The Annual Conference of the Miners' Federation met at Southport
on Monday. Mr. Herbert Smith, the President, mentioned, without giving figures, the loss of members and urged the unions to work for complete membership in the districts. He declared that the district arrangements were sources of weakness and that uniformity ought to be sought throughout the :country. He demanded again that miners should participate in the profits earned by the working of by- products of coal. We have never understood what share of those profits the miners suggest should go to the workers in the coking and other plants. He ended .his opening address with a political declamation against the Trade Unions Act and the proposals for the House of Lords Reform, and said that he had always striven for constitutional action, but that workers might be driven to unconstitutional methods " if monopoly and .privilege declare that the essential public safeguards of the Parliament Act are to be destroyed." On Tuesday nationalization was advocated. Mr. Cook's contribution was in effect that nationalization means for him syndi- calism, for he said that ownership without control by the workers would be futile.
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