Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/185

 THE BOYCOTT AS AN ELEMENT IN TRADE DISPUTES

principle the 'boycott' is as old as human nature. In some form or other it has been practised at all times in the world's history, and has been used as a sort of impalpable weapon for the purposes of spiritual, social, or moral intimidation by one section of society against another, or against individuals, or by individuals against each other.

The interdict or excommunication of the ancient Church was but the modern 'boycott,' on a gigantic scale, applied to feelings and sentiments in human nature peculiarly sensitive to alarm. In another dress it is the 'taboo' of society—the 'sending to Coventry'—of people and habits or manners which do not conform to conventional standards.

It is, however, only within recent years that a system long in more or less general use has assumed a definite special place, and has had conferred upon it a distinctive name as an instrument of social, industrial, and political conflict. Carried out to its extremest application in Ireland in the case of Captain Boycott and his family, it obtained its present name, and since then has had a widespread notoriety as one of the moral weapons used by portions of the community against their neighbour or neighbours. In some form or other it had long been used in strikes and other industrial quarrels in this country, but it has never here attained such extended application as in the United States.

From the seventh annual report of the Labour Bureau of the State of New York (for 1889), it would appear that in that State the industrial 'boycott' had reached its fullest development, or, it may be, only, that it has there been most closely observed, and had its workings most carefully chronicled. Probably both these suppositions are correct. New York