36 TRADE UNIONISM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION. 



and workmen, and that the laws relating to combinations had 

 not only not been efficient to prevent combinations, either of 

 masters or of workmen, but on the contrary, in the opinion of 

 many, had a tendency to produce mutual irritation and distrust. 



The Commitiee expressed the opinion of its members that 

 masters and workmen should be freed from the existing 

 restrictions regarding rates of wages and hours of working, 

 and be left at perfect liberty to make such arrangements as 

 they might naturally think proper ; also, that the Statute 

 Laws interfering in these particulars should be repealed, as 

 well as the common law under which a peaceable meeting of 

 masters or workmen could be prosecuted as a conspiracy. 



While suggesting these concessions, the committee recom- 

 mended " That it is absolutely necessary, when repealing the 

 Combination Laws, to enact such a law as may efficiently and 

 by summary process punish either masters or workmen who 

 by threat, intimidation, or acts of violence, should interfere 

 with the perfect freedom which ought to be allowed to each 

 party of employing his labour or capital in the manner he 

 may deem most advantageous." (Howell.) 



The result of the Select Committee's Report was the Act 

 of 1824(5 Geo. IV.,c. 95). 



This Act relieved workmen from all liability to punishment 

 for engaging m peaceful combinations or strikes. 



Strikes on a large scale immediately occurred in various 

 parts of the country, and the Legislature was seized with 

 a panic, which the manufacturers did their best to promote. 

 Towards the end of the session the panic subsided, and " all 

 parties," we are told, were contented with a reproduction of 

 the Act last quoted " with some alteration in its shape, and 

 in the language of some of its provisions." Statute 6 Geo. 

 rV., c. 129, therefore took the place of Statute 5 Geo. IV., c. 95. 



The employers realising that their former power to crush 

 the workers and force them to accept the terms they might 

 dictate was gone, were far from being satisfied ; and in 1830 

 they succeeded in obtaining another enquiry bearing upon 

 combinations and strikes. The report was fruitless, and 

 was never officially published, but from the portions of it 

 published in 1862 by Mr. Senior — and afterwards in his 

 " Historical and Philosophical Essays" (1865) — it has been 

 shown that it was adverse to the workmen. 



Under Statute 6 Geo. IV., c. 129, while exempting from 

 punishment persons meeting together to determine wages 

 and hours of labour (which the persons actually present at 

 the meeting might require or agree to give), the law defined 

 all combinations or agreements affecting the wages or hours 

 of work of persons not present at the meetings as conspiracies. 

 Under the definition of conspiracies were also included 

 attempts to control a master in the management of his 



