The Cotton Factory Times. — 1903-11-27 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

PROTEST MEETLNG IN 3,L4NCHESTER.  Although the specific object of the mass meeting of railway workers held in the Grand Theatre, Manchester, on Sunday afternoon, was to further consider the dispute between the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company and their draymen at Burnley, opportunity was also taken to advance the claims of trades unionism and to emphasise by resolution the necessity for direct Labour representation in Parliament.  There was a very large audience, presided over by Mr. John Hodge, Labour candidate for the Gorton division, who said the large attendance proved the men recognised that what affected the Burnley men to-day might affect all of them to-morrow. The plan of laying a man off when a holiday occurred simply meant a reduction of wages. If the oompany would effect economies why did they not begin with the directors' and high official' salaries? After urging all the employes to join a trades union, he said the classes had monopolised the Government to the detriment of the workers. They eould not hope fvr a nacre eq,ixtaoie aistrinution of me.* h created by labour until they controlled the ''arl a. mentary machine in the same way as the capitalists did. Mr. Chamberlain had said such men as he and Mr. Kelly, Mr. Lowth. Mr. Harker, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Challener did not represent the workers, and it rested with those, and such as those before him, to give Mr. Chamberlain the he. Mr. Chamberlain spoke of their splendid heritage; that of the Burnley draymen was not worth having, and he would sooner commit suicide than have it. Neither Free Trade nor Protection was going to solve the problem of poverty. They needed a constructive policy. A graduated income tax that would make a miWonaire an impossibility would be a step in the 'right direction. Instead of painting themselves red or blue, let them out in the true Labour colour.— (Applause.) He proposed a resolution protesting against the terms offered by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company to the goods workers in several Lancashire towns, and .pledging those present to protect themselves by joining their trades unions.  —in---P-roposing a resolution stigmatising the terms offered to the men by the company as arbitrary and appealing for more combination among rail way workers, Mr. T. Lowth (general secretary of the General Railway Workers' Union) detailed the circumstances which led up to the dispute at Burnley. The terms offered by the company, he said, were that they should have a right to stop any permanent man whenever the station might be closed, and that the latter should not have the same right to leave his employment if he found a better situation. Such an offer he considered to be altogether inequitable. The company declined to be interviewed on the matter, and although Mr. Emmott, M.P., had offered his services as mediator, up to the present they had not been accepted. So confident were the men in the justice of their cause that they were willing to submit the whole matter to an arbitrator appointed by the Board of Trade.  The resolution was unanimously adopted. During the meeting communications expressing sympathy were read from Mr. Schwan]; M.P., ana the Hon. Philip Stanhope.