LABOUR'S AWAKENING.
A_ SIGNIFICANT manifesto, headed " A Call to Labour," was issued last week by a group of Members, including old and trusted trade union leaders like Mr. Barnes, Mr. G. H. Roberts, Mr. Havelock Wilson, Mr. Seddon and Mr. C. B. Stanton, as well as Mr. Clem Edwards and other representatives of the National Democratic Party who are the true friends of the trade union movement. They warned the trade unions, as we did a few weeks ago, that they must choose between industrial and political action. The signatories pointed out that, by the intrigues of a minority, trade unions had been diverted from their true functions and used for political ends. The minority sought to make it appear that everyone holding a trade union card believed in the socialization of all industries. The minority had gone so far, last year, as to induce the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party to set up a " Council of Action," which was to order a general strike if the Government, representing the vast majority of the electorate, did not do its bidding in a matter of foreign policy. The signatories of the manifesto said plainly that trade -unionism had been degraded and enfeebled by such tactics, and that it was high time to return to the saner methods of the past. It is abundantly clear, as Mr. Barnes and his colleagues pointed out, that the advocates of class war who still dominate trade union councils have not benefited the working man or the working woman. These revolution- aries have promoted innumerable strikes and kept the country in a continual uproar. The Labour Gazette for August estimates that during the first seven months of this year working men lost 84,000,000 days of employment —and the wages which they might have earned—owing to trade disputes, which were for the most part deliberately encouraged by the extremists. Nothing was gained by those strikes ; the result was a dead loss to all concerned. The inevitable decline of wages from the high war level was not arrested. According to the Labour Gazette, the net amount of weekly wages was reduced between January and July by about /2,800,000 for 5,690,000 workpeople, and very few indeed obtained increases. Furthermore, the percentage of trade unionists out of work, which in pre-war days seldom exceeded 3, rose rapidly this year from 6 in January to 23 in June, and even now stands at 16. The figures, to any discerning reader, reflect the misery and despair that these incessant and purposeless strikes have brought to millions of working-class homes. There is no sadder sight than the long lines of unemployed people waiting at the ill-named " Employment Exchanges " to receive their weekly doles, especially if one remembers that most of them might be at work and earning an honest living if their trade unions were more wisely led. Class war and " direct action " have merely intensified the ill effects of the economic collapse following the world- war, and made it harder for us to recover our former prosperity. We are glad to note signs of a reaction in the Labour Party against the Bolshevik element. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, writing in the Independent Labour organ Forward last week, declared that the Bolsheviks were largely to blame for the Russian famine :— " Whoever throws the old world out of gear as a preliminary to making it a new one may succeed in the end (though Com. munism certainly will not), but in the meantime they will bring famine and plague as the first certain result of their efforts."
Nor are only the Bolsheviks losing their popularity in Labour circles. The Morning Post has quoted from the Railway Review a pungent article in which Councillor Tom Kirk, of West Ham, declares, with some reason, that " the Labour movement suffers to-day from an invasion of high-brows " who " consider themselves privileged to show Labour how to do it." Some of these so-called " intellectuals " are among the most ardent promoters of strikes, from which they have nothing to lose ; and it must not be forgotten that cold-blooded doctrinaires of their type are responsible for the ruin of Russia. We must draw attention also to the speech of last week in which Mr. Clynes, as president of the National Federation of General Workers, plainly admitted that " the belief that the strike weapon could accomplish anything had receded" Mr. Clynes denounced in set terms the " would-be " Labour leaders who incited their followers to extreme courses, and who vilified colleagues with more sense and more moderation. While Mr. Clynes professed his belief in the " national ownership of essential national services," he insisted that such a change must be brought about by ordinary political methods ; " men would not engage in a risky strike fight for anything for which they were not ready to vote." If Mr. Clynes and other relatively moderate men could dissociate the Labour Party from the policy of " Direct Action," they would do their followers and the country a real service.
It is pitiful to think of the opportunities that British industry is wasting while the Labour leaden persist in stirring up one dispute after another rather than face the facts. As the writer of a notable article in the new number of the Round Table points out, Great Britain exists as a great industrial community by her foreign trade. Without that trade we could not support our dense population. Half our food and three-quarters of our raw materials come from oversee. To buy them, we must export manu• factored goods in large quantities. But we cannot sell our manufactures abroad at any price which we choose to fix. The price is determined by competition in the world market, and if we cannot sell at that price with a profit our export trade will cease and we shall starve. These are elementary truths, but they seem to be ignored —in public—by most Labour politicians. The problem, then, for the trade unions is not to exact the highest rates of wages in accordance with some arbitrary standard—of " cost of living " with a bonus—but rather to obtain the highest rates of wages that can be paid and yet permit the employers to compete on favourable terms in foreign markets. Take the case of the coal and the steel trades.
According to the Economist the labour cost of a ton of British coal is nearly 25s., and the total cost about 35s. But the labour cost of a ton of American coal is about 7s., and the total cost about 108. British coke costs more than 30s. a ton to produce, but American coke can be so d at a profit at 12s. a ton. " Both German and American iron is being produced at a less inclusive cost—ore, fuel and labour—than a ton of British iron costs for fuel alone." Thus we find that German steel billets are being offered in London at £8 a ton, while British steel billets cost £1010s. Obviously the labour cost of our coal and of our steel and iron is excessive, and must be reduced if we are to have any chance of competing with America and Germany in foreign markets. The world's demand for steel is immense, and our great steel trades might be well employed for years to come in supplying that demand if we could produce the steel at a price comparable to that of our competitors. As it is, the engineering and :. hipbuild- jug trades are suffering more than any other industry from unemployment, and the high rates of wages are 'preventing any recovery.
The time has come for trade unionists to realize that they cannot maintain their standard of living by merely insisting on rates of wages which are economically impos- sible. The Round Table writer defines the conditions of prosperity as " work, efficiency, enterprise and saving for investment." He puts hard work first, because it is the fundamental condition of existence. All classes, we fear, took it for granted that peace would mean a general relaxation of effort. The principle of " Ca' canny " was not confined, by any means, to the workshops. But sane men ought by now to see the folly of expecting the country to recover from a long and arduous war if they do not work at least as hard as they did before the war. Some are still afflicted by the crazy notion that there is only -a certain amount of work to be done, and that each man should be careful to do as little as possible in return for his wages lest he deprive a comrade of his fair share. Nothing could be more absurd, more dishonest, or more ruinous to the individual and to the community. The fact is, as the Round Table says, that " probably nine-tenths of mankind's annual needs in food, clothing and amusements are pro- duced by work in the years in whichthey are consumed and that only one-tenth is accumulated in the form of property." The man who deliberately restricts his efforts is depriving himself and his fellows of part of the goods and services that he and they might enjoy. If we are to encourage efficiency, enterprise and saving, we must, of course, put aside all thought of nationalization, which is wasteful and incompetent, still more of Socialism and Bolshevism, which are purely destructive. The ideal to be aimed at is to increase and cheapen production, so that we may have more to consume and may also recover and enlarge our foreign trade. It will then be found that real wages— measured by the goods which they will purchase—will increase. The insistence on nominally high rates of wages which are offset by high prices has led the trade unionist hopelessly astray. These ends cannot be attained by Blass-war." Prosperity can only come by co-operation between Capital and Labour, employer and employed. We should be slow to attribute all the blame for industrial unrest to one side alone. There have been and still are many unwise employers, as well as unwise trade union leaders. But we are bound to say that employers as a class have, of late, shown a very much more reasonable spirit and we believe that they would welcome any conciliatory move that the trade union leaders might care to make. Even during the past few stormy months employers and employed in a good many important indus- tries have found means of settling their differences amicably and arranging for the reductions of war-wages that had become necessary. This change for the better would be hastened if the trade union leaders would throw their influence on the side of conciliation and co-operation, and definitely discard the evil doctrines that have been imported from Germany and Russia for the purpose of sowing confusion among us.
Previous page
