The most important controversial item on the agenda was a resolution to give enormously increased powers to the present General Council of the Congress. This council of 32 members has at present very limited powers. Every union was to be placed under an "obligation to keep it informed on every dispute likely to lead to a stoppage of work. The Council was then to meet and if in its opinion the claims of the union were justified, they were to be empowered to give it every financial assistance by means of a levy, on each. affiliated union in proportion to its membership.
Those well-known tirade union leaders, Cramp, Bevin, and Hodges, who had experienced the fiasco of the triple alliance during the miners' strike, were bitterly opposed io the scheme. They pointed out that there was every reason to suppose that trade union leaders would do in the future what they had done in the past, namely, look after the interest of their own members when the crisis came. The supporters of the scheme were either visionaries like Smillie, or delegates foolish enough to think that the collective timidity of a large number of half-hearted men, equals the courage of a few resolute ones. The resolution was defeated by~ an overwhelming majority.
The miners' leaders were subjected to bitter criticism from the small communist element in the Congress for allowing coal to be mined for the American market during the coal strike there. They excused themselves by saying that they were sending £10,000 to the strikers, and pointing out that only a relatively small proportion of the miners in America were on strike.
A feature of this Congress was the bitterness of several of the delegates' attacks on the Cooperative Wholesale Society. They pointed out that not only were the wage cuts in many instances more drastic than those made by private employers, but that the 3. W. S. refused to refer them to any committee for arbitration, although a committee was in existence for that express purpose.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.