THE THREATENED STRIKE.
AS we write the question of whether there shall or shall not be a general strike of miners is being decided at the men's ballot. We are bound to say that all the omens seem unfavourable. The chief difficulty is that the movement for the strike is not due to any belief on the part of the mon that there is an economic oppor- tunity for selling their labour dearer—a perfectly legiti- mate reason for a strike or the threat of a strike—but arises from the fact that the leaders whom the men now trust are anxious to show the power of the unions. These new leaders have to a, very great extent, consciously or unconsciously, thrown economic considerations aside. They have come to believe that what they call revolu- tionary methods and revolutionary organization afford a panacea for the evils of which the miners complain. They teach—and their teaching is for the moment largely believed — that through revolutionary action labour or, at any rate, the miners can get what they want —a better share of the good things of this world. The preachers of the doctrine of revolution laugh at the notion of supply and demand regulating price, and hold that the laws of political economy as well as the laws of the land and its adminis- trators can be bullied into acquiescence with the demands of syndicalism. " Put your demands high and show your power to throw the machinery of the State out of gear if those demands are not granted at once and in full and you are sure to win." That is an idea which at the moment is running like wildfire through the great mass of the miners. A good many of the older men, who have what would be called old-fashioned views, feel grave doubts about the wisdom of these proposals ; but the younger workers are almost all bitten with Socialism, and they are the moving spirits in the unions. How often have we heard in the case of frontier wars or of uprisings in some African tribe that the greybeards are for peace, but that the youth of the tribe are filled with the desire to blood their spears, and are determined. to show their power, and, further, that though they form the majority the older men are afraid of them, or, rather, are afraid of seeming afraid of taking the war path! Tho war cry, in fact, becomes the fashion. That, we take it, is very much the situation throughout the labour world at the moment, and it is especially so in the coalfields. Solid- arity of action and obedience to the unions have become almost a religious tenet with the miners, and the unions for the time being have been captured by the young men. The " juvenes " are in power. To show that we are not speaking without warrant we will quote from a very remarkable speech made by Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, the leader of the new unionism among the South Wales miners, last Saturday and reported, in the Daily Chronicle of Tuesday. Mr. Hartshorn, the Daily Chronicle tolls us, has succeeded. in displacing entirely the old influence exercised by men like " Mahon " and Mr. William Brace, M.P. Here is the passage to which we refer :- " Few people really understood the revolutionary tendencies of the present day. Tom Mann had said, and with good reason,
that 1912 would be a revolution year. Mr. Hartshorn said he had not the remotest doubt that the prediction would be fulfilled unless there was an entirely different attitude adopted on the part of the employers and the governing classes in this country in their relations to the toilers. In every colliery in this coalfield they were establishing a network of organization and developing their programme. They were having their meetings in Cardiff and seeking the complete revolution of the Minors' Federation of Groat Britain, and in the near future they would bring their proposals into the conference, and would put out of the rules all those provisions that made for conciliation and negotiation, and they would say, 'Let's adopt the only rational attitude in relation to the employers—an attitude of hostility. Let us adopt that as our policy and turn the Federation into a revolutionary organization. That was going on outside the leaders altogether— among the workers themselves. The employers talk about not settling the demands of the workers, but of being prepared now to modify somewhat the existing agreement, and to meet them on the abnormal places question and the raising of the low-paid. But this was too late. They were not going to make any new demands. The employers would have to meet thorn on the schedule they had already submitted."
There is no necessity to explain or amplify these words. They speak for themselves. In view of such a speech as this it seems hardly worth while to discuss the question of the minimum wage and to see how far it might be possible to meet the men and what should be the attitude of public opinion in regard to this particular demand. In their pre- sent mood what the men want is to fight and show their power—if they can—not the " higgling of the market " over prices and conditions of labour. But though it is useless to discuss such questions as special pay for " work in abnormal places," or whether or not a general minimum wage of eight shillings a day for every man who is under- ground would or would not mean ruin for half the coal mines in the country, it is worth while to take note of certain general considerations. As a preliminary we would advise the public not to be frightened by the word " revolutionary." It is no doubt used by orator s like Mr. Vernon Hartshorn with the intent Co make our flesh creep, but if we are wise we shall refuse to be intimidated thereby. A general strike of minors will doubtless be very unpleasant, and will cause a great deal of inconvenience to the rich and of actual misery to the poor, but it will not mean revolution in the sense in which people generally understand the term, i.e., revolu- tion in the sense of the French Revolution. The working classes are perfectly right when they refuse to be coerced by the use of the word " revolutionary " by employers, and the middle class and the public as a whole will be equally wise to refuse also to be ruled by that word. The miners aro free men, not slaves ; and if they insist on striking and attempting to show their power they must have their way and learn the lesson which undoubtedly they will learn. If they are determined to make private in- dividuals shiver and starve and to throw half the nation out of work because machinery throughout the land cannot be run owing to lack of coal, well, we must all shiver and starve together. All that the State can do and all that the Government can do is to keep order, to protect life and property, and to insist, not only that contracts shall be observed, but that every man who wishes to work shall be protected in the exercise of that fundamental right. The right of the miners not to work if they choose not to work must, of course, be accorded to them to the full, but any attempt on their part to wreck property or to prevent the mine owners from dealing with the mines as they choose must be repressed with the utmost sternness. The fact that a man does not want to work gives him no right to destroy pumping machinery, to flood mines, to interfere with the work of free labourers, or to commit any other lawless acts.
Again, the public must sternly resist the preposterous notion that the Government has no right to use the soldiery to supplement the police in keeping order. This is a demand so impudent that it is difficult to deal with it with patience. There is no suggestion that the soldiers• are cruel or ruthless in their dealings with strike mobs, or that their employment provokes to disorder. The soldiers, as the experience of the past year shows, are quite as humane as the police, and the outcry against their use is simply duo to the fact that such use is effective. The Union leaders and agitators object to the soldiers solely because they do the work which they are set to do and which it is necessary for them to do—work for which the police are not numerous enough. But though we say this we do not for a moment suggest that there is the slightest risk of the Government refusing to employ the soldiery if necessary. The Ministry fully realize that to do so would be to abandon the essential function of government. Their action in the summer amply proves that they are to be trusted to deal with the forces of disorder should tho need arise.
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