TRADE-UNION FUNDS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 828, 28 May 1910, Page 4

TRADE-UNION FUNDS.

Tub English newspapers received by this week's mail report a very interesting debate in the House of Commons arising out of the House of Lords' judgment in the case Osborne v. the Amalgamated, Sa~ cietjl of Railway Servants, which recently claimed attention here through its bearing upon the regis-

tration of trade-unions. The debate arose out of a motion that statutory powers 'should be conferred on tradeunions to use their funds for the election, and maintenance of representatives in Parliament. There was revealed a very solid balance of opinion against this attempt to overturn the principle establisned by the Courts, for it is felt by all but the Socialistic section of trade-union-ism that 'the principle of majority rule could not lie made to sanction the coercion of a minority, and that it was unfair that any man who joined a trade-union at a time when it did not aim at Parliamentary representation should be robbed of his benefits should ho decline to contribute to the carrying out of the new purpose. An amendment was proposed by Mr. Vivian and seconded by Me. Sherwell with the object of making a statutory reversal of the House of Lords' decision contingent upon the preservation of all the rights and benefits of any members of a unitm who might refuse to contribute to the payment of a Parliamentary representative. The point of chief interest in the debate, however, was raised by the Attor-ney-General, who considered in some detail the extreme width of the prohibition contained in the final decision in the Osborne case. It will be remembered that the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords practically decided against the legality of any but the narrowest use of trade-union funds. The AttorneyGeneral admitted that "a tradeunion could not properly be accompanied by a political test. To_ apply a political test to membership of a trade-union might not improbably endanger the unity and solidarity of industrial organisations." Restriction was, therefore, necessary, but "it could scarcely be denied that tho language of tho judges hi dealing with this part of the case had gone a little further than either of the parties to the action contemplated. Some of the judges had in express terms condemned any pledgebound party maintained by contributions, whether voluntary or compulsory. . . . Again, some of the propositions were laid down by the judges jn terms so wide that they might, not inconceivably be held to cover the ordinary activities of trade congresses or Parliamentary committees." As a way out of the difficulty that would safeguard the rights both of the majority and of the minority of the trade-unions, he suggested the payment of all members of Parliament out of the public funds. It cannot be denied that the ruling of the Court of Appeal and tho House of Lords was very sweeping, but equally it must be allowed that that ruling was strictly in accord with the original philosophy of trade-unionism. The question that really faces the British public is whether Parliament shall recognise the changed character of tradeunionism, which in Britain, as in New Zealand, is to-day less concerned with its original purpose than with the promulgation _ of Socialistic-theories which have little to do with true unionism and which are often ipposcd to its purpose. Parliament can recognise that change in either of two ways: either by • wiping out the existing privileged status enjoyed by unions at present or by extending, those privileges to what are becoming more and more largely mere Socialist organisations. In the meantime the rights of those trade-unionists who are not Socialists must be safeguarded and the law must bo maintained by an insistence that the unions must keep their activities'within the limits prescribed in the Trade Unions Act.