repeat in a fortnight.

The fortunes of the trade unions are interwoven with the industries
they serve. The more highly organised trade unions are, the more
clearly they recognise their responsibilities; the larger their
membership, the greater their knowledge, the wider their outlook. Of
course, trade unions will make mistakes, like everybody else, will do
foolish things, and wrong things, and want more than they are likely
to get, just like everybody else. But the fact remains that for thirty
years trade unions have had a charter from Parliament which up to
within a few years ago protected their funds, and gave them effective
power to conduct a strike; and no one can say that these thirty years
were bad years of British industry, that during these thirty years it
was impossible to develop great businesses and carry on large
manufacturing operations, because, as everybody knows perfectly well,
those were good and expanding years of British trade and national
enrichment.

A few years ago a series of judicial decisions utterly changed the
whole character of the law regarding trade unions. It became difficult
and obscure. The most skilful lawyers were unable to define it. No
counsel knew what advice to tender to those who sought his guidance.
Meanwhile if, in the conduct of a strike, any act of an agent, however
unauthorised, transgressed the shadowy and uncertain border-line
between what was legal and what was not, an action for damages might
be instituted against the trade union, and if the action was
successful, trade union funds, accumulated penny by penny, year by
year, with which were inseparably intermingled friendly and benefit
moneys, might in a moment have been swept away. That was the state of
the law when his Majesty's present advisers were returned to power.
We have determined to give back that charter to the trade unions. The
Bill is even now passing through the House of Commons.

We are often told that there can be no progress for democracy until
the Liberal Party has been destroyed. Let us examine that. Labour in
this country exercises a great influence upon the Government. That is
not so everywhere. It is not so, for instance, in Germany, and yet in
Germany there is no Liberal Party worth speaking of. Labour there is
very highly organised, and the Liberal Party there has been destroyed.
In Germany there exists exactly the condition of affairs, in a Party
sense, that Mr. Keir Hardie and his friends are