TRADES’ UNIONS IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2051, 20 September 1880, Page 2

TRADES’ UNIONS IN CHRISTCHURCH.

At the Resident Magistrate’s Court this morning a man named Matthias Sorenson applied for protection from one John Mendal under the following circumstances :—Both men are tailors ; Mendal belongs to the tailors 3 trade society and Sorenson is a non-union man. In the early part of this month the workmen employed by Messrs Hobbs, master tailors, went out on strike. Sorenson applied to the firm for employment, which was given to him. Subsi quently, however, he declined to commerce, saying that the Tailors’ Club would not allow him to do so, and it appears that the club agreed to pay him during the lime he was idle, in consequence of his not taking up his engagement. According to the evidence, Mendall called upon him at his residence on the 11th inst., and, paying him 12a 6i on behalf of the club, intimated the necessity of his joining the society represented by Mendal. Sorenson told Mendal that he had no desire to join the club, upon which Mendal, os the prosecutor declared, threatened that if be went to work at Messrs Hobbs the societymen there would pitch him out of the workshop—a three-story-high apartment—that the men at Ballaniyne’s would not work with him, and that ho (Mendal) would blind him if he met him on the street. Prosecutor called as a witness Mrs B-ayee, with whom he lodged, who deposed as to the truth of the threats made at her house by Mendal, declining, however, to give their exact wording, hinting that the particulars were not fit for a female to repeat. Mr McConnell, who appeared for defendant, did not, by his crossexamination, shake the evidence of the prosecutor and his witness. Defendant, on being put into the box, said he had not threatened prosecutor as had been alleged. He had merely referred to proceedings that had been taken by trades’ unions in England under similar circumstances. All the parties are foreigners, speaking very imperfect English, and great pains were taken by the Bench to elicit a clear understanding of the facts. An objection by Mr McOennel, as to the informality of the information, was overruled, ar d, addressing too defendant. His Worship said it was quite clear, by his own admission, that intimidation hud been attempted. It was hardly to be expected that the vile system of oppression exercised by trades’ unions in England could ever possibly bo exercised here, nor did the present case seen to be of very great importance in itself, yet it could never be too early to let it bo understood that a working man here, was a perfectly free agent, and had a right to give his labor wherever he thought proper, and that the law with its utmost vigor would support him in the expression of that right. The offence and the form of information did not admit of the infliction of a penalty, and from its unusual character perhaps the present warning would prevent its repetition. If, however, anything of a similar nature again were brought before the Court, sureties for the maintenance of the peace, would be exacted from the offenders in very heavy amounts, and the longest possible periods of imprisonment in their default would be inflicted. Defendant was ordered to enter into hie own recognizance in the sum of £2O to keep the peace for six months, or in default one months’ imprisonment. The witnesses in the case did not claim expenses.