On Tuesday the Joint Conference between representa ,- tives of the
employers and the operatives. opened,' and after sitting -for an hour • and three-quarters adjourned apparently for a fortnight. The employers said that there was a definite understanding that a jeint agreed statement on the sitting should be supplied to the Press:: Mr. J. Bell, the Sccretary of the Weavers' AsSoeiation, however, gave to the Press a statement 'exclusively from the- men's point of view. This was to the effect. that at. the conference the operatives had complained that the' employers' proposals were all indefinite, except those 'iv.; relation to wages and hours. The operatives had refusedo to consider an increase of hours or a decrease of wages, but had offered to co-operate with the employers in tracing the- causes of the present condition of the industry; and in any effort to improve trade. In partichlar, the operatives had proposed that the Government should' be asked to set up a Statutory Committee to examine: the exact composition of the "cost -of' production." • •
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