Manchester, Sept. 11
The sensational reverses suffered by the better-known trade unions in the industrial disputes of the past year have created more public interest than usual in the! annual Trade Union Congress, which was held this year at Southport.
The 5,000,000 members of the affiliated unions were represented by 800 delegates. Since the last meeting at Cardiff there has been a reduction of membership amounting to over a million. The lost members' were mostly those who had joined a trade union during the war years as a result of taking up work, at one of the munition factories. Many of them were women from domestic service who have since returned to their old occupation. Some of the worker's unions catering for unskilled labour have lost half their members since 1920 through the trade depression and the inability of the unemployed to pay their subscriptions.
The skilled union that has suffered most is the engineers! It has now lost nearly all those semiskilled operatives with which the industry was diluted during the boom period. But when this year's figures are compared with those of 1915 it will be seen that the Congress has little reason to be despondent for the 2,682,357 members affiliated at that time have since grown to over five millions. The cotton, railway, miners' and builders' unions are all stronger than they were before the war.
The Trade Union Congress is often called the Parliament' of Labour, but that is an exaggerate ed misuse of terms. It is really a holiday orgy of resolution-passing, and a great annual advertisement campaign for the trade unions. This year there were 70 resolutions on the agenda. Some have figure ed on the agenda of each congress during the pash 37 years. There are many simple delegates who appear to think that any desired end can be attained if only enough resolutions are passed to achieve it. It is an amiable delusion that does nobody any harm, and the cost of indulging them in it is only one penny per annum from each trade unionist.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.