But let us look back to Thursday, May 13th. On
that day Mr. MacDonald said that the Prime Minister's address to the nation was magnificent in spirit and temper, but when he looked at the official newspaper, the British Gazette, he fatind something quite different. " It is not helpful. It is only provocative." The most optimistic of them, he said, felt that the peace was only to be a whited sepulchre. Conditions had been imposed on the men who had returned to work. He did not want to use threats, but he must say that if any. foolish person thought he could " smash up trade unionism and scrape the face of trade unionism in the dust," he was very much mistaken. Mr. Baldwin said that he had always urged that the occasion did not call for malice, recrimination or triumph. - The less talk there was the better would be the chances of success. He had given only one pledge and that was that those who helped the Government should not suffer. There wasa real difficulty in reconciling such a pledge with getting all the strikers back to work. The subject must be thrashed out between the unions and the employers. * * * *
Previous page
