INDUSTRIAL WAR.
INDUSTRIAL war seems to us very like international war. Nobody that we know of denies that both of them cause great loss to mankind, inflict great misery, and seem to the philosophic mind usually irrational. And very few deny that the State itself, as happened during the recent strike of engineers, may be seriously impeded, or even placed in danger, by the sudden outbreak of an industrial conflict in certain trades. If American engineers had chosen that moment for striking, Spain might have beaten the United States. What has to be discussed in both cases is not the evil produced by this method of settling quarrels, for that is admitted on all hands, but whether, firstly, this method can be abandoned without introducing evils greater still, and secondly, whether there is any alternative which will work. We confess to a certain scepticism upon both points. We feel very doubtful whether nations, in the permanent absence of war, would develop the strength of character essential to keep them alive for generations, whether, in fact, they would not suffer as the Chinese have suffered, all the manlier qualities being superseded by a develop- ment of spiteful trickery, with malignant dislike of every- thing foreign, and personal gain, even at the price of self-respect, becoming the one object of ambition. It is the fear of war which keeps nations in a measure just and reasonable and modest. What would Frenchmen in their present temper care when dealing with British rights in Madagascar about the possible future verdict of a Tribunal of Arbitration which could not bring home to them any kind of repentance, or any fear of repeat- ing their conduct when opportunity offered ? In the same way, a strike, with the loss and misery it inflicts, compels masters and men to be more reasonable, shows them how closely they are bound together, and teaches them never to quarrel unless they have the gravest reason, above all, never to quarrel, as men do when they go to law on trifles, with the feeling that they may persuade the jury, and that if they cannot, the worst that can happen to them is a measurable decrease in their corporation fund. The industrial war, bad as it is, educates, develops in the masters the sense that they must be considerate about wages ; and in the men the kind of spirit which we see in the cotton trade, in which already the ultimate goal, that the same persons shall be masters and men, is coming within sight. The misery in- flicted by a strike is very great, and falling as it does on households as well as individuals, excites strong feelings of compassion ; but are we quite sure that the resort to science to which it drives the masters is inimical to pro- gress, or that the households do not learn in their suffering what economy really means, and what persistent thrift can do for them ? Is all the teaching of suffering value- less, or do those who desire universal industrial peace really believe that this world, with the perpetual increase in the number of mouths to be fed, its incurable passions, and its strange liability to all forms of unreason, is intended to be a happy place ? We believe that occa- sional bursts of effort, occasional appeals to the power of endurance, occasional recognitions that there are "musts" in the scheme of things, with sanctions behind them in the way of pain, benefit all men, employers and artisans just as much as any others.
They certainly benefit people much more than the few remedies that would be practical. It is, of course, possible to prevent war by abolishing national indepen- dence. Federated Europe could, we dare say, after a good deal of slaughter, compel any single State to remain at peace; could, for example, for ever break the French hope of recovering Alsace-Lorraine, or bid German and Slav in Austria hate each other without fighting ; but if it did, how much of nationality and all that it involves— patriotism, for example—would afterwards remain ? The nations would be " pooled," cosmopolitanism would be the only political virtue, and the peoples, whether happier or not, would become very like diplomatists, who are scarcely ideal human beings ; for the ex- tinction of war would not extinguish either hate or greed or separateness as to ideals, while it would greatly increase the value, and therefore the preva- lence, of trickery. The Latin races, for example, would win in every struggle with the North. The industrial war, we freely concede to the Bishop of Hereford and Mr. Reeves, can only be put down in the same way, that is, by an irresistible outside force. At some point or other in the contest the law must step in and dictate to both parties terms. That means that capitalists are not to use their money as they please, but are to use it as a Court chooses, and that workers are not to settle their own wages, but to take what the Court allows. Both are to cease to be free, and both are by degrees to become the agents of the State, which will tell them what to invest in, and what to avoid, how much profit is for masters " legiti- mate," what wages men may reasonably ask, and what kind of work, what length of work, and what energy of work they are to give in return. The men need never please the master, for he would on all serious points be bound by an order of Court ; the master need never con- ciliate the men, for they would be compelled by fine and imprisonment to obey all reasonable orders. What sort of England would that system produce ? We can tell, we think, pretty nearly what in two generations would be the effect of the system. An immense number of capitalists would avoid trade, refusing to place their independence, their individual views as to the organisation of society, and their futures at the disposal of Courts of Justice supported by powers of repeated, and as the plausible Agent for New Zealand himself acknowledges, endless, lines. Those who still loved business, or hoped for rewards rather larger than appeared reasonable to a Court appointed in the long run by the men's votes, would transfer their energy to Asia, where for a third of English wages they can obtain limitless supplies of labourers who in every respect except energy are as competent as their English rivals. The men, on the other hand, if the laws applied only to corporate labour, would resume the individualism which, however dangerous, at least left them free men, or failing that, would drift away to other lands, as they once drifted away from the oppression of the guilds in the manu- facturing cities of Belgium. Meanwhile the " manage- ment" of industry would be the great preoccupation of politicians, as it is pretty evident from Mr. Reeves's letters that it already is in New Zealand. Govern- ments would be overthrown because they had appointed Industrial Judges of too harsh a temper or of Socialist leanings, and all higher subjects of thought would be postponed to the grand question whether another three halfpence an hour ought not " rightfully " to have been awarded to some representative corporation of the trades. Is that the England that we are all wishing to see ? For ourselves, we believe that the principle which has made our country what it is, is freedom; and that if the right to sell or buy work by agreement of buyer and seller is done away with, freedom is done away with too. The new society may prove endurable, but it will not preserve its energy or its hopefulness, and will not, as we believe, escape the universal law that core cannot be obtained except at the price of unpleasant and steadily continued labour. Pain is part of the permanent destiny of man- kind, and all these dodges for avoiding it will only change the kind.
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