The twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Trade-Union Congress was opened
at Newcastle on Monday. Six hundred delegates were present, and these claim to represent 2,000,000 working men and women in the United Kingdom. Mr. Burt was unanimously named Chairman. The first business of the Congress was to settle the method of voting to be adopted. Last year a system was agreed to under which one vote was to be recorded for every thousand constituents represented by a delegate, and paid for at so much a thousand. Ultimately, though not till after a very disorderly discussion, during which the Chairman was forced to ring his bell as if he were the President• of the French Chamber, this plan, was abandoned, much to the delight of the New Unionists, and voting by a show of hands adopted in its stead. We have• commented on the significance of the decision elsewhere, but may note here that it caused a good deal of ill-feeling. One delegate very pertinently asked " How do we know who are bond-fide delegates ? " The former system gave a certificate of competence to the delegate. The new one reduces the Con- gress in public estimation well-nigh to the level of a public meeting. It is impossible to tell how much or how little value to attach to its resolutions.
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