THE TRADE UNION CONGRESS.
FROM the journalistic point of view, the most important feature of the Trade Union Congress at Bristol was the unanimous vote against compulsory service. We have written on this subject in our " News of the Week." Leaving this matter aside, let us turn to some of the other issues raised at Bristol. In order to appreciate the line taken by the Congress, it must be recognized that a Trade Union Congress is essentially a professional body concerned with the professional interests of the persons represented by it. No one would expect a Congress of lawyers to set aside the pecuniary interests of the pro- fession, and it would be equally absurd to expect a Congress of manual workers to forget, even in time of war, the pecuniary interests of weekly wage earners. In both cases, however, the nation has a right to demandthat professional interests should be subordinated to national interests. There is, unfortunately, but little indication in the pro- ceedings at Bristol that any large section of the wage- earning classes is willing to agree to this subordination. No doubt it is true, as claimed in some of the speeches made, that the enormous majority of Englishmen and Scotsmen actually fighting in Flanders or at the Dar- danelles to-day are Trade Unionists. It is also true that an immense number of Trade Unionists have been working week in and week out for many months past steadily and unremittingly in producing munitions of war or doing other necessary national work. It is true, again, that most of the speeches on the war delivered at the Congress were animated by a genuine patriotic spirit. In spite of these facts, it remains true that Trade Unionists as an official body have shown during the present grave crisis in their country's history a much greater spirit of class consciousness than of national consciousness, and in this respect they do in the main present a contrast to some other classes in the community.
This is the most disquieting feature of the whole labour situation. Of necessity the manual workers as a body must command an immense, and finally a determining, influence upon the Government of their country, and the outlook is very grave indeed if they adopt the policy of putting their class interests first. This whole attitude appears to have its origin in the direct teaching of Socialist agitators, many of whom are avowedly internationalists by conviction, and all of whom are obsessed with the idea of class warfare. Their theory is that manual workers constitute a, race apart, oppressed by a. minority of well-to- do persons, who with much -cunning have succeeded in obtaining sufficient physical force, represented by police- men and paid soldiers, to keep the mass of the nation in subjection. The only beginning of a justification of this theory is to be found in the fact that in practice the child born of a working-class family has much less chance of a good time in life than the child born of a well-to-do family. Men undoubtedly do rise from the lowest ranks to the highest position, but it is not very easy, and in practice it is rare. To that extent the Trade Union theory of a small upper class and a large lower class is true. But when we louk a little deeper we see that this primary division is far loss important to the masses of the population than the multitude of secondary divisions which have partly been created by Trade Unionism itself, and are certainly main- tained by it. Even at the present moment many of the Trade Unions, while professing to act in the interests of wage-earners as a body, are in effect acting solely in the interests of a small minority of skilled workers. The main conflict between the nation and Trade Unionism at the present time turns upon the question of the professional interests of certain limited groups of skilled workmen, such as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. That Society is not only still continuing—as Mr. Lloyd George's telegram to Mr. Seddon clearly indicates—to limit the output of each individual workman, but is also opposing the utilization of unskilled workpeople, male or female, for work which has hitherto been arbi- trarily classified as skilled. In other words, the aristocrats of labour are using their professional power to crush the democracy of labour. Though the general public is not aware of the fact, there is an enormous amount of humbug in the distinction between skilled and unskilled labour. A great deal of the labour of minding machines which the Amalgamated Society of Engineers insists must be done by skilled men could perfectly well be done by unskilled men or women. It would clearly be an advantage to the great mass of unskilled labourers to be admitted to the opportunity of doing this work. Their whole status would be raised thereby, for the technically unskilled labour market would at once be relieved, with the result that the lowest grades of labour would be able to command a higher wage. There is no change more desirable in our social system. than this. Men employed as agricultural labourers or in other work classified as unskilled can rarely command a wage of more than 18s. to 20s. a week, and in many cases have to be content with much less. Yet as long as aristocrats of labour like the A.S.E. maintain their exclusive policy it is very difficult indeed to find fresh outlets for men whom fate has condemned to the ranks of unskilled labour. When this great fact is realized the public can see that behind the professed enthusiasm of Socialists for the cause of humanity as a whole there is little more than crude professional selfishness. Nor has such a great event as the war, so far as can be gathered, to any appreciable extent changed this purely professional attitude of the skilled manual worker. His spokesmen do, indeed, pretend. that he is only maintaining his restrictive regulations because he does not wish private employers to make large profits out of his increased output of work. In reply, it might fairly be argued that, even if the employer made excessive profits, it would still be the duty of the workmen to increase the output of those goods which are essential to success in warfare. A soldier in the trenches never pauses to argue whether he or his officer will get the greater advantage from his heroism ; he fights because it is his duty to fight. But a good many Trade Unionists have not yet grasped the fact that on them also at this crisis rests a national duty to work.
Waiving that point, however, Mr. Lloyd George, in the telegram above referred to, showed that on the facts of the case the Trade Unionists are wrong. He stated that in seven hundred and fourteen establishments engaged in making munitions of war profits are already controlled, so that the particular danger which obsesses the Trade Unionist is no longer to be feared in these establish- ments. Yet there is no evidence that even here the Trade Unionists have in fact abandoned their restrictive regula- tions. It is worth while to add that the conception of controlled establishments raises new difficulties, the solution of which no one has yet been able to discover. A firm which, from patriotic or other motives, devotes its establishment to the production of munitions of war may become controlled, and lose the possibility of making any appreciable profit. Another firm which carries on work equally important to the nation, but not coming under the technical rules of the Munitions Act, may pile up immense profits. Indeed, the anomalies are so absurd that the mining industry, where the workmen accuse the masters of making exorbitant profits, has been exempted from the • operation of the Munitions Act by the action of the workmen themselves. It is because the miners refused to have their labour controlled by Act of Parliament that the mine- owners are free from a control of their profits. The truth of the matter is that these economic problems can never be settled by economic forces alone ; moral forces must also be called into being. But vote-catching politicians and the more irresponsible Trade Union leaders both tend to base their appeals to working men upon self-interest alone.
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