We have dealt elsewhere with the salient features of the
speech made by Mr. Hodges at the Labour Party's Conference at Brighton—the passages in which he resigns Labour's claim to rule us by Direct Action, and in effect lays it down that henceforth the manual workers, like other people, must en- deavour to get their way by political and constitutional means. Here we must deal with the rest of Mr.. Hodges's speech. He begins by a somewhat naive complaint that the Government forced the miners to fight at a disadvantage. " We were placed in the position of having to struggle when every political,: social, and economic factor was against us. Our fight was not due until August 31st, and we were not ready for it. We did not want it." That is certainly candour carried to the extreme limit. Mr. Hodges went .on to declare that the-strike had shown. that " the trade union movement is for the most part unhappily a mere grouping of close corporations, with only the interests of the particular group at stake and. at heart. As the British industrial _movement develops we find that tendency more and more marked. I Oink that is funda- mentally due to a lack of appreciation of the issues: that con- front :the movement -as a whole." In other words, Mr. Hodges and the miners have learnt • by experience the fundamental and inner law of economies, which is that every man is as con- sumer as well as a producer. A failure to recognize this fact and an attempt to sever the union of forces which incorporate them is like attempting to cut a living man in two. Both halves die of the severance.
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