TRADE UNIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 240, 7 September 1928, Page 2

TRADE UNIONS

3.30 P.M. EDITION

INDUSTRIAL PEACE SCHEME.

DEBATE BY MEMBERS. (Australian Press Association—United Service). Received September 7, 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 6. Tho congress of the Trades Union Council debated the Mond industrial peace scheme. Air Citrine, tho secretary of the congross, defended the General Council in accepting Sir Alfred Alond’s invitation. It was nonsense to say that tho employers had set a trap to catch tho workers. The council only acted in accordance with the world wide development of trades unionism. Labour demanded a voice in tho control of industry and the employers had conceded it. Mr Brownlie, for the engineers, moved an amendment condemning the council for acting unconstitutionally, and referring the matter to the executives of the various unions for consideration, also directing the General Council not to proceed further in the meantime. Air Hicks, last year’s president, representing the building trade workers, supported the .amendment and denied that it was intended to censure the council, but said that every union and every member thereof should bo consulted first.

Air j. R. Clynes favoured continuance of tho negotiations, sayjng that it would be priceless if a joint committee wero established in the coal industry jin order to see the industry safelv through the present crisis with tho least hardship to the workers. Air A. J. Cook, the miners’ secretary, in .an impassioned half-hour s sneecli said that the Labour ' leaders were doing their best, hut were trying to defeat invincible economic laavs. There was no change in the employers’ policy since the conversations began. The employees were fools; tho workers must protect themselves not through alliance, but through their own independent structures. At the conclusion of his speech Air Cook staggered from the rostrum and fainted, but recovered in a waitingroom where his first words on regaining consciousness were: “Have I beaten them?” Air Herbert Smith, the miners’ president. said briefly that he was there to tell them that the federation considered the council did right in accepting the employers’ invitation and hitherto had acted. Tho amendment was defeated on card vote by 2,921,000 to 768,000. The report of tho council was adoptted by 3,075,000 to 566,000.