Scab v. Striker.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 86, 1 November 1912, Page 4

Scab v. Striker.

Wisdom for Magistrate

Frazer.

A SCOTTISH CASE.

EXPOSURE OF THE LAW,

A LABORER'S DEFENCE,

A ■ oaee of great public ■ interest -was heard in the Glasgow and South-West-ern Police Court.recently, -when Geo. -Strang, laborer, appeared before Bailie Biddle to answer a charge of having used threatening and abusive language towards Alexander Slack, laborer.

The case arose out of ..a strike. The .accused was one of the strikers, and his accuser was a blackleg. Witnesses for the prosecution spoke to having seen the accused approach Slack, and after quietly talking for a minute they became noisy. The accueed was told to go and mind his own busienss, and he retorted by calling Slack a traitor to his fellows, a "scab," "blackleg," etc., and ended by threatening "to "knock the heid off him." * Bailie (to accused) Have yon anything to say?

Accused: I've sich a lot io say I haurdly ken whaur to begin, but the sum and substance o't is just that I did ma duty.

Bailie: Tut, tut, man, it's no man'>s duty to break the law. The law should be sacred to you.

Accused: Ay, maybe that, your honor, but I canna haud onytfaing sacred that's used for' the purpose o' keepin' ma nose to the grindstane. It'll be time enough for mc "to respec' the law when the law respec's mc.

Bailie: But the law doesn't respect one man more than another. It's for the good of all and treats all alike.

Accused: I ken better than that, your honor, for I ken whit Tom Mann got an' whit Sir Edward Carson didna get.

Bailie: But we can't discuss that -sort of thing here. "What I want to know is: By what process of reasoning do you com© to consider it to fee your duty to insult and threaten one of your fellows?

Accused: Weel, your honor, I ken naethm' aboot the process, but it's like -this. 1 ha'e a wife an' three bairns. I fin' that ma pey'e no big enough to dae whit it should dae, an' I mak' up ma mind to try and better it. Ma workmates are in the eatne poseetion, an' we decide to ask an increase. We are refused, an' we strike.

Bailie: But what about)your wife and children then?

Accused: Ma wife's tnair anxious than I am masel' an' she jist said to roe ■the ither day, "Geordie," says she, ''life'fi haurdly worth leevin' the wey things are. the noo." I can assure your honor, it's oot o , regaird fur ma wife an' weans that I am here to-day, because I canna thole to see ony man staun' atween them an' betterment.

Bailie: But you can't- deny tine man Slack the right to work.

Accused: I dae nae sich thing, your honor. It's society that denies him the right to work. If be lad been granted the rioht to work by society be widna hae been idle when I cam' oot on strike.

Accused (continuing): There's a big difference atween the debt to wofi an' the richt to blackleg.

Bailie: There seems a good deal in that, but it's wrong to threaten to knock the head off the man, as you did^

Accused: Weel, your honor, I believe ii) is, because even if I xlid it, I don't believe he'd ever miss it.

Bailie: It's hard to know what to do in this case. You seem to be acting in the interests of your wife and-children';' and in defence of your hearth and home, and that is rather a manly thing to do. But the law is the law. However, you may go now, and come up for -sentence within six months if called upon.