Mr. W.V. Osborne, the secretary of the Trade-Union Political Freedom
League, whose name has become well known through the Osborne judgment, has an excellent letter in the Times of Thursday. At the Trade-Union Congress Mr. Haslam said that "every member of a Trade-Union ought to have known, if he did not know, that Parliamentary representation was part and parcel of the work of their Union." In answer to this Mr. Osborne says :—" I joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in 1892, and at that time politics were forbidden in the branches. New members were obtained on the strict understanding that our Union was wholly in- -dependent of political and religious questions. Our rules contained no reference to political action until after 1900, and the experience of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in these matters has been the experience of the -overwhelming number of Trade-Unions. In some societies fines were inflicted on members who introduced political or religious subjects into the discussions."
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