Odger's English Common Law

260 CONSPIRACY.
others to break their contracts fall within this category?
This is a question which has been much debated during the
last fifty years and which still remains difficult to decide.
On one point, however, the answer now is clear. Such an
"interference with contractual relations" generally arises
" in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between
employers and workmen," and when that is the case, no agree-
ment, which affects contract merely, is a crime. This is
•expressly provided by section 3 of the Conspiracy and Pro-
tection of Property Act, 1875, 1 which enacts that :—
" An agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure
to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute
between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy, if
such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime.
Nothing in this section shull exempt from punishment any persons guilty
of a conspiracy for which a punishment is awarded by any Act of Parliament.
A crime for the purposes of this section means an offence punishable on
indictment, or an offence which is punishable on summary conviction, and
for the commission of which the offender is liable, under the statute making
the offence punishable, to be imprisoned either absolutely or at the discretion
of the Court as an alternative for some other punishment.
Where a person is convicted of any such agreement or combination as
aforesaid to do or procure to be done an act, which is punishable only on
summary conviction, and is sentenced to imprisonment, the imprisonment
shall not exceed three months, or such longer time, if any, as may have
been prescribed by the statute for the punishment of the said act when
committed by one person." 2
Hence now a combination to raise the scale of wages or to
alter the hours of work, and any strike, peaceably conducted,
which arises out of " a trade dispute," is no longer a crime.
Workmen may lawfully combine in trade unions or otherwise
to protect their own interests. But it is a crime for workmen
out on strike to persistently follow about or annoy such
of their fellow-workmen as are still at work, to intimidate
them or their wives or children, to watch or beset their
houses, to hide their tools, &c. 3 Any of these acts is a crime
i 38 & 39 Vict. c. 86.
s As to what acts will be deemed to be done " in contemplation or furtherance of
a trade dispute " within the meaning of s. 3 of this Act, see Conway v. Wade,
[1909] A. C. 506, post, p. 633.
3 lb. s. 7. As to a conspiracy to force an employer to take back a dismissed
employee, see B. v. Wall (1907), 21 Cox, 401.
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