TRADE UNION CONGRESS.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 59, 7 September 1905, Page 5

TRADE UNION CONGRESS.

THE UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM. [PRESS ASSOCIATION.I LONDON, 6th September. The Durham Miners' Society and the Amalgamated Engineers' Society are represented at the Trade Union Congress at Hanley after eight years' absence. •Mr. James Sexton, the President, stated, in the course of his address, that the Unemployed Act was a source of danger, enabling employers to point to an over-abundance of labour as an excuse for cutting down wages, and enabling them to recruit from, blacklegs in times of dispute. Mr. Sexton stated that freetrade had failed to settle, or even to touch, the unemployed problem. Ne free trade in the truest sense of the word existed without freedom of produce, not for the benefit of a few, but for all mankind. That could not be said of the present free trade. It was not enough for freetraders to proclaim against protection or Mr. Balfour"s preferential policy. Labour should demand much more than a policy which was negative; or anti-Government. So far, that was all .that had been offered by those anxious to secure power. Labour must hold aloof from all parties, except in assisting to promote sound, progressive legislation. COMPULSORY ARBITRATION. MOTION REJECTED. (Received September 7, 8.28 a.m.) LONDON, 6th September. The Congress, by 765,000 votes against 673,000, negatived the principle of compulsory arbitration. [At the Congress lost year a motion in favour of compulsory arbitration in trade disputes ivas rejected by 869,000 to 383,000 votes. The Congress embraces 159 organisations, with 1,320,432 members.]