7 SEPTEMBER 1918, Page 3

The fiftieth Trades Union Congress, which met at Derby on

Monday, began its business by sending its hearty congratulations to the Navy, Army and Air Force on their magnificent courage and devotion. There spoke the true voice of Labour. If Mr. Ogden, the President, devoted his address mainly to the Utopian idea of reaching peace by way of an International Labour Conference, where everyone could talk while nobody would be bound to accept the decisions of the majority, we may fairly suppose that he was trying to prevent the widening of the breach between the Patriots and the Pacificists in the British Labour party. He deprecated the proposal to form a distinctive Trade Union Labour party which would not be used as a Pacificist tool by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is the interests of his " German friends." But Mr. Ogden must be conscious of the danger that genuine trade union representatives are running when they have bracketed with them as approved " Labour" candidates some of the most violent members of the infinitesimal Pacificist minority. The unity of the party will not bear this strain.