On Thursday week the delegates of the National Miners' Federation
unanimously decided to oppose the Military Service Bill. The delegates took this decision in virtue of their voting, which had gone as follows :—For the Bill, 38,100 ; against, 653,190; neutral, 25,240. The Executive Committee of thc- Federation was then empowered to call another meeting to decide on a course of action in the event of the Bill becoming law. The proposal that a strike should be threatened was abandoned. By the time the Bill becomes law, we suspect, the Executive Committee will have discovered that they cannot take the utterly undemocratic course of opposing the will of the people, and that there are few things more misleading than a card-vote by Trade Union delegates each of whom is supposed to represent the will of thousands. The Notts delegates had taken the precaution of fortifying themselves with a plebiscite, with the natural result that they distinguished themselves by voting in a solid body for the BilL
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