VOICE OF LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 51, 7 September 1928, Page 9

VOICE OF LABOUR

HEARING CONCEDED

HOSTILE AMENDMENT

Australian Press Association —United Service, (Reeciveil 7tli September, 10 a.m.) LONDON, 6th Sept. The congress of the T.TJ.C. debated, the Mond industrial peace soKeme. Mr. Walter Citrine, secretary of the Congress, defended the General Council's action in accepting the Mond invitation. It was nonsense to say that the employers set a trap to catch the workers^ The council only acted in accordance with the world-wide development of trade unionism. Labour demanded a voice in the control of industry, and the employers conceded it. Mr. J. Brownlie, for the Engineers' Society, moved an amendment condemning the council for acting unconstitutionally, referring the matter to the executives of the various unions for consideration, and' also directing the General Council not to proceed further in the meantime. Mr. Hicks, last year's president, representing the building trade workers, supported the amendment. He denied that it was intended to censure the councij, but every union and every member thereof should have been consulted first. Mr. J. E. Clynes, M.P., favoured continuance of the negotiations. It would be priceless if a joint committee were established for the coal industry in order to see the industry safely through its present crisis with the least hardship to the workers. MB. COOK'S ATTACK. Mr. A. J. Cook, the miners' secretary, in an impassioned half-hour speech, said that the Labour leaders were doing their best, but they were trying to defeat invincible economic laws. There was no change for the employers' policy since the conversations began. Th 6 employers were fools, and the workers must protect themselves, not through alliances but through their own independent structure. At the conclusion of his speech Mr. Cook staggered from the rostrom and fainted. He recovered in the waitingroom, where his first words on regaining consciousness were, "Have I beaten them?" Mr. Herbert Smith, the president of the Miners' Federation, said that briefly he was there to tell them that the federation considered that the council did right in accepting the employers' invitation and had hitherto acted correctly. The amendment was defeated on a card vote by 2,921,000 to 768,000, and the report of the council adopted by 3,075,000 to 566,000.