The Morning Post of Monday drew attention to the rule,
adopted at the instance of Socialist co-operators, that the Co-operative Wholesale Society should compel all its employees, on pain of dismissal, to join trade unions. The Morning Post contrasted with this rule the action of the Bishop Auckland and Wallsend Co-operative Societies in refusing to recognize the union to which their former employees belonged. These societies, it seems, are managed by miners' leaders who, though themselves trade unionists, decline to accord similar rights to those in their employ. A railwayman, describing them in the Railway Review, said that they " out-Heroded Herod in the ways of the capitalist." The employees had to accept the reduced wages offered them or go. " The Society promptly filled their places with blacklegs, and the committee of manage- ment, led by their President, who is a responsible Northumber- land miners' official, have refused to meet•the union." It must be interesting for the dismissed employees to hear that miners' official denouncing the tyrannical coalowners.
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