{Continued jrom page s.i 
For what has happened ? Slowly, and In' 
force of reasoning from actual observed fact and 
circumstance the leaders of labour have been 
brought to an understanding of the ])osition ; have 
won the consent of the men they represent to 
substantial siicrifices of hard-won pri\'ileges, sacri- 
fices which are only not appreciated by the com- . 
fortable classes because their bearing is so httle 
imderstood ; and are freely and of their own choice 
behind the Government in the determination to 
prosecute the war to the inevitable end of honour- 
able victory. It is certain that, had the dragooning 
method been applied, even if an open rupture had 
been avoided, which is very much more than 
doubtful, the hands of the few mischiex'ous ex- 
tremists who frankly look upon the war as "labour's 
opportunity," would be immeasurably strength- 
ened ; a sullen undei'current of opposition would 
have swollen into spate as time went on, would 
have burst its barriers, and have begun to be most 
dangerous just in those later difficult moments of 
this fateful struggle when such a breach would 
have its inost disastrous effect. The trend of 
English Laijour opinion has been steadily advanc- 
ing to a firmer support of the war— that is, the 
great gain to set off against the minor losses. No 
thoughtful student of labour politics but reahses 
now the mistake of the dragooning tactics adopted 
in the early stages of the munitions controversy, 
for instance?. The inference is difficult to escape. 
Indeed the whole of our war experience helps 
us to outline a very consistent doctrine. The 
way of autocracy, of regimenting is the apter, 
the more symmetrical process, The way of per- 
suasion, in view of the actual political condition 
in which England found herself, is not merely the 
safer but the sounder wa\-. Its good effects will 
tell long after we have forgotten its dangers. And 
it is by no means improbable that labour itself 
which unquestionably tended unwarrantably to 
isolate its problems and to detach its interests 
from the interests of the nation as a whole, will 
much more readily admit the claims of discipline 
and solidarity in national emergency on the very 
proper terms of its own due share in the making 
of the necessary plans. The National Emergency 
will not be past when victory is won. It will only 
enter a new and longer phase ; and such a fact 
as this laborious and critical working out and 
comprehension of the problems of national or- 
ganisation will have an iUimitable importance in 
the task of the future. Such a result is worth the 
sacrifice of some vaguer spiritual profit and, indeed, 
has very definite spiritual implications. 
Our author, too, is concerned to show that 
the share of England in the war has been less 
whole-hearted than that of the other belligerent 
nations, and that, therefore, her spiritual reward 
will be less. It would seem fair to claim, however, 
that England though from the peculiar circumstance 
of her tradition of sheltered isolation and her 
freer constitution she may have come more 
slowly to the realisation of her responsibilities, 
has by no means shown less conscious and devoted 
zeal in the great affair. It would be obviously 
absurd to say that Frenchman, Russian or German 
fights only because he must ; but it is true that 
every enhsted Britisher has fought because 
he has actually willed it ; and it is the consciously- 
willed action far more than the imposed and 
accepted action that affects the spirit. But are 
there not circumstances which make the participa- 
tion of England c\-en more spiritually significant to 
her people than that of any other country ? It 
may be true that she is threatened with ruin in 
the ruin of France : but it is certain that such 
a danger was nothing like so clear to our people 
as the German menace was to the French and the 
Russians. .It is equally certain that, it was 
chivalry and not the sense of fear which made 
the popidar national decision to make war on the 
despoiler of Belgium. In a very true sense the 
participation of Great Britain as a people, dis- 
tinguished for the moment from Great Britain as 
a Government, was something nearer an act of 
knight-errantry than of mere defence. Sterner 
realisations -have been imposed upon these first 
rough apprehensions, but such things have their 
effect on the course of the war and in the 
aftermath of war, and as index of spiritual 
values they are full of meaning. 
Even in his remarks on the bargaining and 
profiteering activities of labour and capital though 
the spirit of his attack be admirable, our sensitive • 
critic averts his eyes from practical facts. It is the 
truth, not a furbished up excuse, that England 
needs to keep going a great deal of her machinery 
of wealth production. It is a less picturesque way 
of being a " nation at war " but it faces realities.. 
Nor can any stroke of the pen do away with the 
profit-system. No such attempt has been made 
by any belligerent simply because it is impractic- 
able. When our Government came to the relief 
of the Stock Exchange and the Banks the ignor- 
ant cry was raised that it was ready to rescue the 
capitalist while abandoning the working man. 
Government came to the support not of the 
financier but of the financial system which, for 
good or ill but in fact, was the basis of our wealth 
production. Suppose some sudden clearness of 
vision had shown it to be as hopelessly bad a 
system as pur socialist doctrinaires assert, no other 
could have been suddenly substituted. The same 
holds good with the "profit-system." Here is a 
delicate machinery for the production of wealth 
based on the use of capital which must have 
earnings or be destroyed. Especially at this 
moment when restrictions are rightly put upon 
the investment of unfunded savings the only 
source from which manufacturers can mett the 
claims of increased depreciation and necessary 
extension is — profits. Whether the confiscation of 
them should have gone further is a matter of 
detail.' No absolute balance could have been 
guessed ; and no fatal disturbance of the balance 
could be risked. So too the actual balance between 
the wage share and the profit share which had 
always been determined by bargain necessarily 
continued to be so determinecl. That balance shifts 
as prices shift. Wages cannot meet the increased 
cost of hving ; a new balance is strucfi by bargain ; 
sometimes by quarrel because men ane human and 
even in war time honestly differ about facts and 
figures. It is this clumsy unsjmiraetrical and in 
many ways inequitable, but roughly xcorkiug 
system which the idealist is tempted to represent 
as a sordid fight between manuiactuirer and work- 
man for plunder while his felliows are dying for 
him. It is in the main an illusi on of oversensitive 
vision. An imperfect world ot whicii war is the 
most grievous and the stupidest liaw must blunder 
through its work in this queei" way. ' There arc 
no forthright, precise solutions. 
