TRADE UNION LAWS

Otago Witness, Issue 3806, 22 February 1927, Page 29

TRADE UNION LAWS

ANTI-STRIKE LEGISLATION. LONDON, February 14. When the debate on the Address-iii-Reply was resumed Mr J. R. ClyD's moved his amendment expressing regrer at the reference in the King’s Speech to proposals defining and amending the law in regard to industrial disputes as indicating the intention of the Government to continue its partisan policy shown in the recent industrial conflicts, and to diminish the power of organised Labour to resist encroachments on the already inadequate standard of living or the workers. While he was speaking the Prince of Wales and Prince George entered and took their seats over the clock. Mr Clynes said that the Government was attacking trades unionism without having a mandate to do so. In the seven by-elections since the general election the pro-Government vote had totr 73,000, aud the anti-Government vote 109,000. It would be better, therefore, to leave the question to the judgment of the electorates. , Mr Clynes maintained that the trades union officials had shown themselves as serviceable and effective as any on behalf of industrial peace. The general strike was not the result of agitation, but the miners’ lock-out strike was. Since 1921 trades unionism had been consistently on the defensive. The Government encouraged wage reductions, and it did not discourage aggressive action on the part of the employers. There was no country in the world where the indus: trial conditions were better than in England, or where disputes were fought out .with greater commonsense. Mr Baldwin said that he was particularly anxious to have a discussion in order to ascertain the views of the whole House. Mr Ramsay MacDonald said he considered that the Government should immediately reply iu order that the House might be aware of its intentions. It would be bad parliamentary practice if the Government said no word of reply till the end of the debate. Sir John Simon said that the Labourites would have to make up their minds whether they defended the general strike as an instrument for~use in a trade dispute. If they did not a good deal could be said for leaving the whole thing alone. The proposed legislation would not attack the heart of the industrial problem. It resembled The Hague Convention defining the rules of war when -what was wanted was to inculcate a spirit that would prevent war. It would be far better if the trades union movement were reformed from within.