The political strike threatened by the Miners' Federation is by
no means the only dispute which is checking the revival of industry and the reduction of the cost of living. The engin- eering trades are again threatened with unemployment through the violent tactics of one union. Last year it was the moulders who held up the industry ; this time it is the Electrical Trades Union, who authorized a strike at Penistone because Messrs. Cammell, Laird, and Co. declined to dismiss a foreman who had ceased to be a member of the union. The other engineering trades unions, who do not insist that foremen—the employer's agents—shall be subject to their orders, tried to mediate on Thursday week between the Engineering Employer's' Federation and the Electrical Trades Union, but they failed. Thereupon the Employers' Federation locked out two thousand members of the Electrical Trades Union. The Minister of Labour on Monday appointed a court of inquiry and advised the electricians on strike to resume work and the employers to suspend the lock-out notices. The electricians professed a readiness to return to work, but the employers did not withdraw their notioes. A sharp interchange at the Trade Union Congress on Tuesday between an electricians' delegate and a Workers' Union delegate showed that the arbitrary action of the electricians is much resented by the engineering employees.
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