UP "DIRECT ACTION "!
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' SIR,—The article in last week's issue under elm heading "The Coal Blight" concluded with a very remarkable statement— viz., " Thefe are times when it is much more useful to tell the truth, and this is one of them." This conveys the impression that the Spectator, like many other journals and newspapers of the present day, only tells the truth on special occasions when it is "useful," &c. Whether that is the case or not, it is certain that the article contains several statements which, if they are really thought to be entirely truth2ul, are couched in terms that can be read in different ways by people of entirely different views. You state that in the recent railway strike the plain fact was that the men were beaten •because the whole nation turned against a tyrannical minority. That is not the case. The men were not beaten, only betrayed—that is a point which you seem to have missed entirely, maybe inadvertently, or by design. Their so-called leaders, foremost of whom is J. If. Thomas, let them down, as he has done before, by com- promising the issue with the Government, and by refusing the aid of the other members of the Triple Alliance and other Unions whose members were extremely anxious to take their rightful share in the vital struggle against the forces of capitalism. This was a most treacherous act,. which will not be easily forgotten by the real friends of the workers. Further, it is quite wrong to say that the whole nation turned against a tyrannical minority. It did nothing of the kind. What really happened was this. The Government, aided by my Lord Do- Nothing and Lady Do-Less, who for a few days left their ordinary occupations of shooting, racing, dancing, &c., made frantic efforts to supply the manifold wants of the people, and by superhuman effort managed to run a few trains, and got together a skeleton motor service which got a certain amount of milk from the country, much of which was wasted; and finding the task of doing (or attempting to do) the work of something like 300,000 railwaymen was entirely beyond them, to save their face and their bad case they sent for their faithful henchmen, the sane Trade Union leaders (!), who, in the words of a writer in the Socialist, "wormed about Downing Street until they won a victory for both sides," and fixed up satis- factory terms for all. Of course this was an inglorious end to the most successful manifestation of working-class solidarity this country has ever witnessed. This I admit, but I repeat that the men were not beaten; they were betrayed by J. H. Thomas and Co. One other statement I must refer to, as it is very important. You say : "If the nationalizers are successful in bringing over a majority to their way of thinking, every democrat ought to how to the decision?' I quite agree. They ought; but will they ?—that is the poiut. I submit that the case of Ireland supplies the correct answer to the question, which is in the negative. At the last General Election 73 per cent. of the Irish electors cast their votes for Sinn Fein and the estab- lishment of an Irish Republic. This was done by the Consti- tutional method of the ballot-box. Did the democrats bow to the decision ? Not by any means. On the contrary, their hostility to Sinn Fein has been intensified, and the state of affairs in Ireland at this moment is a clear and convincing proof that in the struggle for self-determination and freedom the ballot-box is of no more use than a bow and arrow would be against the latest weapons of modern warfare. Only by "Direct Action" can freedom be obtained, and it is useless for the Spectator or any other journal to deny this indisputable
Southwark, S.E. 1.
[No doubt it is teeless to deny anything to our animated correspondent, but he has overlooked the fact that the Sinn Fein Members of Parliament are not a majority. They are a small minority in the LegislativeUnion under which we happen to live and vote and conduct all our affairs.—Ea. Spectator.]
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