The London building operatives have given four months' notice to
terminate the wages agreement which they made in February. Under the agreement skilled workmen are to receive 2s. Oed. an hour andlabourers le. 9d. anhour nom May 1st. The builders' Union now proposes that these rates shall be increased by a shilling an hour. The cost of labour will thus be increased by half, and all the estimates for new housing schemes will he upset. The prospect of obtaining new cottages even for fifteen shillings a. week grows faint, and it is not easy to see how ordinary working men who are not miners can afford to pay still higher rents. If the builders insist on their new demand, they may fairly be asked in return to abandon their, veto on the employ- ment of ex-soldiers, which is wholly indefensible. There is so much building to do that the Unionist brinklayers will be fully employed forrnany years to come, even if the industry is re. inbreed by the exesoldiers who are seeking in vain for work.
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