The Sanctity of Contracts in English Law - College of Social ...

Trade Union Legislation 35Revolution) sought at first to repress them generally.The Combination Act, 1800, made illegal and voidall contracts and agreements between journeymen,manufacturers or other persons for obtaining advancesof wages, or altering hours of work, or preventingemployers from employing whom they liked, or forcontrolling the management of other persons' business.It also established machinery for the summary settlingof disputes between masters and workmen. Whenthe feared perils of the French Revolution appearedto have receded and the influence of Benthamismhad grown, a new and more tolerant set of combinationlaws replaced the older repressive measures.The Combination Act, 1824, declared that combinationsof workmen to advance or fix wages should nolonger be subject to prosecution for conspiracy or toany punishment, and that combinations of mastersshould enjoy a similar freedom. In the CombinationAct, 1825, the legislature, caught in a reactionarymood, redefined and restricted the freedom ofassociation granted in 1824. It in effect toleratedcollective bargaining over wages and hours of workbut left such bargains without sanctions for theirenforcement. The Trade Union Act, 1871, providedthat the purposes of a trade union should not, byreason only that they were in restraint of trade, betreated as unlawful either (a) so as to make membersof the association criminally liable for conspiracy or(b) so as to render void or voidable any agreemententered into by them. The same Act 2S declared»» 8. 4.