CARDIFF MEN DECIDE TO RESUME

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 77, 27 September 1918, Page 7

CARDIFF MEN DECIDE TO RESUME

MR. THOMAS'S SCATHING

SPEECH

MEN "ASHAMED TO WALK.IN THE

STREETS."

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIGHI.)

(AI'SIRAIMN-NBW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) ' LONDON, 26th September. A mass meeting of railwaymen at •Cardiff unanimously decided to return to work immediately. air. J. H., Thomas, M.P., secretary to the railwaymen, addressing the mass meeting of strikers at Cardiff, said:. "You have shattered all our prestige and all my influence. I will see this through and then cease to be your general secretary." . (Received September 27, 11 a.m.) LONDON, 26th September. Mr. Thomas said: "The Cabinet told me it accepted'the men's challenge, and that not a comma in the agreement would be altered, even if the whole union came out. The members of the Cabinet said they were going to discharge their duties as a Government Tegai'dless of the consequences' or circumstances. If I were Premier I would have done the same thing, as food was rotting in the.docks." Ml. Thomas's reference to the war position aroused loud cheers, and Mr. Thomas concluded:: "Then show you believe in the war." The men, he said, had been led into a trap, And now realised it. They were ashamed to walk in the streets. The' strikers axe returning in South Wales on the Great Western system generally. Some of the London strikers have returned, and it is expected that resumption of work wall be general to-day. Mr. Thomas tendered his resignation as secretary of the union. He says dejectedly that he 1 has lost power as a leader, and feels-that he is no longer able to guarantee the. men's honour. But Mr. Thomas is very ill, and may not persist in his resignation. He states that he has been officially assured that there will be no victimisation. ' / ■