Character Sketch. 



467 



ready to realise the General Strike before even their 

 more volcanic brethren of France and Italy. The 

 ^lrike of the Welsh miners, followed in rapid succes- 

 sion by the Shipping, Dockers', and Railwaymen's 

 outbreaks, Js proof positive that the temperament of 

 the British people is changing, and that lying en- 

 meshed in the British character of to-day are 

 tremendous revolutionary possibilities." 



" But surely, Madame Sorgue, these strikes are 

 only spasmodic affairs, which flicker up and out ? " 



Sorgue smiled as she said, " You British never 

 believe anything until it hits you. What you have 

 said is true of past strikes, but that day has gone for 

 ever. Nothing can ever again chloroform the British 

 worker. The organisation of the recent strikes 

 -iiowed by their military exactitude and by their tre- 

 mendous scope that a new force has arisen in Labour 

 politics. I have the warmest admiration for Mr. 

 Havelock NN'ilson, of the Seamen's and Firemen's 

 Union, who is unquestionably an organiser of genius 

 and a splendid fighter, and I say that it is men of this 

 type who in the future are going to be the entraineiirs 

 of the great strike movements. I was on the 

 Glasgow Strike Committee during the shipping trouble, 

 and had every opportunity of noting the wonderful 

 powers of organisation displayed. A notable fact 

 was that on this committee sat representatives of, I 

 believe, every union in Glasgow. That meant 

 common action, strength, and success. 



" But the most symptomatic and the most suggestive 

 of all the recent labour unrest was the battle which was 

 fought and won in Liverpool. Tom Mann is the 

 representative leader of the actual aspirations of the 

 British worker, as Alceste de Ambris was the 

 representative man of the great Parmesan strike. He 

 has completely lost faith in political action, and he 

 will yet prove one of the forces to be reckoned with 

 by the master<lass. In my friend Ben Tillett the 

 ' direct aclionists ' also have a sterling leader of 

 indomitable will and resource. It is these men who 

 are the actual makers of history, not the politicians. 



" But there is one point upon which I specially wish 

 to draw the attention of the British public, and that 

 is the bloody repression of strikes by the use of the 

 army. Rerr. inber " — and the subject of the inter- 

 view clenched her hand to drive home her point — 

 " this repression will lead to ef|ually sanguinary 

 ri-pris.ils, and to a great- wave of anti-militarisni, as 

 has already been the case in France and Italy. 

 You already have a strong anti - militarist pro- 

 |)aganda in the British Navy, which is becoming 

 permeated with pacifist doctrines; and that this 

 is well known to the authorities is shown by the 

 letters which have recently appeared in the press. 

 ■ Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,' 



and the recent speech in Trafalgar Square by one of 

 the strike leaders, in which he stated he would urge 

 the arming of the people if the soldiers were 

 employed in future disputes, is no mere frothy 

 eloquence, but is suggestive of terrific possibilities to 

 those of us who have seen the street fights between 

 soldiers and people in various European strikes." 

 " And what of the immediate future, Madame ? " 



III.— "THE CENTURY OF STRIKES." 



" The future is on the knees of the gods, but so 

 far as one can tear away the veil of destiny one can 

 clearly see that the present strikes are not the end 

 but the beginning of tremendous industrial ujiheavals. 

 In the International Transport Workers' Federation, 

 with its forty national associations and nearly one 

 million workers from eighteen countries, you have an 

 instrument which some day, if not to-day, will be 

 able to stop the shipping movements of the entire 

 woild within twenty-four hours. The arms of this 

 giant organisation will spread themselves over 

 Europe until the master federations will find them- 

 selves powerless in face of a power greater than 

 themselves. No military force will find itself able 

 to cope with an organisation of this kind. The 

 'sympathetic' strike controlled by organisations of 

 this type will be the greatest factor in working-class 

 emancipation— a weapon of limitless power and 

 possibilities. 



" The British Transport Workers have leaped into 

 the van of the International Labour Movement — a 

 movement that can neither be stopped nor controlled 

 by the forces of capitalism. It is this International 

 Labour Movement which will be the arbiter of war 

 in the future. It is the millions of the red army 

 throughout Europe who will have to be reckoned 

 with by the statesman, the monarch, and the 

 diplomat. 



" I have good reason for my words when I say 

 that even now forces are accumulating throughout 

 Europe which will find their outlet and their e.xpres- 

 sion in strikes of a gigantic and violent character, 

 sometimes sectional, but with a steadily increasing 

 trend towards international action. Great Britain 

 will be the vorle.v of this strike-whirlpool, and this 

 century will be known to the historians of the future 

 as the century of the General Strike, the century of 

 the proletarian revolution, the century which saw the 

 triumph of Communism - that is to say of Altruism." 



As Madame Sorgue gave me her hand and my 

 conge, 1 could not help feeling that, whatever her 

 social views might be, her foreshadowings of a 

 Strike-Armageddon were quite within the possibilities 

 of realisation. Qui virra vara, 



Shaw Dksmond. 



