way, and the proposed new rules, as put forward by the manufacturers, expressly reverse the previous mode of working. We have this also, that the previous statement was a statement agreed to between the Manufacturers' Association and the Bootmakers' Union, the conference which followed the statement was between the Association and the Union, and the dispute now before the Court is between the Association and the Union. It is only by means of Unions that labour can take advantage of the Act. Under these circumstances, it seems to me not unreasonable that the Union should stipulate for special privileges to its members. The Union are fighting the battle, and it is fair that they should say that the results of the victory, so far as it is a victory, and has any beneficial results, should accrue to them, at any rate in the first instance. They fight {290} the battle for their members, and not for the sake of outside labour. Under these circumstances it appears to me that it is quite reasonable that the members of the Union should have preference in employment; that members of the Union who are competent should not have to wait about while non-members of the Union are employed in the shops of the Boot Manufacturers' Association. The Court, therefore, has modified Rules 1 and 2 in this direction. I need hardly say that each case to be decided under this Act must depend on the particular circumstances attaching to it; that no one case can be treated as a precedent to any future case, and that because under the particular circumstances of a particular case, this Court has decided as it has decided, that is no reason why, under different or varying circumstances, a similar decision ought to be come to. The Court in coming to its decision, takes into consideration not general principles so much as the special circumstances of each particular case." The award, which modified the regulations on the lines laid down by the Court, is regarded as a great triumph by Trade Unionists, who are, not unnaturally, inclined to apply it as a precedent to all organised trades.