TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE MEANING OF A GENERAL STRIKE
TO see a general strike in operation is like watching an army of gallant and perfectly trained men marched to disaster by an incompetent general. The principal business of the Trades Union Congress is avowedly to raise the standard of living. Of all political devices which ever issued from the brain of man the one most certain to depress the general standard of living is a general strike. It destroys capital, it destroys credit, it destroys confidence, it shatters markets and makes free gifts of them to our competitors ; it draws in the boun- daries of every industry in the land and secures that when the strike is over there shall be fewer opportunities of work and less money for everybody.
Incidentally it deals the heaviest blow that could possibly be struck at the foundations of Trade Unionism. Trade Unionism, which, with all its defects, has created a highly refined organization of labour, has made it possible for employers and employed to enter into an almost universal system of collective bargaining, but the possi- bility of this bargaining depends in the last resort upon the inviolability of contracts. These cannot legally be broken on either side without notice. The policy of the general strike requires that all notices should be dispensed with I Its method is a swift pounce. It is amazing that men who know what honour means should ever have consented to such a method.
Perhaps it is hardly fair, however, to say that most of them have consented ; rather they have been gradually entangled in a spider's web. At first, by vigorous kicking they might have shaken themselves free, but at last their feeble convulsions did no more than gently shake the web. When Mr. Smillie first tried to bring some of the great unions together, in order to declare a general strike in sympathy with the miners, he failed. The so-called Triple Alliance collapsed—not because there was lack of sympathy with the miners, but because the more sober- minded Labour leaders saw the hollowness of the policy. Those who carefully thought out its certain results became thoroughly alarmed, but the policy went on, thanks to the advocacy of men who were able to deceive themselves into thinking that the mere declaration of a general strike would be a triumph in itself.
Now that we have had some illustration of the way in which a general strike works it is obvious that those who would be likely to hold office if another Labour Govern- ment came into power pray to be delivered from this hideous thing. They know that if the principle of the general strike were allowed to survive as one of the methods of the Trades Union Congress no Labour Government would be able to call its soul its own. Already the incessant dictation which a Labour Government would have to put up with is symbolized in advance by that arrangement—small in itself, yet significant—which allows officials of the Parliamentary Labour Party to sit on the front Opposition bench. When, therefore, the General Council of the T.U.C. declared day by day in its organ that the general strike was not intended to be political and was no sort of challenge to Parliamentary Government, we recognized that the Council had a very good reason for saying these things. It wanted to be saved from its own policy. Unfortunately it could not run away further than the length of the string to which it was attached. In short, the trouble is that however much a general strike is declared to be non-political, it remains—and always must remain—political in essence. It tries to over-ride the decisions of the Government of the day by coercion, and the T.U.C. has only got to succeed in order to become itself the only Government whose writ runs.
Take a few proofs of the challenge to the Government which met the eye this week. We saw motor-vans and motor-bicycles in the streets bearing notices printed on ti yellow paper that these vehicles were moving about " By permission of the T.U.C." What a shameful legend I The roads and liberty to move freely upon them belong to every citizen and his free use of them has been guaranteed to him by Governments that draw their authority from the Parliamentary system which generations of citizens themselves built up. Consider again the suppression of the Press by the T.U.C. This was perhaps the most idiotic and provocative action of all. Goodness knows with what kind of face Labour leaders will be able to speak of freedom of speech in the days to come. The truth is that the policy of the general strike is a national nuisance. Until it is finally disowned it will cling like the Old Man pofratehtei Selya,aroliunnivdersthaei fnrecke of any a n yIsthLsoeau should Labour da have eocome v Government. It was a tragedy that this struggle the wage earners, after ages of political struggle, had at last achieved their just demands and obtained what is d mwt oeh nbe tne true that an attempt was being made to jettison all that had been gained as though it were a rotten cargo. It was a tragedy, too, that this thing should happen at a time when there is a much more acute and sensitive recognition throughout the nation than there has ever been before of the rights of Labour. More than that, there is now a general acknowledgment that the economic laws which were supposed to govern the Industrial Revolution were not so well entitled to be called laws, as was assumed. The belief has been growing fast that there will never be social contentment till wage earners have a more satis- factory share in the profits and in the direction of industry, and that high wages can be paid provided that there is willing co-operation between employer and employed. Science waits on the threshold to help. A new and much more beneficent Industrial Revolution can begin. But it depends on consent, on good will, on social stability. We shall never get these things through such a challenge to the Constitution as has just been defeated. Industrial disputes, like all other disputes, must be conducted within the framework of democracy which recognizes the rights of all and therefore forbids that the claims of one party should be granted without any consideration whatever for the other parties.
Previous page
