LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITY
. [To the Editor of the. SPECTATOR.] Sra,—The fear that my attitude might have some savour of partiality, inculcated during my work as chairman of a branch of the I.L.P., has led me during the past six months to study your very fine paper. At present I read the Spectator, the New Leader, Lansbury's Weekly, and the Labour Monthly, the last two incidentally for information regarding the movement of thought in the Labour movement rather than as aids in the formation of my own opinion. I am also a reader of the Daily Mail. I should have written to you in any case soon, to express my appreciation of your paper : but the letter from -Mr. Fyfe and your apt rejoinder has precipitated me into this 'effusion. From my own reading of Mr. Fyfe's letter I am forced into a measure of disagreement with him. If your valuable space will bear the strain of this letter, I should like to express a rather more moderate, though paradoxically more Left-wing, opinion than he does.
You very commonly express the opinion that the British Workman is the finest worker in the world. The foreign worker I cannot vouch for, but my intimate acquaintance with the British worker has left me with much affection but little admiration for him on the average. The very finest of his class, I say without hesitation, is at the present time the Socialist. I loved him less when as a Liberal I first met him. The Socialist workman converted me, and compelled my respect in the process. The American example has caused many earnest Socialists, myself included, to doubt strongly the need for Socialism. America, the home of Jack London and the I.W.W., we are led to believe, was once the worst taskmaster in the world. A change of heart has induced her to introduce a mild form of semi-Socialism in profit and management sharing. If only our workers would be more tractable they might be treated as well as their American fellows. Are these, however, all th'e facts ? I have not seen the following recorded in any C,onserva- five journal. I quote from the New Leader, April 23rd :-
" But when interests clash the old brutality asserts itself. The New Jersey textile workers have been on strike for twelve weeks to resist a 10 per cent. cut in their wages, already the lowest in the United States. Martial law has been declared and has been applied with the utmost brutality. Pickets have been imprisoned and batoned by the police, and one has died of his injuries. Not for the first time in America tear gas has been used -in the interests of
law and order.' Norman Thomas, the well-known American Socialist, has addressed a meeting in defiance of the regulations in order to test the legality of martial law, and he is now under arrest. . . After all it seems unlikely that American capitalism, in spite of Ford cars and electric toasters, will give the workers the freedom and security which alone are the final cures for industrial unrest."
. To my own mind the case for Socialism is this. Although many of the employing class are broad-minded and humane, they are not prepared to see their social position destroyed by the creation of a new standard or culture and control belonging to the workers. The workers by their own political and industrial education and efforts are winning the right to as full a control of their own lives as is consistent with the exis- tence of a divine Providence. In righteous pride they feel it, that that right must be a result of their own efforts, and not granted by a charitable master class. When they have won their objective and when knowledge and power are in their hands, profit-sharing and a hand in management will be changed to profit-taking and full control. If that end is obtained constitutionally and compensation is paid to dis- possessed land and capital owners, none can say them nay. If reaetionism comes into conflict with the workers' progress- iveness, the workers cannot be blamed for more than a small share in the consequent distress and injustice of unconstitu- tionalism and non-compensation.
The Daily Mail, with much perception, has estimated the workers' consciousness and has used it by sending workers instead of employers to America. The American picture may be true so far as it goes. The quotation I have given supplies the Socialist answer. It will and must be workers, not masters, who will finally introduce. Socialism.
I trust that what I have said does not exhibit a biased mind.
I am ready and willing to be converted to Conservatism, and the ground is yet rich for I am only twenty-one years old. In the cause of fairmindedness I stood up in mock debate in my I.L.P. branch as a Conservative, and got half the votes, being only defeated by the chairman's casting vote. Con-
JOHN CHARLES SIMPSON.
The Grey House, Grange, West Kirby, Birkenhead.
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