POLITICAL ACTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 August 1922, Page 4

POLITICAL ACTION.

PROPOSAL RESTRAINING LABOR. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received August 6, 5.5 p.m. London. August 5. Two hundred Unionist members of the House of Commons hjpve memoralised Mr. Lloyd George demanding facilities for the passage in the autumn of Col. E. C. Meysey-Thompson’s amending Trade Union Biill. [ln moving the second reading of his Bill in the House of Commons. Col. Meysey-Thompson said it provided that before a union could take political action, such action must be approved by 20 per cent, of the unionists voting thereon in a poll in which at least half the eligibles voted. He declared the Bill did not attack the unions, but merely restored the legal position occupied prior to the Osborne judgment. Large numbers of trade unionists demanded freedom in politics. Mr. J. R. Clyne® (nabor), moving the rejection of the Bill, while not questioning the mover’s intentions, said the Bill would seriously undermine the trade unions’ political aims as to public work. No workmen were now compelled to pay union contributions for political purposes if they desired not 1 to. The Bill, amid Labor protests, was read a second time by 161 to 82.]