At Scarborough

Last week in Scarborough met delegates from nearly every land, at the International Trade Unionist Congress. The embers of British communism were well stirred.

Reds Down. Labor extremists found a competent mouthpiece in A. J. Cooke, communist, Secretary of the Miners' Federation. The policies of conservative laborites were largely expressed from the lips of J. H. Thomas, Colonial Secretary in the MacDonald Labor Cabinet.

At the opening of the Congress, Mr. Cooke advocated that the Trade Unionists invest their General Council with power to call a strike of 5,000,000 British Unionists at the drop of a battered derby. "Be realists! . . . It's only power that counts, and if we show our power we'll avoid strikes!"

Up spoke J. H. Thomas: "No one in this Conferenceight to give it."

"Speak for yourself, Thomas!" jangled Mr. Cook. Amid pandemoneum his measure was defeated.

Reds Up. Stung by the failure of their chief, the extremists rallied to the support of another measure, introduced as follows by Extremist Harry Pollitt: "We must have shop committees. . . We will prevent workers from being fired as soon as they suggest anything for the betterment of labor . . . We want it understood that Bolshevism is our object."

A conservative, one J. Sexton, M. P., remarked some what redundantly: "This is a thinly veiled attempt to pledge this conference to Communism." The Congress, however, cavorted after its spree of conservation; adapted the "shop committee" measure.

Ramsay Present. Former Labor Premier Ramsay MacDonald (who is not a Trade Unionist) was present at the conference as a "guest." Long and loud were the cheers.

Hero Waiter. At a Scarborough hotel was found a waiter who would not wait upon bona fide Russian Communists, of whom there were a few at the Congress. For so refusing he was hailed by conservatives as a hero, received 60 letters of congratulation containing numerous cash enclosures.

Tomski. One of those for whom the waiter would not function was Comrade Tomski, loquacious Russian, who expressed gratitude to Britain for allowing him to stay "a whole 14 days in England." Mr. Tomski spoke for three hours in his native tongue. A translator informed the audience that Mr. Tomski had said that the Soviet had "relieved bankers of the burden of banks, land owners of the burden of land, and factory owners of the burden of conducting factories." In the middle of these proceedings the organist got the wrong cue and burst into The International. After Comrade Tomski had finished a motion was proposed to substitute orations in Esperanto, which nobody could understand for any further speeches in Russian.

Evans of the U. S. A. Delegate E. J. Evans, of the American Federation of Trade Unions, spoke of cooperative measures in the U. S. between labor and employees. He was received without enthusiasm. His hearers brightened when he described the U. S. Super-Electric-Power-Movement as on the point of becoming the world's greatest monopoly.

Anti Imperial. As the Congress drew to a close, it skidded again toward the Reds. A motion of censure against the British Empire was introduced. Extremist Harry Pollitt again rose to his feet, "The Empire means Lord Curzon or Lord Reading riding elephants! . . . It means appalling conditions in India, where workers have to be doped with opium before they will go down the mines . . . Every inch of the Empire is drenched with blood."

Cried J. H. Thomas in rebuttal: "If anything can make this Congress ridiculous it will be for us to pass a resolution like this with half the delegates already gone and three minutes left for speeches."

The three minutes were enough. The motion passed.

Results of any real significance were two: 1) Britain, for a time at least, will not be at the mercy of a bloc of 5,000,000 laborers, which would make the K. K. K., the Italian Fascists or even the Russian Communist party look impotent in comparison; 2) Labor party leadership, especially by MacDonald and Thomas, who have really dominated in the past, is at an end.