The New Tolpuddle
It has taken 116 years for the wheel to come full circle from the case of the Tolpuddle martyrs, who were sent to Botany Bay in 1834, formally for administering an unlawful oath but actually for asserting their freedom to belong to a trade union, to the case of the employees of the Durham County Council, who are now threatened with dismissal if they assert the equally important free- dom not to belong to a trade union. But the Socialist County Councillors of Durham have nothing to learn from the former magistrates of Dorset when it comes to the exercise of tyranny. An article written from the spot and published in last week's Spectator indicated how, in many and various ways, individual freedom has suffered in thirty years of unbroken Labour rule in Durham. On November 1st the Council passed their resolution requiring all of their 12,600 employees to belong to a trade union or be dismissed. Since then their action has been condemned by several of the unions and professional associations concerned, by the Ministers of Health and Education, and by anybody who still remembers what freedom is. But the Council refused on Tuesday to go back on its decision. So now the inquisition, for which an emergency committee has been set up; can go forward, and so no doubt can the dismissals. The National Union of Teachers, the British Medical Association, the British Dental Association, and the Engineers' Guild, have all declared their intention to resist this attack on their independence. The Government is firmly opposed to the threat to individual liberty which the Durham political bosses have decreed. But the fight is by no means over. The process of bringing a local authority to reason by means of the withholding of grants and other official penalties for failure to perform its functions, is clumsy and slow. It will be all too easy for the employees, the great majority of whom already belong to unions or associations, to take the easy way out by simply showing their membership cards. It is all too likely that the individuals who stand out for their freedom will be few. But what- ever their number may be they must have all the support the Government and the public can give them until this latest attack on liberty is defeated.
Previous page
