The report of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress to be submitted at the 69th annual meeting at Norwich next month refers to the subject of trades councils and unofficial strikes, warning councils that they must not acti age them in cases where the union or unions concerned refuse recognition. It is likely that the question of inconvenience to the general leadership of the the unofficial strike will be an increasing inconvenience to the general leadership of the, trade union movement, chiefly because those responsible are becoming more and more apt to regard as more important general propositions concerning labour than purely local grievances which necessitate remedial action, The result has been that in some cases men suffering from industrial wrongs have had to wait for action for years, while major questions of policy have been fought out, and have resorted to immediate, if isolated action in an endeavour to obtain betterment. There always has been on the part of local unions a tendency to take individual action immediately the national leaders of trade unionism have failed to give the attention they desired to their needs. The pronouncement in the report is apparently designed to give the Congress better control over its constituents than has apparently been the case in the past, and it is possible that the warning will be heeded in some districts, but as the Council becomes more and more involved in matters involving general politics, representation in Parliament, no matter how desirable that may be, and the hundred-and-one problems that arise therefrom, the less likelihood have the constituent unions of receiving attention to those domestic matters which after all are their raison d'étre. The question may arise in the near future as to whether the whole trade union movement as at present formed is not becoming too big and whether a lot of the power at present in the hands of the General Council will not have to be delegated to the less representative bodies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.