THE TRADE-UNION CONGRESS.
MORE than usual interest has been attached by the public to this year's meeting of the Trade-Union Congress, partly on account of the numerous labour disturbances occurring all over the country, and partly because of the effect of the Osborne judgment upon the fortunes of the Labour Party. It so happens, however, that the Congress had, as usual, a large mass of more or less routine business to go through, and this occupied the greater part of its time, if not of its thoughts. At a very early stage of the proceedings the Congress deliberately abstained, on the appeal of Mr. O'Grady, from passing any resolution with regard to the lock-out in the shipbuilding industry. This was as creditable to the members of the Congress as to Mr. O'Grady, whose tactful appeal for non- intervention met with immediate response. In the same spirit Mr. Haslam in his presidential address laid stress upon the importance of loyalty and discipline throughout the Trade-Union movement, and upon the supreme necessity of adhering to agreements that had been made. Here of course we have the views of leaders, who by their experience have been able to learn the value of dis- cipline, and who from their position of authority are naturally anxious to see it maintained. The trouble is that they have to deal with large bodies of men whose sense of discipline is insufficiently developed, and who apparently are almost as mistrustful of their own leaders as they are of their employers.
Apart from these references, the question of labour unrest has occupied very little of the attention of the Trade-Union Congress. On the other hand, the Osborne judgment seems to have filled the minds of members almost to the exclusion of every other topic. It was dealt with in a public demonstration on the Saturday before the Congress met, and it was referred to at length in the presidential address and in the Report of the Parliamentary Committee to the Congress. Further references were made on succeeding days ; but it was only on the fourth day that the Congress was able formally to declare itself in favour of a reversal of the judgment. This delay at arriving at a decision must not be taken as implying any lack of determination. The Trade-Union Congress, like the rest of the machinery of the Trade- Unions, has been almost completely captured by the Socialists, and however indifferent the mass of Trade- Unionists may be to the fortunes of the Labour Party, that party through its control of the machine is able to assert its will.
We cannot help thinking, however, that the Socialists, even from their own point of view, would have been better' advised if they had abstained from imputing dishonest motives to other people. In the Report of the Parlia- mentary Committee the Judges who tried the Osborne case are deliberately accused of subordinating the law to their political prejudices. The passage is worth quoting as an illustration of the mental attitude of the Socialists who control the Congress :—" Labour has experienced through the Courts of Law—and by no means for the first time—one of those periodical attacks which it is accus- tomed to receive from those whose duty it is to hold the scales of justice evenly, the decision in the Osborne case being an undisguised attack upon the hitherto unchal- lenged right of the Trade-Unionist to engage in political work and to send forward and maintain representatives in Parliament."
- It will be observed that the Parliamentary Committee here lays stress, as other supporters of the Labour Party -have done, _urn the -fact that for a considerable period Trade-Unions did maintain Parliamentary representatives without criticism or opposition. What is skilfully ignored is the further fact that opposition was raised to this practice within the Trade-Union ranks the moment it became clear that the so-called Labour representatives were no longer necessarily the spokesmen of the Trade- Unions, but were the servants of a political party. The attempt to treat the interests of Trade-Unionists as identical with those of the Labour Party is absurd in view of the small amount of interest which the immense majority of Trade-Unionists admittedly display in the Labour Party. Mr. Pointer, M.P., one of the members of that party, in a speech in Sheffield before the meeting of the Congress roundly abused the working classes for their indifference upon the matters at issue, and stated that in his own Trade-Union, the Associated Pattern Makers' Society, when the question of affiliation with the Labour Party was submitted to a ballot only one quarter of the members troubled to record their votes one way or the other. Further interesting details with regard to the attitude of Trade-Unionists towards the Labour Party are given by a writer in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph. He states that when a ballot was taken of the Steam Engine Makers' Society on the question of affiliation with the Labour Party, out of 14,000 members only 1,664 voted in favour, while 1,126 voted against. With regard to the Pattern Makers' Society, the writer in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph gives the following precise figures : out of 7,000 members, 1,011 voted for affiliation and 584 voted against. He adds the interesting piece of information that this Society has been for twelve months making a special effort to raise £400 by voluntary con- tributions to pay off a debt incurred in connexion with political work, but has only succeeded in raising £42. An even more striking illustration of the reluctance of the Trade-Unionist to subscribe for political purposes, when he is left free, is furnished by an important branch of the Northumberland Miners' Union, which in response to an appeal from the Labour Party for a " sixpenny voluntary fund," has contributed two sixpences. It is this complete failure to collect money voluntarily which makes the members of the Labour Party attach such immense importance to obtaining a reversal of the Osborne judgment so that they may be able to compel Trade-Unionists to contribute to the support of their party. In order to provide even a plausible excuse for such a proposition they are forced to argue that the Labour Party and the Trade-Union movement are identical, but they themselves on other occasions frankly admit that the two are distinct. Thus Mr. Shackleton at this week's Congress strongly opposed a resolution for the combination into one body of the Labour Party, the Trade-Union Congress, and the Federa- tion of Trade-Unions, his argument being that " in negotiations with successive Governments it had been found a, decided advantage that a distinctive Trade-Union element should be able to approach them, apart altogether from the political Labour Party organisation." Yet Mr. Shackleton is one of the men who demand that this separate political organisation should have power to use Trade-Union funds for its benefit. Mr. Keir Hardie a few years ago was even more explicit, for when the Labour Party was being organised he stated in a speech at Swansea that " Labour representation meant more than returning men to the House of Commons. It was a means to an end, and that end was not Trade-Unionism, but Socialism."
The real question, then, at issue is whether the Trade- Unions should have power to use the funds subscribed by their members for the benefit of a, political party whose aims are avowedly not conterminous with those of Trade- Unionism. The claim of the members of the Labour Party is that the majority has a right to rule. That is a claim frequently put forward in the name of democracy by people who have failed to realise that democracy to be successful must respect liberty. There are limits to the moral rights of a majority as there are to the dictatorship of a tyrant, and these limits are overstepped when the voting majority of a Trade-Union claims to coerce the minority in matters which are not essential to the particular Union. To contend that the maintenance of the present Labour Party in the House of Commons is essential either to any particular Trade-Union or to the Trade-Union movement generally is an obvious absurdity, for Trade-Unions existed and flourished for three-quarters of a century before the Labour Party came into being. It is there- fore impossible to argue that every Trade-Unionist is bound to obey the decree of the majority of his Society with regard to the expenditure of his money upon the maintenance of the Labour Party. To impose such an obligation upon him is a gross violation of liberty, and, as the Court of Appeal pointed out, strikes at the very root of representative govern- ment. Before that Court the counsel who defended the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants were com- pelled in the course of the argument to admit that if their claim could be upheld, it would become legal for an employer to make it a condition of employment that his work-people should subscribe to a particular political party. We should thus have this gross absurdity : a workman might be compelled by his Trade-Union to subscribe to the Labour Party, and compelled by his employer to subscribe to the Conservative Party, while his own desire was to support the Liberal Party. The truth is that the country is now face to face with a well-engineered conspiracy on the part of the Socialists to lay hold upon Trade-Union funds and use them solely for the advancement of Socialism. If such an attempt had been made either by Liberals or by Conservatives, it would instantly have been universally denounced ; but unfor- tunately there appear to be a good many people unable to appreciate the fact that tyranny still remains tyranny in whatever interest it is exercised.
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