The problem of unemployment was exhaustively considered by the Congress and: the prevailing mood swas one of anger and despair. Some of tha delegates demanded the total destruction of our existing capitalist society as the only remedy. The press on the following morning naturally described these as bolsheviks and anarchists. Other delegates advocated various pet schemes to tide over the bad period, of which the most entertaining was_a proposal to get £200,000,000 from the Government immediately to excavate the Channel tunnel and six ship canals. Mr. Brownlie, the moderate leader of the A.E.U., wanted money placed at the disposal of employers to enable them to overcome the difficulties of exchange, a suggestion received vei coldly by the Congress who think the employers have- already too much money.
An unemployed leader, who had tramped to the Congress with a deputation of out-of-works and was sleeping with them each evening under Southport pier, was permitted to address the delegates. He demanded action. to force the Government to increase the present meagre subsistence allowance up to} a much higher figure. The figure he wanted was, in fact, much higher than the weekly wage of most men in full-time employment.
The absurdity of all these foolish proposals is obvious, but it. justice to the Congress it must be admitted that their suggestions are not more absurd than the condition of things now operating. One delegate pertinently pointed out that the Government are at present paying the ''dole"' to 100,- 000 unemployed building trade workers, and were raising part of the funds to do so by increasing the insurance contributions of other workers unable to get houses and living at present in "apartments" in noisome slums. Delegates representing skilled unions complained that many of their members had been unemployed so long that they were losing them craftsman's cunning and would be inefficient workers when the present trade slump was ended. The Congress ascribed the whole of the unemployment to the foreign policy of the Government, and the demand for reparations, and agreed that it could not be remedied until there was a change it our national policy. A long resolution was unanimously passed calling upon the Government to devise schemes of work or provide adequate maintenance for the unemployed, the cost not to fall upon the local authorities but on the State, also to open up trade with Russia, revise she Versailles Treaty, and make use of the national factories—like the Gretna factory—for the production of useful commodities.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.