Meanwhile the strike at Draveuil was going on. On the 27th of July a collision between the police and the strikers again took place, and the "Federation of Building Trades" decided upon a general strike and upon a demonstration for the 30th of July. Some members of the Confederal Committee, the Secretary Griffuelhes, for instance, were opposed to the manifestation, but the decision was taken against their advice. The manifestation of Villeneuve St. George resulted in a violent collision; there were many killed and wounded. The agitation grew, and the Confederal Committee together with the federal committee of the Building Trades called upon the other trades to join them in a general strike to be continued as a protest against the "massacres." The call of the Confederal Committee was only partly followed. The events of Villeneuve St. George aroused the press and the government against the Confederation. The "Confederal Committee," wrote the _Temps_, "is not an instrument for trade conquests. It is a purely insurrectional Committee. It should be treated as such." The government arrested all the leading members of the Confederal Committee. On the 4th of August, as a move against the government, the Confederal Committee which constituted itself after the arrests and of which M. Luquet was temporary secretary, admitted the Federation of Miners with 60,000 members into the Confederation. The Federation of Miners had for some time expressed its wish to enter the Confederation, but certain difficulties, more or less personal, had stood in the way. After Villeneuve St. George these difficulties were smoothed and the adherence of the Miners to the Confederation was made possible. The events of Villeneuve St. George aroused some protests within the Confederation. The collisions and the bloodshed were ascribed by the opponents of the Confederal Committee to revolutionary methods and "anarchist" tactics. The polemics between the "reformist" and "revolutionary" elements which had not ceased since the Congress of Amiens now became more and more bitter. In September, 1908, the Congress of the Confederation met at Marseilles. The reports to the Congress showed that the Section of Federations of industries counted 68 federal organizations with 2,586 syndicats and 294,398 members; total receipts amounted to 24,719 francs. The Section of Bourses counted 157 _Bourses du Travail_ with 2,028 syndicats and with a budget of 16,081 francs. The Congress of Marseilles expressed its sympathy with the arrested members of the Confederation, and "denounced before the entire public the abominable procedures" of the government. The reports of the Confederal Committee were approved by 947 with none against and 109 blanks, "not because the members of the Confederal Bureau were arrested, but because the acts of the Bureau and of the Confederal Committee were the expression of the mandate entrusted to them."