The Review of Reviews. 



July 1, 1906. 



THE NEW TRADE UNION BILL. 



Several articles last month dealt with Trades 

 Unions and the law. In the Positivist Review Mr. 

 Frederic Harrison arrives at conclusions strikingly 

 similar to those set forth in the Independent Review 

 by Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., as to the disadvan- 

 tages under which, in an old Conservative country, 

 Trades Unions must labour, and the need for re- 

 moving these handicaps so as to put the unions on 

 a level with the employer. Mr. Harrison, writing 

 as a barrister of forty-five years' standing, says he 

 entirely endorses the Labour Party's bill, which Mr. 

 Snowden considers the minimum compatible with 

 justice. Mr. Harrison proceeds: — 



I am well aware that it is an exceptional measure; that 

 it exempts workmen's associations from liahility to actions 

 which lie against ordinary societies and combinations by 

 the general Common Law ot England. I admit that such 

 an exemption is not easy to be justiiied. either in the view 

 of the professional lawyer or of the practical politician. 



Yet " bald " as the new bill is said to be, and 

 contrary- to common sense and equal justice, he 

 justifies it on two grounds: — 



First, an exceptional law is required to meet the excep- 

 tional and peculiar character of Trades Unions. They are 

 not corporations; they are not organised trading societies 

 at all. ... It is unjust to apply to them the complicated 

 rules of agency which are fair in the liabilities incurred by 

 a railway company or an iron corporation. 



The second ground for exemption is that these quite ex- 

 ceptional clubs of workmen are adjudicated by tribunals, 

 which are never really impartial, and are often bitterly 

 prejudiced against them. With very rare exceptions lawyers 

 are, as a class, committed to defend the rights of property, 

 to protect the interests of trade and of capital generally. 

 It is no business ot the law to raise wages; it is often the 

 business of the law to interpose that dividends may not be 

 reduced. The ordinary lawyer, the average well-to-do citi- 

 zen, cannot get rid of the belief that a strike of workmen 

 is a kind of rebellion. If an employer refuses a rise of 

 wages, tliey say it is because he cannot afford it. He must 

 know his own business best. 



Hence, owing to the complexity of the law, the 

 prejudice of judges and juries, and other causes, 

 Mr, Harrison sees no way of amending the law re- 

 lating to Trade Unions except by exempting them 

 from actions at law, until they are made really cor- 

 porations, with the rights and qualities of corpora- 

 tions, Mr. Philip Snowden says, on this subject: — 



If the Unions be exempted from corporate liability, and 

 the responsibility for illegal acts still attaches to the 

 wrongdoer, it is likely that the result would be tiat strikes 

 would be conducted with a far =:reater sense of responsi- 

 bility Each individual would feel the responsibility upon 

 him "for his own actions: and the aggregate of this would 

 ensure collective responsibility. 



His great argument for the special treatment of 

 Trades Unions is also that " they cannot, in actual 

 fact, by any legal term of equality, be put on the 

 same actual equality for fighting purposes as the 

 employers " : — 



The employers may conspire: and it is impossible to fur- 

 nish proof. Employers may close their works, discharge 

 workmen, black-list them, and indeed do all the things 

 which would be illegal if done br a Trade Union; and it 

 is impossible to prove a case for damages, because all these 

 actions are within the recognised rights ot an employer of 

 labour. 



A federation of employers is not like a Trade Union. It 

 is an intangible thing. Seeing, therefore, that in a strike, 

 the two parties to the struggle are not on ei^ual terms; 

 that Trade Unions must fight in the open, while the mas- 

 ters can fight in secret; it is imfair to expos© the Unions 

 to the mercy of the enemy, through the misfortune of 

 having to conduct an open warfare. 



He. too, insists on the legal turmoil around the 

 interpretation of the Act as at present standing. 

 " Eminent judges differ in their construction of the 

 same clauses ; lawyers admit their complete inability 

 . , . to advise what a Union mav or may not legallv 

 do." 



TO TAX THE UNEARNED INCREMENT. 



To answer the familiar cry, ■■ Where's the money 

 to come from ?" which meets every project for ex- 

 tensive expenditure, Mr. A. Hook writes on the 

 problem of the unearned increment in the Economic 

 Review. He finds that a non-retrospective taxation 

 of the unearned increment would be of little value. 

 He therefore advocates a retrospective system, of 

 which the following concrete instances may be 

 quoted : — 



Case 1.— A. ptirchased land in 1905 for £1000. Present 

 value, £1000. Unearned increment Itill the next periodic 

 revaluation), nil. 



Case 2.— B. purchased land in 1870 for £500. Present value 

 per assessment, £1000. Unearned increment, £500— the basis 

 ot tlie tax chargeable till the next valuation. 



Case 3. — C. possesses land valued now at £1000. He re- 

 ceived it by bequest from his father. It has not changed 

 hands by purchase within the past fifty years. Original 

 value for the purpose of taxation. £500. Unearned incre- 

 ment. £500— the basis ot the tax chargeable till the next 

 valuation. 



The method of valuation which he suggests is that 

 of twenty years' purchase of the gross assessment 

 under Schedule A (income tax). Multiplying the rent 

 paid bv 2o and subtracting the cost of buildings, he 

 arrives at the site value. Applying the same method 

 twenty vears aftenvards he arrives at the then site 

 value. The difference between the site values at 

 the earlier and later period constitutes the unearned 

 increment. He would exempt agricultural land, 

 owing to its steady decrease in value, and would deal 

 onlv with urban land. He puts the total value of 

 urban land at present at /^2. 700.000,000. One-third, 

 or ^£^900, 000,000, of this value he reckons will not 

 have changed hands during the last fifty years. One- 

 half of this present value he would regard as original 

 value, the other half he w-ould put down as un- 

 earned increment, which at aid. in the pound would 

 vield a revenue of _£4,5oo,ooo. For the remaining 

 two-thirds, 1800 millions, he reckons the average 

 period since the last purchase as twenty years, and 

 the original value in 1885 as 1200 millions. This 

 yields an unearned increment of 600 millions : at 

 2-?fd. in the pound this would vield a revenue of six 

 millions, T'he total proceeds of the tax would be 

 loi millions during the first quinquennium, Mr. 

 Hook outlines certain arrangements wherebv the in- 

 cidence of the tax would be equitably divided be- 

 tween the ground landlord, the lessee and the tenant. 



