UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 65, 15 September 1908, Page 4

UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN.

The cables last week stated that the Trades Union (Congress in session at Nottingham, had Mr John Burns (President of the Local Government Board) and Messrs Maddison and Vivian (Labour members^ for opposing the Itight -to Work (Unemployed Workmen) ' Bill last session. This Bill wa.s introduced by Mr Whitwell Wilspn.ln, March, last. In the course oFthe Second reading de*bate, Mr J. Ramsay Macdonald (Labour member for Leicester), claimed that the measure: was only an extension of the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905, which gave the unemployed the hopeof State employment. It was a mistake, he said, for the Liberals to fancy they heard the rumble of the timbrjl of socialism. No fateful * result would follow this Laboxir demand, and the cost would not exceed the cost of building one Dreadnought battleship :annually. Mr F. Maddison (Labour member for-,Burn-ley) moved an, amendment, which affirmed that.V the Bill, would' throw more meiuput of work, than it. would assist, and ..would , also '■ destroy the power of organised !Sb6ljr. ... He censured the socialists for telling the people there, was a way; everybody could get work, and advocating the establishment of ruinous/ disastrous land schemes. State control of the lives of the people, he said, must follow the recognition of the. right to work, and that interference no free-dom-loving people would tolerate. Mr V ictor-Grayson (Labour member for Colne Valley) said that if the Government was unable to solve '"-the 1 problem of unemployment it ought to re-' sign. The money heeded* to solvo the problem could be obtained by bursting the bags-of ■ the wealthy,' which were filled with unearned incre-! ment. Mr John Burns, who delivered a vigorous, argumentative speech, repudiated the charge that nothing had been done for the poor. The cry was. everywhere raised that the Government was threatening the monopolies of tbe rich and exalting fustian and corduroy at the expense of the tall hat and frock hat. There was no other country in the world where so much was spent on the relief of the poor, or where the people interested themselves so wholeheartedly to assist the indigent. Few of the local-authorities desired the powers the Bill conferred. He was confident that such legislation was a delusion and 'a snare. On. a division the motion for the second reading was defeated by 265 votes to 116. The amendment was carried by 241 to 95.