Edinburgh, Oct. 24.
A short time ago 1 described the shortage of houses as one of the great problems of the day in Scotland, and pointed out that the working classes were the greatest sufferers. It cannot too often or too strongly stated, however, that a great part of this house shortage is due to the trade unionists among the working classes. Last week, for instance, a remarkable request was made to Edinburgh Town Council by a deputation of workers engaged in the building trades. In effect, the deputation claimed to exercise, if not a right of veto, at least a right of suspension, over the new scheme for the erection of concrete houses in Edinburgh by the duo-slab method. This is a good example of the dictation which the Trade Unions wish to exercise over our local bodies. Shortly put, the deputation, on which bricklayers and plasterers were strongly represented, should decide what sort of homes the Corporation were to erect. We have not yet reached the stage of Guild Socialism, when, in accordance with this Socialistic theory, the organized workers in every indus try will be its controlling authority; but we are getting dangerously near it in practice, with results in the building trade which have done more than anything else to check the supply of new houses. The restrictions upon apprentices, the refusal to permit dilution, the enforcement of ani arbitrary law off output whith condemns the efficient and. active worker to keep pace with the slowest and least efficient—these are some ways in which Trade Union regulations have been a deterrent to building and have intensified the housing shortage.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.