now changed. The part played by the Trades Union Congress in the growth of the Labour Party has already been mentioned. The financing of union candidates for Parliament was temporarily checked by the Osborne Judgment of 1908 which made it illegal for a trade union to use its funds for political purposes. The Labour Party now had to depend on voluntary subscriptions, and as suitable candidates with adequate means were very few the obstacle to political activities was a real one. This difficulty was partly obviated shortly afterwards by the payment of Members by the State. By the Act of 1913 the unions were empowered to keep a separate political fund, provided that trade unionists who signed a form of objection were exempted from the political levy.

Since then the trade unions have so extended their political activities that they exercise a considerable power over the government of the country. This influence has been condemned in some quarters; firstly because the trade unions are not considered properly representative of the people; secondly because many trade unionists do not agree with the political views of their leaders, yet for one reason or another do not seek exemption from the political levy ; and thirdly because the principle of sectional labour representation is wrong. Though the wage-earners and their families covered by the trade union movement constitute the great majority of the population, there is a certain danger that a few powerful trade unions may put the interests of their members before those of the community and thus bring about an undesirable form of autocracy. Many friendly critics have proposed that the unions should pool their political funds and participate in politics on a broader basis. It would not then be so possible to charge specific unions with dominating public policy. Incidentally it would help to smooth away the

differences between the trade unionist and the "intellectual" members of the Labour Party, a distinction which is unfortunate and unnecessary.

Trade Unions and Adult Education.

A promising development during the last few years has been the recognition on the part of the trade union movement of the need for adult education. Thousands of individual trade unionists had availed themselves of educational facilities afforded by various bodies long before the unions, as such, took any official step in encouraging or directly promoting this necessary service. A section of the trade union movement interprets adult education as propaganda. The Labour Colleges in several parts of the country confine their teaching almost entirely to subjects in which the class struggle and the means of overcoming the capitalist system play a predominant part. A large number of unions, however, take a broader view of adult education, and favour the more thorough and comprehensive instruction given by the Workers' Educational Association and by Ruskin College, Oxford.

In 1919 the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, in conjunction with the Workers' Educational Association, entered upon an experiment for affording education facilities to the members of the Confederation. Lectures, classes and week-end schools were arranged by the joint body, known as the Workers' Educational Trade Union Committee, and the experiment was highly successful. In 1921 the Union of Post Office Workers, the Railway Clerks' Association, and the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen, in 1923 the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants, and in 1924 the Transport and General Workers' Union, came into the scheme.

A committee, consisting of representatives of sixteen unions, was appointed in 1920 to review the position and

make recommendations. Its report, which was approved by the Trades Union Congress of 1921, stated :

"In providing educational facilities for the workers, it is important to realise that, while they need specialised forms of education... their needs are by no means confined to such specialised training. The workers want knowledge, both for the immediate and practical purposes of the Labour Movement, and also as a means to the enlargement of their mental and social outlook. They seek a knowledge not only of economic and industrial history but also of the general and social history of their own and other peoples, of literature, and of the arts and sciences. Therefore, in putting forward an educational scheme for the Trade Union Movement, while we have endeavoured to make provision for the various forms of specialised training, we have in mind above all an education broad enough to give to every worker who desires it a new sense of understanding, and therewith of power to mould the world in accordance with his human and social ideals."

No real decision was arrived at until the Trades Union Congress of 1924. The vast majority of the unions showed themselves in favour of a more liberal educational policy than that advocated by the smaller extremist section. The latter had urged that the unions should restrict their support to those bodies teaching Marxian economics and the class war, but in view of the opposition of nearly all the large unions the proposal was withdrawn. Though the South Wales Miners and the National Union of Railwaymen were mainly responsible in the first place for creating the London Labour College, they now showed themselves averse from narrowing down educational efforts in the way desired by the extremists. The Congress instructed the General Council to participate to a greater extent in adult educational work, and to adopt schemes in co-operation with

the Workers' Educational Association, the Workers' Educational Trade Union Committee, Ruskin College and the Labour Colleges.

That this was a wise step there can be little doubt. The trade union movement, while affirming the need for propaganda, has taken the proper view of educational effort, which it refuses to identify with the creed of particular parties.

SOC. ECON.

12

CHAPTER VIII.

Causes of
Discontent.
(a) The
Worker's
Share.

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

The growth of workers' and employers' organisations during the last few decades has been accompanied by a distinct increase in the number and extent of strikes and lock-outs.* According to the Government returns, nearly threequarters of the disputes are on account of wages, but the official classification is apt to be misleading, for some important causes operate only indirectly and do not receive their proper share of attention, if they figure at all, in the classified returns. Yet

* The following table from the Ministry of Labour Gazette, Jan. 1925, indicates the number of and aggregate duration of trade disputes in the years 1910-1924.