The Duke, however, was not content with generalities. He specifically
denounced the executive of the Miners' Federation in a passage which we quote textually :-
" The history of the Miners' Executive may be summed up in a few short sentences. Long before the war it had become more subject to the influence of foreign revolutionaries than any other section of British Labour, and its Syndicalist aims wore revealed not only in the utterances of its leaders but in a work which has formed the basis of their subsequent polioy. From the outbreak of the war onwards they dissociated themselves from the rest of British Labour, and openly worked in the interests of the enemy, inciting the working classes to bring the war to a conclusion by paralysing the economic and industrial he of the country. Their efforts resulted in a most serious situation in the South Wales coalfields at the most critical period of tho war, compelling the Government to take over those mines. After the Russian Revolution they constituted themselves in the most literal sense the agents of Lenin in this country. They definitely broke with recognized Trade Unionism, threw in their lot with the shop stewards and the adherents of- the rank and file movement, who aim at-overihrowing Trade Unionism, and, with the help of these allies, organized Workers' and Soldiers' Councils all over England and Scotland on the Russian model,
avowing
wP3'11117 that their object was the erection of Soviet
Government. From this period onwards they have constituted the main weapon in the hands of the Communists."
