THE LABOUR UNREST.
A WAVE of Labour unrest is sweeping over the country of such an incalculable and mysterious kind that it is difficult to define either its purport or its direction. In these circumstances it is the duty of every public-spirited person to hold very clearly to those prin- riples by which alone a democratic nation can find sal- vation, and to insist upon their importance in all his con- verse with those who are either confused or ignorant. No doubt a large part of the unrest is due to the simple and intelligible fact that the nation is tired. It is one of the more familiar experiences that children immediately after a period of excitement suffer from a reaction which always takes the form of peevishness and irritability. Something of very much the same sort is happening to the nation now. By far the greatest and most stimulating effort which the nation has ever made has just been brought to a successful conclusion, and now we see reaction and relapse. The nerves of the people are, as the saying is, all on edge. While the effort was being made most people were almost unconscious of its magnitude—that is one of the provisions of Nature which enable men to endure a tremendous strain. Appreciation of the suffering and the strain comes later, or at all events the human frame becomes sensible then of the results and the cost of the effort. Quite apart from these conditions, which are personal to every member of the nation, there is the strange epidemic of revolution in the air. You cannot put up blockhouses and tariffs against
revolution. When revolution begins in any great country it is sure to influence, if not to upset, many other countries. Some people are so intensely conscious of the revolutionary tendencies of the moment that they hardly doubt that a revolution will be attempted in our own country before very long. We take no such view of the matter. We do not share in their gloom. But it is none the less true that the British people will have to apply to the situation all their well-known common-sense, all their quick and sure instinct for distinguishing good from bad, if we are to steer the course which we have set without very grave peril in the next few months. There is no constitutional tendency in this country towards either wanton or violent revolution—quite the reverse is true, as our history shows — but the thoughts out of which revolution is made are floating in the air, and it is the task of the majority to see that the restless, scatterbrained, and reckless minority do not call the tune for the whole nation. The recent General Election showed with unmistakable plainness what the will of the majority is. It is thoroughly British, moderate, and Left-Centre ' in tendency.
The question for British working men and women is whether, having shown what their will was at the General Election, they shall allow it to be overruled by a minority which seeks to take the place reluctantly vacated by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Philip Snowden, and their like. The school of economic thought—if one can use the word " school " of anything so undisciplined— which is stirring up trouble in all the most important trades of the country, is very small in bulk, though it is extraordinarily active. Its members want to obtain by what is euphemistically called " direct action " what has hitherto not been obtained by the Constitutional means of the ballot. The new leaders, or rather misleaders, of Labour are almost as much opposed to the existing Trade Union Executives as they are to " Capitalism ' itself. The very nature of some of the strikes which are now in operation, or are being threatened, is enough to prove that the ostensible reason for the strikes is not the real one. Whoever heard of sane and candid men holding up the whole industrial life of the country because there is some dispute as to whether a snack of food—what country people call " levensea " or " leveners "- shall be eaten while the work of the mines comes to a dead stop, or whether it shall be eaten by relays so that the machinery in the mines shall be kept running all the time ? Patience breaks down when one reflects that a strike is threatened by the miners to settle such a dispute as this—a strike at a time when every one knows that there is a long and dangerous pause in reconstructing the industries of the country largely owing to the shortage of coal, and also that the improved conditions in private life which every workman professes to have as his goal are being delayed, or made impossible, by this same shortage of coal. Bolshevism is, we are certain, entirely repugnant to nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand in this country, but the nearest thing to Bolshevism of which the British people are capable is being pressed upon them by the noisy minority. This Bolshevistic policy has no concern whatever for the welfare of democracy, properly so called. It is, like its Russian counterpart, a creed of exclusiveness and intolerance. It appropriates to the few the rights of the many. It masks its true objects by picking quarrels on unreal pretexts. Its real object is to bring the whole present industrial system to an end, and, as we suggested at the beginning, this aim can be defeated only if the majority hold by democratic principles, and make it perfectly plain that the ideas of a very small minority shall never prevail. Unhappily a good deal has been done by the unwisdoni of the Government in the past to make it very easy for rebels against established order to say that our industrial system has broken down on the economic side. By lavish and unreasoning pouring out of money in wages and subsidies during the war the cost of living was raised as rapidly as wages themselves were raised. There was always the excuse, of course, that the greatest possible output of munitions of war had to be obtained no matter what the price. But even if that excuse be accepted, the time has now arrived for the Government to let the various industries know exactly where they stand if war conditions are to give place to peace conditions. So far as we have been able to discover, employers of labour are still entirely In the dark about what sources of raw material they can rely upon, about what degree of freedom in the conduct of their works they may expect, and about what degree of excess taxation they must expect. The result is that employers, instead of readapting themselves to peace conditions as quickly as possible, are holding their hands In suspense. They cannot freely make contracts. Mean- while the Government are spending money as generously as ever, and one begins to wonder whether peace will not be as expensive as war. The truth must be recognized that the nation cannot go on like this. The danger is that when freedom is restored to the industries, the industries will not be able to carry on because it will be impossible to produce any article at a profit. It is this danger which is being used for all it is worth by the small minority who are now agitating the labour world from within. They mean to make the danger a reality ; they mean to bring the system of what they call " Capitalism " to an end.
There never was a better prospect for Labour if only Labour will cling to Constitutional means. It must win by the ballot or not at all. It must not sub- stitute the knobbed stick, the knife, the poison, or the bomb for the ballot-box. For our part, we cannot re member a time when employers of labour were in so friendly a frame of mind towards Labour or were so conscious of their duties. All but a few very backward and reactionary members of the employing class agree that no industrial structure can last which is not founded upon a righteous social relation between employer and employed. It would Indeed be an irony and a tragedy if this prospect were spoiled. There is a better opportunity now than ever before for the real voice of Trade Unionism to make itself heard, and to declare that the rubbishy talk of past gener- ations about Capitalism shall be brought to an end. The more capital there is in industry, the more money there is to pay wages. Increase of capital is the only road to better conditions for Labour all round. One of the most gratifying financial effects of the war is that whereas the labouring classes invested before the war only a few hundred thousand pounds, they have now invested many millions.] Without knowing it, they have become capitalists. Their capital is now helping to increase wages, and if they allow a small minority of Bolsheviks senously to damage or overthrow the industrial system, they will be consenting to the destruction of the company in which their money is invested.
If the official Labour leaders do not denounce the muti- nous policy which is going on, they will run an enormous risk of losing all that they profess to be working for. So far as we can see, a moderate Labour Party could come into power within the next few years. Timid persons who feared that Labour would be " unpatriotic " have lost their fears since the General Election. But if the leaders of Labour do not sternly denounce the British Bolsheviks, if they continue partly to make excuses for them, a great many persons in the country who are very well disposed towards Labour will be driven to give a degree of support which they never contemplated to disagreeable action by the Government. The genuine Labour leaders and the Government really want the same thing. As for Mr. Lloyd George, he has the game in his hands. He has only to say to the Bolsheviks : " I represent the will of the people, and you do not. My way is the way of sense; yours is the way of madness, hunger, and ruin." With such words he could not fail to conquer.
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