SIR WILLIAM JOYNSON-HICKS has denounced the builders’ unions for their selfish policy in holding up the construction of houses by refusing to admit new men to the unions and by limiting the output of the operatives. The policy is unquestionably selfish, but it is a selfishness which we can at least understand. The greatest trouble of the weekly wage-earner is the uncertainty of employment. Carpenters, bricklayers, masons are engaged on a building; the job is finished, and they may be out of work for weeks or for months. In these circumstances it is inhuman to ask them to hurry a job to an end without also assuring continuity of employment, The same quite selfish but also quite human consideration leads the unions to deprecate additions to their ranks. Assure employment, and you may quite possibly double output. We are puzzled, by the way, by the fact that Regent-street can be quite unnecessarily torn down and rebuilt in hideous fashion while there is no labour available for the erection of working men’s homes.

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