Mr. Barnes, speaking in the House on Tuesday with regard
to the bonus to munition workers, liberated his soul as a real working man speaking to his comrades. He said that, whether the bonus cost fourteen or forty millions, it would be only a fraction of the cost of the decline in production due to the industrial unrest which was now subsiding. The shipyards in January had turned out less than half as many ships as they were expected to complete. February would be no better, and America was failing us, as far as ships were concerned. He therefore urged his fellow-workmen, " in justice to their mates in the trenches and in justice to this old country, which with all its faults had always stood in the forefront of freedom in times gone by," to put their backs into their work and turn out more ships. Instead of talks g about " philosophical affairs, Bol- shevism and Syndicalism, and various other things all very interesting in their way," they would, if they knew the situation, see that " the first duty of every man who loves his country is to work as hard as he can to turn out as much as he can." If Mr. Barnes would continue to speak in this fashion, he would gain the full support not only of the British working classes, who are patriots at heart, but of other classes who sympathize cordially with Labour, but are repelled by the cold formalism of the middle-class internationalists who too often presume to speak in Labour's name.
Previous page
