LABOUR AND THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2680, 28 January 1916, Page 5

LABOUR AND THE WAR

THE COMPULSION BILL WORKERS WILL FIGHT THE COMMON ENEMY

fly l'Blegrapii—Press Association—poDyvlKh l London, January 26. Mr. Anderson, M.P., is presiding at the Labour Conference at Bristol, which represents 2,093,365 members. In his address to the assembly, Mr. Anderson said that militarism and democracy could not live together in Germany or anywhere else. There were signs of a reaction in Great Britain. Mr. Lloyd George would like to see the rules of the Army apply to the workshop, but ho had not been very successful in his attempt through the .Munitions Act. The Military Service Bill had not redeemed Mr. Asquith's pledge. No form of words offered immunity from the risk of forced industrial service. Any attempt to use this weapon to coerce trades unionists would lead to great bitterness, and would end in failure. . Ho emphasised that it was impossible for a country to be a great navalj a great military, and a great industrial Power. After the war it would bo a different world, a- hard, bad world, unless Labour tools a hand in shaping it. Mr. Sexton, on behalf of tlie Liverpool Dockers' Union, moved a resolution expressing horror at the German atrocities, and pledging tlie Conference to assist the Government as far as possible in the successful prosecution of the war. Mr. Sexton : remarked that if Germany won nothing else on God's earth mattered. Mr. Millikan (Liverpool) seconded the motion. Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald appealed to the Conference to use foresight and toleration. They were too early and too late to pronounce on the L origin of the war. Ho asked the Conference not to divide on this question, lest it interfere with unity in fighting the common enemy. Mr. Roberts, M.P., said that the situation demanded a clear statement of the attitude of Conference to the war. Whole-hearted support of the resolution would be an encouragement to the boys in the trenches, those in the hospitals, and also our Allies. Mr. Gilmour (Scottish Miners) and Mr. Wardle (Railwaymen's Union) supported_ the resolution, which was carried with applause, the card vote showing 1,502,000 for and 602,000 against.

BACKING UP THE RECRUITING CAMPAIGN (Rec. January 27, 8.30 p.m.) London, January 26. The Labour Conference adopted, by an overwhelming majority, a resolution approving of the action of the Parliamentary Labour Party in co-operating with the recruiting campaign. The delegates declared that if some of the Independent Labour Party leaders had co-operated likewise, compulsion would not have been necessary. Mr. Wallliead protested against compulsion. If, he said, the Government could not get men the only alternative was to commence to consider the question of peace. (Loud cries of dissent, and some of approval.) THE GERMAN BIG-GUN RUMOUR CAREFULLY-WORDED STATEMENT ' IN PARLIAMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association-Cosyriglit The High Comissioner reports:— London, January 26, 4.55 p.m. In the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour stated that the Government had no evidence that Germany possosscd 17inch naval guns, hut that it was not impossible that she had.