.jpg)
Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6
[trade dispatches]
The Industrial Conciliation Bill is misnamed. It is Compulsion, not Conciliation, throughout. Its chief object is apparently to coerce free workmen into enrolling themselves as unionists; and incidentally to break up all profit-sharing and voluntary associations between masters and workmen, and to subject the State Railway Commissioners to the dictation of the Trades Hall. It is unconstitutional, as it extends to unionists extraordinary powers and privileges denied to the rest of the public. Crude and dangerous class measures like these, devised by irresponsible bodies outside of Parliament, amply justify the existence of a revising chamber.
Parliamentary privilege, it seems, includes the right of sweating its own servants. The omnipotent Trades Hall takes no account of them. The House would make an eight-hours' maximum and a weekly half-holiday compulsory under heavy penalties; a shopkeeper detaining an assistant after hours is to pay £5; and an army of inspectors are paid to look after factories. Now for the other side. Parliamentary messengers must begin work at 8, and remain on their feet twenty-four or even thirty-six hours if there is an all-night sitting. Eighteen hours is their ordinary day, and no allowance for overtime. Two messengers have broken down this session from overwork—one case being a very serious one—and the others are nearly hors de combat. ؟Will our benevolent representatives turn their gaze for a brief space away from shops and factories—and put their own House in order?