On Tuesday Mr. Ditchfield, Secretary of the Mersey Quay and
Railway Carters' Union, declared his opposition to arbitra- tion and arbitrators. He said the men of his union desired the preservation of their right to strike on their own behalf or in sympathy with their fellow-workers through the National Transport Federation. " As members of the Federation they would have to act in accordance with its rules, and they asked the right of tearing up their own agreement which was satisfactory to them if they wished to strike in sympathy with other workers." The evidence of the non-unionists was opened by Mr. Breathwhite, a signalman on the Midland, who maintained that the Conciliation Boards were the result of an artificial agitation, and that the signalmen had lost by awards -under the 1907 scheme. He believed that reliance on the Conciliation Board had in many cases destroyed all individual effort. Mr. Frederick Smith, a signalman on the Great Eastern, declared that as non-union men they were dead against recognition. There was no one like the worker to represent his own grievance. Trade unionism was a grand thing if properly carried out, but the usurpation of control by the Socialists bad robbed the men of their manhood. During twenty-five years he had had free access to superiors, and it was " rot " to maintain that if men in the company's service appeared before the officials or the board they hesitated about going too far for fear of prejudicing their position.
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