On April 25th I got the committee together again. This time they met in the Cozens' Temperance Hotel, King's Lynn. There attended the following: Mr. George Nicholls, M.P., President; Mr. Richard Winfrey, M.P., Treasurer; Messrs H. Day, J. Stibbons, T. Thacker, W. Codling, A. P. Petch, G. Giles, M. Berry and myself. The first minute that was passed was that my quarterly report be received and that my action in giving support to the Trunch members out on strike be endorsed. The last part of the resolution was not necessary as the Emergency Committee I had called together on April 18th had decided that I should support the men, but it was an attempt on the part of some who were not at the meeting on the 18th to ignore the Emergency Committee, as they were opposed to my calling the meeting; but I stuck to my guns and said I would do it again if such an occasion arose. The malcontents, however, were determined I should not, so they passed the following resolution on the motion of Mr. Winfrey:--
That an Emergency Committee be formed consisting of the officers of the Union and three other members of the Union living nearest to the District where any dispute takes place, and that they have power to deal with any dispute that may arise and report the same to the next Executive Committee.
I warned them of the folly of such a resolution and told them that we were within measurable distance of another dispute of much greater magnitude than the one we had got on at the moment. I asked them if they thought it was right for one or two men to commit the Union to a strike? No one knew where it might end. The reply I received was that they were not going to the expense of calling the committee together more than once a quarter. Mr. Day, who was in close touch with the enormous amount of work that was being heaped upon me and my assistant and knew that we were utterly unable to cope with it, moved a resolution that another organizer be appointed in order that I might devote more time to office work. This was turned down, although the Union was going up by leaps and bounds, which all added to the work of the Union, and we were left to struggle on as best we could. Can it be wondered at that the matters at the office got into a state of chaos? For it was humanly impossible for any one person to grapple with the work, especially in a room four feet by six feet and I never at home.