It is significant that Mr. Brownlie should have made an
urgent appeal to the unionist engineers to vote for peace. He pointed out on Monday that, while the York conference did not expressly approve of the employers' terms, it rejected a motion condemning them. Mr. Brownlie emphasized the value of the concession by which the employers agreed to give ten days' notice of any change in working conditions. The terms, he said, might be distasteful, but were mild as compared with those imposed at the end of the great lock-out-of 1897-98. The union had then appeared to be threatened with ruin, but it had in fact gained more since then by the new procedure for avoiding disputes than it had won by " drastic action " during the preceding quarter of a century. What Mr. Brownlie says is, of course, perfectly true.
Previous page
