NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1659, 28 January 1913, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

At the expense of his colleagues in the Cabinet, Mr. Lewis Harcourt has been entertaining the House of Commons with' some sarcastic comment oil the British Franchise Bill. According to the cabled report of the debate, both Sir Edavard Grey and Mit. Lloyd-George have been targets for , the Colonia.l ■- Secretary's wit. That Mr. Harcourt should so turn upon his own associates and. flay them thus publicly has given causo' for various conjectures -concerning the infernal conditioVof the Asquitii Cabinet. "ißjit the situation-.'is not. easy 4o elucidate. . The, Liberals are divided on the question'of women's Buff rage,'but Mb. Herbert Samuel (Postmaster-General) . denies' that there is any likelihood' of Cabinet, resignations over the Franchise Bill. That is probably true.; The objections of Mr. Harcourt,'arid those his party-who think with him on the question of ; ' do not involve supporters in any charge of party : disloyalty, for this question is not a constituent item' of_ the Government's original policy—it , is' an importation,- ac*> quiesced in ; by-'MR. Asquith as a matter of expediency. In tho . ex-tremity-of its embarrassment the Government, has not been'molested by the Unionists; with the exception of. Loip Hugh Cecil; they have prefer red,-apparently, to enjoy the Government's discomfiture, in silence. Mr, Asquith's predicament is quite 'pathetic.Himself opposed. to women's franchise, yet obligod by his promise to allow the question a sporting'chance in. the House, he is now prevented- by the ■ ruling of the Speaker from. proceeding upon a course which at once spelt certain death 1 to ; the question and cleared him of his obligation. Incidentally, thft moat serious charge brought against tho Government is its willingness to use the Parliamerit;\Actif necessary to force through- Parliament a measure for which it asked for, and received, no mandate. This is equally an argument against'tho Home Rule policy. The "Franchise Bill may turn oufr to - be a bigger rock than tho Radicals think.

An excellent, illustration of tho disingenuqusriesV ' which the United Federation of Labour is ready at all times to. display is affoVdcd by a resolution , carried yesterday at its 'Conference. It was resolved, we;are told, that, a certain resolution' be forwarded to tho daily press, "with a request that it be printed in its correct form, and that the official reporter insist on resolutions being published as carried by Conference, This is meant to convey the, impression that the newspapers nave materially altered the reports sent in tq them. We amended the report of two' speeches pn .the opening day (explaining at the time that we had done so) to the extent of excising two or three libellous sentences. Every report sent in to us has since 1 then been printed exactly as received, including speeches and resolutions. The: only complaint of tho Conference is, that by a mistake not ours, we printed "non-unionists" instead of "scabbery."' The impudenco of yesterday's resolution is therefore manifest. _Of course ,it does not'surprise us that the party which got so far out of the way qf truthfulness during the Waihi trouble should stilly be insinuating untruths, That is, indeed, its chief ] weapon.

The correspondent who writes,to us to-day protesting, as a,trade unionist, against the "United Labour Party's" surrender to tho Federation of Labour, expresses, there is no room for doubt, the feeling of a large body of organised labour, The fact that a man is a member of a trades union—and in many ■ trades he must be a unionist or else seek some othor occupation—doos not imply" that he is a Socialist or a Radical. Everybody must know trade unionists who personally are anti-Socialists, and either Liberals or Conservatives. But their funds, and their weight as individuals in

the union, are converted by -the union bosses to tlmilscß of Sooialism. That this was a grievance with many trade unionists prior to the holding of the Conference is'shown by our correspondent. "Of the members of his union 20 per ccnt objected to their trade unionism being converted

into an identity with - Socialistic politics. Now_ th.it the U.L.P., through its official delegates, has definitely joined the Federation of Lal>nuv, tli.it grievance is enormously Incroaßocl and the number of objoo-

tora will increase £ proportionately. Ono need hardly point out how intolerably tyrannous is that condition which in many a trado practically forces a man to join a union, and, by his funds and his membership, to ; help along political ideas which he may abhor. It is very possible that the latest development of "tho labour movement" will help to open the eyes of thousands of wageearners to tho fact that they have sold themselves into the bondage of the agitators.'