may do? The answer to which plainly is, certainly they should not be. They must, however, remember that the thing which A is permitted to do is to occasionally, without purpose of injury, and without inflicting serious injury, allow a small quantity of water to sprinkle onto B's lawn, and that the permission or guaranty of lack of restraint promised in the answer to the question in no sense warrants the flooding of B's land, in any event, nor any act done with the purpose to injure. That would not be the same thing which A was permitted to do. It would be the thing produced by multiplying the given thing (A's act) by a thousand.

An injunction recently issued in the case of the Buck's Stove and Range Company v. The American Federation of Labor et al in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. In this case the principle alluded to was contended for. The injunction which issued did not restrain the many from doing anything which it would be lawful for a single individual to do. The ground for the injunction was the greater injury,

the thing produced by the multiplication of the thing which an individual would not be restrained from doing by a thousand, or in that case by many thousands. The thing restrained in that case was the boycott, which has been defined combination of many to cause a loss to one person by coercing others, against their will, to withdraw from him their beneficial business intercourse, through threats that, unless those others do so, the many will cause serious loss to them."

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A single individual would not be restrained from such an act, but this would be true not because such an act would be lawful if done by him, but because it would be quite impossible for him alone to inflict the injury which at the hands of the many was imminent. The confusion in thought upon this proposition has arisen by not recognizing that the thing which one is allowed to do is an entirely different thing from that which the many are restrained from doing. Is it not true to-day that it is lawful for any number of persons to do any act or thing which if done by one is lawful?

If in answer to this it be urged that when the many are doing the greater injury it is held that any one of the

many may be and sometimes is restrained, the argument but strengthens the one herein made, because it shows that no longer is the act of the one deemed to be lawful, and for the reason that another sound legal principle is brought into use, viz., that an act done by a number of persons in furtherance of a common purpose is in law the act of each. Hence when the single person is found in combination with others the greater injury threatened by all is the act which he is engaged in doing and from the doing of which he is restrained.

We venture the statement that in no case which has been decided would the decision have been different had the proposition that what it is lawful for one to do many may lawfully do been held to be sound.

The difficulty in formulating a legal principle which will refute the statement that it is lawful for any number of persons to do that which if done by one person is lawful probably, we venture to say, grows out of the fact that the statement is, after all, a well-formulated legal principle itself. This suggests that the passage of such a statute as above suggested would be but to enact the present law, and that it would have no effect upon the power of the court to issue injunctions, nor upon the actual practice in injunction cases.

Trial by Jury in Cases of Contempt.

Other bills provide that after an injunction has issued, and it is alleged that A is violating its provisions, he shall have, when such accusation is made against him, a right to trial by jury.

The right to trial by a jury selected from one's fellow citizens is valuable and much revered, and naturally our citizens are much concerned when it is insinuated that they are being deprived of it. It is not, however, and never was intended to be, of universal application to all circumstances. No one would claim that it should be granted to one in the determination of the fact whether A in the presence of the court is interfering with the administration of justice by the court; nor to one who out of the court's presence is persistently trying to wrongfully influence a jury as to what it should do in a case on trial in court, before the court should have the power

to restrain and prevent the misconduct. Trial by jury of questions of fact should be granted wherever it can safely be granted. On the other hand, the whole structure of society, the welfare of the Commonwealth itself, which means the welfare of all and each of her citizens, is only secure when her citizens agree that when the Commonwealth speaks and commands, the voice of the whole people speaks and commands in the interests of the whole and each of her citizens, and that that command must be obeyed. And when that whole power of the Commonwealth, through her courts, her authorized agent in that behalf, after deliberate determination, says to any of her citizens, " Complaint has been made, and I find as a fact that you and others are wrongly interfering with and injuring the legally secured rights of your fellow citizen, and in the name of the Commonwealth you are commanded to refrain from this wrongdoing, as wrong is described in the laws governing you and all our citizens," the person so addressed in the interests of all alike must understand that, whether he will or won't, whether he likes or dislikes, whether he agrees that what the law says is wrong is or is not so, whether it means hardship little or great, he has but one duty and that is to obey.

The person who sets himself, his own likes, whims or interests above the interests of the whole Commonwealth, and by his conduct or words, or both, says, when the Commonwealth has spoken and commanded, "I will not obey," has and should have about the same right to appeal to some other tribunal that the little child has to appeal and ask for trial by other forum, jury or otherwise, when the father of that little child, being convinced that he persistently disobeys his commands, intended for his benefit, takes that little child across his knee to administer punishment. The father may conclude upon evidence presented to him that the child has disobeyed, when the child has not disobeyed. It may have disobeyed from lack of understanding, or for various reasons, showing perhaps that the father should not have inflicted punishment. Far better is it, however, that the child should be sometimes punished when he should not be, than that there should be taken from the father the right to administer punishment

when he finds that disobedience is the bent of the child's conduct. It is better for the father; it is better for the child; it is better for the whole household. When any justice of our courts speaks to any of our citizens and says, "The interest of the community demands it, and I, appointed by the Commonwealth, with the purpose and the power to restrain your wrongdoing, command you that you shall not strike, that yourhand, raised against your fellow shall drop by your side, that you must let him alone in the pursuit of his rights under the laws of the Commonwealth," little harm need be feared from the existence of the power of the court to determine, as it now determines, whether its orders have been disobeyed, and to insist upon obedience.

The only argument which has weight in favor of changing the method of determining whether the terms of an injunction have been violated, is that by reason of the untoward criticisms of the actions of the judges in the granting of injunctions from persons in high and low positions there has been created and fostered a feeling on the part of certain classes of our citizens that the courts are set up against them, and that rights intended to be secured to them by the Constitution and Declaration of Rights are being taken away; and that to add to their rights the right of jury trial, on the question whether they have been guilty of violations of the orders of the courts, for which, if found guilty, they are to be punished, would have a tendency to allay and correct that impression. This argument has much weight; the impression is, however, a false one, and it may well be hoped that discussion of the true relations of the judges to the process of injunctions will stop unjust criticisms of them, and allay this feeling. If wrong is being done, if natural rights of our citizens are being interfered with by the injunctions issued, any change in methods of determining the facts as to the violation of the injunction affords no remedy, will not put a stop to the interference or reduce its extent; it is a mere makeshift. A jury would but honestly determine the facts, and they are so determined now.

Under the present law the court may frame issues for a

jury. In any event, if a jury trial is made compulsory, a bond to secure against further injury should be provided for and required.

Another hardship in the use of injunctions in labor disputes has been pointed out to your committee; namely, that when a labor dispute, either a strike or a lockout, occurs, and following the same it is alleged that the lawful rights of the employer are being violated, and application for injunction is made, and evidence produced that they are being violated by the former employees or those in sympathy with them, an injunction issues restraining all the members of the organization to which the former employee belonged from doing the acts complained of and forbidden by the injunction. That often and generally in such cases the officers of that organiza- · tion, its leading members, and indeed the great majority of its members, are not only themselves refraining from doing any of the acts complained of, but are in all possible ways inducing and persuading all the members of the organization and all others having sympathy with the employees in the dispute from doing any of the acts complained of or restrained. Such persons very naturally say: "Why include us in this restraining order, when you do not restrain the whole world? We are no more tainted than any other citizen by any claim that we are doing any of these acts, and the facts are, we are not doing them, but are doing all that in us lies to see to it that others do not, either." This course of lawful conduct is naturally the trend of the leaders and officers in such organizations, for they well know that a strike is a contention largely before the bar of public opinion, and nothing will hurt their case more than an interference by the courts, which amounts to the public declaration that they are violating the provisions of law. Indeed, it is to be feared that the injunction is often sought by certain employers having little fear of irreparable injury to their property rights, but for the sole purpose of securing from the courts this declaration that the laws are being broken by the strikers. It is easy to say, "What harm does it do those members of such organization, who are not doing any of the wrongful acts