[626]The Presidential Address at the Annual Conference of the Railway Clerks’ Association in 1913 had suggested that the representatives of the railway workers should constitute one-third of a National Railway Board—a proposal that did not content the larger Union.
[627]It was reported that in some cases the soldiers fraternised with the pickets and were promptly withdrawn to barracks; and the Cabinet was certainly warned, by high military authority, against attempting to use the troops.
[628]For an account of this Department see pp. 571-2.
[629]A notable feature was a revolt of the compositors and printers’ assistants, who threatened to strike and stop the newspapers altogether unless the railwaymen were allowed to present their case and unless abusive posters were abandoned.
[630]Railway Dispute, 1919: Report to the Labour Movement of Great Britain by the Committee appointed at the Caxton Hall Conference(National Transport Workers’ Federation).
[631]British Trade Unionism has often been contrasted, to its disadvantage, with the more scientifically classified German Trade Unionism before the Great War. It was, for instance, often pointed out that the three millions of German Trade Unionists were grouped in no more than 48 Unions. This, however, ignored the numerous competing Hirsch-Duncker and Christian Unions, which were far more destructive of unity than are the crowd of minor societies in Great Britain and Ireland. At present (1920) the 48 largest Trade Unions of this country concentrate a larger membership than the much-praised 48 Trade Unions of Germany did in 1914.
[632]See An Introduction to Trade Unionism, by G. D. H. Cole, 1917.
[633]See the History of the British Trades Union Congress(by W. J. Davis), vol. ii. (1916), p. 156; and the successive Annual Reports of the General Federation of Trade Unions from 1900 onward.
[634]Such as those for Kent, Lancashire and Cheshire, North Wales, the South-Western Counties, and Yorkshire.
[635]At Nottingham, Leicester, Brighton, Hanley, Manchester, Worcester, and some other towns, the Trades Council has at times been allowed the use of a room in the Town Hall, or other municipal building. The Local Government Board in 1908 suggested to Local Authorities that this assistance should be generally afforded to them.