It is to be noted that the original English Act of 1875 only did away with the criminal liability and left the victims of the boycott or blacklist free to sue the combination for damages; but by the “Trade Disputes Act,” 6 Edward 7, chapter 47 (December 21, 1906) the following paragraph was added: 

“An act done in pursuance of an agreement or combination by two or more persons shall, if done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, not be actionable unless the act, if done without any such agreement or combination, would be actionable.”

And also a clause as to picketing: 

“It shall be lawful for one or more[1] persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade-union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working.”

[Footnote 1:  The italics are our own.]

And another upon inducing the breaking of contracts, loss of service: 

“An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labor as he wills.”

Furthermore, after the Taff Vale case, trades-unions were exempted from all liability: 

“(1) An action against a trade-union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade-union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade-union, shall not be entertained by any court.

“(2) Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade-union to be sued in the events provided for by the Trades-Union Act, 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute.

“(3) In this act and in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, the expression ‘trade dispute’ means any dispute between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms of the employment, or with the conditions of labor, of any person, and the expression ‘workmen’ means all persons employed in trade and industry, whether or not in the employment of the employer with whom a trade dispute arises; and, in section three of the last-mentioned act, the words ‘between employers and workmen’ shall be repealed.”

It is hard to say whether any part of this surprising statute would be constitutional in this country, except the second paragraph (p. 267, above); leaving out even there the words “or more.”  Certain it is that by it industrial conditions are placed under the sway of the labor unions, and the commerce and prosperity of England now lie in the “hollow of the hand” of those who work with it.