da Pavia who built thy organ, and Cristoforo Romano who carved thy doorway and designed thy medal, and Galeotto del Carretto who sent thee roundelays to carol to thy lute? Have all these less substance than the very brocades in which thy soul was wont to bask?' Surely Shelley himself would have been delighted with the reference to the place where he met his death. 'With what a wonderful coast Shelley has mingled his memory-fig-trees, olives, palms, cactus, hawthorn, pines bent seaward, all running down the steep cliff. What enchanting harmonies they make with the glimpse of sea deep below, the white villages and campaniles, seen through their magic tangle.' He will come to his own very slowly but surely, because when our descendants turn to the history of the struggle for great causes they will find his name writ large, and when they turn to consider the Jewish question, as it was in the closing of the 19th and the opening years of the 20th century, they will find that Judaism had one champion who was not satisfied to defend, who was not afraid to attack. Outside the realm of controversy he was content to work and to believe in the future, this faith being beautifully expressed at the end of his book 'The War for the World,' in the poem 'Oliver Singing,' in lines that may bring this paper to an end: "Thus-I muse-at the core Through the foul-smelling darkness, Singing.' S. L. BENSUSAN. Art. 6.-THE RIDDLE OF TRADE UNION FUNDS. THERE is a flutter in the dovecotes of trade union officialism. Well-paid prosperous gentlemen who have done very well out of the contributions of the rank and file, are much perturbed because certain members of Parliament, by asking the Minister of Labour pertinent questions relating to trade union funds and their disbursement, have turned the glaring light of publicity on the extremely heavy working expenses of some of the most important organisations. It is all very well for Labour M.P.s, themselves well-paid union officials, to say that the information could easily have been obtained from the annual returns of the Registrar-General of Friendly Societies. No doubt the questioners were well aware of that—probably they had already read those returns-and did not need the information for themselves, the object being to give the matter the widest possible publicity. What chance has the average person of the rank and file of securing a copy of the Registrar's returns? There are thousands of trade unionists who thank those members for their action. A daily contemporary, in reporting a case in which a certain union was able to obtain unemployed benefit for one of its members (after it had been refused by the Court of Referees) by taking the case to the Umpire, rather petulantly says: 'The case incidentally illustrates one of the many excellent ways in which trade unions incur "working expenses" about which the Tories pretend to be so concerned.' It is a pity we were not furnished with the details of other ways-not quite so excellent perhaps—in which trade unions incur working expenses. Take, for instance, the question of interunion rivalry. How much money is spent annually in deciding whether John Smith should be a member of the National Union of Clerks or of the National Operative Printers and Assistants; and whether William Jones, who happens to be a saddler working in the mining industry, shall belong to the Miners' Federation or to the Saddlers' and General Leather Workers' Union; or whether Thomas Brown, a railway engine fitter, shall belong to the N.U.R. or the A.E.U.? The 1925 Trade Union Congress report shows that no less than thirty-two meetings of the Disputes Committee were held to deal with such cases. All these gatherings entailed fares and expenses for committee men and witnesses. Another form of expenditure members would like to know something about is the costs incurred over questions of demarcation of work. What portion of our contributions is spent in deciding whether the members of the National Union of Operative Heating and Domestic Engineers, or the members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, or the members of the United Operative Plumbers and Domestic Engineers of Great Britain and Ireland, shall have the privilege of fixing certain pipes? The General Council of the Trades Union Congress state that 'bitter and protracted disputes are constantly taking place between trade unions on the question of demarcation of work,' and that Federations, Arbitration Boards, and Disputes Committees are continually dealing with these problems. Even as we write, there is a strike in London over this question. The members of the Plumbers' Union have ceased work because the members of the A.E.U. are employed in laying pipes which the former union consider as their work! Apart from the loss of wages and the holding-up of the job, pounds are spent in official expenses in conferences. During 1925 there were five disputes between the National Union of Clerks and other unions respecting wages and conditions of clerks employed in union offices, and no less than thirty-three disputes between co-operative societies and trade unions. The great scandal of trade union funds is, however, the excessive number of highly paid officials and the payments for delegation fees, travelling and hotel expenses. The newspaper already referred to is strangely silent on these 'excellent' ways of incurring working expenses from moneys provided by the hard-earned pence of the rank and file. The figures for the six most important Unions, as published by the Registrar-General and enumerated in the White Paper recently issued, are as follows: NATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYMEN. Total Receipts £ S. d. 641,728 17 7 Total Expenses (Salaries, etc., 101,9737. 128. 1d.) 280,810 0 0 Benefits to members 201,289 0 8 950,830 0 3 NATIONAL UNION OF GENERAL AND MUNICIPAL WORKERS. 42,775 18 10 It will be noted that in the case of two unions considerably more than half the income goes in expenses; in three cases nearly half; and in one case, the A.E.U.to which further reference will be made later-little more than 10 per cent. goes in working expenses. The most startling items are salaries, etc., particularly regarding the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and the Transport and General Workers' Union. The huge sums spent by these two unions in salaries and allowances is little short of scandalous. Of the 350,8307. received in contributions by the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, no less than 123,1787. goes in official salaries; and of the 524,7321. received by the Transport Workers, 189,4197, finds its way into an inflated pay-roll. Compare these figures with the amounts disbursed in benefits. When one remembers I 31 that the majority of the members of both these organisations are amongst the worst-paid workers, one cannot escape the feeling that it is a case of a horde of wellpaid officials battening on the pence of the poor. Lest it should be thought that the N.U.R. and the R.C.A. are comparatively moderate respecting salaries, it should be borne in mind that these organisations cater in the main for one type of worker, neither of them administers many benefits, and their members are usually close together in compact areas. Therefore, their working expenses should compare favourably with a union like the Amalgamated Engineering Union, with its comprehensive scale of benefits and its scattered workshops and membership. There is no doubt that, whatever these estimable gentlemen might say to the contrary, most of the unions carry too many full-time officials with big salaries, which they are not ashamed to augment by drawing heavy personal expenses. Let us quote an instance of the lavishness with which trade union funds are spent. During the year 1922, when there was a general election, a certain union paid to its three principal officials no less than 49017. Stupendous when one thinks of it! It is about time these facts were made public. There is one general secretary in receipt of 1000l. per annum salary, whose parliamentary and other public |