THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND'S CHARGES. L AST autumn the Prime Minister
declared his belief that there were " sinister influences " behind the railway strike. The Morning Post last week published three articles by the Duke of Northumberland in which this theme was developed. The Duke of Northumber- land's statements about the connexion between Bol- shevism and Labour extremists here—with side glances at the connexion between Bolshevism and Ireland—are very serious. They are all the more serious because the Duke writes with adequate information, because his habit is temperate and accurate, and because his com- ments are justified by the particular evidence he produces. We all remember the duel between the Duke and Mr. Smillie which began at the Coal Commission and was continued afterwards. In the House of Lords the Duke of Northumberland accused Mr. Smillie of being a dan- gerous member of society who was conspiring against the State. Mr. Smillie retorted that this language was libellous, and that if the Duke would repeat, it publicly when unprotected by privilege, he (Mr. Smillie) would take appropriate action. Thus challenged, the Duke repeated the charge word for word in public under no conditions of privilege, and he, moreover, published it in the National Review. Mr. Smillie took no action in the courts, and our own strong impression is that from that moment he suffered a marked decline in repute among the numerous working men who had hitherto been hesitating whether or not to follow his leadership. Now the Duke of Northumberland has pursued the whole matter a good deal further. He regards it as un- fortunate that the Prime Minister did_not take the country into his confidence last autumn and say exactly what the " sinister influences " were. This is a just criticism. We have never known exactly, though we have suspected, what the relationship between Bolshevism and the revo- lutionaries both here and in Ireland might be. There are hundreds of thousands of working men who may listen with an open mind—and they are quite entitled to do so—to one of their countrymen propounding what he sincerely believes to be the only possible remedies for grievances, but they would absolutely refuse to be made the .playthings of some secret and alien influence. If they found out that they had been thus deceived— that in recognizing the authority of one whom they believed to be a principal they had really been accepting the assurances of a tool and an agent—they would most bitterly resent it. The Duke of Northumberland asserts, how- ever, that Mr. Smillie and his friends are co-operating with the Bolsheviks for a Bolshevik revolution here. He says that the British organizations which have accepted Lenin's Third International are :- I. The British Socialist Party (especially the tendency represented by Maclean) ; 2. The Socialist Labour Party ; 3. The English Branch of the Independent Workers of the World ; 4. The Independent Workers of Great Britain ; 5. The Revolutionary elements of the Shop Stewards' Movement in England ; 6. The Revolutionary elements of the Irish Labour Organizations.
In accepting the principles of the Third International the organizations mentioned by the Duke are working for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that is to say for an oligarchy disguised as Communism. That means the abolition of existing institutions and, necessarily, the overthrow of the British Empire.
" The intrigues of the Russian Soviet Government," the Duke of Northumberland tells us, " have been mainly directed in these Islands towards securing control over the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland and over the Triple Alliance of Miners, Railwaymen and Transport Workers." In the Duke's opinion the executives of the Railwaymen and the Transport Workers have so far prevented their machinery from falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks. It is true that Mr. Cramp, the President of the National Union of Railwaymen, has stated that he would give all the help in his power to bring about industrial revolution and to transfer power from Parliament to the Trade, Unions, but " there is no evidence that he is consciously working with the enemies of his country." It is true also that Mr. Williams, the secretary of the Transport Workers' Federation, has irequently identified his aims with those of Lenin and that he has received a decoration from Lenin in recognition of his services ; but his influence with his executive is limited. The case of the Miners' Executive, however, according to the Duke of North- umberland, is altogether different ; there is overwhelming evidence that it has become " simply an international revolutionary agency whose principal aim is the destruc- tion of the British Empire as the first step towards the world-wide Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Labour disputes, the question of wages and hours, and so forth are all mere steps to an end. When the war began the National Miners' Federation adopted a resolution condemning it, and this resolution was used as a pretext by the South Wales Miners' Executive for refusing a request for more coal made to them by the Admiralty in August, 1914. In 1915 Mr. Smillie and Mr. Williams took a leading part in forming the National Council of Civil Liberties which opposed compulsory service and undertook to champion the cause of all who desired exemption from military service. On May 6th, 1917, Mr. Smillie, speaking at Manchester, said that the time was not far distant when revolutions like that in Russia would take place in every country in the world, and he hoped a revolution would follow in Germany and England. A week later at Newcastle he asked : " Why not do what the Russian people have done ? " On June 3rd, 1917, the notorious Leeds Conference took place. The delegates represented almost entirely those elements which are working against trade unionism as it has hitherto been understood. In the Duke of North- umberland's opinion this Conference marked the distinct secession of the Miners' Executive from authorized trade unionism. As a result of the Leeds Conference a Pro- visional Committee was appointed to organize district conferences for the purpose of setting up Workers' and Soldiers' Councils. The secretary was Mr. Tom Quelch, who wrote in the Call of June 28th, 1917: " After thirty years of persistent Socialist propaganda we believe there is sufficient Socialist conscience among the workers to accomplish a revolution if means can be found to give it complete and definite expression. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils will provide the means." Subsequently Mr. Williams arranged an interview between Litvinofl, the Bolshevik envoy in London, and Mr. Smillie. Ac- cording to the Daily Herald of January 19th, 1918, Mr. Smillie expressed his entire sympathy with the'aims and methods of the Bolsheviks. Such are some instances of the relations between Bolshevism and British Labour extremists during the war.
Now we come to the period after the war. By the beginning of 1919 a large number of workmen's Soviet Committees had been formed. The London Group head- quarters was presided over by Mr. W. F. Watson, who declared that there were at least 200 such Committees. They were largely composed of undesirable aliens. The London headquarters worked in close co-operation with other British Bolshevik organizations and especially with the revolutionary societies on. the Clyde formed by Mr. Arthur McManus, Mr. John MacLean, Mr. Tom Anderson, and others. The British Soviets and Mr. John MacLean are mentioned in the Third International. On November 19th, 1918, a message was sent by Mr. Smillie to the Reunion of Rebels :— " Say to my comrades, McManus and Watson, that it is impossible for me to be present, as I am speaking to the men at Blackburn on Saturday for the purpose of urging them to utterly refuse to recognize a Coalition Government and at once form the Soviet Workers' Government, as the time is now arriving for the workers to control their destiny."
Evidently Mr. Smillie was so ardently engaged at the moment on revolutionary propaganda that he felt himself unable to attend a meeting from which no ordinary excuse would have kept him. Mr. McManus is the head of the Withhold Club, the object of which is to hold back produc-. tion on the Clyde in order to cripple industry. Mr. Tom Anderson, as readers of the Spectator already know, is connected with the Proletarian School. He is the editor of a paper called the Red Dawn, which teaches people to believe in revolution and not to believe in Christi- anity. We wonder, by the way, why there often seems to be a failure of humour among these revolutionaries. Surely the Red Dawn is a very bad name. The idea, of course, was to get in the word " red," which is the familiar symbol of revolution ; but a " red dawn " is what ordinarily nobody wan_ts—it means bad weather which spoils business and sport alike.
Mr. W. F. Watson has admitted that he acted as a Government spy among the Bolsheviks in this country. Now he is on the other side. But can he be trusted on either ? As the Duke of Northumberland says : " If a man will betray his country he will betray his friends." When Mr. Watson was imprisoned for making seditious speeches, the London Workers' Committee issued a manifesto announ- cing that " our comrade Watson is to be shut up in the hunger cells of the Windsor family. Long live the Soviet and down with the rotten Monarchy ! must be the cry of the worker and the soldier." In a speech delivered in January, 1919, Mr. John MacLean, who described himself as the Bolshevik Consul and accredited agent of Lenin in Glasgow, stated that through the Co-operative movement it would be possible to control the full distribution of the necessaries of life and so win over the masses. The Duke of Northumberland asserts that the Clyde revolutionaries form the main link with the Independent Workers of the World, and especially with the Chicago Bolshevik Group, a Group affiliated to the Third International. All these revolutionary societies, he says, are in close touch with the Russian Information Bureau which distributes Bolshevik literature and is the main channel of communication with Lenin. " That Bolshevik money comes into England through these societies we know on the authority of the Government." Mr. Smillie has expressed great resentment at the suggestion that Bolshevik money has been used by the Executive of the Miners' Federation. " Why he does so," comments the Duke, " is not clear. He is a member of the British Socialist Party, which boasts openly that it will gladly receive any help from Lenin, including money." The attempt to bring about a revolution in the spring of 1919 failed because the three members of the Triple Alliance could not be persuaded to strike simultaneously. What is the present policy of Mr. Smillie and his Mends ? The Duke of Northumberland believes that it is to capture the Co-operative movement, and he adds : " The seriousness of the situation may be judged from the fact that the leaders of the Co-operative movement have agreed to put their machinery at the disposal of the strikers in the next great strike." The Wholesale Co-operative Societies, he says, have been laying in enormous stocks of provisions and buying motor lorries, the aim being to keep the strikers supplied while the rest of the population go short. If such a plan should succeed the people who have invested their money in the Wholesale Co-operative Societies would see it being used for the starvation of themselves ! Although the machinery of the Co-operative Societies is already at the disposal of a general strike, the majority of the voters in the societies have not yet consented to let the Co-operative funds be assigned for the same purpose. The Duke of Northumberland professes himself unable to understand why the Government have not communicated the facts to the country. The Duke of Northumberland, as we have said, writes with moderation, and with obvious sincerity, and yet we cannot, of course, feel certain that he has not marshalled some of his facts in such a way as to make them lead to wrong conclusions. Everybody knows how guilt, on apparently irrefutable evidence, may be attributed to an innocent person when words are detached from their context. All we desire to say is that the Duke of Northum- berland's charges are serious enough to require- thorough investigation. We think the House of Commons ought to demand such an investigation. In our opinion there ought to be a Committee of the House of Commons, and the personal safety of witnesses should, of course, be guaranteed. For this purpose it would be necessary to hold some of the meetings in camera. If Russian money has been sent to England and Ireland for revolutionary ends, the use of the money ought to be tracked from its source to its final application. Although the Government must have known all the details about the affiance between Sinn Feb and the Germans, they never published the truth. We cannot think why, for the facts would have helped them enormously in convincing English people as to the necessity of restoring order in Ireland. The same mistake ought not to be repeated in the case of Bolshevism. In Ireland there has been an extraordinary crop of Sinn Feb newspapers and pamphlets which are well printed and widely distributed. The enormous cost of printing and producing a paper at present makes it very unlikely that all this propaganda can be carried on without considerable subsidies. The subsidies may all be Sinn Feb money, whether contributed by a few willing supporters or extorted from many unwilling suppor- ters, but at all events we ought to know. When the police are tracing crime in the ordinary way they always pay great attention to the money spent by suspected persons. This ought to give us our clue for a right procedure now. Such an inquiry as we propose by the House of Commons would be in the interests of everybody, and not least in the interests of Labour itself. If the Duke of Northumberland's charges cannot be made good, Labour is resting under an unjust suspicion. On the other hand, if Labour newspapers, however revolutionary in tone, could prove that they had not accepted a penny of foreign money but existed either upon their own profits or upon the donations of free suppor- ters, they would be in a vastly strengthened position.
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