declared that no action committed by a group
of workmen was punishable unless the same act was criminal if
committed by a single individual. Peaceful persuasion of non-union
workmen was expressly permitted, some of the elastic words of
disapproval used in previous laws were omitted altogether, other
offences especially likely to occur in such disputes were relegated to
the ordinary criminal law, and a new act was passed, clearing up the
whole question of the illegality of conspiracy in such a way as not to
treat trade unions in any different way from other bodies, or to
interfere with their existence or normal actions.

Thus, by the four steps taken in 1825, 1859, 1871, and 1875, all trace
of illegality has been taken away from trade unions and their ordinary
actions. They have now the same legal right to exist, to hold
property, and to carry out the objects of their organization that a
banking or manufacturing company or a social or literary club has.

The passing away of the popular disapproval of trade unions has been
more gradual and indefinite, but not less real. The employers, after
many hard-fought battles in their own trades, in the newspapers, and
in Parliament, have come, in a great number of cases, to prefer that
there should be a well-organized trade union in their industry rather
than a chaotic body of restless and unorganized laborers. The
aristocratic dread of lower-class organizations and activity has
become less strong and less important, as political violence has
ceased to threaten and as English society as a whole has become more
democratic. The Reform Bill of 1867 was a voluntary concession by the
higher and middle classes to the lower, showing that political dread
of the working classes and their trade unions had disappeared. The
older type of clergymen of the established church, who had all the
sympathies and prejudices of the aristocracy, has been largely
superseded, since the days of Kingsley and Maurice, by men who have
taken the deepest interest in working-class movements, and who teach
struggle and effort rather than acceptance and contentment.

The formation of trade unions, even while it has led to higher wages,
shorter hours, and a more independent and self-assertive body of
laborers, has made labor so much more efficient that, taken in
connection with other elements of English economic activity, it has
led to no resulting loss of her industrial supremacy. As to the
economic arguments