Any man of discretion and humanity would, in our judgment,
have acted as the Prime Minister did at the eleventh hour of the dispute. We do not in the least fail to recognize the sinister significance of the successful challenge to the community which was whooped out by the allied trade unions. Indeed, as resolute democrats we take probably a graver view of it than most people do, but we still hold that Mr. Baldwin was right at that moment to refuse the challenge. During the whole dispute, thanks to the persistent pedantry of both sides, there was a great deal of misunderstanding about the issue. If a gigantic fight had followed the terrain would have been a very bad one for Constitutionalists to fight upon. The miners in their resistance to reduced wages would have enjoyed a good deal of sympathy, and that might have obscured the tremendous question lying behind—the question whether the trade unions in alliance are to be allowed to override Parliament and to hold the whole community up to ransom.
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