Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 20 March 1903
Leeds Assizes
The Intimidation Cases at Leeds
The winter Assizes for the West Riding opened at the Town Hall, Leeds, on Monday, Sir Edward Ridley taking the business of the Nisi Prius Court, and Mr. A. T. Lawrence, K.C., Commissioner of Assize, sitting in the Crown Court.
The Denaby Charges
Mr. Commissioner Lawrence, in charging the Grand Jury, referred to the alleged intimidation at Denaby in the following words.
Two cases of intimidation would be laid before them arising out of the Denaby Main strike. They had been sent by the justices to the Assizes, instead of to the Quarter Sessions, and, he thought, under the circumstances they had been well advised in doing so, because the strike had lasted a very long time, and there appeared to be a state of—he would not say intimidation, because that begged the question—but at a rate of disorder and desire to affect the minds of those persons who were disposed to go to work, which at least deserved very careful attention on the part of the tribunals which had to deal with offences of that sort.
In the case of the prisoner Nolan, charged with intimidation, prisoner, with a number of men, appeared to have assembled near the offices of the colliery, and when two men left the office, and were apparently on their way to work at the colliery, Nolan stepped forward, harangued the two men a paper, and got into conversation with them. The only parts of that conversation which were deposed to by the witnesses were that it was “a hot and dangerous job, it is not safe.” Whether that was the only thing he said was doubtful, but, at any rate, as a result, the two men went back, and did not go to work at the colliery.
If they were dissuaded by the watching and besetting of the crowd, led by Nolan, there was no doubt there would be a case, subject only to this, that if all that Nolan did was to give these men information upon which they acted to their own interest—if they thought it was a hot and dangerous job—then, as he had said, that there had been in November fires at the pit, and if Nolan’s remark was a mere allusion to that, and was information which the two men acted on in their own interest, then Nolan would not be guilty of the crime of intimidation; but if, by the words “a hot and dangerous job,” he meant to indicate that it was a job that would not be safe to take up for other reasons, then a very different aspect would be thrown on the case.
The Real Question
The real question seemed to be which of the two views was the correct one. Those matters, and the way in which workmen were disposed to regard their rights on strike, were serious. It was not serious in the sense that the law ought to be pressed against cases which could be legitimately defended, but serious in those cases in which force, violence, and coercion were used against workmen who desired to work. The perfect freedom and independence of the individual, in doing that which was lawful in his own interests, was a matter which should be well preserved by grand juries and petty juries alike.
Another case arising out of the same strike was that in which three men, named Croft, Staniforth, and Parker, were charged with compelling persons to abstain from lawful acts and following through the streets in an unlawful manner.
Work had been resumed at the colliery by a certain number of the workmen, but there were still a large number of men on strike. On Feb. 23rd there were 30 or 40 workmen in the colliery yard about to leave to go home, when a procession, variously estimated at from 1200 to 1500 men, led by the prisoner Croft, came from the Mexboro’ direction, and took up a position which the men, leaving the colliery under an escort of police, had to pass.
Croft, on the approach of the men, threw up his arms, and made signals to the crowd, who hooted the workmen on their way home. The crowd became more disorderly in its demeanour, and the case was one in which, doubtless, the grand jury would think it was their duty to find a true bill.