Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 06 February 1904
Denaby Strike Sequel
The Action Against the Union
Counsel’s Closing Speeches
Mr. Justice Lawrance and a special jury, in the King’s Bench Division of the High Court yesterday, resumed the hearing of the action brought by the Denaby and Cadeby Main Collieries (Limited) against the Yorkshire Miners’ Association and others for £150,000 as damages for alleged conspiracy and unlawful combination to induce the plaintiffs’ workmen to break their contracts by a strike in June, 1902. This was the eighth day of the trial.
Mr. Bankes, K.C., for the plaintiffs, said he and his learned friends had revised the questions which they desired his Lordship to put to the jury. To some extent they followed those already formulated. They were:—
(1) Did the defendants Nolan and Humphreys, or any, or which of them, unlawfully and maliciously procure the men to break their contracts by going on strike on the 29th of June, without notice?
(2) If they did, were they, in doing so, purporting to act as agents of the Association, for its benefit?
(3) Did the members of the committees of the Denaby and Cadeby branches, or any of them, unlawfully and maliciously induce the men to break their contracts by coming out on strike?
(4) And, if so, were they purporting to act as members of the Association?
(5) Did the defendant Association, by its Executive Council, or by its officials, ratify the acts of Nolan or Humphreys, or the members of the committees in so procuring the men to break their contracts?
(6) Did the defendant Association, by its officials, or by members of the committees of the Denaby and Cadeby branches, maintain or assist in maintaining the strike by unlawful means—
(a) By molesting or intimidating men working for the plaintiffs with a view to induce them to cease work;
(b) By inducing or attempting to induce men willing to enter into contracts with the plaintiffs to refrain from so doing; and
(c) By the granting of strike pay against the rules of the Association?
(7) Did the defendants Wadsworth, Parrott, Frith, and Hall, or any and which of them, assist in maintaining the strike by unlawful means, that was to say by any of the means set out in question six?
(8) Did the defendants, or any, and which of them, unlawfully and maliciously conspire together with the workmen formerly in plaintiffs’ employ to molest and injure plaintiffs in the carrying on of their business, and were the plaintiffs so molested or injured?
(9) Did the defendants, or any of them, conspire with each other, or any of the workmen in the employ of the plaintiffs, to do any and which of the acts mentioned in question six?
His Lordship: That seems at present to cover the ground.
Mr. Bankes: No question is asked about damages, because Mr. Isaacs admitted that there would be some damages.
Powerful Speech by Mr. Rufus Isaacs
Mr. Isaacs: Assuming that some damage must be caused for the purpose of arriving at the facts, learned counsel then proceeded to address the jury on behalf of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association. He said the result of this case no doubt would be to help to put into something like shape the confusion and chaos which existed in the law with reference to trade unions. Lawyers were agreed that if they took the decisions on one side and the other, there was a considerable amount of confusion, and, as one great lawyer said, it passed the wit of man to know what was really the law.
In a review of the history of the present case, Mr. Isaacs said what an unfortunate and wretched thing it was that the obstinacy on both sides had led to this terrible dispute, and loss on both sides, and misery to the women and children.
Continuing, counsel said that both the masters and the men were perfectly free to take any stand and make any contract they liked. Now they got to the 10th June, and unfortunately Mr. Chambers took the stand that he would not consider the matter. He declined, he said, to let the men go before the Joint Committee; he declined to do what the men wanted—to let it go to the committee to decide what was a fair price.
Mr. Chambers took up the position that his contract was made in 1885, saying in effect, “Don’t talk to me about changes after that.” It is my position. This was the unfortunate position of things which culminated in the men leaving their work. Unfortunately, again, the same obstinacy, as it might be called, prevailed.
Very often the strongest man was the one that gave way first; very often the strongest person was the one who did not hesitate to give way, and it also very often happened, unfortunately, that the weakest man was the most obstinate, and the consequence was that after all these discussions they had this deplorable state of things right up to March, 1903, with a loss which was immeasurable in point of money to the masters and in point of money to the men on the other side.
He regretted very much that Mr. Chambers had not seen his way to having had an interview with them when a request was made to him. It would have done him no harm.
Counsel proceeded to point out that when a ballot was taken in September, 1901, the men decided that they would not strike. Hurst (the secretary) then wrote to Mr. Pickard, sending a resolution expressing their opinions, after which they took an action in the county court, which culminated in the hearing at Doncaster in February, 1902. The men were powerless to do anything else.
The men had been acting perfectly constitutionally, and in accordance with their rights as citizens of this country, and as members of the Trade Union. They said that they could not get the Union to assist them, and the masters would not help. The first action taken was to obtain the pay due, and the second was as to the 1½d.
His Lordship: Really to determine what the contract was exactly.
Mr. Isaacs recalled that the County Court Judge said the employers were right as to the contract, and if they held to it the men could not get the extra pay; but having regard to what he had heard as to the change of circumstances in obtaining the bag dirt, he thought they might, after the case, revise the price list in reference to it. It was a question for arbitration as to whether the time had not arrived when the price list should be revised.
He counsel agreed that the learned Judge, in his observations, was really travelling outside the strict limits of his duty. But he did what learned Judges very often did with beneficent effect—made a suggestion. These suggestions very often led to a settlement, and made for peace in the long run.
Again, might he suggest to Mr. Chambers for future consideration, that when a matter of that kind did arise, and when a suggestion was made by an independent person, it would do no harm to consider it, and it would not injure him. It would not be taken as a sign of weakness, but he would rather take it as a sign of strength.
If he had taken the view which had been put forward by the learned Judge they would not be discussing the matter at the present time.
When the men were out on strike they received 9s. per week, and 1s. for each child, and that was what they had to keep themselves, their wives, and their children; and if they bore that in mind it really disposed of once and for all of the suggestions which had been made, and of the amusement which had been caused by the statement that the men went out on strike for the purposes of play.
If the men did not think they were suffering from a grievance they would not strike. They merely came out in order to give effect to their complaint, and to bring pressure to bear upon the employer with the only weapon which was open to workmen, and that was combination.
When it was said that it would be if only 24 men who were employed on the bag-dirt came out, none whatever.
Counsel quoted the resolution of May 26th, 1902, before Lord James’s award came out, and said that the suggestion that the 10 per cent. was the real cause of the strike was not borne out.
He denied that Nolan and Humphreys had maliciously induced the men to break their contracts. What happened was that the men resolved themselves that they would go out, and they passed a resolution to that effect on the 29th June.
With regard to the language which had been used by the defendants addressing the men, he held that inflammatory language was a small thing to which everyone was liable. He had even known Cabinet Ministers indulge in inflammatory language, and ex-Cabinet Ministers make statements which they afterwards regretted. It was only a weakness of human nature.
When it came to consider the speeches they must always remember that it was not fair to pick out one or two sentences of a speech, and divorce it from its context, and to say that it was inflammatory when in reality it might only be inflammatory for a moment. They would have to take the whole speech to see whether it was inflammatory, or whether it was conciliatory.
Mr. Frith, who was one of the men who was charged with having conspired, was confined to his bed and had been so for a very long time. He merely laid in bed and signed cheques, and it was absurd to suggest that he was charged with being a conspirator.
He would pass over the suggestions about the ballot, and the suggestion that the men did not intend to resume work because some were in their working clothes and some were not. It was a trumpery matter.
There was not one step which the men could take which was not at once supposed to have some malevolent design, and the fact of putting notices in the buckets was supposed in some way to show evil intentions among the men.
Upon this part of the case he submitted that his learned friend had established absolutely nothing except what he himself had conceded from the beginning of the case.
The men believed that they subsequently brought themselves within the rules of the union, and he contended that up to August 15th the men had not been encouraged to do anything wrong by the union.
The union were quite entitled, so far as the employers were concerned, to give the men strike pay, or anything else they liked.
He agreed that those who were members of the union had some right to complain. It was true they did pay strike pay from the 24th July, and the question was whether the union, in doing that, were responsible for the acts which were committed.
It was a very difficult thing to keep all the people in order, and in any case there were police to do that.
How were the union responsible for all the disorder? There had been acts of violence, but his learned friends had not had the courage or the pluck to accuse the defendants of having had anything to do with those acts.
What they were seeking to do was to carry on the same criticism, suggestion, and insinuation.
The other side contended that the officials must have heard about those acts, and they did not take any steps to prevent them happening.
What right had Mr. Hall, or any one else, to interfere? There was the law, and the law could be relied upon to punish the offenders.
He submitted that it was idle, and the greatest distortion, to say that because these things happened, and because the officials did not take any particular steps to prevent them, that they (the jury) were to say that the acts had not been committed by the provocation, but by the acts of these men.
He contended that in law it was not responsible for those acts; and it was responsible only by reason of the Council members being there; and if it were responsible because of the members of the Council, then they were only responsible for the particular acts and the damage caused by those acts.
The main thing, continued counsel, was the charge of conspiracy, and that was a matter for the consideration of the jury entirely.
They had seen the men belonging to the union, and he asked them whether they did not compare favourably with any other witnesses they had seen. Men like Mr. Wadsworth and Mr. Parrott were the mainstay of the industries of this country, and if they got rid of them, and said that those men should be turned out of their offices and out of their positions, and made to pay heavy damages, and if they were going to say that on the facts of that case what would it mean?
They would get irresponsible people to take their places. He believed that the worst thing that could happen to the commerce and prosperity of this country would be to have irresponsible men dealing with these matters.
But he did not only appeal to them on those grounds. He appealed to them upon what he submitted were higher grounds. He appealed to them upon the grounds of what was due to those men as a matter of justice.
When they came to weigh the evidence they should not be led away by the feeling which the other side had endeavoured to introduce into the case, which carried with it not only a verdict of money against these people, but the stigma that they had been responsible for the serious lamentable acts which had been committed, and that they had been actuated by malicious motives, and a desire to injure employers.
He submitted that there was no evidence to show that there was anything in the charge of conspiracy.
Let them weigh carefully all the documents and the evidence, and they would find that these men were absolutely guiltless of anything in the nature of conspiracy, or of any malicious act whatever, and he asked them to find by their verdict.
Mr. Atherley Jones, K.C., M.P., followed on behalf of the officials of the Union. He thought their verdict would have the most tremendous consequences to all the great labour organisations throughout the country, which had on the whole been instrumental in bringing about better relations between employers and employed, and had been the active machinery for preventing those strikes and trade disputes.
The main question which they thought they would be asked would be: Was this labour dispute, this strike, promoted or maintained for some crooked and indirect or dishonest purpose, or was it so promoted and so maintained in the honest and bona-fide attempt to promote the interests of the workmen employed?
Secondly, they would ask themselves whether the strike was promoted and sustained by means which were improper.
If a verdict was returned against the defendants it would be impossible for trade unions to carry on their functions, and that would be a serious loss, not only to the workmen, but to employers also.
Mr. Montague Lush’s Address
Mr. Montague Lush, K.C., then addressed the jury on behalf of the plaintiffs. He said he would like to express on behalf of the Denaby Colliery Company their sincere sympathy with the Yorkshire Miners’ Association in the undoubtedly great loss which they had sustained through the death of Mr. Benjamin Pickard, a man who had been for so long a time connected with their affairs.
Counsel proceeded to say that the case they were trying would probably settle the relationship between masters and men.
He asked what the position of a company would be if it were not able to strike as the Denaby Company had been able to do.
Fortunately for themselves the Denaby Company had faced the attack that was made upon them in June, 1902, and which continued for seven months, and which would have been continued for more months if the High Court of Justice had not interfered, and by means of an injunction put a stop to the supplies which were coming to the union to assist the men who, on their own showing, were out illegally.
He did not know how long things would have gone on if someone had not taken steps to stop it.
He believed he could show that the strike from beginning to end was a union strike, started by its officials, fomented by its officials, maintained by its officials, and maintained with all the power of combination.
If he could show that and that the object of the strike was the bringing about of a state of things whereby the employers would be compelled to yield, then they were liable for damages.
On the other hand, if he could show that malice was their object, and they promoted and sustained the strike, then he would appeal to them for a verdict.
Counsel had not concluded his speech when the Court adjourned until Monday