Speaking at Birmingham on Tuesday, as President of the Miners'
Federation of Great Britain, Mr. Pickard used words- which showed how great was the centrifugal force exerted by the resolutions in favour of "nationalising everything " passed' by the Trade-Union Congress last summer. Mr. Pickard began by pointing out that the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade-Union Congress had passed a resolution which, if carried out, would have the effect of committing the Congress. to support only the candidates whom the Parliamentary Committee approved of. Their suggestion was that, if the General Election occurred in 1895, the Parliamentary Com- mittee should call a special Conference at Manchester,. among other subjects, "to decide an industrial programme embodying the resolution agreed upon by this Congress, and which shall pledge the Trade-Unionists of this country to vote for, and support only, those candidates who accept the pro- gramme of the Trade-Union Parliamentary Committee." He- could not advise them, i.e., the Miners' Federation, to attend any such Conference. This advice looks at first sight as if it were merely concerned with matters of form, but in all pro- bability Mr. Pickard meant a great deal more than he said Hiswords are another sign of the wide sense of dissatis- faction created by the " header " for Socialism taken by the late Congress. First the boilermakers, and now the miners, refuse to tie themselves to a policy of Collectivism at once- vague and violent. It wants more than a piece of clever wire- pulling to turn the workmen's organisations into Socialist clubs.
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