3 JANUARY 1920, Page 11

As we write on Thursday it is announced that the

Engineering Employers' Federation is to confer with the three Iron-Moulders' Unions which have been on strike since September. The Parlia- mentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress succeeded on Wednesday in settling the local dispute at West Bromwich, where the Iron-Moulders' Unions tried to prevent members of the General Workers' Union from producing rough castings as they had been accustomed to do. It may be presumed, then, that the iron-moulders will agree to a general resumption of work, at West Bromwich and elsewhere, if the employers con- tinue to make that a condition of a fresh resort to arbitration on the question of wages. We comment on the strike elsewhere. It was wholly unjustifiable from the outset, and ought to be ended.