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(^Continued from jmge 30 
need lighting and there are honest advocates who 
even now cannot alter their perspective suffi- 
ciently to see that this is not the time for righting 
them ; and that a crop of bitterness and misunder- 
standing may come up as the result of this unhappy 
poHcy. It is not frankly possible to see how any- 
one can honestly put forward the thesis that the 
present war is the device of capital and pri\'ilege 
to forge yet stronger fetters for labour and the 
dispossessed. But there is a very real danger that 
circumstance may forge such fetters. It is even 
possible, and this is to grant the most that can 
be granted to the extremist, that men who never 
were wicked enough to devise such a monstrous 
and incidentally suicidal project, may be astute 
enough to use it, only half consciously, to such an 
undesirable end. Labour has kept green a memory 
of what tragic evils resulted from that develop- 
ment of industry which followed the freedom of 
Europe from the Napoleonic threat. Is it entirely 
unnatural that it should fear some faintly analogous 
development of industrial re-organisation in the 
lean days of the new freedom of the future, in wJiich 
a century's privileges may be swept away ? We 
shall not understand our labouring folk if we do 
not realise that much of the trouble we have had 
to deplore is the result of this real fear which is 
in their blood. It is no small part of our crime 
that so many of us are completely out of touch 
with all this feeling and the reason for it, as to be 
incapable of putting any other interpretation upon 
labour unrest than tha' of disloyalty, greed or 
cowardice. There is in truth here a loyalty to an 
ideal and to class, conflicting with the loyalty due 
to the State ; mischievous therefore and danger- 
ous beyond the knowledge of those who foster it 
on the one hand and ignore it on the other. 
And here, if we are convinced and honest 
democrats (and not convicted hypocrites) we must 
needs pass our thoughts in review. Loyalty like 
love is a sentiment that cann )t be exacted or com- 
manded. It can onh^ be won. If, as is the fact, 
Labour questions the good faith of the managing 
and possessing classes, is this suspicion entirely 
unreasonable? Is it not broadly true that we 
reap what we have sown ; spontaneous loyalty and 
affection where we have acted with liberality and 
justice according to our lights, as in the case of the 
over-sea Britons and our native subjects ; distrust 
and suspicion where there has been and still is 
cause for such distrust ? 
Have we contrived to make the England that 
is so dear and lovable a land to us, a thing good 
to die for, to be maimed for ? Have we made it 
so good and dear a thing for these others ? We 
float in dangerous realms of sentiment if we 
envisage a time close at hand when everyone shall 
be equally or approximately industrious, capable 
and prosperous, selfless or devoid of unregenerate 
ambition. But it is in our power to refuse to play 
the game of life with loaded dice. 
It might be illuminating, for instance, to 
examine how the retention of the system of 
liliing the coffers of the two historic parties by the 
sale of honours must appear, say, to a member of 
the Labour Party. It is a particularly significant 
example because here is a thing which cannot be 
defended by any single argument in right reason, 
or on any principle of ethics ; and as any but 
fanatics know, it is not easy to find an abus;' of 
which the evil is soclear-or the reiliedy so essenti- 
ally simple. Here is the degradation ot tliat fine 
word and thing, honour : a most despicable -iud 
shameless simony. If, as some wag suggested, 
frank subscriptions for party purpose ga^-e the right 
to set in place of honorific letters, a certain number 
oi noughts before or after the subscriber's name, 
there could be no possible objection ; but to 
degrade by such adulterations the honours fairly 
won in worthy fields can serve no purpose of the 
State. It is no defence that there never has been 
an untainted fount of honour, for at least this 
particular taint can be removed, leaving the 
system purged if still imperfect ; and what is 
democracy for if not to point a more excellent 
way ? It is less than no defence, it is an indict- 
ment, to plead that parties must be formed and 
money found to finance them. Such naked 
cynicism would corrupt any system and to our 
observer from the ranks of Labour, the whole 
apparatus can only appear as a deliberate loading 
of the political dice against him and his class. 
One need not accept th'^ fantastic thesis that 
politics is only a put up job between the " ins " 
and the " outs," a contest of wits between two 
groups ranged in merely nominal opposite camps, 
less divided in their opinions than united in their 
desire for "boodle," to be convinced that the con- 
tinuance of the present patronage system is in- 
tolerable ; and that there can be no possibility of 
the good faith of the conservers being accepted 
bv the wreckers till it is modified out pf existence. 
There are indeed more pressing abuses 
than this, but there is perhaps none so clearly 
indefensible, so readily remediable. These com- 
ments are less concerned with the direct advocacy 
of policies than with the thoughts that go to 
mould and modify policies. This acceptance of 
our Empire as an actual and glorious fellowship 
ranges us as brothers in a common cause of justice 
and mutual charity in peace as in war. Such a 
fellowship would cut right athwart the miserable 
strata of our class quarrels. If it demands that 
sectional loyalties such as Labour rightly fosters 
should be subordinated to the general purpose, it 
just as surely demands the surrender of privileges 
and handicaps, which, retained, make the sugges- 
tion of fellowship a rather poor joke. It is a 
long way to this high and splendid land but it is a 
clearer way than many of us have thought. These 
are dark days and in the darkness we may fitly 
dream. It is the kindness and justice in our com- 
mon blood not the power and energy that we have 
most to hope from. We, who have suffered to- 
gether in war shall be called to suffer together in 
peace ; who have fought for justice sake, to 
labour for justice sake. Else all this sound and 
fury and blood signify les>^ than nothing — than 
which could be no mori' dreadful tragedy. We 
can fashion out of the agon\- of our trial a glorious 
hope, not of the remedy of all human ills — life 
flies not on such swift wings — but of a new day 
which will tolerate no remediable wrong and 
shrink from no class or personal sacrifice, because 
we shall have learnt the inner meaning of the 
supremest sacrifice 
" Hommr has come back, as a king to reign, 
And paid his subjects witli a royal wage ; 
.\nd Nobleness walks in our ways again ; 
And we have come into our heritage "— 
as sang that young poet whose dust lies quiet by 
the vEgcan. • 
