20 MAY 1922, Page 3

Sir William Maokenzie's inquiry into the engineering dispute, though at

first apparently fruitless, has had the effect of inducing the parties to meet once again and try to compose their differ- ences. The Amalgamated Engineering Union. agreed to sot

with the forty-seven other unions concerned, and delegates representing all the unions began to confer with representatives of the employers' federations on Tuesday. We earnestly trust that this fresh opportunity of making peace will not he wasted. So far as the public are concerned, no new fact has emerged in the course of the long wrangling. The skilled engineers have been locked out for ten weeks on issues that are no more and no less urgent now than they have been for the past ten years.