CONSERVATIVE TRADES UNIONISM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 102, 29 April 1908, Page 6

CONSERVATIVE TRADES UNIONISM.

While, in England the last meeting, of the~Labour party showed us that' Socialistic theories were readily adopted, an opposite movement among French and German labourers is:beginning.to cause great anxiety to the leaders of the" SocialDemocratic party and' to be the special target of their attacks. As a nickname these new organizations that are recruited from the best part of the labouring classes have received the designation of "Yellow Trades Unions." The origin of this name goes" back to the extensive strikes in the French' mining districts of Monceau les Mines and in the manufactories at'Cruezot in 1901. Then it came to a split among the workmen. Those not any more inclined to" obey the terroristleaders held meetings of their own- in closed-rooms. Their adversaries assembled outside these buildings and smashed the windows, so as to be able to hear what was said inside and to interrupt the proceedings by yelling shouts. Promptly the disturbed audience pasted yellow paper over the window frames and glass fragments. From the colour of this protective paper the whole movement received its name.

In reality the antagonism covered by this name is well denned and full of meaning. The more sensible workmen refuse to admit the principle of an eternal class struggle based upon absolute enmity against every employer, a principle that has been laid down as the very essence of trade unionism at the last party meetings of international Social-Democracy. In France already 439 trades unions seceded from the Workmen's Federation and agreed, at their third congress, held in Paris from April 11 to 14, 1907, on a new programme of ten articles, from which we quote the third: "Rejection of all strikes that have not an exclusively professional character and that are not j necessitated by the proved obstinacy of I the employers concerned."

Even now, in the seventh year of its existence, the French workmen's organization bound to the new programme is estimated to comprehend not less than 600,000 industrial labourers.

A similar movement is also spreading in Germany for the last two years. It took its origin at Augsburg in some of the larger manufactories, and has since found acceptance among the miners of the Saar district and among the mill hands in- Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Gcra, Crimmitschau and Nuremberg. A number of mill-owners have readily contributed to the funds of such unions that were limited to their own concern, by either supporting the welfare institutions newly created or by defraying the expenses of popular lectures on scientific subjects. The. consequence is the limitation of many new associations to the workmen of certain large establishments, such as the hands in the Krupp's Grusonwerk at Madgeburg, the factory workmen and girls of the Sie-mens-Schuckert works at Nuremberg and the employees of the firm of Ludwig Loewe and Co. in Berlin. Only recently the wider type of trade unionism is represented in the German "yellow" movement. Thus the "Free Union of German Metal Workers," "The Building Trades Union of Greater Berlin and its surroundings" and the "Federation of the Assistant Bakers and Confectioners of Germany" are of wider compass.

Quite recently all the "yellow" trade unions were brought together in the "Alliance of Patriotic Workmen's Unions." " "In the ' somewhat lengthy rules and by-laws of this organization the antagonism against "Social Democracy with its political and economical fallacies" is expressly pointed out. The new organization strives at a bettering of workmen's wages and the conditions of labour by all possible means, "but in direct opposition to the theory of class hatred and class struggle." As their principal weapons the leaders propose j peaceable negotiations between employers and employed; petitions to the supervising authorities created by the factory laws, and to the Parliaments and Governments in Germany; representatives watching the decisions of the Social Insurance Ofßce in Berlin; popular lectures on all observable changes in the economic affairs and in the condition of the breadwinners. By a newspaper of its own the organization will supply to every individual member a regular survey of itlatest doings.—Continental Correspondence.