The Connecticut labor news., 1922-02-03

ne cause was taken up by that great and noble aristocrat, Lord Shaftesbury, who, after bitter and long continued struggle, succeeded in putting through parliament much wholesome restrictive and regulative legislation But he met the fierCest opposition from almost all employers, from liberal statesmen who were followers of the Manchester school and, to the shame of the Church be 1t confessed, from almost, if not quite, the whole bench of Bishops in the House of Lords.
 But such legislation could not have gone far towards the emancipation of the toilers from intolerable conditions, had it not been for the growing pressure of a new social force.
 That force was organized labor, the trade union movement. It was called forth inevitably by the hard necessities of the situation, by the constantly increas- ing pressure of the industrial revolution upon the living conditions, aye, the very existence of the workers.
 The movement met the bitterest de- nunciation and the fierest opposition at the very start. The leaders in 1t were denounced as revoutionists and anarch- ists. (The term Bolshevist had not yet come into use). The seven pioneers in of agricultural laborers were arrested and, under some obsolete act, sentenced to deportation. The courts were invoked to deprive the unions of the right of ad- ministering their own funds. Associa- tions of employers were formed which refused to employ any man who belonged to union. Every effort was made to smash the nascent movement, and for 2 while these efforts seemed to succeed But after 1850 the organization of labor went forward steadily. Persecution gen. orally strengthens and spreads any move nent. The blood of the martyrs is al ways the seed of the Church.
 Of recent years the mOement has spread rapidly. The war nearly doubled tIle IlulllDCIS Ol OISdillZGu ldDOI, dllu tO- day between six and seven millions of the workers of England and Wales (leaving out Ireland and Scotland which have their independent organizations) belong to the various trade unions. That means that about sixty per cent of the labor of Eng land IS organized, whereas in the United States only about fifteen or twenty per cent is organized.
 The organization IS composed of a large number of craft unions, loosely held together in a trade union congress which meets once year.
 1 attended the congress of this year, which met in Cardiff in South Wales. And I must say that the debate on the floor compared favorably with the de- bates of either of the Lambeth Confer ences of the Anglican Episcopate throughout the world which I have at tended In clearness and closeness of thinking, in cogency of reasoning, in breadth of view, in grasp of the subjects discussed, and, above all, in idealisn of aspiration, that is essential Christianity, it seemed to me that the Labor Congress often surpassed the Lambeth Confer ences. For instance, while many techni- cal questions of detail, like the del1nita- tlOn of craft unions c. g., whether a certain kind of workers i'll wood should belong to a carpenters or jOiners unior sometimes produced some friction, the questions which appealed to the delegates which absorbed their interest and most of their time, were big questions of ar idealistic nature. For example, one oi the best speeches I ever heard was that of J. H. Clynes, M. P, Food Controller of Great Britain during the war, a mem Der of the war cabinet and leader of the Labor party in parliament. Mir. Clynes dealt in nasterful way with the League of Nations and lifted the thousand dele gates to high level of enthusiasm anc unanimous support of that great ideal Another speech of similar quality was that of J. H. Thomas, head of the Rail way ulllOll dlltl dlSO d lllClllDSI Ol the war cabinet. He spoke i'll most able way on behalf of the conference for Dis armament at Washington and carried the whole congress with him into earnest en. dorsement of that effort for world peace Indeed the whole congress seemed tc