20 DECEMBER 1919, Page 3

More important was the statement made by Mr. Bradshaw, representing

the building trades operatives, who, when the trade was appealed to by Mr. Lloyd George to further a scheme which after all was intended purely to benefit manual workers, replied that if guarantees against being out of work could be given there might be " something doing," but that on no account would they permit " a dilution of labour." This is surely a direst admission that output is being systematically restricted. We wonder whether the workers involved realize how exactly they are playing the game of the subversivists, who always oppose amelioration in the name of Utopia.