In answer to Mr. Haslam's assertion that no Trade-Union has
embarked on political representation without taking a ballot of its members, and generally getting an overwhelming majority in favour of that course, Mr. Osborne says :—" The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants has only taken two votes on the question,—in 1902, when there were 54,443 members in the Society, and only 14,239 voted in favour ; and again in 1905, when there were 54,928 members, and only 21,713 voted in favour of representation, and this notwith- standing that the papers were so drawn that it was impossible to vote against the hated Socialist alliance without voting against all representation." In our leading article on Sr The Trade-Union Congress " we have given some other examples of the indifference of working men to political representation. It is quite time that working men who value -their Unions, as they have very good reason to do, should wake up to one thing,—the need of saving them from the socialistic oligarchy.
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