LABOUR CONGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1537, 5 September 1912, Page 5

LABOUR CONGRESS.

SOME PLAIN SPEAKING. NO POLITICAL FREEDOM FOR TRADES UNIONISTS. ■-: THE OSBORNE JUDGMENT. By Tcleeraph—Press Association-Copyrielil (Rec. September 5, 0.20 a.m.) London, September 4. At tho Trades Union Congress at Newport a large majority demanded tho reversal of tho Osborno judgment. Mr. Havelock Wilson, of the Seamen's Union, said it was important to get Homo Rule, Disestablishment, and tho franchise out of tho way, and leavo the Trade Union Bill until next session. Not one man in ten cared a rap about tho Osborne judgment. He asked who was responsible for the judgment. They were not satisfied'with a trnde union having the right to elect members of Parliament, but insisted on a compulsory levy to force members of a union to pay for a political policy with which they did not agree. They asked a man to join a union for trade-union purposes, and then smuggled a resolution through, saying, "We are going to charge you a shilling a year, and if you do not pay it we will prevent you from following your occupation." That was the cause of the trouble. Uproar followed this , statement. Mr. ■ Wilson added that when the elections came what the Labour pnrty onght to do was to held its present seats without winning others. The railway clerks' delegates twitted the Labour members of Parliament with waiiing enthusiasm for the reversal of the Osborne judgment since they had obtained their Parliamentary salaries.

. LABOUR M.P'S ASSAILED. ALLEGED DILATORINESS. London, September 3. Several speakers at the Trades Union Congress at Newport assailed the Labour members of Parliament for dilatoriness in connection with the Trado Unions Bill. Mr. John Ward, Labour member for Stoke-on-Trent, replied that the by-elec-tions had shown the workers to be keener on Home Rule and Welsh Church Disestablishment than on the reversal of the Osborne Judgment. > The Congress demanded a Bill providing for the compulsory cultivation of agricultural land.