THE RESIGNATION OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY.
[To THE EDITOA OF TEE " SPECTATOR:1
have read with interest your article in the last issue upon "The Resignation of the French Ministry" in connexion with the strike upon the railways, in which you state your prepossession in favour of a workman's absolute right to do what he likes with his labour, and indicate the undesira- bility as a general rule of State intervention between the combatants in an economic war. I was myself in France throughout the whole period of the strike, and I in fact travelled upon the Nord Railway at a time when it was popularly supposed in England that trains were not running at all. A guard or an engine-driver is none the less com- municative because he is at war with his employers, and if approached in a not too serious vein will often frankly tell what is passing in his mind.
May I briefly semmarise the position ? A general strike had been ordered by the leaders of the railway servants' societies owing to the admitted grievances in Paris only of unskilled workmen of the lowest. grade. All the officials throughout France were forthwith called upon to cease work in support of an infinitesimal minority. On several systems, particularly the P.-L.-M., they flatly ignored the command. On the Nord and on the Onest Etat they obeyed without any great enthusiasm, for they would much rather have gone on comfortably with their ordinary duties. The action of N. Briand, however, it may be judged, was in fact welcomed as opening to them the one coarse by which they might honourably return to work without playing their comrades false.
I am impelled therefore respectfully to traverse your state- ment that M. Briand has earned a good deal of illwill among the working classes. It may well have been the reverse, and he may be credited with the sagacity to have been aware of this. For in reality he gave them the very opportunity, which they could not easily make for themselves, of dissociating themselves from the tyranny of their Trade-Unions. From a Trade-Union point of view such an action is no doubt a menace; but in this ease it enabled a society of persons to escape from the hasty impulses of its administrators.
There is another aspect on which I offer no suggestion, but rather ask for information. You do not refer to it in your article. Apart altogether from whether it was justifiable, how far was it legal for the State actually to mobilise railway servants to any on their ordinary work for the profit of their employers ? In this case the men were not merely called up as soldiers to work trains for the carriage of troops and military supplies, but also to convey passengers and ordinary merchandise. I should be interested to see more light thrown upon this important question.—I am, Sir, &c.,
E.G. V.
[N. Brand's answer would, we presume, be in effect, Sales reipubticas supreota lea'. It all depends upon whether the safety of the State was or was not really threatened,. We cannot, however, just now open our columns to a discussion of this question, interesting and important though it no doubt is.— D. Spectator.]
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