CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 14, 11 October 1907, Page 5

CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

• A ROTHSCHILD COMPLAINT. MINERS AND THE RAILWAYMEN. WORKERS' SHARE: By Telegraph.—Association.—Copyright. London, October 9. • Lord Rothschild) intorviowod by.tho " Chroniolo," declared that stocks are low because tho Governments all over tho world are hitting at capital. Tho Minors' Federation at Southporfc adopted a resolution of sympathy with tho Amalgamated. Society of Railway Servants..- ■'.■ Mr. Enoch Edwards, Labour mombcr for Hanley in the House of Commons, who is presiding, declared that tho employers had learned that combination had not ruined capital. Tho federation had no quarrol with capital; it only objected to it in the hands of too few. Ho added that' the workmen must have some say regarding what was to bo their sharo, and it was too late, in tho day to attempt to burk the matter by tho employers refusing to meet.the men.

(Rec Oct. 10, 10.49 p.m;) London, October 10.; The Miners' Federation unanimously passed resolutions iii favour of a Bill providing for tho nationalisation of mines, also in favour of the abolition of the House of Lords. ■' A conference of : the Amalgamated, Society of Railway.Servants,..at Middlesbrough (Yorkshire), unanimously supported the ; demand that tho railway companies should recognise tho' Society. : , ■•';':;:,--•■. ;';

INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION OF EMPLOYERS.

SHIPPING FEDERATIONS; (Reo. Oct. 10, 10.49 p.m.) London,' October 10. Delegations of the shipping federations of Antwerp '(Belgium).. Amsterdam and Rotterdam (Holland), Hamburg (Gormany), Copenhagen (Denmark), Gothenburg (Sweden), and other places'will meet the British Shipping Federation in London on Tuosday to devise concerted measures of defence against Unionism. ' \ .

In addition to tho Miners' Federation, the General Federation of Trade Unions of Great Britain, representing 700,000 members, has passed a resolution in •sympathy with the fight for recognition,' which the Amalgamated. Society of Railway Servants is now making. In 1901 the Miners' Federation had a membership, of - 32G.000. The President of tho Minors' Federation, Mr. Enoch Edwards, won the Hanloy. seat at last election, after, a reverse in 1900. lie began work in a coal mine, at the age. of ten, : and worked for fifteen years as "a miner. Lord Claud Hamilton, Chairman of the Great ; Eastern''Railway Company, in announcing that, after, full consideration, the directors had decided not to recognise thq Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, said the society's demand for increased wages: for -the.-men>would mean an increased wages bill of a year, which would .reduce the ordinary shareholders' dividends from 3}' percent. to 1J per. cent. Lord Claud Hamilton denied that • there was general unrest aniorig the servants 'of tho Company, and that the society had any right to speak for the majority of its ■servants. ■'•_ Only !) per.cent, of the men in the service of the Great: Eastern Railway,! Lord Claud Baid, belonged to the society. • With regard \o Lord Rothschild's commont, the Chancellor of tho Exchequer, Mr. Asquith, has from time to time given various economic reasons for tho fall in stocks, and it is noteworthy that, speaking at the Mansion Houfce-, on July 1i s he contended that while political conditions, external or internal, were 'an important, though perhaps not a permanent, factor in .tho course, of trado, they wero-not the most important. He spoke as a member of the Government, and held—as his colleagues without ' exception, so far as he knew, did—that in the maintenance of tho institution of private property and the continued reliance on individual initiativo was the main-spring of finahoial and commercial success.