Art. 15.-A NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL.

1. The History of Trade Unionism. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Revised edition, extended to 1920. Longmans, 1920.

2. The Cotton Trade Boom and Some Considerations for Promoting a Lasting Industrial Peace. By Sir C. W. Macara, Bart. Sherratt and Hughes, 1920.

3. The Industrial Council for the Building Industry. Harrison and Sons, for the Garton Foundation, [1919]. 4. Industrial Courts Act, 1919 (9 & 10 Geo. 5, Ch. 69). Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1919.

5. Report of Provisional Joint Committee of the Industrial Conference [Cmd. 501]. H.M. Stationery Office, 1920.

THE sane and practical pacifism which is responsible for the idea of a League of Nations has wisely admitted the legitimacy, in the last resort, of a recourse to arms, and has concentrated on limiting, so far as possible, the occasions of conflict, and restricting the area of such conflicts as may occur. A sane and practical statesmanship will adopt the same attitude with regard to strikes. Our ultimate aim must be the substitution of the rule of reason for the rule of force in industrial as in international affairs; but our immediate task is not the abolition of the strike weapon, but the removal of outstanding causes of dispute, and the adoption of such measures as shall prevent an industrial struggle from becoming as ruinous to our national civilisation as international conflict has so nearly been to the civilisation of the world. Only, as the League of Nations has been led on from the bare prevention of wars to schemes for the better government of the world, we shall inevitably be led, by inquiry into the strike menace, to a consideration of the adequacy of our present industrial and political organisation.

To begin with the discussion of the narrower but more immediately pressing question; the extent of the perils which may be involved in industrial conflict under present conditions, was exemplified in the Railway Strike of September-October 1919. It was only by extreme good fortune and thanks to the moderation displayed by both sides, that the worst of those perils remained unrealised.

Nothing in connexion with the strike is more remarkable than the contrast between the gigantic forces actually or potentially arrayed on either side and those actually called into employment during its course. The strike had its origin in a dispute as to wages between the National Union of Railwaymen and the Railway Executive, but the relations which existed between the railways and the Government rendered it inevitable that the Government as a whole should, at an early period, be drawn in as a party. It was, indeed, a letter containing the "definitive offer" of the Government which the railwaymen interpreted as a challenge; and it was not until after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a modification of this offer from the Prime Minister that the N.U.R. and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen called out their members as from midnight on Sept. 26. Thus the issue lay directly between the strikers and the Government; and, in view of their expressed opinion that the strike was brought about by a conspiracy against the existing social order, the Government might have been expected to employ ruthlessly the whole resources of the State for the purpose of defeating the railwaymen. It is asserted by Mr and Mrs Webb, in the new edition of their History of Trade Unionism,' that the Government at one time contemplated starving out the strikers by discriminatory issues of food supplies and by confiscation of the Trade Union Funds; but no such action was, in fact, taken. While the Government paraded, somewhat ostentatiously, their determination to preserve order, the measures adopted for this purpose were marked by considerable restraint; and, beyond taking the necessary steps to safeguard the food supplies of the country, the Government's activities were practically confined to a vigorous argumentative propaganda as to the merits of the dispute.

Against the Government was arrayed, actually or potentially, a large proportion of the organised labour of the country. The strikers themselves numbered some 500,000; and the conference held at Caxton Hall on Oct. 1 to consider the question of sympathetic action, represented unions comprising some 1,900,000 workers. The miners, though not represented, were already becoming restive; and, had the strike been prolonged, a further conference,

representing the whole trade-union organisation of the country, would have been held on Oct. 7. It was thus evident that a stoppage of work was imminent which would throw the whole economic life of the country into chaos, and on the surface the position of the strikers was very strong. Far, however, from requesting active support, the N.U.R. definitely refused, down to Sept. 30, all offers of sympathetic action; and, though Mr J. H. Thomas announced on that day that he would be unable to persist in this attitude, he was known to be strongly averse to an extension of the strike. In spite of strong pressure from the rank and file of the unions, who believed that the Government was attacking, through the railwaymen, the interests of the whole body of workers, the Caxton Hall Conference adopted a similar attitude. Not only did the Union Executives refrain from calling out their members, but their whole efforts were devoted to securing a settlement which would avoid the possibility of a general strike. On Oct. 5, two days before the date fixed for the special Trade Union Conference, a settlement was arranged at an interview with the Prime Minister; and, through the strenuous exertions of Mr Thomas and other leaders, this settlement was ratified by the rank and file of the railwaymen.

To some extent, the moderation displayed on the Labour side may be attributed to tactical motives. The majority of the unions had received very large accessions of membership during the war, but there had not yet been time for their fighting funds to be brought up to a corresponding point. The miners were suffering from the effects of the Yorkshire Coal Strike, and were, moreover, preoccupied with the development of their own nationalisation campaign. A prolonged struggle was likely to test sharply both the finances and the solidarity of the unions. But, in the main, the attitude of the leaders must be attributed to broader considerations. From the first, Mr Thomas insisted that the sole object of the strike was to obtain for the railwaymen the satisfaction of their wage demands. For this normal use of of the strike weapon, the N.U.R. had no need to seek assistance outside its own ranks and those of the Locomotive Engineers. In view of the paramount importance of railway transport to the food and coal supply, and to

the industries of the country, a general railway strike was in itself sufficient to extort any concessions which industrial pressure was capable of extorting. To bring out the members of all the unions represented at Caxton Hall would hardly have strengthened the hands of the railwaymen, for, if the Government were determined to resist to the end the pressure already applied, they could hardly fail to regard such an extension of the strike as a challenge to their authority which must be fought with all the resources at their command, and they would be able to rally to their support tens of thousands who might be expected to stand neutral in a railway strike pure and simple. On the other hand, the disturbance and dislocation of economic and social life would be so great and universal that the leaders could no longer hope to keep their people in hand, as they did with conspicuous success during the actual strike. Disorders would be inevitable, and the conflict would assume the aspect of an embittered class-war which might end either in the destruction of the Labour organisations, or in the complete overthrow of the existing social order.

These possibilities were very imperfectly apprehended by the majority of those who urged an extension of the strike. By the small minority of real revolutionaries they were consciously accepted. Many of them absurdly under-rate the powers of resistance inherent in the existing order; and, in any case, the fanatic of revolution is always prepared to take the risks of chaos, on the chance that his own particular form of Utopia may arise from the ashes. Yet Yet even the serious revolutionary might well ask himself how far solid support could be depended on for an extended strike which should become avowedly revolutionary in its object. The proceedings at the Glasgow Trade Union Congress indicated a swing towards the extreme Left, which had, indeed, been manifest for some time in the growth of the rank-andfile movement' and the direct-action' agitation. But, while high prices, reaction from war-strain, and the disappointed hopes of a 'better world' after the war were responsible for much bitterness, the extent to which the majority even of the extreme Left would go was doubtful. It is one thing to pass abstract resolutions; it is quite another to decide on immediate action.

one.

For the responsible leaders, the dilemma was a painful For some months it had been common talk, not exclusively in Labour circles, that the great Capitalist organisations were on the alert to choose a vantage ground for a fight-to-the-finish with organised Labour, and that an effort would be made to involve the Government on their side. By Labour speakers and Labour newspapers of every shade of opinion the attitude of the Government towards the railwaymen's demands was represented as the first step in a campaign to break the power of the unions and reduce real if not money wages to an ante-bellum standard. It was this prevalent belief which inspired the offers of sympathetic action; and nothing was done to dispel it by the unfortunate talk about an anarchist conspiracy, an accusation which was bitterly resented by the sober majority of the railwaymen themselves. Thus the delegates at Caxton Hall were faced with the alternative either of abandoning comrades whom they believed to be fighting their battle, or of plunging the country into the chaos of a social upheaval which would imperil the whole cause of constitutional organisation and peaceful reform to which many of them had devoted their lives.

Much the same considerations as dictated the attitude of the N.U.R., and afterwards of the Caxton Hall Conference, may be presumed to have weighed with the Government. Great as were their powers, they could not wisely be employed without restraint in the course of an ordinary trade dispute. In taking steps for the preservation of public order and the safeguarding of the food supplies, they could rely upon the support of the great mass of public opinion, but beyond this they could not go without denying the right of the railwaymen to strike, and thus involving themselves in a direct conflict with organised Labour as a whole. An extension of the strike openly revolutionary in character would have found the great majority of the British people solidly behind the Government; an extension produced, even in appearance, by a direct challenge to Labour on the part of Government would have let loose all the passions of class-war in a most uncertain conflict.

The justness of this view is confirmed by the reception given to the settlement. Accepted as just and satisfactory Vol. 233.-No. 463

2 H