TOPICS OF THE DAY.
REFLECTIONS ON THE STRIKE.
IT would be idle to count up all the points which either side may be said to have gained in the great strike now provisionally settled. That would only mean re- crimination; we have had enough of recrimination and to spare, and, as Mr. Asquith wisely remarked, the less said for the moment the better. At the end of the short bout both sides cried out, to use the language of the fencer, " Touche ! " If each side continues to believe that it has touched the other we shall be glad of it, for deep bitter- ness and chagrin will then be absent, and nothing would stand in the way of a universal acceptance of the decisions of the Royal Commission so much as unappeasable bitter- ness. A few facts may, however, be set down. The ideal of a general railway strike, effective throughout all the systems of the kingdom, was foredoomed to failure from the start if only the Government would do their duty of protecting property and personal liberty. This the Government honestly tried to do, and therefore the plan of a general strike came to naught. Not more than one man in three on the railways struck, and probably not so many. The labour leaders exaggerated the num- bers to keep up the spirits of their followers. This was only to be expected. When an army is being urged on to the assault the only sensible thing is to tell the men that they are certain to win, and are in fact already winning. Mr. Keir Hardie brought the ridiculous charge against Mr. Churchill that by publishing bulletins of the figures the Home Office had discouraged the strikers, as though it were the business of the Government to take sides with the men at the cost of ruining the trade of the country and starving out the people ! Why, that is the very accusation which many working men in their muddle- headed way are making against the Government when they complain of the employment of soldiers. They only mean that the Government took sides with the railway com- panies against the men.
We say that the Government honestly tried to perform the first duty of a Government. We do not say that they were always successful ; there is no doubt that a very large number of cases could be cited, and many already have been cited, in which ferocious intimidation was carried on against the men who remained at work, and in which damage to property was done in the immediate neighbour- hood of troops. But it remains true that in the most significant industrial revolt which this country has ever seen the Government proved that they recognized the issues at stake—that war was declared against the food supplies of the country, and no war can offer a greater injury to a nation than that—and held from the first that it was their duty to maintain the right of the community to exist. Thus a precedent has been established with no uncertain voice. It will never be possible (unless some day we have a Socialist Government, which will certainly bring the country to ruin in one way if it does not in another, and the particular way does not perhaps very much matter) for a sober and reasonable Government in the future to disregard this precedent. When the great railway strike took place in France the workers had been misled by wickedly glib promises, such as have never yet been uttered by any Ministers in England; but at the crisis, when France faced famine, Radical French Premiers like M. Clemenceau and M. Briand could do no more than assert the inevitable fact, which will out in the long run, however much it may be disguised for a time, that the right of the community to exist takes precedence over all the grievances of a section. The employment of troops in the desperate situation of last week was absolutely necessary. But for their employ- ment the strike would probably be going on still. We ourselves have before now defended the employment of police rather than of soldiers in all ordinary riots and disputes. It stands to reason that the police are much more efficient than soldiers in suppressing civil disturb- ances. They are accustomed to the habits of mobs ; they have had long experience in the practice of self- restraint ; they are gallant, and they have " a way with them." They produce their results with the minimum of personal injury—at least to their opponents. A saga might be written on the courage, humour, and wisdom of the police in the face of the ultimate arguments of mob violence. Who could read unmoved of the action of two policemen at Liverpool who in the midst of being harried and pelted jumped into the river to save one of their persecutors ? But the extraordinary outbreak of last week required extraordinary measures. The Government justly recognized that in protecting the property of the railway companies they were protecting the property of the public—the machinery of a vital public service. Some people are complaining that troops were quartered among them, although the local authorities made no request for military help, and though local authorities have always been allowed to decide whether such help is necessary. The Liberals of Manchester, for in- stance, talk as though an outrage had been committed on their liberties. There is only one answer to such com- plaints. The movements of troops are a vast system of mutual support and interdependence ; you cannot guarantee security of railway property which extends into every corner of the country if there are local patches which are allowed, so to speak, to contract out of the insurance provided by the Government. The punctilio of one such district is an act of unfairness to others. And, after all, what ridiculous cant this talk is, as though a whole borough were con- taminated and corrupted by the presence of a body of men who notoriously conduct themselves nowadays with re- straint, sobriety, and good manners ! Our only regret is that the work done by professional soldiers last week could not have been shared by civilians who had under- gone a brief compulsory military training. Then the citizen would have been compelled to feel that he was in his own person part of the embodiment of military force, and there could have been no suggestion that he was being outraged by himself.
Much as there is to deplore in the memories of last week, there are also some causes for satisfaction. The worst rioting was not the act of genuine strikers, and we cannot help feeling that in no other country in the world would the combatants in such an atmosphere of angry strife have come so quickly to a compromise. The masters, under exactly what degree of compulsion from the Government we do not know, met the men's leaders, and by that act virtually abandoned their attitude of refusing to " recognize" the unions. We have always regretted that the men's salaried officials were not recog- nized by railway companies as they are by almost all other great industrial companies. But we should not say this if we thought the unions would be allowedto use " recognition" to make it impossible for free labourers to exist outside the unions. The non-union men should have every opportunity to approach their employers and state their grievances. If they should be less skilfully represented by themselves than by professional advocates that would be their own affair ; but they should be every bit as free to state their own case without artificial prejudice to their cause as a citizen is to conduct his own case in a law court. It may be that the unions are mistaken in their estimate of the value of being recognized. At all events it is curious that the disorder on the North Eastern Railway has been as bad as anywhere, if not worse, although this company already " recognizes " the unions.
One of the most remarkable points in the struggle has been the position of the Labour Party. The sympathetic strike developed under the guidance of outsiders like Mr. Tom Mann and Mr. Ben Tillett. The Parliamentary Labour leader, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, had overtly little to say to it, and we imagine little knowledge of what was doing. Then when Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Sydney Buxton were moving heaven and earth to bring about a settlement Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Heir Hardie seized the authority, which they had temporarily abdicated, and by rhetoric inside and outside the House of Commons tried to make the Labour Party appear as the champions of the strike. We wish we could persuade every working man to read a verbatim report of Mr. Keir Hardie's speech in the House on Tuesday. Mr. Hardie would then be indeed a fallen god. He has said many mischievous, scatter-brained, and wildly inaccurate things in his life, but for futility his words on Tuesday marked the culmination, and we should hope the de- cline, of his career. Working men should ask them- selves what gods they have been following, and why. If they expect any betterment of their lot from the Socialist leaders in the House they are simply heading for bitter disillusionment. But we have hopes that the working man is not so wanting in sense. The very character of his dis- content is in its way reassuring. No doubt the Labour leaders cannot understand why the working man is so apathetic about the Lords' Veto, Home Rule, Adult Suffrage, State intervention, and all the rest of it. The fact is that, so far as the Labour Party occupy themselves with these things, they are failing to interest the working man, who is almost exclusively concerned with thoughts of his wages. Wages, wages, wages—there is the pre- possession of his life.
He sees all round him a prosperous country and he reads of overflowing trade returns. Yet during the last ten years his wages have not increased relatively to the cost of living. If he calls himself a Socialist, as he often does, it is because he vaguely believes that Socialism will bring him more wages—a larger share in the good things of the world. Yet it is as certain as that the day succeeds the night that the programme of the Labour Party will reduce wages. All the Socialistic nostrums of the Labour Party are bound to destroy capital. But capital is the friend of those who sell their labour, because it, and it alone, is the hirer of labour. To understand the absurdity of regarding capital as the enemy one has only to look at the matter from the point of view of the capitalist himself. If a capitalist had a monopoly of capital he could pay any wretched wages he liked; but the existence of other capital which competes with his capital in hiring labour absolutely forces him to pay higher wages than he otherwise would. The more this competition goes on the more wages go up. If the capitalist does not like this the labourer certainly should. We believe that the working man is not incapable of thinking such things out for himself. If he does he will see that every single intervention by the State in arresting freedom of exchange has to be paid for. We are now at a critical stage in the affairs of labour. Never has so much been done for labour, and never have unrest and dissatisfaction been so great. All this is a portent. Surely it is proved already that in pinning its faith to Socialism or Socialistic Liberalism labour is on the wrong road. For ourselves we are not in the least alarmed at the unrest if only it gives working men to think. Dis- content is almost divine if it leads men to desire more than they desired before and to raise the standard of comfort. The standard of comfort cannot be raised without more light and beauty coming into a man's life. This is in every way desirable. We should not shrink from it ; we should encourage it.
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