338 



The Review of Reviews. 



elation of the gravity of the crisis. He made the 

 appeasement ot the strife the first order of the day 

 and of every day. Surrounded by the chief Ministers 

 of his Cabinet, aided and advised by the tried experts 

 of the Board of Trade, he toiled day in and day out, 

 week-day and Sunday, at the thankless task of removing 

 misunderstandings, of clearing away obstacles, and of 

 laying the firm foundations of a settled peace.- He 

 was no mere Falkland impotently ingeminating Peace, 

 peace ! He fought for peace as generals fight for 

 victory on the field of battle, and if peace hath her 

 victories no less renowned than war, Mr. Asquith 

 is indeed entitled to the laurel-crown and the victor's 

 wreath. More than once it seemed as if the combat 

 was going against him. But he never faltered and 

 he never feared. He fought the good fight from first 

 to last with marvellous temper, with invincible resolve, 

 and in the end he had the rare distinction of bringing 

 the strife to a close amid the plaudits of both the 

 combatants and an outburst of grateful appreciation 

 from the nation at large. To him, indeed, may be 

 said, " Well done, good and faithful servant." 



If the first place belongs to the 

 Prime Minister, the second must 

 be accorded to the miners. There 

 are a million of them, plain, 

 uncultured men, who spend arduous lives in the 

 constant presence of death, wringing from the deep 

 hidden womb of the earth the fiery life that vitalises 

 the industry of the world. They were led by men 

 of their rank, honest and painstaking, but who had 

 never before been thrust into the limelight to play 

 a leading r^ie in a great national crisis. They had to 

 hold their own in argument with the ablest brains 

 which money could purchase and to confront day by 

 day the picked intellects of the Administration. That 

 thev blundered badly at times, that they occasionally 

 flinched where leaders of more moral courage or, let 

 us say, audacity, might have greatly dared, and that 

 thev managed things so curiously that at the last 

 tliey all went into the Lobby against the Bill which 

 conceded to the full the individual minimum wage 

 for which the strike was originally declared — all this 

 may be admitted. But over and above all these 

 things stands the fact that these leaders, with a divided 

 counsel and an impatient million, never lost their 

 temper or self-control, always confronted their antago- 

 nists with a united front, and finally succeeded in 

 achieving a triumph for Labour which last year seemed 

 to be altogether beyond the sphere of practical politics. 

 .\nd when the end came they showed neither exulta- 

 tion in \ictory nor resentment against their adver- 



saries, but applied themsehes with a will to secure 

 the .speedy eflacement of all traces of the war. 



The strike was hailed at its incep- 

 tion as the most magnificent 

 The Nation. , r u > j 



demonstration oi the solidarity of 



Labour the world had yet .'■cen. 

 It was eclipsed before it ended by a still more magni- 

 ficent demonstration of the solidarity of the nation. 

 The struggle for the minimum wage in the mines 

 incidentally entailed the total loss of all wages by 

 nearl}- a million other workers, the paralysis of 

 trade, the cessation of business. Men, women and 

 children shivered in the bitter east wind before fireless 

 grates. Advertisements are the stimulus of trade, 

 and during the strike the advertising business was cut 

 up by the roots. Printers'' Ink for April says a single 

 advertising agent cancelled orders for £100,000 in the 

 first three weeks of the strike. The railway companies 

 curtailed their passenger services, and counted their 

 losses by half a million a week. In the Potteries and 

 €lsewhere private charity fed hundreds of thousands 

 from day to day to keep them from dying of starvation. 

 But in the direst hour of distress and of suspense there 

 was neither panic nor passion. Silently and uncom- 

 plainingly, rich and poor set their teeth and grimly 

 decided to see the thing through, helping each other 

 as best they could until the ordeal was over. 



Il was a sight for sin and wrong 



And slavish lymnny lo see, 

 A sight to make our i^aith more fierce and strong 



In high humanity. 



The Government, meaning thereby 



„,_ ^ . all men in administrative positions 



The Government. , , , , . *^ ' 



both local and national, showed 



themselves worthy of their trust. 



If any exception may be noted — such as the prosecution 



ot Tom Mann and the Syndicalist printers, errors of 



judgment due to excess of zeal on the part of local 



functionaries — they are but the exceptions which 



prove the rule. The local authorities, it is true, had but 



little to do in the task of maintaining order. The miners 



themselves maintained such order that the Chief 



Constable of Wigan jocularly declared^that he would 



have to put his policemen on short time. But on the 



few occasions on which order was imperilled the 



authorities acted with energy, but without flurry. The 



Home Secretary made no parade of troops, but the 



moment they were needed they were despatched in 



sufficient force to make resistance impossible. But the 



chief burden of the Ciovernmcnt fell upon the broad 



shoulders of John Burns, and nobly did he respond to 



the trust. Jlr. Burns has been of late years somewhat 



too much absorbed in the administration of his Depart- 



