ABSTRACT
The resolution which led to the establishment of the Labour Representation Committee was passed at the Trades Union Congress of 1899 by 546,000 votes against 434,000. Before the Conference convened by the British Trades Union Congress had actually met, the Scots had launched an organization of their own on a basis very similar to that proposed for the L.R.C. In January, 1900, a Conference presided over by Robert Smillie, of the Scottish Miners, met at Edinburgh, and set up the Scottish Workers’ Representation Committee, with the co-operation of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. The Scottish Conference, however, defeated a proposal that it should pledge itself to ‘secure the nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange’. The Scots, in creating an organization of their own in advance of the meeting convened by the British Trades Union Congress, were probably actuated in part by nationalist feeling; but they had other motives besides.
