GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



411 



The protection of registered trade-marks lasts 

 fourteen years. Firm-names, when printed or 

 stamped in peculiar and distinctive characters, 

 monograms, and fanciful words, are subjects of 

 protection as trade-marks. 



Labor Legislation. The success of the British 

 working-men in obtaining legislation to cor- 

 rect particular abuses, through their powerful 

 trades-unions and their representatives in Par- 

 liament, deters them from engaging in the dis- 

 contented agitations for sweeping theoretical 

 reforms which are rife in other countries, and 

 formerly were in England. The measures for 

 their benefit and protection are gained only 

 by contests with equally powerful and vigilant 

 organizations which claim vested interests in 

 prescriptive practices. Even the law against 

 paying wages in public-houses, which was car- 

 ried by the efforts of the trades-unionists, 

 though not needed for themselves, since they 

 insist on wages being paid on the premises, en- 

 countered vigorous opposition from the Liberty 

 and Property Defense League and the Licensed 

 Victuallers' Association. An act prohibiting 

 girls under fourteen years of age from work- 

 ing at forges was opposed by the Government 

 and rejected, in spite of the earnest representa- 

 tions of the trades-union representatives. Reg- 

 ulations for the sanitary protection of workers 

 in white-lead factories and bake-houses were 

 enacted, though contested warmly, as undue 

 legislative interference. The provisions of the 

 bankruptcy act were also extended in a limited 

 way to workmen, who can secure a discharge 

 in bankruptcy and have 20 worth of tools 

 and household goods exempt; but the trades- 

 men's associations secured a provision author- 

 izing the judge to issue an order against future 

 wages. The same act gives the workman a 

 preferred claim against a bankrupt employer's 

 estate for 50, or four months' wages, instead 

 of two months' wages as formerly, thus placing 

 him on the same footing as clerks. A fishing- 

 boats' act protects apprentices from cruelties 

 as revolting as any in the records of slavery, 

 and was suggested by heinous instances re- 

 cently come to light. The employers' liability 

 act does not work, yet the efforts of the trades- 

 unionists to procure its amendment were futile. 

 The number of cases decided under the act 

 was greater in the second year of its operation 

 than in 1881, 320 against 126; of these not 

 quite half were won by the plaintiff, or settled 

 out of court. 



Criminal Code Bill. The bill to codify the laws 

 of criminal procedure was loaded with amend- 

 ments, and finally dropped in committee. It 

 was a significant measure, embodying among 

 the recommendations of the royal commission 

 on procedure some of the remarkable innova- 

 tions, borrowed from the practice of Conti- 

 nental countries, which were already intro- 

 duced in the extraordinary legislation for Ire- 

 land. They were suggested by the discovery 

 of explosives at Birmingham, and other evi- 

 dences of conspiracy in England. One section 



allowed magistrates to hold inquiries where no 

 one was accused of crime. The Continental 

 system of examining suspected persons was in- 

 troduced, and trial before a special jury against 

 the will of the prisoner was proposed. The doc- 

 trine of constructive criminality was extended. 



Minor Legislation. The explosives act, intro- 

 duced after the dynamite discoveries in Bir- 

 mingham, was brought in on the 9th of April, 

 and passed through all its stages in both Houses 

 the same day. In the bills granting pensions 

 to Lords Wolseley and Alcester the Radicals 

 and Land-Leaguers forced the Government to 

 substitute lump sums of 25,000 for annuities. 

 Sir Wilfrid Lawson's annual resolution in favor 

 of local option received for the first time the 

 formal approval of the Government and was 

 carried. The long-decried contagious diseases 

 acts were finally rescinded, some members of 

 the Government declining to support them. 

 The regular motion in favor of woman suffrage 

 found this year 114 supporters to 133 oppo- 

 nents. A bill to suppress pigeon-shooting 

 passed the lower House but was thrown ou.t 

 in the House of Lords. The bill to allow mar- 

 riage with a deceased wife's sister was de- 

 feated in the House of Lords by parliamentary 

 strategy. The committee of ten, one half 

 from each House, appointed to consider the 

 advisability of sanctioning the Channel tunnel, 

 reported, July 10th, against the scheme on stra- 

 tegic grounds. 



Irish Legislation. By skillful and cautious tac- 

 tics, allying themselves as far as was consistent 

 with the Conservatives in their assaults on the 

 Government, and by utilizing every point of 

 agreement on Irish affairs with any of the sec- 

 tions of the Liberal and Conservative parties, 

 and the desire of the Government to avoid a col- 

 lision, the Irish party succeeded in having the 

 Irish legislation of the year largely modified 

 to suit their views, though the Government re- 

 fused to entertain their proposals to reopen the 

 questions assumed to be settled by the land 

 act, to repeal the land act, and to relieve the 

 distress in the west by public improvements 

 and migration. They arrested the passage of 

 the criminal code bill, and of Irish Sunday -clos- 

 ing and police bills. An Irish registration bill, 

 opposed by the Conservatives as a measure for 

 extending the franchise, was accepted by the 

 Government ; it was crowded out, but pledges 

 were given to reintroduce it in the next session. 

 Although the principle of relief-works was os- 

 tensibly rejected by the ministry, it was em- 

 bodied in two Irish bills. One of these, the 

 tramways bill, for constructing, with the aid 

 of a state guarantee, tramways and light rail- 

 ways and for other purposes, embraced a pro-' 

 posal for state-aided emigration. This was 

 vigorously opposed by the Irish members, who 

 forced the Government to make a state grant 

 for the trial of. their alternative scheme of mi- 

 gration. The other bill provides for the im- 

 provement of fisheries on the Irish coast by the 

 construction of piers and harbors with funds 



