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Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17606, 8 November 1922, Page 8

British Trade Unionism. As a cable message indicated at the time, there was a striking difference between the tone of the presidential address at the opening, at S&uthport, in September, of the British Irad© Union Congress, and that of Mies Hart.ey, the Mayor of the town, in offering a civic welcome to tho delegates to tho I Conference. Tho speech of the president, Mr R. B. Walker, was full of lamentations over tho position of the workers and threats as to what would' happen if it were not improved; Miss Hartley's was in effect an appeal to Labour to remember the benefits that had accrued to it in recent years, and to riinJ'e itself worthy of others. Since th-3 lavft Congress had met at Southport, she said, hours of work had become shorter, better wages were paid, holidays were longer and more frequent, education was better, the status of women had materially improved, the workers' savings had increased,-year by year, the number of inmates of workhouses had steadily decreased and their treatment bad improved. Therefore, she asked, "Why all this .unrest?" She thought that in the rebound from the anxieties of war they wore all trying to get something, for nothing. The Lar bour movement had' made great progress and possessed great power; she asked the Congress to remember that power carried with it responsibility. Of the two addressee, the lady'B was infinitely the mow helpful. More than on© paper pointed out that Mr Walker, instead, of spending so much time and energy in denouncing "the capitalist " system" might have devoted some attention to a consideration of the condition of trade unionism-in Great Britain and to the very grave criticisms, reoently published', of itrade union finance as disclosed by the' balancesheets of some of the most important unions. The oondition of trade unionism was rcveaJiod by the fact that the Congress was attended by 717 dtelegate3 representing 5,107,a08 members, compared with the 810 delegates, representing 6,417,916 members, who met) at the Cardiff Congress last year. A decline iii membership of more than s> million and a quarter in twelve months is not to be accounted far by; unemployment and Government retrenchment. These may have been factors in bringing it about, but some other cause must also have operated. There is little doubt what that cause is, for a marked decline in trficLe union membership began when the members learned of tho extravagant administration of some of the more "political" unions, and 1 of. the improper diversion of industrial funds to political —Socialistic —objects. Some striking figures aire shown in the official balance-sheets supplied kytbe umonß to the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies. Thtfs the income of th® National Union of Rauwaymen, derived from members, rose from £294,876 in 1918 to £635,598 in 1921, and the expenses of management in the same period increased from £107,066 to £245,604, although the membership dropped from 481,081 in 1919 to 386,116 in 1921. In 191$ the membership of the Workers' Union stood at 400,000; last year it was 247 140, yet in the same period, the contributions of members rose from £209,000 to £427,000, and the expanse of management from £98,847 to £196,075. So, too, With the Railway Clerks' l/nion, which had lost by last year over 11,000 of tho 71,(300 members it possessed in 1918 —tha number in 1920 was 87,054—but increased its management expenditure in the four years from £24,000 to £66,400. Instances such as these could be multiplied, all showing heavy losses in membership in the past year or two, and correspondingly heavy increases in expenditure, of uiich few more details are vouchsafed in tho balance-sheets than are supplied in a line "Other "expenses of management (apart from " salaries) £83,302"—as though, as one critic remarks, it was an entry of "petty cash." It is significant that the non-political unions, those which dally least with the Communistic ideas and methods of some of the leaders, lost proportionately the fewest members, and showed a very much smaller ratio of increased expenditure. They have therefore a larger proportioii of their funds available for sick or unemployed benefits than those unions which evade or ignore the law enabling members of unions to "contract out" of payment of political levies and forbidding unions to make political payments out of the general funds. Money raised by a union for political purposes muiSt be kept in a separate fund, but there is good reason to believe that this provision of the law is disobeyed by the actively political unions. The evidence of the figures we have quoted bears out the contention that the defections from the trade unions are chiefly of members who object to the unions becoming Socialist political clubs, instead of being organisations for safeguarding the interests of the workers by collective bargaining and providing thrift funds Bgainst bad I times. • If' this process continues it.' will mean that the trade unions will come to represent only the Socialist

Labour element, and that in time will be the end of trade unionism, as it is known to-day, or, to speak perhaps more accurately, as it was known yesterday.