LIFE OF LORD REDESDALE
workmen for the purpose of raising their wages and
improving conditions of labour. The credit—and odium
__of the measure were due to Pitt, who introduced the
Bill, and to Mitford, who drew up its terms and energetic-
ally seconded Pitt in steering it through the House.
An outcry was raised at once, and protests to Parlia-
ment poured in from the great industrial centres. The
men received the powerful support of Sheridan. Tyran-
nical as the measure appears to us to-day, there was a
good deal to be said for the employers of labour. It was
not the aims which aroused opposition so much as the
means employed to gain them. The Masters complained
that the trade combines attained their ends by unlawful
ways; that by personal violence they prevented men from
taking work at lower rates than those decided upon by the
Union leaders; and that they committed innumerable
outrages, including murder and destruction of valuable
property. Great exception was also taken to the way in
which the Unions were managed and members enrolled:
it was stated that the latter were terrorized by the adminis-
tering of secret oaths to secret committees and were after-
wards obliged to carry out whatever action was decided
upon by the leaders.
The following year the Act was replaced by another,
introduced by the Tory member for Liverpool, the chief
difference between the two Acts being the addition of
clauses by which both sides referred their controversies
to arbitration.1 It was difficult to enforce their observance,
and the Combination Laws were often ignored by both
sides until they were repealed in 1824.
In 1799 Sir John Scott became Chief Justice of the
* For the provisions of the Acts, see History of Criminal Law of England
by Sir James Htzjames Stephen (sv., 1883), III, pp. 206 et set}.
28