Mr. Burns defended the action of the Parliamentary Com- mittee
and the new rules in one of his half-rollicking, half- impassioned speeches. They did not want men who posed as the "panjandrums of picturesque personalities." "They did not want Congress to be the abode of canvassers for sewing- machines, betting men, or public-house keepers. They did not want it to be a Congress where blackleg journalists most do congregate. They wanted it to be a Congress of Labour directly represented. They wanted it to be the mouthpiece not of the man who was well paid and had left labour altogether, but of the man whose average wages were 30s. when in work, and nothing at all when unemployed." The country would attach more importance to the decisions of delegates straight from the workshops than from veterans superfluous, like himself, who had " strutted the stage too long." On the resolution being put, Mr. Wilson's amendment rejecting the new rules was lost by 604,000 to 357,000. One of the results of the new organisation will be that Mr. Broadhurst will in future be excluded from the Congress. He neither works at a trade nor is a Union official.
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