LABOUR AND FOREIGN INTRIGUE.
HOW long are we going to be content to mutter and " haver " about " hidden hands," " unseen figures," " dark influences," and " foreign gold " behind our revo- lutionaries ? Such fatuous vagueness is utterly un- worthy of the nation and of our leaders of public opinion. We have got to come to clear conclusions one way or the other on the whole matter. We cannot forget that sus- picion without decision clouds the mind of a community as easily as it does that of a man. The only way to get rid of suspicion is investigation— knowledge. We must go into the whole thing, find out the facts, and determine whether we have been frightened by mere bogies, or whether there is truth in the warnings that we have received, whether we are fighting shadows or realities, however difficult they may be to identify and to combat. What do we think of the man who, when he hears a shot in the garden or the sound of strange feet at midnight in his house, instead of doing his best to find out what has happened, puts his head under the bedclothes and prays for the dawn ? He is afraid there is something very wrong going on because the cat, even if it had gone mad, would not have made so much noise ; but it would make the household think he was a coward if he went down- stairs and searched for burglars. We shall be disgraced if we do not make up our minds whether we ought to take strong action and prompt action against real traitors to the State, or whether we should tell our alarmists that they are being frightened by a turnip skull with a half- penny dip inside.
If what we have said is the true view, as we are sure it is, then all honour to the Duke of Northumberland, who in his speech at South Kensington last Thursday did not indulge, like too many of our Ministers and publicists, in talk alarmist enough to fill the country with suspicion and yet not detailed enough or specific enough to help us discover what is the real danger. The Duke may be right or wrong in his views as to foreign influences—personally, we think him right—but he at any rate has courage to draw up a definite indictment and to make charges which can be investigated. He is not content with making our blood curdle—with asking us whether we noticed that strange and dreadful shadow thrown upon the blind, or whether we heard those three low whistles and the answering first bars of " The Red Flag " from the outhouse. He is not satisfied with demanding whether we realize what those portents mean, or, snore impotent still, with shaking his head and muttering " Beware 1 " The Duke in his speech put the case of those who believe in a revolutionary conspiracy quite plainly and without any unnecessary rhetoric, and brought to support his case something more than mere suspicions. He alleged facts of the first importance. These alleged facts may be proved untrue or shown to bear a perfectly different interpretation from that which the Duke puts on them, but they are specific statements which can and ought to be investigated. The matter at issue is unquestionably the most serious thing in the world. The Duke began by saying that we have in our midst a powerful enemy organization, the agents of the Red International of Moscow. The Russian and Jewish adventurers who control the Third International have for their purpose " the abolition of all law, order, morality, and religion throughout the world."
In order to achieve this purpose, the first aim is the com- plete overthrow of the British Empire, " because that is the principal bulwark of law and order in the world." The Duke went on to describe how Lenin, who inspires the Third International, attained his power. When in 1917 Germany was faced with the prospect of defeat, she played her last two cards—unrestricted submarine warfare and the destruction of Russia by revolutionary means.
She failed in the first ; she succeeded in the second. She sent Lenin to Russia with 0,500,000 of German money in his pockets, and in a very few months Russia was in a condition of complete chaos and of no account whatever as an enemy of Germany. Thus Germany was enabled in the spring of 1918 to make her great and final effort against France. Before the Peace Germany had been using secret and revolutionary agents to weaken and destroy the British power in Ireland, in India, and in Egypt, and, we might add, to create ill-feeling between England and America by secret action in the United States, and finally to inoculate our own extremists with the spirit of active sedition. When the war ceased, the revolutionary forces set to work did not cease, but continued. Whether the present German Government inspired them directly, as the Duke of North- umberland seems to think, or whether Lenin has simply worked on his own account, is a doubtful question. What, however, in our opinion is not doubtful is that this under- ground work has gone on and is going on still in all the Entente countries, and especially in England. The Duke of Northumberland, having stated this part of his case, next asked the essential question, " By what methods is the Bolshevik conspiracy working in this country ? " His answer cannot be neglected or condemned as too vague to call for an answer. He declares that the anti- British influences of the Third International are to be seen in the policy pursued by the extremists who have hitherto controlled the Executive of the Miners' Federation. The rest of the indictment we give in the Duke of Northumber- land's own words :— " After the conclusion of the war tho Executive, which was in the closest touch with the Soviet Government through its emissary Litvinoff, and also with Shin Fein in Ireland, and with the Communist parties in Great Britain, endeavoured to bring about a strike of the Triple Alliance before the country had time to recover from the confusion caused by demobilization, this strike being intended to lead to a revolution. Remember there is no doubt at all about this. Lenin Informed us that he saw in the Triple Alliance a very formidable weapon for creating a revolution in this country. Since that time every effort has been made to corrupt its leaders and to bring about a situation which would be favourable for • striking a blow at the very foundation of our social and industrial system. The railway strike of 1919 and the coal strike of 1920 were prelimin- aries to the great coup. The conspirators have always seen that the most favourable moment would be when the economic situation made it necessary to resort to a wholesale reduction in wages. Such a situation occurred this sp , and all their
forces were mobilized for the effort. The pre strikes
served two objects : They enabled the revolutionaries to purge their organization of the moderate men, and they produced widespread unemployment and distress, and thus created a favourable revolutionary atmosphere. After the last coal strike Mr. Brace and Mr. Vernon Hartshorn were given their dismissal. They were honest and patriotic men for whom there was no place in a revolutionary organization. Mr. Hodges complained at the time that the same fate awaits all of us who cannot promise a new millennium every morning.' Nevertheless, he decided to remain and to continue promising the millennium when the capitalist edifice had been brought crashing to the ground.' Now the present disastrous position of the coal industry is often used by the Press to demonstrate the folly of the policy pursued by Ale Miners' Federation. If it were really the result of blundering, then indeed it would bespeak a degree of folly absolutely incredible ; but it is not, it is a deliberate design. Those who pull the wires in this great conspiracy care not two straws about the fate of the miners or the industry. They are not influenced by any scruples of humanity, of morality, or of patriotism. They belong to a sect whose religion is destruction."
The Duke proceeds to note the doings of the Commun- istic Party, which he describes in plain terms as " a party supported by Russian money and propaganda, its officials paid by Soviet gold, and its policy directed from Moscow." " This party," he continues, " has wormed its way into all the trade unions, and is controlling their policy to a greater and greater extent in accordance with Lenin's instructions."
On this passage follows a very serious attack on Mr. Thomas and Mr. Gosling. In dealing with what the Duke calls the direct incitements to revolution signed by the Executives of the Triple Alliance, he accurately points out that what prevented the strike of the Triple Alliance was not the moderation shown by the leaders, but the fact that they found that the men would not follow them into a revolution. The Duke also prefers a very clear and well- reasoned indictment against a section of the moderate leaders, as well as against the Labour extremists. He proceeds to point out what no doubt is a very important fact—whether we do or do not accept his view of the position of the moderates. The adherents of the two sections, he tells us, are inextricably mingled and de- pendent :- " The Executive of the Labour Party, whose programme is nominally constitutional, includes Mr. Lansbury and Mr. Williams, who are openly working in the interests of the gang of miscreants who are running this conspiracy from Moscow, as well as other extremists hardly less suspect who are out to destroy the Monarchy and Parliamentary institutions. The Labour Party subsidizes a paper which is purely Communist propaganda, and which, as we all know, received a subsidy from Russia."
That is a very serious statement, and surely one that ought to be answered. Even more serious is the accusation which follows :— " But if anybody doubts that the policy of the Labour Party is primarily anti-British, let him answer this question : Is there any single aim of Germany or of Russia which is not also an aim of the Labour Party ? In no respect is this more remarkable than in their attitude towards Poland. That country is the very keystone of the Peace settlement. That is why both Germany and Russia desire its destruction. That is why the Labour Party formed the Council of Action, in order to assist the purposes of these two Powers ; that is the reason for all the denunciations against Poland in the Labour Press. It is the same with their policy towards the newly formed States in Central Europe, which are to be disintegrated by granting Self-determination ' to the German communities they contain ; that is why also the Labour Press advocates the entry of Austria into the German Federation, and is consistently hostile to France."
In our opinion, the Duke's conclusion from these premises is too purely logical, and assumes too strongly that men realize the consequences of their acts. Nevertheless, it is of great value that it should be set forth in the coura- geous and plain-spoken way that the Duke has put it, because if the moderate Labour leaders are not wholly intoxicated with their own rhetoric and their own self- righteousness, it should make them very seriously reconsider the position into which they have drifted. " The truth is that, partly through the desire to make political capital out of their country's ictilties, partly through the inherent fallacies and contradictions of the Labour programme, which renders it the protagonist of clams-warfare and the chief of subversion, and partly through the influence acquired over it by those who are traitors to their country, one of the great political parties in the State has become so corrupted as to be the principal enemy agency in the social, moral, and material disintegration of the British Empire."
We note the peroration of the Duke's speech with no small satisfaction. It shows how unfair are those who believe that because of the very firm and uncompromising view which he has taken, he is therefore a reactionary or an enemy of Labour. He may sometimes be too severe in his judgment, but of his sincerity, patriotism, and desire not to sever but to unite all the classes of Englishmen there can be no sort of doubt :- " I have read in the Press that this [the collapse of the Triple Alliance] is the severest blow that the Labour Movement has ever sustained. I believe, on the contrary, it may be the greatest triumph the real Labour movement has ever won. It may be a blow to that corrupt Labour Movement, that organized hypocrisy which has betrayed the workers and has made them the tools of an international con- spiracy, the dupes of the German Dunker and the Russian Bolshevik and the International Jew, which has incited them to the destruction of their country and its institutions, which plays with treason and sedition and consorts with crime. But there is another, a truer, and a far vaster Labour Movement, the Movement which sent its thousands to answer the call of their country in August, 1914, a Movement which cares nothing for the catchwords of parties and factions, which holds out an ideal of co-operation, of fellowship, of community, in place of those miserable shibboleths of class-consciousness and class antagonism and class domination, and it is to that real Labour Movement the British people are looking in this crisis to save the country from the influence of foreign conspirators, domestic traitors, and all other disturbers of our peace."
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