19 JULY 1919, Page 3

A satisfactory sign that- with British workers sobriety, of thought

is always -ready to cure the hot fit was -given at the . Keswick Conference- of the Miners'- Federation on Wednesday. The preposterous proposal that a strike might be declared by the Executive without• a ballot was heavily defeated, and.nobody spoke more strongly or- ably against it than Mr. Brace. How• any one who--thinks-:it worth while to call himself a democrat-. could- have voted for • such a resolution we cannot imagine. It proposed-to -put the-most arbitrary power into the hands, of a few • persons, and entirely, to ignore • the wishes of the mass: Among another. class of persons- suck-an idea would have been called an example - of intolerable- aristocratic arrogance, and it would have richly deserved- that reproach.