Organisers found a new duty in acting as advocates against military service on behalf of men in exceptional circumstances, and Mr. Mason, who had only started on March 1st of 1916, was claimed, but liberated by the military authorities. There was trouble on the G.N.R. over an award of Judge Parry in regard to the promotion of men, and on February 14th Messrs. Moore, Hunter and Wild met the representatives of the Board of Trade in London on this matter, which was eventually settled in a satisfactory manner. The Craft Union Conference had assumed considerable importance after the T.U.C. debate referred to, and the Executive resolved:—
"That in future meetings of the Federation of Railway Craft Unions our representatives take every opportunity of upholding our claim, in conjunction with the claims of recognised craft unions, to have the absolute right to enrol as members the whole of the locomotivemen employed on the railways of the United Kingdom, and further, until the N.U.R. recognise our claim we make every effort possible to educate the representatives of the craft unions on our past efforts on behalf of those who are represented by our organisation from the period of its establishment."
The N.U.R. so far abandoned its industrial unionism idea as to make an offer to the craft unions not to enrol in the N.U.R. in future those railway craftsmen who have served an apprenticeship or have worked at their trade for five years. In passing I wish to make particular reference to this all-grades policy, and to say how much I deplore what I regard as the thoughtless and mistaken reasoning of the younger school of National Guildsmen in this matter. There is abundant room for a big and embracive National Union of Railwaymen, but it should not be an octopus king to rope in special and exceptional grades like:—
1.—Locomotive footplatemen.
2.—Clerical workers.
3.—Engineering craftsmen.
They have no ground of defence for poaching on those three
