The presidential address to the Trade-Union Gongress, which has been
sitting at Swansea during the past week, was delivered by Mr. Bowerman on Tuesday. Naturally, the address dealt with the subject which has made o great a commotion in the Trade-Union world—namely, the decision in the Taff Vale case—but we deeply regret to note that he spoke of it as "a legal, or, more correctly speaking, semi-political, decision." Now if that means anything, it is an accusation that the Lords of Appeal did not give their decision because they believed it to be the law, but because they desired to promote certain political aims. Nothing can, of course, be further from the truth. For ourselves, we believe that the practical results of the decision will be much less than is now believed in the kind of panic that has set in. The Unions may have to keep their benefit funds and their strike funds apart, and they may have to be more cautious in regard to the action of their agents during strikes, but we cannot say that we think either of these results would be bad from any point of view. That the decision will really injure the Unions is, we believe, a delusion, for the most successful Unions are those, like the Boilermakers' and the Cotton Operatives', which never rely on any form of violence. We wish no ill to the Unions, believing that a great deal of the prejudice against them is ill-founded, and bold that on the whole they have greatly benefited the working class, but we do not wish their members given privi- leges not accorded to the ordinary citizen. Such privileges they would have• if the Unions could never be called to account for wrongful ants.
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