The industrial unrest continues to be acute. By the ballot
of the Boilermakers' Society, declared yesterday week, the executive were denied the power to grant the assurances demanded by the employers. At the same time, they were empowered to summon a meeting of representa- tives invested with plenary powers,—i.e., authorised to grant such assurances. Since then the Standing Joint Committee of the Unions who are parties to the National Agree- ment have been in communication with the Employers' Federation, and it was announced on Wednesday-night that the request for a Conference at an early date had been granted on certain conditions. The dispute in the cotton trade, though menacing in its outlook, appears to have arisen—like the North-Eastern Railway troubles—out of the dismissal of a single workman for refusing to perform work which he con- tended formed no part of his duties. The operatives have refused to submit the points in dispute to arbitration, and this refusal has led to the threat of a lock-out. Each side charges the other with breaches of the Brooklands Agreement ; but while the employers suggest that the points at issue should be referred to Mr. Askwith, of the Board of Trade, along with the two firms of solicitors who drew up the Agreement, the operatives ask the employers to accept their reading of it.
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