ALL LAWFUL LIBERTIES,

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 864, 9 July 1910, Page 5

ALL LAWFUL LIBERTIES,

PREMIER EXPOUNDS HIS POLICY. Speaking in April last, M. Briand said one. of the great measures to bo introduced by (he Ministry would be one intended to defino and regulate the position ot tlib employees of the State. The first object of tho contemplated Bill would be io eliminate all possibility of injustice in the dealings of tho State with those whom it employed. Onco this was scoured these employees would no' longer be tempted to have recourse to "movements of revolt"—a plain allusion to the postmen's strike—which were intolerable and capable of S imperilling the vital interests of tho nation.-

Summing up the guiding principles of the various social reforms which he proposes, If. .Briand said they consisted in "settling the relations of the hard-work-ing democracy with the State, and In preventing the working classes from indulging in unreflecting and violent agitation by granting them all the lawful liberties which they may desire." One of the first desiderata, he said, was to give the trade union organisations a better established civil status organisation so as to'enable them to fulfil their truo object—that is to say, to become real labour exchanges and nurseries ot economic production. It would, at tho same time, ho said, be necessary to enact laws permitting combination between labour and capital by making it possible for labour to enjoy the legitimate profits of industrial enterprises. And finally, a much-needed reform was that of tlie'contracts between- the master and his men as a body. The consequence of the adoption of these social reforms, if (hey were completed by the organisation of labour credit banks, would be to render the labouring classes more conservative, and gradually lo substitute legal action for the present method of futile agitation and violence.