As we write, the question of a strike in the
building trade hangs in the balance. Most unfortunately the facts have been very inadequately set forth in the Press and we therefore cannot, pending the decision, say exactly what the masters are asking or the men are refusing. A very important statement was, however, made by Mr. Coppock, secretary of the National Federa- tion of Building Trades Operatives, in Monday's Evening Standard. With regard to the current belief that brick- layers are forbidden by union rules to lay more than half as many bricks daily as they might do he says that " there are no such rules, and there is no enforced limitation." This assertion that no limitation of output by the workers is suggested or sanctioned by the Unions is very important. We should like to see not only " issue joined," but an impartial arbitrator appointed to hear the evidence and give a public decision. We do not want to fight in the dark, and if no restriction is encouraged by the Unions, then unquestionably a great deal of the employers' case falls to the ground, and still more our case, which is that, by the limitation of output, the members of the building trade are de- priving British working men of what is the next most important thing to cheap food—cheap housing and good housing.
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