ENGLAND'S UNEMPLOYED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 3120, 20 January 1908, Page 2

ENGLAND'S UNEMPLOYED.

THE yumVS FUND N'OX APPIUSCIAXED. ; SOAIE STIUIUUT SI'JSMMfI,. Received lutli, 4.40 p.m ' London, January 18,The majority ul delegates attending the Labor Party's Conference at Hull; w ere present at a special conference ol| trades unions, socialists, and co-operative i org inisations on tile employed questions

Air P. I''. C'urran, luember for JarrowJ presided. He said that the £2o,Opt* granted for relief purposes was a iiicj-c drop in the ocean. He would not'pacept the Government's philunthropy, or help on charity conditions. So long, ho said, us the law of private enterprjsio was guiding the principle of the industry and commerce, they would always have ,the unemployed. They would not solve the question until they curtailed the income of the rich, win* were in possession, and thereby added to the incomes of the poor. They desire.d legislation to prevent the chaos anjd ruin that would follow an uprising 6f the people crying for bread. Air. Ramsay AfacDonaid protest.-d against the habit of voting money in a panic. He moved a resolution declaring that want of employment was not caused

by freetrade, and not averted by periods of good trade, but was a permanent feature of the present industrial organisation. The resolution also urged the vigorous use of legislative and administrative powers, including the shortening of hours of labor of public and other employees, and protection of the I worker against the operation of land and other monopolies; and called upon the Government to fulfil the promise made in the King's Speech in 1900 to amend the Unemployed Act. The resolution set forth that such on amendment, to be satisfactory, must embody the principle of the Labor Party's Bill. Air. J. O'Grady, member for Leeds, in seconding the resolution, said the Queen's Unemployed Fund, though promoted by a woman with a big heart, had done more real damage to common manhood among unemployed thananytltfhg ! in the last twenty years. It degraded and demoralised uiem. Protection as a remedy against unemployment was au absurd thing to rest- on, and freetrade was doubly absurd. Several delegates advised caution, lest the rest of the labor cause should 'be weakened.

The resolution was carried witli enthusiasm, a purely socialist amendment being negatived by 210 to 13.