The Corning Revolution in Great Britain. By Gerald Could. (Collins.
65. net.)—Mr. Lansbury, in a preface, says that he and the author believe in "the law of love." Mr. Gould pro- fesses to desire "a peaceful revolution" in order to redistribute the national income "by communal ownership and workers' control." "We can, by illegitimate and violent means, resist the redistribution and have a bloody revolution. There is no third way." He assumes as an axiom that the national income would be unaffected by the establishment of Communism, and that it would give about £8 a week to each family. What would the South Wales hewer think of £8 a week ? But the Bolshevik experiment in Russia has shown, to all who are not wilfully blind, that the national income is rapidly diminished by Com- munism, and that, while the rich are ruined, the poor arc poorer than before—always excepting the small and privileged caste of Communists. Mr. Gould's special pleading for "direct action" does not convince. If there are, as he says, seven million trade unionists, they can get whatever is possible by means of their Parliamentary votes. Unfortunately for Mr. Gould and his friends, most of the trade unionists do not vote for Labour candidates and do not want a Bolshevik dictatorship. We must confess to some surprise at finding that the assistant editor of the Daily Herald decries the honesty and veracity of the British Press. "Within the present system, honesty is for most people an economic impossibility." This is not true. Moreover, it does not lie with the Daily Herald, of all papers, to complain of untruthfulness in its contemporaries. Has Mr. Gould forgotten the story of the Bolshevik subsidies ?
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