The Trades-Union Congress is very angry that the Lords should
have preserved workmen's right of contracting them- selves out of the Employers' Liability Bill. Their Parlia- mentary Committee issued on Tuesday a manifesto in which they declare that the contracting-out clause renders the Bill virtually worthless, and that it is the work of a body of "irre- sponsible legislators who have rendered insecure your lives and limbs when toiling from day to day to enrich them and. the nation." They ask of what use, under these circumstances,. is the right to vote, when "a privileged class can make a mockery of the most extended franchise " ? If the Lords are thus to thwart the vote of the constituencies, the House of Commons should be dismissed as "an effete institution." The workmen are therefore urged to demonstrate in London on March 17th. The fury of the Trades-Unions is perhaps natural; for they are afraid of masters and men coming to harmonious agreements, independent of them ; but the differ- ence between their language and their grievance is most note- worthy. All the Lords have done is to allow the men, if they think the masters can insure them better than the State will, to accept the offer. In vengeance for this liberty, the Con- stitution is to be revolutionised.
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