trade guilds are largely recognized, but membership must not be compulsory.  In Austria a strict governmental control is exercised, and the principle of obligatory guilds is unreservedly accepted.  There does not appear to be any legislation upon strikes except in Great Britain, France, and Italy, such matters being left largely to the political or police authorities.  Strikes were unlawful in England until comparatively recent times, but were always lawful in this country, and are so by the modern French law, which is much similar to ours, as is the case in Italy; but in Russia the leaders of a strike may be imprisoned.

[1] Quoted in Dane’s Abridgment, published in 1800.

In no country do I find any specific legislation as to boycotts, except the English statute already referred to, repealing the common law of conspiracy, both civil and criminal, in industrial disputes.  Germany and Austria have blacklisting laws.  The matter of riots, etc., is generally left to the criminal law to control.  In no country other than the United States do I find any prohibition against a man’s protecting his own property with private guards, armed or otherwise.

Arbitration laws in the British colonies are very generally aimed at the prevention of strikes.  Otherwise there seems to be less legislation on the subject during the last ten years than might have been expected.  The Orange River Colony has severe laws concerning the labor of the blacks, of a nature resembling our peonage laws in the Southern States.  Similar conditions seem to lead to similar legislation throughout the modern world.

Legislation is now much desired here also to obviate the effect of the Taff Vale case and that of the Danbury hatters which applies its principals to interstate commerce; that is to say, which shall secure the funds of a trades-union to its benevolent purposes, or even to its use in industrial disputes, strikes, boycotts, etc., without making it liable for the results of litigation.  In these cases the moneys in the treasury of a trades-union, although unincorporated, have been held responsible for damages awarded in a suit brought against the union or its members for conspiracy under the Sherman Act, or otherwise.  It is, however, difficult to see how such legislation with us could be devised so as to be constitutional, for it would necessarily extend only to a certain class of persons, and be framed to exempt them alone from a certain definite legal liability.  Nevertheless it has in England been enacted.[1]

[Footnote 1:  See above, p. 268:  The Trade Disputes Act, 1906, sec. 4.]

CHAPTER XIII

MILITARY AND MOB LAW, AND THE RIGHT TO ARMS

We now come to a field of legislation related to the early English constitutional right to be protected from military law or molestation by the army, and the corresponding right of protection of one’s person, or one’s house, by force, if necessary.