station masters. The most important instance of this is the Government's refusal to permit members of the police forces to belong to the Police and Prison Officers' Union.
All this growth has naturally led trade unions to expand their activities, and in many cases to amend their internal administration. The constitutions of some unions in 1921 dated back 50, 60 and 70 years, and were obviously inadequate to the changed situation, so that many experiments in altering them had come under discussion. One particular point of contention, the " shop branch " versus " residence branch " controversy, is dealt with below. Other difficulties centre mainly round the representation, in a large union, of the in- terests of different crafts and sexes, the method of electing the governing body, the relative power to be assigned to the govern- ing body, to the officers, and to the members themselves, the amount of local autonomy, financial and otherwise, to be granted, and so on. Different unions adopt different solutions. The executive committee or council, for example, is generally elected by vote of the members, either by districts (as in the Iron and Steel Trades Association), or by departments (as in the National Union of Railwaymen) ; but it may also be elected by general vote of the whole union. Only two important unions, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and the United Society of Boilermakers, have adopted the principle of an executive committee in permanent session. In some unions the executive committee is theoretically the final governing body, though in such cases the practice of taking a referendum upon most questions of importance really leaves the decision in the hands of the members; others have a general council or delegate meeting sitting for some time which has power to override the decisions of the executive committee on certain subjects; most, though not all, held at fixed intervals a conference or meeting of representatives to receive the report of the executive com- mittee and to discuss policy. The merits of delegate and other representative conferences and of ballot, secret or otherwise, in ascertaining the will of the membership is one of the problems most frequently -canvassed among the trade unions. In some cases the general secretary and other officers are appointed and paid by the executive committee, in others they are elected by vote of the members. It will readily be understood that the latter method gives in effect much more power to the secretary than the former, and the position of a trade union secretary and the extent to which he is able to speak for his union and to conclude binding arrangements on its behalf is another problem claiming much discussion.
Differences of practice also exist with regard to the autonomy of branches and sections of trade unions, and the method of declaring or calling off a strike. Some societies allow great freedom of action to their branches and district committees or councils; others, such as the Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association, retain all contributions in the hands of the head office, and only allow money to be spent by branches or districts for purposes specifically approved by the central organization. Between these two extremes there is room for a large variety of different methods. Some unions specifically provide in their constitutions that a ballot of the membership must be taken before a strike is declared. In many other cases this is secured by the general practice; and some unions, such as the Miners' Federation insist further that a two-thirds majority in favour of a strike must be secured. The National Union of Railwaymen, on the other hand, allows a strike to be declared by the executive committee, without prescribing any consultation of the member- ship. Local strikes may in some cases be declared by the local committee, but in most cases, since the strike pay is centrally administered, the sanction of the central office is necessary for a local strike, and the central executive has also power to order the men back to work. All these problems of administration require the services of trained men, and the position and educa- tion of the trade union official has begun to receive considera- tion. The trade unions have been slowly coming to the opinion that the work of a trade union official is specialized and requires special training; salaries have been raised, and classes and
summer-schools for trade union officials and organizers are regularly held. Specialization, however, upon organizing and routine work often tends to remove the trade union official from contact with and understanding of the problems of the members whom he serves, and this difficulty has not yet been satisfactorily solved.
Trade unions have gradually extended their activities in many new directions, of which the principal are politics, educa- tion, and the control of industry. The political Labour party in its origin rested upon the support of the trade unions; but in 1909 their political activities appeared to have received a check. This was removed by the passing of the Trade Union Act in 1913, which enabled every trade union, after the pre- scribed ballot had been taken, to collect contributions for political purposes. By 1921 almost every trade union had its political fund, lists of Labour candidates backed by trade union money appeared, and locally the trade union branches played a regular part in the activities of local Labour parties and supported Labour candidates at local elections. Trade unions also began to show considerable interest in the education of their members. During these years the movement towards adult working-class education experienced a great revival. The Workers' Educational Association, a body which in connexion with the universities ran a large number of evening courses and summer-schools for working-class students, was supported by the trade unions, some of which became actual partners in its work. The Central Labour College now the Labour College a residential college for students of Marxian economics, founded in 1909 by a secession of students from Ruskin College, and subsequently supported by the National Union of Railwaymen and the South Wales Miners' Federation, extended its activities; and class-centres called Labour colleges, on more or less Marx- ian lines, were set up in Manchester, Glasgow and elsewhere. Trade unions provided a number of scholarships for their members at the Labour colleges and at Ruskin College, Oxford; and in 1921, when the General Council of the Trades Union Congress was set up, a resolution was carried to provide for the unification of working-class education under it.
Trade union interest, however, has not been confined to education proper. The Daily Herald, a newspaper founded during a printers' strike in 1912 by the London Society of Compositors, was supported by Labour and trade union funds, and became an important political force, although it was forced temporarily to become a weekly soon after the outbreak of war. Later, in 1913, the trade unions revived an ancient project of running their own newspapers, and the Daily Citizen appeared as the first daily newspaper entirely owned and con- ducted by the British trade union movement. This paper had a short career, and ceased publication in 1915, mainly owing to war conditions, but the trade unions played a large part in the reissue of the Daily Herald as a Labour daily, early in 1919. Besides the daily papers, there are a number of local weeklies and monthlies to which trade unions contribute, and some of them also run papers and printing presses of their own. The Labour Research Department, which in 1916 became a federal body composed of trade unions and other Labour bodies contributing to the endowment of research into the history and problems of the Labour movement, shows the increasing interest of the trade unions in specialized research work.
The inclusion of the phrase " control of industry " (see GUILD SOCIALISM) in the aims of the trade unions has played a considerable part in forming their policy, although it has not been generally translated into fact. In the early years of the century, most trade unions, like the Labour party and the Socialists, were assumed to be in favour of the transference of the important industries of the country to the ownership and control of the State. The experience of workers in State-owned industries, notably in the Post Office, suggested that this was inadequate to fulfil trade union aspirations, and between 191 1 and 1921 most of them altered it to a demand for " national- ization of industry, with control by the workers engaged therein," amounting in some cases to a demand for a National Guild
