ding
demands. They could have no choice but to submit to the terms imposed
upon them, be they never so oppressive.

ACT AGAINST COMBINATIONS AMONG WORKMEN.

In a former session, Mr Hume had obtained the passing of an act
repealing both the statute and common law concerning combinations among
workmen. This act was attended with mischievous effects; and therefore,
during this session, Mr. Huskisson called the attention of the house to
the subject. In his speech he detailed some painful reports regarding
it which had been forwarded to the secretary of the home department:
reports which went to show that the most atrocious acts of outrage and
violence had been committed by workmen on their employers. Misconceiving
the real object of the legislature in the late act, they had, he
said, manifested a disposition against the masters, and a tendency to
proceedings destructive of the property and business of the latter. This
disposition, if it remained unchecked, he asserted, would produce
the greatest mischiefs in the country; and the evil was growing to so
alarming a pitch in some districts that if not speedily arrested, it
would soon become a subject for Mr. Peel to deal with in the exercise of
his official functions. As a general principle, he admitted that every
man had a right to carry his own labour to the best market, as labour
was the poor man's capital. On the other hand, he contended for the
perfect freedom of those who gave employment to them; whose property,
machinery, and capital ought to be protected. Mr. Huskisson entered into
details to show the nature of the system which was acted upon in several
quarters. Associations were formed, he said, which, if persevered in and
prosecuted successfully, must terminate in the ruin of the very men
who were parties to them. The associations had their delegates, their
presidents, their committees of management, and every other sort of
functionary comprised in the plan of a government. By one article in
a set of regulations it was provided, he remarked, "that the delegates
from all the different works should assemble at one and the same place,"
on certain occasions; so that it was not the combination of all the
workmen of one employer against him, or even of one whole trade against
the masters, but systematic union of the workmen of many different
trades, and a delegation from each of them to one central meeting.
Thus there was established as against the employers a forma