ABSTRACT
In 1901 the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Taff Vale Railway Company which had sued the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for losses incurred during a strike. The judgement, by thus placing union funds in jeopardy, enabled Ramsay MacDonald to persuade unions to affiliate to the Labour Representation Committee, of which he was secretary, which had been set up in the previous year in order to create an independent Labour force in parliament. By failing to introduce legislation to reverse the judgement the Conservatives alienated the working-class vote in the 1906 general election. Conversely, the Campbell-Bannerman government helped cement its cordial relations with organized labour by means of the 1906 Trade Disputes Act.
