Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/228

 206 felt that, at all costs, the working classes must not be allowed to 'taste' power. The view was widely prevalent that the strike was an attempt to carry the labour war into Scotland, that it was one of a series, and that the railway companies should he encouraged to fight the battle of the general body of employers. It wes thought that if the demands of the railway men were granted, employees in other industries would make similar demands, and that the New Unionism would break down the influence of the commercial classes and assume a share in the control of industry. The specific causes of the strike, the alleged intolerable length of the hours of labour, the strength of the combination of the men, and their determination to effect a change in their conditions of work were wholly ignored in this view.

The Views and Proceedings of the Railway Boards.—In the view of the directors, the men were guilty of breech of contract, and they therefore refused to treat with them until they surrendered. The companies availed themselves of all the resources which the law allowed them; they evicted strikers from their houses; they arrested funds supplied by the public for the maintenance of the men on strike; they sued hundreds of the men for damages for breech of contract, and instituted proceedings under the Conspiracy Act with the object of proving that in leaving their employment without notice, the men had infringed Section 5 of that Act. Throughout the controversy as prior to the strike the directors had carried on correspondence with the secretary of the Railway Servants' Association, a tacit though informal