NOTES AND MEMORANDA the mind to work rather with trade unionists in mending the present system of things than with Anarchists in ending it. Then the German Socialist leader Bebel, in his speech, frankly admitted that they had come to a new understanding on this matter in Germany, and were now going to take up practical social questions, instead of revolutionizing, while his colleague Liebknecht mildly poohpoohed as mere dreaming even the gentler idea of a universal strike to be made on the outbreak of the first European war, which is a cherished fancy in some Socialist circles, and was suggested at the Congress by the Dutch agitator Niewenhuis. In this spirit, then, the main business of the Congress was to pass two general resolutions for making ordinary remedial legislation and trade union action more effective. The one recommended the working men of all countries to institute a perma- nent Commission of Inquiry into the conditions of labour, and make every use of their power as electors to secure remedial legislation; and the other recommended them all to join the trade unions of their respeco live trades, to observe great care and prudence in resorting to strikes and boycotting, and to constitute in every country where it is practicable a general secretariat of labour, to be a medium of communication between the working men of different countries and prevent them hurting one another on the outbreak of strikes. The rest of the busi- ness of the Congress was not of much moment. It recommended the 1st of May rather than the first Sunday of May for the International Eight-hour Demonstration, and it passed various abstract resolutions against militarism, piecework, sub-contracting, and sexual inequality in political and civil rights; but it refused to condemn the Russian persecution of the Jews, on the ground that that was a question of nationality and not of class. A fortnight later the English trade unions held their twenty-fourth annual Congress at Newcastle. It was the largest and most powerful they have yet held, consisting of 6?0 delegates, with a membership of 1,302,855 behind them;and it received unaccustomed marks of esta- blished public respect. It enjoyed the official presence of the Mayor and Magistrates, the unofficial presence of Ministers and Ex-Ministers of State, and its real dignity was even better asserted by an opening address from its President, Mr. Butt, M.P., which for pith of sense, high tone, and terse phrase has won universal admiration. The Trade Union Congress has now an array of business to transact which would require a session of six weeks instead of six days. It had this year more than sixty subjects on the agenda paper, and broke up before it reached the thirtieth. The most absorbing question was the eight- hours' day, on which the Congress voyaged about curiously between yes and no for two days, first repeating by a more decisive majority its resolution of last ye.ar .in favour of a Parliamentary enactment ;. then, by a still larger majority, qualifying that resolution by a second, declaring that ' any Bill for reducing the hours of labour should be of'
