44 



The RnviiiW of Reviews. 



a large majority of the Sailors' and Firfiiien's Union 

 would have come out. 



" SOMEONE WHOM I TRII.STED FOOLED ME." 



Trade unionism such as this we can appreciate and 

 admire— it is a vastly dil'Ierent thing from the trade 

 unionism as preached by the Tower Hill agitator. 

 The working man to-day, in reflecting on the necessity 

 for putting his house in order, should read the words 

 of the Empress of China before the revolution when she 

 said : — 



" I have not employed men properly, not having 

 political skill. I have employed too many nobles, 

 which contravenes the constitution. In several 

 matters someone whom I trusted fooled me. The 

 whole Empire is seething. All these are my own 

 fault. Hereby I announce that with our People I 

 will proceed constitutionally, faithfully developing 

 the interests of the People, and abolishing their 

 Hardships, all in accordance with the rights and 

 interests of the People." 



A realisation of the truth of these pregnant facts 

 will do much to induce sanity in trade unionism. 

 To-day, in the words of an eminent and honest worker 

 in the cause of trade unionism, " tliere is certainly a 

 spirit of tyranny abroad amongst certain of the present 

 Labour leaders." But this is to be altered ; it must 

 be, or trade unionism will be in a parlous way. Sanity 

 must prevail in labour organisation. With sane trade 

 unions will come more rational and comprehensively 

 adequate representation of labour in Parliament. 

 Nor must men or the nation at large forget that under 

 the new Insurance Act it is computed that there will 

 he a saving to the trade unions m the shape of sick 

 fund reserves of as much as £75,000 a year, or (at 5 per 

 cent.) a capital increase in wealth of one and a half 



million sterling. The autocratic leaders have not 

 lost sight of this. Let the men make sure that by 

 sane reorganisation this sum shall not be wasted or 

 used in any way save in securing the maximum of 

 benefit to those who subscribe it. 



IDEALS OF SANE TRADE UNIONISM. 



We cannot do belter in closing than to quote Father 

 Hopkins upon the ideals of trade union organisation. 

 He has every right to speak, and has never hesitated 

 to tell the truth to his fellow-workers : — 



" Unless something is done to check these bureau- 

 cratic tendencies in the conduct of the affairs of the 

 British Federation, I foresee great danger ahead to 

 our national and international unity and solidarity. 



" The only possible way in which effective unity 

 and solidarity can be sustained is through the guarantee 

 that federated action shall not be called for without 

 the mutual consent of all concerned, especially of the 

 rank and file of the industrial army, who must of 

 necessity suffer most in the ev'ent of the declaration of 

 industrial war." 



Let us hope that the leaven of Father Hopkins will 

 leaven the mass of labour organisation, and that sanity 

 will come. For with sanity will come a cordial 

 approval by the nation of trade unions, which will 

 more than compensate them, if any compensation were 

 necessary, for the loss of the many-tongued orators of 

 Tower Hill. Sanity in labour com.bination, freedom 

 from tyranny of leaders worse than tyrannj'of employers 

 — these will mark the beginning of a new and happier 

 era in the life of the nation and the progress of the 

 working men and women of all countries. The day is 

 fast going when it will be possible for a demagogue 

 to force thousands to starve and die in an effort, 

 which he knows himself is futile, to save his face ! 



STRONG LABOUR DENUNCIAIION. . 



'liiE editor ol the SocialisL Review, in his July number, 

 deals very faithfully with the promoters of the strike 

 in London. He says : — ■ 



Wliat is termed the " Labour unrest" shows perilous signs of 

 ilet;eneraling into a Labour debdclf. Its latest ni.inifcstation in 

 the London transport workers' strike — the failure of wliich 

 most of us .apprehended — is a warning sign. Koliowing liard 

 upon the miners' national strike, the London tailors' strilie, and 

 a series of lesser unsuccessful struggles witliin the last few 

 months, it appears to signal the advent not of a period ofTr.ade 

 Union victory but of Trade Union disaster. A haphazard 

 ]K)licy of "down tools" and ** kicks against capitalism " is not 

 indicativtr of the i:)revalence of a true Trade Union spirit among 

 the workers, but of a febrile state of the blood. The spectacle 

 of host upon host of workers marching forth with their families 

 into starvation and defeat, while the nation at large works and 

 plays as usual, is too pitiful, too tr.igically futile to be even 

 heroic. 



" NEITHER WISDOM NOR COUKAtJE." 



But while acknowledging to the utmost the justifiability of 

 the men's complaints and of their delerminalion to compel 

 redress from their employers, we can discern neither wisdom 

 ijor courage in the action of the I-xecutive of Ihe Transport 



Workers' Federation in proclaiir.lng a general strike at the 

 Port of London at this juncture, and still less in calling a 

 national strike when they saw that defeat was inevitable. 



From the outset the ICxecutive appears to have been actuated 

 less by a consideration of the interests of the men under their 

 charge than by a desire to pl.ay up to the spirit of strike bravado 

 manifested by the more reckless of the leaders. 



" A NOTORIETY HUNTING CAME." 



Mr. O'Grady's version is that the employers had 

 been deliberately goading the men into a strike. The 

 men, therefore, by striking, played into the employers' 

 hands ! 



We feel that a wrong conception of the nature of the class 

 struggle, and a false spirit of fighting bravadu is being spread 

 by strike propagandists among a section of the working-class. 



We profoundly distrust that species of Trade Union leadership 

 which while shrieking out against the tyranny and heartlcssness 

 of capitalism treats the workers as iliough they were mere 

 pawns in a notoriety hunting ganu:, and shows little more re- 

 morse in bringing the utmost misery on tens of thousands of 

 men, women, and children than do the dock companies them- 

 selves. 



