“That in view of the imperative need and demand for a central co-ordinating body representative of the whole Trade Union Movement and capable of efficiently dealing with industrial questions of national importance, the Parliamentary Committee be instructed to revise the Standing Orders of Congress in such manner as is necessary to secure the following changes in the functions and duties of the Executive body elected by Congress:
“(1) To substitute for the Parliamentary Committee a Trades Union Congress General Council, to be elected annually by Congress.
“(2) To prepare a scheme determining the composition and methods of election of the General Council.
“(3) To make arrangements for the development of administrative departments in the offices of the General Council, in the direction of securing the necessary officials, staff, and equipment to secure an efficient Trade Union centre.
“Further, in order to avoid overlapping in the activity of working-class organisations, the Parliamentary Committee be instructed to consult with the Labour Party and the Co-operative Movement, with a view to devising a scheme for the setting up of departments under joint control, responsible for effective national and international service in the following and any other necessary directions:
“(a) Research: To secure general and statistical information on all questions affecting the worker as producer and consumer by the co-ordination and development of existing agencies.
“(b) Legal advice on all questions affecting the collective welfare of the members of working-class organisations.
“(c) Publicity, including preparation of suitable literature dealing with questions affecting the economic, social, and political welfare of the people; with machinery for inaugurating special publicity campaigns to meet emergencies of an industrial or political character.”
The Officers of the Trade Union Movement
If we survey the growth of the British Trade Union Movement during the past thirty years, what is conspicuous is that, whilst the Movement has marvellously increased in mass and momentum, it has been marked on the whole by inadequacy of leadership alike within each Union and in the Movement itself, and by a lack of that unity and persistency of purpose which wise leadership alone can give. Hence, in our opinion, the organised workers, whilst steadily advancing, have not secured anything like the results, either in the industrial or in the political field, that the individual sacrifices and efforts in their cause might have brought about. This deficiency in the brain-work of successful organisation is very marked in the various sections of the building trades, with their chaos of separate societies, and in the engineering industry, with its persistence of competing Unions formed on inconsistent bases, its lack of uniformity in Standard Rates, and its failure to devise any plan of safeguarding Collective Bargaining in the various systems of “Payment by Results.” But it has been equally apparent in the incapacity of the Trade Union Movement as a whole to establish any central authority to prevent overlapping organisations and demarcation disputes, and to co-ordinate the efforts of the various sections of workers towards a higher standard of life and greater control over the conditions of their working lives. The British workmen, it must be said, have not become aware of the absolute need for what we may call Labour Statesmanship. They have not yet learnt how, either in their separate Trade Unions or in the Labour Movement as a whole, to attract and train, to select and retain in office, to accord freedom of initiative to and yet to control, a sufficient staff of qualified officials capable not merely of individual leadership, but also of well devised “team play” in the long-drawn-out struggle of the wage-earning class for its “place in the sun.” To this constant falling short of the reasonably expected achievements is, we think, due the perpetual see-saw in Trade Union policy: the Trade Unionists of one decade relying principally on political action, to the neglect of the industrial weapon, whilst those of a succeeding decade, temporarily disillusioned with political action, rush wildly into strikes and neglect the ballot-box. This change of feeling is due each time to the failure of the results to come up to expectation. We shall understand some of the reasons for this shortcoming if we examine how the Trade Union Movement is, in fact, officered.