Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1911-01-05

4 Lonodn, December Fl, 1910. The
general election is over. The Labor
Party in the new House will number
forty-two members, which is an in
crease, as / expected, pf two on the
old number. The two leading political
parties will be exactly level, number
ling 273 members each. The Irish Ma
tionalists under John Redmond's lead
tership will be increased to Is and the
tO'Brienite Nationalist will be reduced
to nine. The number of votes polled
lby the successful and unsuccessful La
Dor candidates amount to 381, OLE
votes. It is the addition of the Labor
and Irish members to the Liberal
Party in the House Of Commons that
will give that party its majority over
/ the Conservatives and enable Premier
Asquith to retain the reigns of govern
ment along with his able lieutenants,
Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.
ITO know what will now happen we
must wait until the .reassembling of
Parliament early in the New Year,
4 which is the year of the coronation of
King George v.
The six or seven Conservative work
ling men candidates put forward in
opposition to straight Labor. candi-
dates have all been defeated. The
fund of over $4,000 raised to carry
them through to a successful election
has therefore been spent uselessly by
1.-THE wealthy manufacturers who were
behind them. The Conservative
working man" is comparatively new
figure in British politics and he has
been brought out by the reactionists
[of course, to try and kill as many
straight Labor candidatures as posi-
lble. The Conservative working
man." as a political figure, is always
fsaid to have been invented by Cap
tain Markham Spofforth, who died in
11907, at the age of 81. He was tax
ing master in Chancery, but his time
and energy was devoted to the organi-
zation of the modern Conservative
lparty, which owes to him., among
other things, the Junior Carlton Club
Ills strong supporter in all his schemes
was the now aged Marquis of Aber-
Igavenny, once described as the "Great
Panjandrum" of the Tory party.
| The boiler makers are now at work
again, the lockout being declared
Iquit off. Amongst the South Wales
miners, however, there are still OBJ
Estacles to a quick resumption of work,
and although the crisis is past, many
lof the colleries will not reopen until
after Christmas. Generally, the Labor
situation of the country has well
cleared up and the big disputes appear
Ito be well out of the way. In the
printing trade, however, where for
some years there has been peace and
where all branches of the men are well
lorganized, a movement has at last.
|come to the front in no indefinite
terms in the shape of a demand for
forty-eight hours week. Various
organizations of master printers are
closing up their ranks. =
A meeting of representatives of the
Federation. of Master Printers and
Allied Trades, the London Master
Printers Association, the Federation
of Northern Newspaper Owners, the
Federation of Southern Newspaper
Owners, and the Irish Newspaper So
ciety was held in London on December
18th to consider the application receiv-
ed from the mems representatives for
a 4S-hour week for the printing and
Jailed trades The following resolu-
ltion was unanimously adopted: "That
the Federation of Printing and Allied
Trades be informed that the combined
Organization of employers are willing
to meet their representatives in con-.
lference early in January, 1911"
One of the important measures pass
ed by the Liberal Government in its
later sessions was the Trade Boards
Act. This is an act for application
Ito sweated industries and special
COMMITTEES are being formed out of it
with regard to special trades. For ex-
ample, one section under the, Act is
turning its. attention to the tailoring
trade. It is required to fix the mimi
lmum rate Of wages for time work and
Imay, if it liked, also fix general mini
1mum piece rates. Both employers and
lemployed in the tailoring trade are in
ItArested that fixed minimum rate Of
wages should rule as protection for
1.-THE good employer against unfair UNI
Idercutting and also as protection for
1.-THE worker. 1t is quite new depars
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