25 DECEMBER 1926, Page 3

In a letter of good wishes to Mr. Marshall Pike,

the Unionist candidate, Mr. Baldwin said that the Communists must be prevented from misusing the power of the trade unions for wicked ends. " We have no intention of destroying trade unionism or of weakening it," he wrote; " trade unions exist largely as the result of the work of the Conservative Party. We are certainly not going to kill our own creation. What we shall do will be to strengthen the movement ; to give it protection from those who are using it for their own purposes." In this connexion we may mention a statement which that very careful and shrewd observer, Dr. Arthur Sliadwell, has made in the Times. He says that there arc signs of a reaction among the wage-earners against the Labour policy of the General Strike and the coal dispute, but he adds that this reaction will not itself produce peace in industry unless the whole course of the settlement is competently guided with good will on both sides. This is a challenge to employers as well as to the_ wage-earners which ought not to be ignored.