TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RIGHT OF THE COMMUNITY TO EXIST.
NIVE have placed at the head of this article the words with which M. Clemenceau once summarized the justification of the State in resorting to the most drastic expe- dients in suppressing an attempted general strike in France. The aim of the strikers was to pamlyse national life and with- hold from the community even the necessaries of existence. It was supposed that the strikers would then be able to dictate their own terms to a crippled Administration, who could not look for the support of a hungry and impatient community. The community was expected by the strikers to say after a few days of short commons, if not of starvation " Let the whole dispute go hang. It really does not matter much whether the men get what they want or not. The important thing is that we and our children should not suffer another day from want of bread and coal." But of course M. Clemenceau, with the terseness and penetration which are the qualities of his well-known wit, was able to show the strikers in a single phrase that they had bodily omitted from their calculation one of the two factors of the equation of all industrial struggles. What- ever the rights or wrongs of employees, whatever the abstract economic accuracy of their arguments, the right of the community to exist is a condition under which all labour is offered and conducted. And the right of the community to exist involves also the right of the repre- sentatives of the community to exist politically. When in an industrial dispute Labour tries to force the Government to surrender unconditionally, it is obvious that the success of Labour must render all government impossible except that form of government which may happen to be approved of by Labour. In other words, a general strike in such conditions is an attempt to unseat the Government and to put the Labour leaders in their place. This is what is being attempted in South Africa. If anything less than that were being attempted, we could find no justification for the declaration of martial law. As it is, we hold that General Botha is amply justified in the swift and summary action he has taken. He is defending the community against the pretensions of Labour to govern in his place. The Government simply cannot afford to lose the day. That being so, we have not much patience with the critics who find fault at every step for niggling and captious reasons. A broad and strong plan is necessary to turn aside a premeditated stroke against the Government. It may inflict minor wrongs; we expect that it will ; but it has been rendered necessary by those on whose behalf protests are being framed ; and in general it is being put into effect for the protection of orderly citizens.
Lord Gladstone, we may be sure, would not have sanc- tioned General Botha's plan if he had not been thoroughly convinced of the need for it. He knows the detraction to which he, as a lifelong Liberal, will be exposed at home. He has already had a flick of the whips during the recent riots at Johannesburg. He must, of course, look for much more disparagement ; but we would ask Liberals at home to remember their own excellent principle that a self- governing Dominion ought to be allowed to govern itself. Self-government is self-government—the Imperial Parlia- ment cannot pick and choose occasions for intervention and still say that self-government remains. We have no doubt, however, that Lord Gladstone will be able to state a very good case in his despatches. One need only look at the bare facts to see how great the danger is in South Africa. The recent trial of strength and its accompaniment of rioting and death by violence at Johannesburg left the Syndicalists determined to have another trial. The first outbreak is said to have begun prematurely. This time the attempted organization of a general strike has been the result of a mature policy. The strike was occasioned by the Government's resolve to reduce the staff of the railways. The railways are owned by the State.
i The Syndicalists say, in effect, that the employers—the State —shall not decide how many men are to be employed, but that the decision shall come from the Labour leaders. There could not be a more precise illustration of what we have said as to the pretension of the Labour leaders to govern. And what a lesson it is in the profound unwisdom of increasing the number of State employees, when sooner or later the occasion is bound to arise for the servants of the State to wish to become the masters of the public. There is a great temptation for a Government which employs a large number of workers to allow itself to be squeezed and bullied in order to avoid trouble—for trouble in the public services necessarily brings discredit on a Govern- ment—or even to maintain its popularity. France has never allayed the constant uneasiness of the relations between the Government and the host of State servants, and for our part we cannot understand the state of mind of those who would superfluously add this difficulty to all the other difficulties of government in countries where it does not already exist.
The Federation of Trades in South Africa (created on the model of the corresponding body in Australia) knew that it had little hope of success if at the last moment the miners of the Rand refused to come out. If the Rand had gone on strike, the end of the complications could not have been foreseen. For one thing, desperate men would have had ready to their hands large supplies of explosive materials. For another, it would have been impossible to keep the army of native labourers in the mines idle specta- tors of the struggle. It might even have been impossible to feed them. In that case repatriation would have been necessary, and it is said that a scheme of repatriation had been fully prepared. It would have been a very grave step to take. The recruiting of labour is an extraordinarily com- plicated affair, and when it is thrown out of gear, as it was during the war, it is a matter of years to put it into efficient order again. If past experience goes for anything, it would be impossible to reconstruct it iu exactly the same form. The tendency has been for native labour in its higher grades- continually to assimilate itself more nearly to the lower grades of the skilled work, which so far has been solely in the bands of white men. The Syndicalists would do well, if only in their own interests, to remember that a shadowy dividing line can no longer be conventionally allowed to have substance when once it has been removed, if only for a time. In spite of the extreme difficulty of reconstruction, we are sure that the Government were wise to contemplate the possibility of scattering the Kaffirs to their distant kraals. The natives are highly imitative, impressionable, and volatile people. The desire to follow the movement of the white miners would to them have been almost irresistible if they had remained crowded together on the Rand, with all the feelings of solidarity and the tumultuary spirit which large numbers instil. We sincerely hope that it may be possible to keep the Imperial troops out of the whole affair. The provisional presence of Imperial troops in South Africa makes questions at home about their employment in labour struggles only too easy a stepping-stone to unwise demands for interference from the Imperial Government. After the recent experiences at Johannesburg the South African Government no doubt wish to keep the Imperial troops outside the conflict as long as they possibly can. Yet the Syndicalists can be in no doubt as to the complete determination of the Government. The an- nouncements as to the liability of anyone to be shot who does not obey the order of " Hands up !" when he is called upon to halt, and as to the death penalty for carrying dynamite without authorization, prove the temper of General Botha's Government. Incidentally we cannot help thinking that General Botha's action will increase his popularity with the veld Boers, for lie must seem to them to be fighting their cause against an attempt to wreck agriculture by faking away from it the means of marketing its produce. That the strike will fail already seems obvious. All general strikes carry their own seeds of failure. But we take a more hopeful view than that. We expect that the issue will add to General Botha's authority, and that the Englishmen and the Dutchmen of the Citizen Defence Army who are now working together to enable the community to exist will remember when the struggle is over that racial enmity is an absurdity in the presence of Syndicalists who threaten both races alike.
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