The Trade Union Congress has been held this week at Swansea, and its representatives have this time had something of immediate and practical interest to talk about. The whole position of the Trade Unions has been revolutionized by the recent judgment of the House of Lords in the Taft Vale case. Before that it had been held that Trade Unions are not corporations which can sue or be sued. A Union could not, it was thought, be made responsible as a body forthe action of its agents. But the Lords' decision has altered all that, and the Taft Vale Railway Company is suing the Anmalgamated Society of Railway Servants Gor £20,000 damages which the Company is alleged tohavesuffered through "picketing" by the Society's agents during the recent strike. Of course the result of that action will depend on the question how far picketing is legal and justifiable. A man it. may: be argued, a legal right to persuade another by peaceable means
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.