At the date of the Queen's accession a number of laws existed
restricting the free action of workingmen. Only three years before
Victoria's coronation six poor agricultural laborers in Dorsetshire
were transported (1834) to penal servitude at Botany Bay, Australia,
for seven years, for peacefully combining to secure an increase of
their wages, which at that time were only six shilling a week. In
fact, the so-called "Conspiracy Laws," which made Labor Unions liable
to prosecution as unlawful, if not actually criminal organizations,
were not wholly repealed until after the opening of the twentieth
century.
Meanwhile Parliament passed the Trade Union Acts, in 1871 and 1876,
which recognized the right of workingmen to form associations to
protect their interests by the use of all measures not forbidden by
the Common Law.[1] In 1906 the persistent political pressure of
organized labor induced a Liberal Cabinet (of which Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman was Prime Minister) and the invariably Conservative
House of Lords to pass a still more important act. That measure
exempted Trade Unions from liability to pay damages for a certain
class of injuries which they might commit in carrying on a strike.[2]
During the above period of more than thirty years the unions have
gained very largely in numbers and in financial as well as political
strength. On the other hand they now have to contend with the radical
Socialists who are seeking to convert England into a republic in which
the government would carry on all industries and would prohibit
private individuals from conducting any business whatever.
[1] One result of the organization of Trades or Labor Unions has been
the shortening of the hours of labor. In 1894 the Government
established an eight-hour day for workingmen in dockyards and in
ordnance factories.
[2] The Trade Disputes Act of 1906. This forbids any suit for tort
against a Trade Union. See A. L. Lowell's "The Government of
England," II, 534; and S. Gompers in _The Outlook_ for February, 1911,
p. 269.
The unions will accomplish more still if they succeed in teaching
their members to study the condition of industry in England, to
respect the action of those workers who do not join associations, and
to see clearly that "if men have a right to combine," they must also
"have an equal right to refuse to combine."
In 1837 the English Corn Laws (S592) virtually shut out the
importation of grain from foreign countries. The population had
outgroiwn its food supply, and bread was so dear that even the
agricultural laborer cried out. "I be protected," said he, "but I be
starving." The long and bitter fight against the Corn Laws resulted
not only in their gradual abolition, 1846, but in the opening of
English ports to the products and manufactures of the world. With the
exception of tobacco, wines, spirits, and a few other articles, all
imports enter the kingdom free.
But though Great Britain carries out the theory that it is better to
make things cheap for the sake of those who buy them, than it is to
make them dear for the sake of those who produce them, yet all of the
great self-governing English colonies impose protective duties[1] even
against British products (S625). One of the interesting questions
suggested by the Queen's "Diamond Jubilee" (1897) (S607) was whether
England's children in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada would take
any steps toward forming a commercial fre-etrade union with the mother
country. More than ten years later that point still remained under
discussion (S625).
[1] Except in certain cases, where the colonies, e.g. Canada, grant
preferential duties, or practical free trade, in certain articles
exported to the British Isles.