this side a desire to injure trade unions, but they are wrong if they do so. We have no hostility to trade unions. On the contrary, I respectfully endorse every word said by my right hon. Friend as to the necessity for the existence of trade unions as part of the industrial machinery and organisation of this country, but I do say that if they become immersed in political waters they will be drawn into enterprises in which they have no interest, and induced to devote energies which ought to be devoted to the protection and improvement of the conditions of labour to political adventures which are no concern of theirs, and which will bring no credit to the class or the organisations to which they belong.

Sir JOSEPH WALTON

If the Noble Lord who has just spoken had attended for fourteen days the meetings of the Committee dealing with this particular Bill—I think twice the number of days that ought to have been requisite for the consideration of it—he would certainly have felt, as I felt, that those of his own party who were on that Committee were guilty of obstruction and of efforts to destroy the Bill which do not allow one to consider that they had any regard in that Committee for the interests of the trade unions of this country, at any rate, so far as their right to expend a portion of their funds for political purposes, is concerned. No one, either in this House or on that Committee, has contended that the Osborne Judgment did not leave the trade unions in a position which could not be allowed to remain as it was. The Yorkshire Miners Association—I represent 12,000 or 13,000 of the members—for a whole generation prior to the Osborne Judgment had incorporating rules dealing with the matter. That association spent what they considered necessary for political propaganda, for the expenses of running candidates at elections, and for the maintenance of those candidates when returned as Members of this House without any question ever having been raised until the Osborne Judgment was given. It was never even suggested that they were pursuing a course they were not fully authorised to take by law. The Yorkshire Miners Association took this course after rules authorising thorn to do it had been sanctioned and confirmed by all branches of the association throughout the county. They did this for thirty years without any objection whatsoever being raised on the part of a single member of the union to their so expending a portion of the funds to further the industrial interests of the workers by having direct representation in this House. That being so, I for one do not hesitate to say that I was in favour of a complete reversal of the Osborne Judgment.

I do not see why a trade union should not have the further object of expending money for political propaganda or political purposes made a statutory object of the union, or why they should not be able to deal with this in the same manner as they deal with all other statutory objects. I believe myself that it is a mistake to have contracting-out Clauses in Acts of Parliament. It is almost invariably a blunder to have contracting-out Clauses, and I can only reconcile myself to the position in which this Bill now stands, because I am convinced that the contracting-out provision will remain practically a dead letter. I am perfectly certain that, so far as the Yorkshire miners are concerned, it will remain a dead letter. They are quite content that a certain portion of their funds should be spent in this way. The union in Yorkshire will not be hampered at all in doing what is in their interest politically by reason of any provsion in the Bill. The Bill as a whole has been moulded in a reasonable and practical form. It provides for trade unions doing what they have a perfect right to do, namely, to spend money on political purposes, and to have the expenditure recognised by law without question. The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend near me was I think a wise concession. I do not know that it was necessary. I congratulate the Members of the Labour party on the moving of that Amendment as showing that they have no wish whatever to do injustice to any member of a trade union. I consider that any member who thinks that he has a grievance, instead of having to go to the Courts and incur the expense of litigation, should be able to go to the Registrar and have his grievance inquired into and decided upon. That is a very great step in advance, and it is one which will save an immense amount of needless litigation and the expenditure of money which would accompany it. I cordially support the Third Heading because I believe that the Bill embodies very largely indeed what the trade unionists of the country have a right to demand, and that in practice it will be found to work satisfactorily. I do not believe that all that has been prophesied as to the oppression to which minorities will be subjected will ever arise. But what about the right of the majorities? I think too much attention has been paid to the minority question and too little attention has been paid to the proposals of majorities. Do not we decide every question here by majorities of this House? Do not we tax Roman Catholics for the support of what they do not believe in by a majority vote in this House? Do not we impose every tax which every section of the community has to pay, and which some in every section of the community disagree with or disapprove of by a majority vote in this House? Therefore I do not see why a majority vote in a trades association should not empower the executive authority to expend money for political purposes. I cordially support the Third Reading of the Bill.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

As the hour is getting late, I would appeal to hon. Members not to prolong their remarks unduly.

Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES

I can assure my right hon. Friend that I will be brief in the remarks I have to make, but I think it is due to trade unionists to make some reference to the speech of my Noble Friend opposite (Lord Robert Cecil). I quite agree in some of the things which he has said in reference to trade unions. They were the first party in the State who took any step to secure the representation of labour, and the idea of hostility on the part of the Conservative party to trade unions as an industrial organisation is not advanced. But, with great respect, I would appeal to him with regard to majority representation, and ask him to bear in mind that until the Osborne Judgment, at any rate from the time that trade unions were first legalised, when I mean they enjoyed a quasi legal status and probably antecedent to that, trade unions were run entirely by majority rule, and every person who joined a trade union was bound as to his financial position as a member by the decision of the majority. That principle, which obtains in trade unions, as my Noble Friend knows, also obtains in all commercial corporations. The government of the majority is the government which decides the allocation of money and questions of policy. It is not for the purpose of protecting the union in case it acts unjustly that my Friend the Member for Glamorgan insists upon majority representation, but because he, in common with me, is afraid to draw any distinction by way of unequal treatment in relation to those and other corporations. That is the whole reason for the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for East Glamorgan, who despite some aspersions cast upon him is a perfectly fair minded man. What the Government propose—I do not agree with the Government in their proposal—is that there shall be an exemption afforded to people who object to subscribe for certain purposes, and that if they do not like to subscribe for political purposes they shall be exempt from the obligation of doing so. It follows that there might arise —and my hon. Friend behind me took that view—an occasion when some unjustice was inflicted upon a man who claims exemption, supposing this Clause was not passed. There is nothing in the Trades Disputes Act, recently passed, which is not only con sonant with the general law of the country, to prevent any person aggrieved from going to the High Court and seeking an injunction to protect him from an illegal act of the trade union. If my hon. Friend accedes to that proposition, which I think is correct, then in the second proposition the Attorney-General recognises that to be true, and says, "I will do something for you which will save that litigation. I will give a quasi domestic tribunal whose judgment will be final and conclusive." The same position exists under the Friendly Societies Act. Instead of going to the High Court of Justice as any aggrieved party might—and nobody knows better than my hon. Friend that very often these aggrieved parties are subsidised—and carrying it from the High Court step by step to the highest Courts in the land—

Mr. C. EDWARDS

I said that there is nothing to prevent him exercising the alternative right of going to the High Court.

Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES

I respectfully disagree with my hon. and learned Friend. If I were a tribunal before which an action was brought for an injunction, I should say, "You cannot obtain it because the Legislature has provided a special remedy of which you must avail." That being so I submit that his argument, though most well intentioned and most solicitous for the interests of the trade unions, as I fully recognise, cannot be regarded as one which should be effective.

Mr. CLYNES

I am compelled to rise because things have been said in the course of this Debate which are rather outside the merits of the Bill itself. The Noble Lord who spoke last repeated the assertion that there was no violent hostility whatever from that quarter of the House to trade unions. The Noble Lord insisted on alleging that what we attribute to the Leader of the Opposition as having been said by him in a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne was quite untrue.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

No, I was only speaking of a speech in this House. I do not remember at all what my right hon. Friend said at Ashton-under-Lyne, and therefore I could not make any speech about it.

Mr. CLYNES

May I explain to the Noble Lord that in the speech at Ashton-under-Lyne, to which the hon. Member for Glamorgan has referred, in speaking of the lost influence, as alleged, of trade unions and our diminishing power to deal effectively with industrial questions, the right hon. Gentleman said:— If the leaders of trade unions go to Westminster and pose there as statesmen settling the destinies of the nation, and there are several remarks to the same effect. What is the meaning of a sneer like that? It does not surprise us. It is a common piece of impertinence. The Leader of the Opposition should be the last man to talk in that way in public, or even to think it in private, about the re presentatives of the Labour party. The fact is, if we choose as Parliamentary re presentatives the leaders of the trade unions, the country is told that they are deserting their other work for which they are more fit, and that they are not capable of properly taking part in the political business of this country. On the other hand, if we choose to appoint as trade union leaders men like, for in stance, the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), we are told that we are setting up so many political adventurers. That was the term used by the Noble Lord—that we were giving opportunities to political adventurers—

Lord ROBERT CECIL

No, no. I never said anything of the kind. I never said the hon. Member for Leicester was a political adventurer.

Mr. CLYNES

Certainly not; the Noble Lord is really too astute to make any statement of that kind, but if he reads his speech to-morrow he will see that he said that if trade unions entered into politics they would open to adventurers a gateway into this House.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I never used the word "adventurer." I did say "political adventurer." Probably the hon. Member misunderstood me. I never said "adventurer." I used the word "adventurer" in quite a different sense.

Mr. CLYNES

I am sorry if I incorrectly heard what the Noble Lord said, and, of course, I at once accept his statement. During the day hon. Members no doubt have received amongst their letters a pamphlet the title of which is "The Employer's Parliamentary Association." Last night we had one of those recurring exhibitions of how employers are represented in this House. "The Employers' Parliamentary Association" does not run candidates in the country; it does not send under its auspices men to the constituencies to get them elected; but it is certain that they are here instinctively representing a particular interest, and using their personal power in the House as well as out of it in defence of what they believe to be their order. Working men, who form the mass of the nation, and who are the poorest portion of the community, have no means of being represented in this House except through trade unions. We therefore claim that the same method of government and of management which operation in connection with all trade union business and all other affairs, should operate and apply in connection with their politics. We impose levies against the will of the men for a dozen different purposes which need not be separately named, and we say that the political activities of trade unions must be managed by the same methods, in the same club, and by the same general trade union machinery as operates in all the other affairs of trade unions. We are told that men have consciences. I have yet to find the man who has a conscientious objection to receiving any of the benefits which our political activities secure to him. If a man receives these benefits arising from the political activities of trade unions, on what principle can you say that these men shall escape paying for them? If he has any right whatever to be represented in this House, on what ground can you say he should not pay his share to our trade unions?

4.0 P.M.

These Debates usually offer to hon. Members opposite opportunities of which they avail themselves, for professing their friendship, not merely for the working classes, but for trade unions; but give them any opportunity in which they can safely display their enmity, and you find that they display it to the full. They believe in trade unions, but they say to their leaders, "Keep out of this House." They believe in the unions negotiating with and even fighting the employers, but they say, "You must not picket." They do not admit the right to persuade; in short, they believe in trade unions if those trade unions will agree to manage their business on lines approved by the employers. I think, however, that the unions ought to be managed in conformity with their own views. They do not mind our taking part in politics, but what they do mind is the particular political line which we decide to pursue. When we were divided equally as Liberals and Tories, and when even in some instances working men proposed to put forward working men as Conservative candidates, they did not object to trade unionism in Parliament. It was when trade unionists made up their minds, to a great extent at any rate, to send men to this House to act independently of either of the parties, that strong objection was taken to the political, activities of our trade unions. As a fact, it is not we who entered into politics; we could not have helped ourselves; we were pushed into politics. The circumstances and work of this House compelled us to bear our part, as an act of self-preservation, and in order that in future the trade unions of the country might be able to take their proper share in the work of politics.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the third time, and passed.