CHAPTER VI 



Labour 



The war has placed the much debated question of the 

 position of Labour upon an essentially different footing from 

 that which it occupied before. In every country, even in 

 Kaiser- and jimker-vidden German}', the war has exercised 

 a truly remarkable, really obtrusively perceptible general 

 emancipating effect. Even where the result has been tem- 

 porary dictatorship, such dictatorship plainly has been the 

 result of the emancipation of the masses composing the 

 community, and has therefore represented only the force 

 of popular emancipation. In its action upon the long and 

 bitterly disputed question of the relation of sexes the effect 

 has been startling. Women have, for good or for evil, 

 received a ready, almost eager, recognition of their " rights " 

 from their very whilom most determined opponents. As 

 for Labour, it has, as a whole, simply commanded the 

 situation. It depended upon Labour whether there should 

 be war. It was Labour which during the war made inroads 

 upon the privileges of Capital, forbade profiteering, in the 

 public interest commanded interference to regulate prices 

 and direct the distribution of the necessaries of life. And 

 never before has Labour made its power so much felt in 

 the determination of the opinion and will of the country, 

 in Parliament, in the Cabinet. And the effect has been 

 world-wide. Even the German Crown has been unable to 

 resist the demands of Liberal opinion and the masses — giving 

 promises, it is true, forbiddingly like those freely made 

 in 1813, only to be boldly broken afterwards. In Italy, 

 in France, Labour has extended its swa}^ To Russia it 

 has given its Revolution. In the United States it has decided 



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