TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—A
revival in and is likely to be indefinitely post pond
unless employer and employed get together, and there is small prospect of them getting together so long as the Government intervenes in matters of business, of which it has no knowledge whatever. It is as unwise for outsiders to interfere between a workman and his master as it is to interfere between husband and wife. The Government appoints three gentlemen to form a Coal Commission : three eminent gentlemen who had never been down a coal-pit are to tell a coalowner and a collier how to run a coal mine. How absurd the whole thing is. If only the Government would announce that henceforward masters and men must settle their difficulties themselves, we should " get down to brass tacks " very quickly.
So long as any body of men think that some third party can get them something, so long will master and man defer coming to a settlement, and a revival in trade be postponed indefi- nitely. As for the threat of a general strike, there is nothing at all to be afraid of. If nobody did any work nobody would have anything to eat. The German submarines could not starve us, nor would the English people allow trade unions to starve us. If Mr. Baldwin when threatened with a general strike last July had told the men who threatened it to " get on with it " they would have run away.
Politicians are the most timid and cowardly creatures. " Don't let us have a row," or "Anything for a quiet life," seems to be the only principle they have. The constant inter- ference of the Government in business matters of which they cannot know anything is just Socialism, and the only difference between Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is that Mr. Baldwin gives us Socialism in small doses and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald would give it us in big doses.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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