[695]N.U.R. Agenda and Decisions of the Annual General Meeting, June 1914, p. 7.
[696]The resolution runs as follows: “That in view of the success which, in spite of unparalleled difficulties, has attended the working of the railways under State control, this Congress urge the Parliamentary Congress to press the Government to arrange for the complete nationalisation of all the railways, and to place them under a Minister of Railways, who shall be responsible to Parliament, and be assisted by national and local advisory committees, upon which the organised railway workers shall be adequately represented” (Trades Union Congress Annual Report, 1917, p. 345).
[697]Postal and Telegraph Record, May 22, 1919, p. 237.
[698]Ibid.
[699]The Nationalisation of Mines Bill(Fabian Tract, No. 171, 1913).
[700]The Nationalisation of Mines and Minerals Bill, 1919, given in full in Further Facts from the Coal Commission, by R. Page Arnot, 1919. The Miners’ Federation Conference of 1918 had passed the following resolution: “That in the opinion of this Conference the time has arrived in the history of the coal-mining industry when it is clearly in the national interests to transfer the entire industry from private ownership and control to State ownership with joint control and administration by the workmen and the State. In pursuance of this opinion the National Executive be instructed to immediately reconsider the draft Bill for the Nationalisation of the Mines ... in the light of the newer phases of development in the industry, so as to make provision for the aforesaid joint control and administration when the measure becomes law; further, a Conference be called at an early date to receive a report from the Executive Committee upon the draft proposals and to determine the best means of co-operating with the National Labour Party to ensure the passage of a new Bill into law” (Report of Annual Conference of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, July 9, 1918, p. 44).
[701]At the end of our chapter on the “Method of Collective Bargaining” we cursorily dealt with the strike as a necessary incident of collective bargaining: “It is impossible to deny that the perpetual liability to end in a strike or a lock-out is a grave drawback to the Method of Collective Bargaining. So long as the parties to a bargain are free to agree or not to agree, it is inevitable that, human nature being as it is, there should now and again come a deadlock, leading to that trial of strength and endurance which lies behind all bargaining. We know of no device for avoiding this trial of strength except a deliberate decision of the community expressed in legislative enactment” (Industrial Democracy, p. 221).
[702]See, for instance, Trade Unionism New and Old, by George Howell, 1891.
[703]Mr. G. H. Roberts (Typographical Society), then Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade; and Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, Treasurer of the Labour Party.
[704]The Rt. Hon. Arthur Henderson (Friendly Society of Ironfounders), and M. Camille Huysmans, Secretary of the International Socialist Congress.