Thus in matters of _capital_: is the _first_ intent, the _immediate_ object, to increase profits, to acquire or enjoy property, to enlarge one's business,[1] or is the _first_ intention to destroy a competitor or create a monopoly? So in _labor_ combinations: is the _first_ object to get better terms for the persons combining, an increase of wages or a reduction of hours, improved conditions in factories and shops, etc., etc., or is the _first_ thing they are seeking to do to injure a third person, not concerned in the dispute, or to control the liberty and constitutional right of the employer himself? If the latter, it is "oppression" within the meaning of the early common law, and should be so held to-day. [Footnote 1: What Mr. Cooke calls, in his preface, "the natural incident or outgrowth of some lawful relation." _Combination, Monopolies and Labor Unions_, p. iv.] And not only is this great domain of English law noteworthy because it is so subtle as to grasp the effect of a combination other than that of the individual acts, and the intent of that combination other than its effect, but it is perhaps the only great realm of law which really attempts to carry out the principle of the Golden Rule. In all other matters, if an act be lawful, it remains lawful, although done with the intent of injuring another; it does not usually even give rise to an action for damages; but the great principle of the English law of conspiracy was crystallized two hundred years ago in the classic phrase of Hawkins, in his "Pleas of the Crown," vol. II, p. 121: "There is no doubt that a combination made to the prejudice of a third person is highly criminal at the common law."[1] The usual definition of conspiracy, that is, of unlawful combination, is a combination made for an unlawful purpose or for a lawful purpose using unlawful means; this is to be found in all the text-books; but it should be amplified in accordance with our earliest and deepest law so as to include a combination for the mere purpose of injuring another, or molesting him or controlling him in the exercise of his ordinary lawful rights; and _a fortiori_--as of combinations to enhance the price of food--to injure the public. It is for this reason that the combination of many to diminish the trade of one is an unlawful combination; the combination may be punished although all the acts done are within the letter of the law; and when the conspiracy is evidenced by unlawful acts, the conspiracy may be punished far more severely than the acts could have been punished themselves. We have noted that one of the great attempts of organized labor to-day is to do away with this principle, to provide that no combination should be punished when the acts committed are not punishable in themselves, and that in fact it should be the acts and not the combination which is punishable at all. This, it is true, was enacted by the English Conspiracy and Protection