On Wednesday Mr. Justice Farwell, the Vacation Judge, gave a
most important judgment in regard to Trade-Unions. The question before him was whether the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants could or could not be restrained by injunction. It has hitherto been generally supposed that Trade-Unions could not be proceeded against and made responsible for the acts of their officers, but Mr. Justice Farwell, in a most clear and able judgment, held the con- trary and granted the injunction. If legal action could not be taken against Trade-Unions, and the contention of the defendant Society were well founded, then, said Mr. Justice Farwell, "the Legislature has authorised the creation of numerous bodies of men capable of owning great wealth and of acting by agents with absolutely no responsibility for the wrongs that they may do to other persons by the use of that wealth and the employment of those agents. They would be at liberty (I do not at all suggest that the defendant Society would so act) to disseminate libels broadcast or to hire men to reproduce the rattening methods that disgraced Sheffield thirty years ago, and their victims would have nothing to look to for damages but the pockets of the individuals, usually men of small means, who acted as their agents." It would, he declared, require very clear and express words of enactment to induce him to hold that the Legislature bad in fact legalised the existence of such irresponsible bodies with such wide capacity for evil. We must say that this view seems consistent with common-sense and justice, but if it should be held to be good law, and we presume that in some way or other an appeal will be secured, we trust that the Courts will be most careful in their use of injunctions. Injunctions are most salutary weapons, but we do not want to see them, as in America, used at every labour dispute.
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