The World and Mr. Lewis
John L. Lewis's ultimate reply to the efforts of the United States Government to end the strike of soft coal miners of the United Mine Workers' Union is that it is not possible to imprison 400,000 men. And the reply to Mr. Lewis must be that any man who is willing to exploit that fact for sectional ends is, by that very willing- ness, commiting a crime on a national scale. Quite part from the immediate misery caused by the running down of American industry and the cutting off of coal and food supplies to Europe, there is the wider threat to world prosperity arising from further American inflation ; for an accelerating rise in wages and prices accompanied by a fall in production is the very definition of inflation. And beyond that again is the fear that so long as this kind of behaviour is possible there can be no confidence in American ability to carry those economic responsibilities to the whole world which cannot morally be avoided. The process of law whereby Mr. Lewis is being mildly inconvenienced makes a mockery of American democracy and of law itself. It is sufficient to say that it can well go on for months and still be going on long after American industry has been brought to a standstill. Moreover, the passing of new laws, however stern, can do no good. In fact, it would make things worse, for the fear of all American trade unionists of a return to the restrictive regime which preceded the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, to say nothing of the living memory of the horrible conditions in the American coal mines before there were any unions, could produce a general strike. Nothing is to be gained by ringing the changes on the alternate evils of grasping and irresponsible employers and grasping and irrespon- sible trade union bosses. This is a fundamental problem to be solved by the whole American people. What kind of a country is it whose most powerful labour leader is little better than a gangster?
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